The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

This RfC resulted in real discussion and it has been suggested that this should be closed as "No Consensus" because the three options initially presented did not have a clear favorite. That would not, however, accurately reflect the discussion below. Very few simply !voted without some discussion, caveats, etc. Many of the voices that favor retaining WP:PROJSOCK did so acknowledging that it falls short either in practice or in conception. Many of the voices that favor "scrapping" that same policy provision did so acknowledging that it served some purpose. The crux of this discussion is that there are shortcomings in the current policy regarding these accounts.

• That undisclosed alternate accounts are operated on a caveat emptor basis has a clear consensus. That is, anyone that operates such an account does so at their own risk and against the recommended operating processes of this project with the clear risk that the alternate and primary accounts may be tied together through a variety of avenues. There were no voices that suggested that security or privacy of the alternate accounts were to be guaranteed by this project, its administrators, arbitrators, the WMF, etc. The suggestion that undisclosed alternate accounts be banned entirely (as it is stated other-language wikis do) was distinctly a minority position.
• That there should be some amount of limited participation in the WP: and WT: (internal Wikipedia and Wikipedia Talk) namespaces has a rough consensus. The current language of WP:PROJSOCK was defended as a bright-line rule that assisted enforcement of the general sock-puppet policy. The arguments that the rule as currently written is too restrictive, not an accurate reflection of the original meaning of the restrictions ArbCom intended to impose, unenforceable, or not enforced in practice (or some combinations of these points) were argued more forcefully. Retention of PROJSOCK as currently stated is also, therefore, a minority position on both numerical and strength of argument grounds.
• Any agreement on the actual limits of such participation is more difficult to discern from the following conversations. The general principle that participation in specific conversations that directly affect the alternative identity but that policy-setting venues are out of bounds seems to underlay many of the statements below. What is not clear is that an enforceable consensus text can be extracted from this discussion to replace the current text. It is suboptimal for any close of a discussion as long (in both time and text dimensions) as this one to recommend further discussion but any mediated compromise text would stray too far into WP:SUPERVOTE to be tenable.

(non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:04, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

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For purposes of this discussion, "undisclosed" can be taken to mean "not publicly declared" regardless of whether the account has been disclosed to ArbCom or to a CU, or was discovered without voluntary disclosure. This discussion is aimed at "privacy alts", secondary accounts created for editing certain topic areas the user would prefer not to edit from their primary account.

Background

Since the early days of the English Wikipedia, there has been a tradition or custom of some users having either known or undisclosed alternate accounts. This has held over to some extent into the modern era of the project and is enshrined in policy at WP:VALIDALT. Publicly disclosed alternate accounts are fully free to edit in any way with few restrictions; however, WP:PROJSOCK states that undisclosed accounts may not edit the Wikipedia namespace. English Wikipedia is something of an outlier in this regard: many other WMF projects regard undisclosed alternate accounts as illegitimate sock puppets. Therefore, behavior that is technically acceptable at EN.WP can have serious consequences if practiced on many other WMF wikis. Existing policy makes it clear that private disclosure to ArbCom or individual functionaries does not allow for policy violations, but this is often misunderstood by users and can lead to frustration both on the side of users and of CheckUsers.

Issues

• A blanket ban on undisclosed alternative accounts editing project space results in a situation where content created by an alt could be under discussion, for example via WP:AFD, or the user's behavior may be under discussion at forums such as WP:ANI and by the letter of current policy, the user cannot participate in those discussions at all.
• Only the Arbitration Committee has access to the list of known undisclosed alternative accounts. This information is considered private and generally cannot be shared, even with checkusers. This means a user could have disclosed their alt account to the committee, only to be blocked for socking, and the connection between the accounts publicly revealed, in the course of a legitimate sockpuppet investigation.
• There is not actually a hard obligation to disclose alternative accounts at all, to anyone. It is therefore likely that the accounts known to the arbitration committee or individual checkusers are mostly those who would not abuse them anyway, and represent only a small portion of the total number of such accounts.
• There is no reasonable way to police all the edits of all known alternative accounts to ensure they are within policy.

Proposed remedies

• Not anyone else's problem Change language of policy to actively discourage using privacy alts and to make it clear that if the connection is discovered it is not the responsibility of the community, the functionaries or the Arbitration Committee to conceal it. If the connection is made clear by the privacy alt's behavior, that is the fault of the account operator.
• Clarify WP:PROJSOCK: Carve out narrow exemptions to the project space ban for deletion discussions related to content created or edited by the alt account, or discussions of the alt accounts' own behavior. Broader discussions on site policy, other users behavior, etc, are still strictly off limits.
• No longer allowed at all: The use of privacy alts is to be considered deprecated and removed from policy. Any user operating more than one account without publicly linking them for any reason will be subject to the sockpuppetry policy. This would not apply to legitimate clean start accounts where one account was abandoned before the new account began editing. (this option is mutually exclusive with the other proposed options)

Discussion of proposed remedies

• I've opened this discussion because some recent events have revealed a number of issues, identified above, with the policy on private alternative accounts. The first remedy in particular I feel pretty strongly about. Privacy alts are at-your-own-risk. If you screw it up and are detected, whoever you disclosed to can verify that you disclosed an alt to them, but that doesn't obligate that user to then cover up the entire affair. Generally, private alt accounts are just a bad idea, and we should probably be more stringent in discouraging them, and also making it clear that disclosing is not a free pass to otherwise violate the socking policy. On the second remedy, it's just not fair that we allow these accounts for privacy reasons, but by the letter of policy they cannot contribute to any project-space discussion, even if it is about their own behavior or content they created. The third remedy, I threw in there in case it happens that the community just wants to end this practice altogether, as many other projects have. I've not proposed specific wording, this is more about looking for consensus on the ideas, the wordsmiths can get in there and create the appropriate wording if such a consensus is reached. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Beeblebrox, Thanks for starting this discussion. I suspect it will attract enough attention that maybe you want to break it out into its own subpage? -- RoySmith (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

• One thing I'd like to see added to option 2 is permitting undisclosed alts to ask questions at appropriate venues (Teahouse, Help Desk, that sort of thing), since the letter of the law says those are projectspace but those aren't exactly policymaking venues. People also ask legitimate questions at the village pumps, but I'm not sure whether to include those in this exception since those are more "internal project policy discussion" venues. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• Question: I understand the reasons for public alt accounts (such as having an alt for public computers or at work), but what are the reasons (in the past, at least) for allowing undisclosed/private alt accounts? Schazjmd (talk) 22:21, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I would like to know this too. I don't have an issue with undisclosed alt accounts that would out someone who isn't paid but if you don't want to potentially connect yourself to your employer, a simple solution is to not edit about them. No one is forcing you to and conversely, no one is forcing you to edit Wikipedia at all. TAXIDICAE💰 22:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

See the comment directly below for one example. Often it's a matter of not wishing to "out"some specfic aspect of their life, either something mundane as mentioned below, or perhaps editing controversial topics on religion or sexual practices. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: that's a good question. The common old-school example for why someone would have a "secret" alt is to edit embarrassing subjects, e.g. certain sexuality topics. Another possibility is to edit a topic, which editing with the main account may compromise the user's privacy. Another possibility could be an existing Wikipedia editor having assigned coursework that involves editing Wikipedia, and would not want that associated with the main account, either from either side so to say (on-wiki in terms of an association with a given university, or having university colleagues know the existence of the main account). In some cases there are real-world implications in that Wikipedia editors may experience trouble with local authorities as a result of certain edits.

At the end of the day we are a project that permits pseudonymous editors. Short of running certain mass checkusers—something that is a non-starter as far as the privacy policy goes—we ought to accept that there is not much one can do about someone using two accounts to edit separate topics. Of course, there are obvious deceptive uses of multiple accounts; think of vote-stacking an AfD or cases where a banned user uses multiple accounts to evade the ban to continue the same disruption that led to the ban. That said, it ought to be considered whether the simple fact of using an alternate account is somehow a problem. Maxim_(talk) 23:34, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Praxidicae, I've edited with an undisclosed alt in the past. Not everyone is okay with being connected to articles about illness, politics, religion and sexuality. There's also a photo around here somewhere of the pierced penis of a Wikipedian which I helped anonymize. They made a request to vanish when they found potential clients who googled their name found a pierced penis as the top result. It actually took years, but I just checked it again and it seems Google has *finally* forgotten about it. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:04, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I do recall you using an undisclosed alt in the past. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• I hope the third suggestion isn't going to be taken seriously. I have a some photos I've been meaning to add to a few articles when I get around to it. These photos could be traced back to my real-world identity. Should I really have to choose between adding the photos, and outing myself? Because I see no other way to add the photos than create a "privacy alt". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I assumed someone would propose it during the course of the conversation, so I just put it out there. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Suffusion of Yellow, regardless of the above changes, using a separate account only to upload pictures shouldn't put you at any risk. Blocking someone for using multiple accounts requires behavioural evidence (with or without technical evidence), so the chance of someone connecting those two accounts is practically zero. (Yes, mistakes happen, and checkusers occasionally run checks they shouldn't, but that's also why oversight exists.) – bradv🍁 23:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  It doesn't matter whether you would be caught for uploading the images. It matters that it's against the rules. I've been in similar cases to Suffusion of Yellow and agree that the third suggestion is ludicrous. If there is a common use case of people evading a rule with no harm done, no way of detection and in a way that nobody could possibly object to then it is a bad rule. Though in my case it would actually stop me uploading pictures altogether, because I would follow the rule even if it's pointless and unenforceable (too high consequences for too low a reward). (And though Commons isn't under our scope, this soft redirect and the fact I have used or would use an en.wiki account to add the uploaded images to articles means that this is our jurisdiction.) — Bilorv (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• I would really only support 2 as worded, and could support 1 if language about "actively discouraging" is removed. I've never used an alternate account, but I respect that others may find it necessary. I agree that no one is ever under any obligation to keep knowledge of someone else's secondary account secret, HOWEVER, I also can understand legitimate reasons to use a secondary account. We should still discourage good hand/bad hand accounts, or similar purposes, such as participating in policy discussions while concealing prior activity on Wikipedia, but I do agree that exceptions need to be allowed for when the alternate account has itself an interest in the discussion, such as AFDs for articles where the account is a contributor. However, Wikipedia should neither encourage nor discourage the use of private alts with the only caveat that actual violations of community trust are likely to have consequences. --Jayron32 22:35, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• (This thread moved from its own section originally entitled A difficult example): Let's assume I'm a member of International Flat Earth Research Society, and I've made many posts edits from my personal account (with a non-PII account name) espousing this viewpoint, including vigorous participation in AfDs and other WP-namespace pages. In my day job, I'm employed by NASA where my job responsibilities include computing trajectories for space missions. I haven't told my employer of my flat earth beliefs because that knowledge would impact my career advancement. Assume for the moment that despite my private views, I'm good at my job. One day, my boss comes to me and says, "We need a WP:Wikipedian in Residence to curate articles about NASA, and you're it. Your job responsibilities will include being active in discussions about what articles to keep or delete". The "No longer allowed at all" option would put me in a bind. There's no way I can perform my job without either breaking our socking policy or outing myself to my employer. If you don't like my NASA example, I'm sure you can think of similar situations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 22:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Aside from the absolute absurdity of this example, your career advancement isn't Wikipedia's problem, nor should it ever be. You can turn down a WIR or come clean - transparency is key here. You don't have to dox yourself by adding your full name or even first name. Disclosure doesn't require identifying yourself. WIR is another matter and not really relevant to this discussion. TAXIDICAE💰 22:47, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Praxidicae, Why is the example absurd? We have many examples of people who edit as a requirement of their employment. A department in a University wanting every faculty member to have a wikipedia page and assigning that job to some low-level person in the department office. We've seen that scenario multiple times. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:56, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  And that person is welcome to decline that request from their employer if it would violate the sites terms of use for the same reason an employer demanding an employee break a law or policy should be declined. No one forces you to edit as a volunteer or a paid editor and our policy is already clear enough on that. TAXIDICAE💰 23:25, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  RoySmith, in this case you could just stop editing from your previous account. Using serial accounts does not constitute sockpuppetry, unless you are subject to a block or ban. – bradv🍁 23:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  But what if they are subject to block or other restriction. Continuing the NASA example, our theoretical editor (let's called them Tarquin) is presumably a generally good contributor and net positive to the encyclopaedia but perhaps they are topic banned from editing articles about the phantom time hypothesis or they have a mutual interaction ban with another user? If Tarquin just stayed away from those topics/editors we probably wouldn't be any the wiser, but it would be a breach of policy and obviously the other party to the interaction ban would not know to stay away from the new account. Thryduulf (talk) 01:28, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  If someone is subject to a ban they shouldn't be creating a new account or accepting a paid editing position – especially not without being fully transparent with both their employer and the editing community. That's currently prohibited by both our sockpuppetry policy and our paid editing policy, and none of the proposed changes above would alter that. – bradv🍁 02:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: I think you could have picked a better example for a username. :-) That user's very familiar to me for his early work in mathematics and classical music articles. I don't think I ever spoke to Tarquin personally but his name is very familiar to me in page histories and on old talk pages. I hope he'd be as amused by this as I am; I've mentioned it on his talk page. Graham87 08:46, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  In a paid WiR role, you are already mandated to disclose your alternative accounts under current policy Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure#How to disclose: "paid editors must provide links to the user page(s) of their Wikipedia account(s) on each website on which they advertise, solicit or obtain paid editing services, as well as in direct communications with each client and potential client (such as through email). If the paid editor has used or controlled more than one Wikipedia account, each account must be disclosed." This was added in a recent RfC. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Whether and to what extent that applies to Wikipedians in residence is not at all clear. It is also completely and utterly unenforceable because we can (and should) never know the contents of all private communication, as was pointed out repeatedly when it was proposed. I'm also dubious that stipulating the content of communication between employer and (potential) client is something that it is even legal for a third party to place restrictions on. Thryduulf (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• I explained my concerns with WP:PROJSOCK elsewhere. I can only see what I can read from the history, so perhaps someone who was actually there knows the context better and can point out any errors, but its current enforcement doesn't make sense to me. Most illegitimate uses are obvious why they're disallowed; you can't use multiple accounts to pretend to be multiple people in a way that bolsters your position, avoids scrutiny, or deceives editors. But PROJSOCK isn't intuitive in the same way. It's cited to an ArbCom case from 2007 where the evidence was an editor abusing multiple accounts to participate in policy discussions whilst avoiding scrutiny. The community appears to have narrowly worded it to this (and similar variants) for years after the case, clarifying that Alternate accounts should not edit policies, guidelines, or their talk pages; comment in Arbitration proceedings; or vote in requests for adminship, deletion debates, or elections. That all makes sense, and directly follows from the case evidence too. Then in 2014 someone boldly edited the page to the vaguer "quote[] from the underlying Arbcom decision" which says Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project. As a reader, discussions internal to the project is ambiguous whether it means a namespace ban or (indeed, as the original interpretation appears to have been) just consensus discussions, and a Wikipedia namespace ban doesn't logically follow from the evidence in that case. Asking questions in venues (including WP:VPT, which whilst is a "village pump", it's used for asking questions not consensus discussions on making policy) is totally fine, for example. That 2014 edit, at least as interpreted now, appears to have been a material change. Was there a discussion leading up to that? Why is the WP namespace more of a problem than any other NS? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:44, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
  • To be explicit, I’d vote to begin by scrapping PROJSOCK, as it’s clearly been misinterpreted from the original reason it was written, as is redundant to existing examples. But I see this not mutually exclusive with some other remedies, which extend beyond just project space. ProcSock (talk) 12:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
• (based on your old sandbox I've presumed option 1 includes CUs disclosing connections) Presumably users can be subject to discretionary checks for various reasons, and the CU policy is rather vague on what is grounds for a check. So, reading that option now, a discretionary check could result in a privacy account popping out (possibly already disclosed to ArbCom which the CU wasn't aware about, but even if not we don't treat ignorance of policy as deliberate attempts to violate policy), so the CU goes ahead and links the two accounts publicly. So basically you'd have CUs outing editors, with solid technical evidence to dispel any doubt too. Which just isn't fair on its face. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• My tenure on the Arbitration Committee, and as a checkuser, made me aware of plenty of situations where the use of an alternative account was the only legitimate way to continue participating on the project. I also saw any number of situations where legitimate use strayed into illegitimate. This was often by accident, but if someone sees that slip, the cat is not getting back in the bag. The conflict between alternative accounts and Wikipedia's commitment to transparency is unresolvable. I'll defer to the current committee on whether they think the present system is sustainable. Personally, I wouldn't want to be entrusted with that information, and if I were seeking to avoid scrutiny and still edit Wikipedia (a difficult task), I would be loath to disclose that information to anyone. Mackensen (talk) 23:01, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Mackensen, I've just noticed that you were part of the Committee that passed the principle that led to PROJSOCK (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings § Sockpuppetry). What was the reasoning behind it? The first two sentences are intuitive, but I don't understand that final restriction. Pinging those members of the Committee.​​​​​​​ Sdrqaz (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz wow, what a fucked up thing ((bcc)) is. How in the living hell is a recipient supposed to know where on the page they've been bcc'd? Otherwise, my opinion about sockpuppetry (I hate that term) is the same it was back then: "Should be generally forbidden. Wikipedia is not a role-playing game." But I wasn't going to win that argument, which is why I've divorced myself from all involvement in Wikipedia policy; I'm a sore loser.--jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 00:56, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sorry about that, jpgordon. I only use it when I feel there are too many people being pinged. Thanks for sharing your opinion on sockpuppetry. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz, I don't think we thought we were saying anything new. See for example my comments at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings/Workshop#Alternate accounts: The use of an alternate account to stir up policy debates while the main account does something different has never been acceptable on Wikipedia. Sockpuppetry was understood to mean the abuse of multiple accounts; using multiple accounts non-abusively was frowned on but not banned. Maintaining a burner to stir things up on policy pages evaded accountability. Mackensen (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz, that said, this was apparently a controversial assertion at the time (I'm sure I knew that once, but I'd forgotten). See Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings/Proposed decision#Principle 3 concerning sockpuppet policy. Mackensen (talk) 23:27, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  I was pinged into this discussion. The contentious issue seems to be the natural justice of excluding undisclosed private accounts from the Wikipedia: namespace. My reaction here is "too bad". I would keep the principle, and just note that there may be mitigating circumstances for such editing. On the whole we want to know that users edit in good faith from single accounts in internal discussions, and I find said "restriction" natural at the level of ArbCom principles. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, Mackensen and Charles. Mackensen, wouldn't such abuse fall under the "avoiding scrutiny" part of policy? I don't think PROJSOCKing should be encouraged (and the maintenance of accounts in the Privatemusings case arguably falls under that avoidance), but a blanket ban doesn't sit well with me. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• I would prefer that PROJSOCK be modified. There are cases where a privacy alt is useful. Just because we are not censored, does not mean the world is the same. They can be particularly useful in maintaining sexual health articles. A recent example is the RfD's for Tiny penis. It's reasonable to not want that at the top of your contribution history, and as long as the editor is not being deceptive or behaving in a way that will get them sus'd out, we should allow privacy alts in discussions of that nature and not actively discourage their use. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• I generally back proposal 2. There are reasons for private accounts. While editors obviously can't be obliged to "cover it up", that does not mean that we have to pick an all or nothing approach. For example, a sockpuppet investigation could have the details revdelled if it was agreed no breach had occurred, but required major disclosure to demonstrate it. We wouldn't be any worse off, other than a few minutes of admin clerk time. Some minor amendments to the nature of proposal 2 to include helpdesks and so on in the exemption also seems reasonable. I had originally wondered "why not just switch back to the main account to ask", but realised that certain questions would require enough specificity to accidentally twin the accounts. One additional change I'd propose would be formally authorise ARBCOM to share details on private alts with CUs Nosebagbear (talk) 23:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• If never the two accounts shall meet, why should we care? Absent seeking significant bits, is it really an issue if an editor manages to successfully maintain two alternate wiki personalities for years on end? The risks should be disclosed up front (option 1) and from there on, it should be on the editor to ensure the two personalities are never in the same venue. Once they catch the eye of a CU AND violate policy, then public revelation may be a consequence (though pointing to things like WP:BLP, we have expressed an aversion to exposure that could lead to real-world harm of subjects, though guess editors do not get the same courtesy). In short, it seems like we shouldn't be playing a game of gotcha until/unless pseudo-anonymity is not a core policy of en-wiki. Slywriter (talk) 00:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• A modified option 2 (with the warnings from option 1) is really the only practical option here, but instead of minor amendments it should be rewritten wholesale to focus exclusively on detailing what activities and behaviours are prohibited. For example we want editors to be able to highlight problems and potential problems with articles/project pages/technical issues, we want them to be able to respond to queries about their editing, we want them to be able to ask questions aimed at improving their editing, etc. We don't want them to misrepresent themselves as more than one person, we don't want them to !vote multiple times in a discussion, we don't want them evading sanctions, etc. All of these things are equally desirable or not desirable regardless of what namespace they happen to occur in. Asking for help on an article talk page is no different to asking for help at a Wikiproject page or the teahouse, discussing the reliability of a source on an article talk page is no different to discussing the reliability of a source at WP:RSN. Discussing changes to a template used on user pages is unquestionably a "discussion internal to the project" but I see no possible justification for excluding privacy alts from such a discussion, doubly so if they are excluded if the discussion happens in the Wikipedia namespace but not if it happens in the template talk namespace. If there are certain discussions such users need to be excluded from (and I'm having difficulty thinking of any) then we need to detail what those discussions are and importantly why they excluded (people are more likely to abide by rules they understand the purpose of that rules they don't). Thryduulf (talk) 01:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• I was writing something up, then Thryduulf put it in a far more elegant manner. I have no objection to private secondary accounts editing project space and would scrap PROJSOCK entirely. The standard provisions under WP:BADSOCK would apply, such as voting twice in the same AfD (though that would defeat the point of a "private" secondary account), voting twice in the same discussion, editing the same articles etc. Sdrqaz (talk) 01:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz, I'm trying to think of any truly problematic behaviour that is prohibited under PROJSOCK but isn't covered by one of the other provisions, and I can't think of any. Scrapping that line entirely may, in fact, be the most straightforward solution. – bradv🍁 02:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, Bradv. I'm open to changing my mind if someone puts forth a good argument, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how commenters so far are viewing it – I had thought mine would be a minority opinion due to a desire for transparency. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• Scrapping WP:PROJSOCK sounds good, given that all of the areas where editing project space creates problems appear to be dealt with by other restrictions. Tamwin (talk) 07:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that WP:PROJSOCK should be scrapped. As written, it doesn't make much sense because it may not be clear which account is the alternate and which is the primary. And it's not clear what "discussions internal to the project" means or why this matters. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap WP:PROJSOCK. The whole thing has contradicted Wikipedia:Clean start outright for years, even though the latter is policy (rather than essay). The only things we need to stop alternate accounts doing is evading scrutiny, bypassing editing restrictions and creating a false illusion of support for an action (and anything else uncontroversial I'm forgetting off the top of my head). Our rules here are ludicrous. Let's say someone edits as a child and gives away a bit too much personal information (not enough to dox, just enough for them to be concerned that combined with the topic of their edits or time zone or something else, it's enough to not wish to be public). Let's say that someone copies and pastes the wrong text without noticing, it's personal information and by the time it can be oversighted they're scared someone has seen and saved it. Or someone drunkenly writes something with stupidly much information. All three of these people have the choice between losing all right to privacy or never editing Wikipedia properly again (just mainspace edits is not "properly"). People here are underestimating how much information editors can unintentionally give away in behavioural evidence such as subject knowledge contributions, timestamps of edits, edits about localised topics etc., and how much some people value privacy. If an experienced editor wanted a new account just to stop the behavioural evidence piling high enough that they could be targeted then that's a plenty good enough reason.
  If someone starts an SPI based on a valid alt then you need to contact them by email or contact a CU/SPI clerk by email and explain the situation. The SPI should then be dropped, with the closure written to create as little suspicion as possible. Tough situation with no ideal solution but it's better than nothing. If you think your alt is now unusable because of the connection drawn, even though the SPI was thrown out, then start a new valid alt. — Bilorv (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bilorv, creating a new account, as long as the old one was not under some sort of sanction or block, is not and has never been sockpuppetry and does not violate PROJSOCK. It's only sockpuppetry (and that includes PROJSOCK) if you operate multiple accounts simultaneously. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:46, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: says who? WP:SOCK says "The general rule is one editor, one account", "sockpuppetry, or socking, refers to the misuse of multiple Wikipedia accounts", "Editors must not use alternative accounts to mislead, deceive, disrupt, or undermine consensus" etc. No mention of whether you're operating them simultaneously. PROJSOCK says, in full, "Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project", correct? The page doesn't define "alternative" but I've always taken it to mean "second or subsequent account created" (with complications in the case of IP editing). If that's not the case and I've not overlooked a definition, then it needs properly defining. It also seems to me that a counterexample to your comment is that WP:BADSOCK explicitly lists "Misusing a clean start", a term specifically referring to a new account operating never in conjunction with an old account, as an instance of sanctionable sockpuppetry. (Though this bullet point is almost the exact opposite of CLEANSTART, as the main use of a clean start is when you think you've been messing up and you want a chance to leave that baggage behind i.e. avoid some types of scrutiny. Another one to remove entirely.) I think we need a lot of discussions about how to rectify the many contradictions within SOCK and itself, and SOCK and CLEANSTART, and removing PROJSOCK is one of the things I would like to happen. — Bilorv (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bilorv, further down the page, under WP:SOCKLEGIT: Clean start under a new name: A clean start is when a user stops using an old account in order to start afresh with a new account, usually due to past mistakes or to avoid harassment. A clean start is permitted only if there are no active bans, blocks, or sanctions in place against the old account. (some further details follow that quote, but that's the gist). Also, If you are unable to access your account because you have lost the password or because someone has obtained or guessed your password, you may create a new account with a clean password. SPIs are routinely declined because the reported accounts operated sequentially. I concede that both of those say you're supposed to mark the old account as retired or (for lost-password cases) publicly declare the connection between accounts. With lost-password scenarios, however, odds are that the editor in question didn't actually read the sockpuppetry rules when they got locked out and created a new account, so that is fairly loosely enforced. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:11, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: I'm struggling to see which of this text supports the claim creating a new account, as long as the old one was not under some sort of sanction or block, is not and has never been sockpuppetry, or which of it refutes any of the statements I made. — Bilorv (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bilorv, apologies, it's actually the context of those sentences (the fact that they're under WP:SOCKLEGIT, which is the section "Legitimate uses") which supports the claim. The heading of that section, in part, says Alternative accounts have legitimate uses. For example, editors who contribute using their real name may wish to use a pseudonym for contributions with which they do not want their real name to be associated (...) These accounts are not considered sockpuppets. and then goes on to list examples of legitimate alternative accounts, two of which I quoted in my previous post. I do, however, quibble with the terminology of "alternative accounts" since that (to me) implies the use of more than one account at the same time. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:35, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: thanks, I think I understand better where you're coming from now, though I can't agree that the policy as written supports your claim. On the other hand, I think I agree that it should be written in a way that makes the claim unambiguously true. There are lots of problems here—"Inappropriate uses of alternative accounts" is including things which maybe don't fit the letter of this definition of "sockpuppet", but it's labelled WP:BADSOCK and everyone uses this as a list of sockpuppet behaviour. This definition of "These accounts are not consider sockpuppets" follows the section, rather than preceding it, and still leaves a lot of terminology specification to be desired. This is the sort of thing I'm referring to about SOCK contradicting itself—I suppose the base issue here is that I've been here 7 years and read the page dozens of times and I don't feel I understand clearly where the boundaries are. In general I don't like legalese and bureaucracy, but I do think we're doing a huge disservice to anyone navigating alternate accounts (or IP and logged-in editing) in good faith because they need to be able to say: here is an ironclad justification for my actions and if I ever have to defend them, here is unambiguous policy as written at the time I made these decisions. Or they need to know: actually, I can't do this, and here's the unambiguous reason why. — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  The more this discussion goes on and the closer I look at all the policies the more I see what a complete mess they are. Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry could do with a complete top-to-bottom rewrite to increase clarity, remove contradictions, and present everything in a logical order. For example several of the bullets under inappropriate uses are different examples of appearing as multiple people, there should just be a single prohibition on doing that with an non-exhaustive list of examples. Thryduulf (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Absolutely, this is part of the point I'm trying to make (though I think I'm muddling it partly because I don't even understand what the rules are and aren't, so I struggle to suggest concretely what new version to change to). — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: Question: Say you got a 14 year old doing some silly stuff and gets themselves indeffed. 4 years later they decide to give Wikipedia another try. Obviously it's not ideal to be continuing an account where one was adding obscenities to articles or something. So... they're expected to get an unblock on their main account, and then mark it as retired and then create a new one? If they've lost the password to the original, they're expected to reset it. If they've lost the email, then...? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:24, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Just to clarify the point a bit: I strongly oppose all three of the proposed remedies and feel they are a step backwards from the already inadequate status quo, though (1) is the least objectionable. — Bilorv (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• 1 or 3 are my preferred solutions. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 13:47, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap WP:PROJSOCK. I can't think of any behavior we want to disallow which isn't already covered by one of the other bullet points in WP:ILLEGIT. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap PROJSOCK per the others. Otherwise oppose all three options. Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Keep PROJSOCK, but can clarify; 1 and 3 are preferred I largely agree with Guerillero on this (also courtesy ping to Risker for some history on the topic.) I am fine with clarification on PROJSOCK that people can validly use it to comment on discussions directly relevant to them, but that isn't a reason to throw our the baby with the bathwater.
  There are several reasons behind PROJSOCK, but one of the main ones is that it provides a clear line for individuals rather than the rather ambiguous avoidance of scrutiny line, which is open to interpretation. As an example of where these would be issues:

1. People commenting on AE or ANI cases related to individuals they have a known negative relationship with. This prevents the closer from weighting arguments (grudges are fair to consider), and has the effect of potentially preventing sanctions on a main account (i.e. IBAN.) Even if only one account comments, this is an issue.
2. Potential harassment concerns following users around in project space that they don't like from disputes elsewhere. Even if there is not any double voting, this is still an illegitimate use of multiple accounts. It is significantly harder to deal with, however, if there is not a clear prohibition.
3. Concealing behaviour on internal discussions that might not be sanctionable but would have a negative impact on someone's position within the community -- if you're an archinclusionist or archdeletionist with positions way outside of the community norm and use a "privacy alt" to comment on AfDs this is an abuse of multiple accounts. If you request permissions at NPR and it is clear that you do not have an understanding of the notability policy that is in line with the community's it will be denied. If you run for RfA and you have positions on any number of topics that show a clear disconnect with community consensus, you will not pass RfA. All of these are forms of evasion of scrutiny that erode community trust, and are abuses of multiple accounts, but without PROJSOCK would be much more difficult to deal with.

We are an online community and part of that is about trust. If you don't know that the person who you are talking to is not commenting in a completely absurd and abusive manner 10 minutes later, or at least have reasonable assurances that they aren't, trust will go down hill. Many other Wikimedia projects do not allow secondary accounts at all. Updating our policy to allow people to essentially have as many personalities as they want in project space, and have ways to Wikilawyer out of it as the policy would be unclear is a clear negative, and would set us up with Commons to be one of the projects most open to abuse. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:32, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Hmm... On #2, surely hounding is hounding anywhere (why is it any better to be following an editor around on article talk or template talk pages?). On #3, surely we shouldn't make policy that affects many editors for the sake of the dozen per year that want to run RfA (who can be asked to disclose individually?). Also, general note, aren't 1/3 not mutually exclusive with 2? Seems like Beeble has pointed out multiple issues, and even if PROJSOCK is adjusted (in whatever direction) the 'issues' about CUs not knowing declared alt accounts, or the infeasibility of policing edits (whether in WP: or any other namespace) remains. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:15, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, The problem is, this is conflating "internal discussions that affect project policy" with "Wikipedia namespace". Given that we do allow privacy socks, surely you're not arguing that WP:Teahouse should be off-limits? Is asking for help on Help talk:Footnotes OK, but not on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources?

If a privacy sock is dragged to WP:AN, can they defend themselves there? Or if one of their articles is nominated at WP:AfD, can they participate in that discussion? Would it be OK to protest a WP:PROD, because that happens in article Talk space, but once you've done that and somebody takes the next step and brings it to AfD, you're stuck?

And what about WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:FA? Are those fair game for privacy socks? DYK reviews take place mostly in Template space, GA in article Talk space, and FA in Wikipedia space. Does that mean that DYK and GA are OK, but FA is not?

What about participating in wikiprojects? They're in Wikipedia space. Would our hapless NASA employee from my earlier example be barred from participating in WP:Wikiproject Flat Earth? Maybe that's off-limits but Portal:Flat Earth is fine?

What about drafts? Can they review submissions in Draft space, but not add their name to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants?

Your goal is to ensure that privacy socks don't get to speak with multiple voices at discussions that drive project policy. That's a laudable goal, but outlawing the subset of pages that happen to fall into the Wikipedia namespace does not advance that goal. By the time you're done carving out all these exemptions, the bright line you seek will have gotten rather blurry. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Your goal is to ensure that privacy socks don't get to speak with multiple voices at discussions that drive project policy. No. That is not my goal, and my entire response above was saying it doesn't matter if people only contribute once to each discussion if they are doing so in a way that is designed to avoid scrutiny and deceive the community. My goal is to prevent evasion of scrutiny by people using multiple accounts, because evasion of scrutiny destroys trust on a collaborative project, which is one of the driving principles of our policy on the abuse of multiple accounts.

The reason why Wikipedia space in particular matters is because the only reason to use a second account in the Wikipedia namespace outside of limited discussions about content (RSN, AfD, and FA mainly) is to avoid scrutiny. It's to separate personalities, and not cause you to associate actions from one with the other. Unless your dealing with sexually deviant materials or other similar controversial topics, there really isn't a valid reason to want to have privacy on your project space discussions other than evasion of scrutiny

Which leads us to the final point: clear lines addressed with common sense are easier to enforce than ambiguous policy. No one is currently being blocked for commenting on the Tea House or in DYK or the like with a second account. CUs and SPI clerks have brains and are able to determine intent. If you remove a clear prohibition, that becomes much harder to figure out, and appeals become more difficult. Ambiguity on what constitutes "Avoidance of scrutiny" isn't helpful, and by keeping one line that clearly defines it for everyone, you help people know what is and isn't allowed and you help with enforcement. We're dealing with hypotheticals about the negatives, there are some heavy handed blocks, but they're pretty rare for this violation. The positives of this line when it comes to enforcement, however, are pretty huge. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

"by keeping one line that clearly defines it for everyone" Except the current single line doesn't clearly define it for everyone (otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion). In addition to RSN, FA, AfD there are the village pumps (this one arguably excluded), the help desk, WikiProject pages, XfDs (especially related to pages they've contributed to with the alt account), RFU, RFHM, ITNC, TALKPP and similar projects, AN(I) when their behaviour is being discussed or they are the victim of others' bad behaviour, CCI, EFR, EFFP, EAR, Arbitration space for cases relevant to the pages they edit with the alt, RFA/RFB for someone they've interacted with in topics they edit using their alt, and likely many more I've not heard of. Yet the current wording does not do anything to stop someone developing multiple account personalities in discussions that happen to occur in places other than the Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk namespaces. By saying "CUs and SPI clerks have brains and are able to determine intent." you seem to be agreeing with me that what matters is the intent of the person, so surely the rules should be written to state that what matters is the intent not the venue? "The positives of this line when it comes to enforcement, however, are pretty huge." I've not seen a single good enforcement of this rule that was not also covered by other existing provisions so I completely disagree with you that "The positives of this line when it comes to enforcement, however, are pretty huge."Thryduulf (talk) 18:19, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

clear lines addressed with common sense are easier to enforce than ambiguous policy — Easier for CUs. But for the people actually using these accounts, it's much harder. Whether you will be blocked and outed is based on the goodwill of a CU or their whim on whether to go by "common sense" or the rule. We should not be setting a rule stricter than how we want to apply it—rather, the opposite, because "disruptive editing" does not have and does not need a rigorous definition, as the community can always decide to rule something as disruptive on a case-by-case basis. — Bilorv (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Keep PROJSOCK, leaning option 1 – essentially per Tony. Abolishing PROJSOCK would require us to replace it with a huge wall of text explaining what exactly constitutes evasion of scrutiny in projectspace. Yes, there's a reasonable argument to be made for split contribution histories in articlespace in some cases. But independently using two accounts to participate in behind-the-scenes community processes inherently makes it impossible for me to evaluate someone's conduct as an editor in context, and that is poison for community discourse. If carveouts and clarifications are needed, that's fine and we can discuss those, but deprecation of PROJSOCK would either lead to ballooning policy or socking galore. As for my take on option 1: The current system of is suboptimal because it presents us with complicated OUTING considerations – I'm not opposed to people using alts to edit controversial topics (in articlespace) per se, but using them in a way that's policy-compliant and disconnected from their main account should be the responsibility of the operator. --Blablubbs|talk 09:39, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Blablubbs and TonyBallioni: Why is projectspace special? Why is evading scrutiny on a page in the Wikipedia namespace different to evading scrutiny anywhere else? Why is, e.g. Wikipedia:Help desk a "behind-the-scenes community process" but e.g. Help talk:Citation Style 1 not? Why would we need a "huge wall of text explaining what exactly constitutes evasion of scrutiny"? Surely it is better to just prohibit "evading scrutiny" and list some examples so that we don't have to deal with wikilawyering? Thryduulf (talk) 11:08, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, the Help Desk is one of the places I would consider carveout-worthy. What is special are places like AfD, AN(/I), AE or RFAR. The issue with relying only on the evasion of scrutiny clause is that it will lead to Wikilawyering either way. It inevitably provokes situations where people say "but it wasn't one of the listed examples" and we have to have drawn-out unblock discussions and AN threads about what is and isn't evasion of scrutiny. I'd argue that most scenarios where someone uses a privacy alt in community discussions are inherently scrutiny evasion; a blanket ban on PROJsocking with specific, narrow exceptions is more feasible. Blablubbs|talk 11:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Even if we say something like PROJSOCK is required, "consensus discussions and conduct dispute resolution" seems to encompass all of those examples, and others. The average projectspace page is just not problematic, from WikiProject talk pages to bot/editfilter requests. Even the text I cite is questionable, as asking whether a source is reliable at RSN could be seen as a "consensus discussion" but is just not problematic. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:25, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Also, what if a privacy alt is being harassed? They can't post to ANI, so what's their recourse? Should they contact an admin privately? (if so, how do you communicate this to them? using the ANI banner that evidence shows few actually read?) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:34, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Blablubbs: So a privacy alt is not allowed to contribute to a discussion at XfD about a page they are a significant contributor to? What benefit to the project does that bring? As long as they only contribute using one of their accounts and don't otherwise give the impression of being multiple people, I just cannot see how their actions are harmful? As for "but it wasn't one of the listed examples" it's much much harder to wikilawyer around a list of examples that is explicitly not a complete list than it is a list that purports to be complete. Thryduulf (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  I'll reply with two quotes from Tony's comment that I'm in full agreement with. As for noticeboards and AfD discussions:

  • I am fine with clarification on PROJSOCK that people can validly use it to comment on discussions directly relevant to them, but that isn't a reason to throw our the baby with the bathwater. Whether we want to keep the wording as "projectspace", or tweak it to "consensus discussions and conduct dispute resolution" is another matter.

  As for what harm it brings to just blanket-allow participation in such discussions:

  • ...if you're an archinclusionist or archdeletionist with positions way outside of the community norm and use a "privacy alt" to comment on AfDs this is an abuse of multiple accounts.

  If we see such an obvious alternative account used to vote in AfDs now, current policy gives us grounds for an investigation; a deprecation of PROJSOCK would severely complicate that, but such behaviour is highly problematic and a serious breach of community trust. Blablubbs|talk 12:11, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Firstly, why is using multiple accounts to express extreme views more problematic than using a single account to do so if there is no attempt to manipulate the discussion or appear as multiple people? Secondly, why is using multiple accounts to communicate such positions problematic in the Wikipedia namespace but not in any other namespace? Thirdly, If we agree that using an alternative account in a given manner is problematic then surely policy should explicitly prohibit using multiple accounts in that manner rather than as part of a very broad and very vague prohibition that requires numerous carveouts and exceptions to avoid catching things we don't want to prohibit and requires people to guess what behaviour we don't want them to engage in? Thryduulf (talk) 12:43, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Anyway, even if we do nothing but remove "Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project." the behaviour you are talking about would still be covered by "it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions." Thryduulf (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  To answer your question as to why it's problematic for someone to use different accounts to segregate views on internal matters: our system is built on trusting other contributors, and part of that trust is built on knowing their past history of views. As an example, I know you and I agree significantly on most things related to the harassment policy and outing, but have very different views on speedy deletion. While I'll engage with you on the latter topic, I'm also not going to spend a significant amount of my time trying to persuade you around to my point of view because at some point based on past discussions, I know we're just going to have to agree to disagree. On the flip side, in discussions around harassment and privacy, I'm much more likely to rethink my position and see if I considered everything if I see you or someone else who I know I share similar thoughts to arguing one way.

  This is what comes with being a community: you take all of the actions and positions of people, and they do impact how you read what they're saying and influence your thoughts. That's not a bad thing, that's human nature and it is a natural and important part of communities, both online and otherwise. The concern isn't an account that exists solely to segregate views on policy discussions, it's two accounts that never overlap and are fully developed accounts with their own personalities contributing to community discussions in a way that if uncovered would cause a loss of trust in the community. Having some policy around that clearly prohibiting it is a good thing, as in my experience it's easier to deal with clear lines with common sense than it is to deal with ambiguous lines in a similar manner. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• All three original options seem reasonable to me, per the proposal. Removing WP:PROJSOCK from the sockpuppetry policy entirely, however, is an idea that came up during the discussion and that isn't agreeable to me. Imagine someone who operates two accounts, one for mainspace and one for projectspace. Both are strictly separated: The mainspace account never edits the Wikipedia namespace, the projectspace account never edits articles. The result is an account that does not violate any policies while undermining our trust in community discussions. One of the main aspects of internal Wikipedia discussions is that they're held by users who also contribute to the encyclopedia in ways that can be easily looked up. Allowing project-only sockpuppets to loudly participate in internal discussions without ever having made any visible contributions to the encyclopedia would be a mistake: Policies affecting all articles are created in internal discussions, so we'd suddenly be open to policy changes by people who have no idea what their proposed changes mean to editors. Policy must be written, and consensus must be found, by people who verifiably contribute to the encyclopedia. Project socks prevent this verification. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 10:59, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  An account that edits only in projectspace is a very, very uncommon situation and PROJOCK both prohibits far, far more than that and doesn't actually prevent an account that doesn't contribute to the encyclopaedia from contributing (loudly or otherwise) in internal discussions held on e.g. template (talk) pages, help (talk) pages, article talk pages, category (talk) pages, etc. I'd also argue that an account that has contributes to the development of back-end tools and similar has verifiably contributed to the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 11:14, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• "The reason why Wikipedia space in particular matters is because the only reason to use a second account in the Wikipedia namespace outside of limited discussions about content (RSN, AfD, and FA mainly) is to avoid scrutiny." I disagree with this. I would create a second account under my real identity if I could, and use my real-name account for noncontroversial editing and all noncontroversial project space discussions, while using my anonymous Levivich account to edit controversial topics (like war, politics and religion) and related project space discussions. If I did, it wouldn't evade scrutiny, it would increase it. Right now I could have a privacy alt that edits, say, sex topics (User:Sexivich?), and I can use this Levivich account to edit project space RFCs about sex issues and no one would know Sexivich's edits in those areas were mine. That avoids scrutiny. If instead I could use the Sexivich account for sex-related project space discussions, that would be more transparent, not less. If we're going to allow privacy alts (and we do, as we should), we should allow those alts to edit all namespaces. Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:45, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly agreed on the first remedy. We should discourage privacy alts not because they're illegitimate, but because they don't work very well. Like Beeblebrox, my experience with this on ArbCom was a bunch of cases of people setting up a privacy alt for good reasons, accidentally outing themselves and/or getting themselves CU-blocked because they misunderstood our byzantine sock policy, then asking us to unring the bell. Probably there's a bias there in that we only heard about the cases that went wrong but, with this and other policies (oversight, vanishing, clean starts), we need to be more up front with the fact that the only reliable way to maintain your privacy on Wikipedia is to never reveal private information in the first place.

I always thought PROJSOCK was an arbitrary rule, but I don't know the history behind it, so I'm on the fence about that. – Joe (talk) 19:05, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• Scrap PROJSOCK, remedy #2 second choice Projectsock is really an outdated and overly broad guideline that should be eliminated, but if that doesn't have consensus I would support clarifying it to make its reach more narrow.Jackattack1597 (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly Discourage non-publicly-declared parallel-editing accounts,
  and simplify the rules for simple cases before getting bogged down in the complicated LEGITSOCK rules.

WP:SOCK is confusing for a simple newish Wikipedian to get simple answers. There is some very complicated stuff in it that is interspersed with simple stuff, and I think the simple stuff should be stated clearly and upfront, and with the complicated stuff below, under warnings.

The simple stuff is:

WP:SOCKING is NOT:

• The use of multiple accounts that are publicly declared (declared on the main userpage, and all such accounts connected). Examples for this include secure and non secure computers. Segregation of edits of different types. Maintenance of multiple watchlists. Templates for this include ((User alternative account name)), and I think they belong at the top of the main userpage.
• Non-editing accounts. eg. Reader accounts; long-abandoned accounts; doppelganger-prevention accounts.
• Editing logged out to fix errors in mainspace.

Stuff gets complicated when talking about multiple editing accounts that are not publicly declared. Mainly, the reason for these seems to be "privacy". There are good reasons to not publicly disclose two editing accounts. You may have a good reason to edit publicly, in front of family, work, or for educational course purposes, and not want to reveal your main anonymous account. However, the section allowing for this should clearly and strongly state that doing this is NOT RECOMMENDED, and if done, done only briefly and for very narrowly defined purposes. One little mistake, and the connection may be spotted, and may then be forever public. Relative newcomers to Wikipedia should be actively discouraged from running undeclared editing accounts in parallel. This complicated stuff needs to be written, and is written, but it should be separated from the simple for the sake of simple comprehension of a simple reading of policy for simple questions.

The rules for non-publicly-declared parallel-editing accounts need to be clear and hard. There is currently a rule that you have these, only the main account may edit project space. This is very important for accountability. I think some words are needed to clarify what is a "main account".

Should an undeclared account every be allowed to participate in AfD discussions on their own content? We had discussions on this at WT:SOCK in March 2010, and in the end I found User:SlimVirgin, 10:03, 19 March 2010 specifically, convincing that legitsocks should not be allowed at AfD or dispute resolution. I also think that it is a simple and necessary extension to this that IPs must not be allowed to contribute to AfD, or to project space discussions in general.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:36, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Answering User:RoySmith's questions of 12:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC). For LEGITSOCKS, that are the not the main account, These should be specific-purpose, preferably short-term accounts. WP:Teahouse should be off-limits. Asking for help on Help talk:Footnotes maybe, but not on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources? No, simple hard rules are needed for this dangerous practice. The main account can ask questions about citing sources. I don't see why the non-main LEGITSOCK should be asking at Help talk:Footnotes.
If a privacy sock is dragged to WP:AN, they cannot defend themselves. If a privacy sock is dragged to WP:AN, and the thread is entertained, something is wrong, and the person is not qualified to run a privacy sock. An account trying to be quiet and do a specific thing should be quiet and well mannered.
If one of their articles is nominated at WP:AfD, can they participate in that discussion? No. The community has to be trusted to be running a fair AfD.
Would it be OK to protest a WP:PROD, because that happens in article Talk space, OK. But once you've done that and somebody takes the next step and brings it to AfD, you're stuck? That's right. Trust the community at AfD.
And what about WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:FA? These are high end editing, competitive and somewhat drama associated. Reputation and accountability are important here. It is no place for a sockpuppet.
No to WikiProjects. No to AfC reviewing. No to Portals.
Pretty much, LEGITSOCKS should stick to mainspace, and to answer questions directed to them in talk space and user_talk. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:21, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• I strongly support the right to have privacy alts. Accordingly, they should be allowed to contribute in the project namespace, insofar as it's practical to write policy allowing this, subject to concerns such as the ones raised by TonyBallioni. They should certainly be allowed to defend their articles from deletion, and other such directly relevant activities. Benjamin (talk) 08:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap PROJSOCK and scrap disclosures - PROJSOCK misinterprets the Arbcom case that led to its addition to the policy. The issue there was not that the user was using undisclosed alternate accounts in project space (in and of itself) but that they were using them in ways that were already forbidden by WP:SOCK (apparently WP:GHBH and WP:STRAWSOCK). It's not Arbcom's place to invent policy and they should not have done so here. If someone uses different accounts to contribute to different discussions (not the same discussions) in otherwise legitimate ways, what does it matter? PROJSOCK is a "gotcha" policy that punishes users for no benefit to the project; we should just remove the bullet. As for disclosures, we should probably stop: it's irresponsible and probably unethical to suggest that disclosing a private alt to Arbcom somehow imparts a guarantee of privacy, which is absolutely not the case. It's also clear that everyday editors don't understand that each WMF site is a separate project with separate governance, that our coordination between projects is deliberately very limited, and that what might be allowed here might not be allowed on other WMF projects. What we should do is more strongly advise editors considering a privacy alt of the dangers: if they do use their alt in forbidden ways then we will publicly connect their main just as we do for all sockpuppet accounts, and although we discourage outing, Wikipedia is in the real world and we really have no control over other editors trying to "unmask" a privacy account, though I say we should do more to discourage editors who make a habit of malicious witchhunts. If a user is going to try to use a privacy alt, they need to understand the risks, and that they are responsible for maintaining their privacy, not Wikipedia. I am, however, very strongly against creating a policy that private alts are forbidden. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:30, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Question: I've been editing since 2006, but usually I create a new account every few months because I don't think scrutiny is fair. That is, if someone doesn't like what I write about sexuality topics, I don't want them going through my environmental topic editing to dig dirt on me. Is my behavior outside established norms? If I give myself a WP:CLEANSTART every three months, and abandon all my earlier accounts, is that bad? 50.242.124.27 (talk) 16:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I think it's fine. I'm sort of the opposite of you: I've only ever edited under one account. But I've given serious consideration to doing it your way (repeated clean starting), or just saying the heck with having a registered account and editing only under a dynamic IP. The irony of IP editing, especially from a large dynamic range like a mobile provider, is that it entirely avoids all the "scrutiny" that others talk about. Dynamic IPs can edit (almost) everything and there is zero way to even see their contribs history (since the ranges are shared). And like 90%+ of the encyclopedia is written by IPs this way... no scrutiny for most editors and yet the website doesn't fall apart. That's why I think talk of scrutiny and community is misplaced: really the transparency and control we think we have over registered accounts is a joke: we only have that for those who bother to register an account and use it, and use it within policy, which is a tiny minority of all editors. Transparency and scrutiny of this type are an illusion. Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
    • None of this is aimed at clean start accounts. Having two accounts at once is different than abandoning an account and starting a new one. If the IP has really been doing that for as long as they say, they are doing it exceptionally well and I for one have no problem with that. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

      @Beeblebrox: Doesn't it (strictly speaking) violate the letter of Wikipedia:Clean_start#Contentious_and_scrutinized_topics? (if so, perhaps that letter needs rewording) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:48, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  • This is exactly the sort of case that SOCK/CLEANSTART needs to allow. Privacy is serious business. We can't just have our rules say that it's not an option. Thank you for your contributions and I would hate to see you forced to change your editing pattern. — Bilorv (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• There's an interesting point above. Posit this situation:

  RoySmith decided to do it the other way around: Edit as real-world identity User:RoySmith, easily identified with boating being a well-known name in the boating world, on boating subjects; and in order to hide the shame from xyr boating colleagues of also knowing about K-Pop and species of beetle, editing everything else except for boating as User:BigBubblyBoatingBob.

  Currently this is both a Project:Sockpuppetry#Legitimate uses and illegitimate under the above proposals.

  Is this even the problem to be addressed? People mention AFD, but the sorts of sockpuppetry that we largely get at AFD are pretty much always of the kind that are illegitimate anyway. It certainly does not seem to be anything like what the Privatemusings case was, either.

  Uncle G (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• I think the solution is to encourage sockpuppetry. There are a few common uses of sockpuppetry that are so heinous that the entire concept is banned: socking to evade a ban/block/sanction (block evasion), socking to create the illusion of consensus (vote-stacking), and socking to evade scrutiny (WP:GHBH). There's also the well-established norm that no person can have more than one account with admin permissions. Beyond that, I think we need to re-consider why socking is a problem. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
• I don't support any option as I feel that some editors may be embarrassed for users to know that they edit in a specific category and if they declared that they used an alt in those categories it might further increase the embarassment. I feel like instead there should be a template that says "This is a privacy alt of a user who would wish to remain anonymous, who uses this alt to edit in these categories:", that way the alt would still technically be declared but it saves the editor the embarrassment of having to specifically declare that they own the alt who edits in categories they would wish to not be known as an active editor in. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
• Just to clarify for myself: I do not support getting rid of PROJSOCK entirely. I think it needs to be changed, but I do think it serves a purpose. Privacy alt sre intended to be used for editing content, if you want to talk about policy, you should use your main account. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:04, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
• To borrow Benjamin's phrase, I strongly support the right to have privacy alts. To those people saying they need to judge a person's history and character to have a working community: a privacy alt is effectively a separate person (or persona). Their contributions, discussions, and interpersonal relationships can stand on their own. I understand there's a fear that you might hold Dr Jekyll in high esteem whilst there’s a Mr Hyde stalking around. Wouldn't that be a rare occurrence? Much more common would be the case of Rob the boating expert and Bob who edits in other areas. If both accounts behave in a respectful and constructive manner, and they're not teaming up to mislead, then they should both have a voice in all parts of the project that relate to their respective topic interests. Pelagic ( messages ) – (11:14 Sun 25, AEDT) 00:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Beeblebrox, it's a bit of bullshit that there is no option to "leave things as they are". We aren't under any obligation to parrot other wikis, after all. I haven't read all the discussion (and shouldn't need to in order to opine here), but a discussion for change that doesn't allow the option to leave the status quo is null and void, imho, as you can't gauge the most basic question "is there an appetite for ANY change?". It's not like you to make such a glaring omission like that. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  I don't quite see it that way. I'm proposing remedies to perceived problems. If the community feels that either there is no problem or these aren't the remedies that will solve them, they will be rejected and the status quo retained. Happens all the time. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:54, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I support retiring WP:PROJSOCK, which I have always regarded as a truly asinine policy. I shouldn't have to log in every time I want to contribute to a "discussion internal to the project," which, by the way, could be understood to mean "any discussion anywhere, not just in the project space, that doesn't deal exclusively with article content," and my failing to do so shouldn't be a valid excuse for some priggish admin to block me. Also, I strongly oppose the idea of effectively restricting everyone to one account—I see it as nothing short of an attempt to sneak in a (near-)prohibition on IP editing. Iaritmioawp (talk) 14:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• This site is discussing an issue prevalent on Reddit; should burner accounts be allowed? Over there, people can get away with that with (near)-impunity; but, for what it's worth, this is a new account as my old account never had email when I created it in the late 2000s on here (around 2004-2005, IIRC). I would argue people do need privacy-related sockpuppets, but there's also the people who come simply to claim usernames. As it is, there was even a suggestion on here, way back in 2007, that a now long-gone vandal (notorious for moving pages, IIRC) who wanted to reform should restart under a new account and never disclose the old one! This is a difficult topic area. But allowing multiple accounts on platforms has always been a touchy issue. I can see both sides of the argument though. Chelston-temp-1 (talk) 13:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap WP:PROJSOCK. There are plenty of reasons why an editor might want to edit under their real name for their main edits, and an alt account for topics they don't want to be associated with their real name. Say they support an unpopular political candidate. But then that alt account can't participate in wikiprojects on that topic, or discuss policy issues that affect that topic. That's silly. --GRuban (talk) 17:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I believe the policy clause being questioned here is a misinterpretation of ArbCom. The statement is sourced to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings#Sockpuppetry, which says: Sockpuppet accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project, such as policy debates. Firstly, this quote doesn't refer to discussions about behavior or to deletion discussions. Secondly, and more importantly, the question is if "sockpuppetry" means using multiple accounts in a single discussion, or using a non-main account in any of the discussions this statement refers to. I believe we should take the first meaning here, while the policy statement takes the second; if you take the second, it should apply only to the discussions refered to by the first issue here. 147.161.8.37 (talk) 12:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

The best way to know is to ask the arbs who handled this case, hope some of them are still around and remember this case 14 years later. The arbs are: User:Kirill Lokshin, User:UninvitedCompany, User:FloNight, User:Jpgordon, User:Jdforrester, User:Mackensen, User:Morven, and User:Charles Matthews. 147.161.8.37 (talk) 13:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Anonymous editing, and efforts to maintain anonymity, were more widely thought to be good things in the early days of the project than today. Specific scenarios that I recall being discussed during that era (possibly but not necessarily as part of the Privatemusings decision) were individuals who were risking governmental or institutional reprisal for their edits, most notably editors from China. Another example would be editors disclosing details of cryptographic or DRM systems, which posed real risks of prosecution in some jurisdictions back in the day. Yet another would be contributions to topic areas that would reveal lifestyle choices (sexual orientation, recreational drug use) that could result in real-world discrimination. These concerns remain valid today for editors contributing from particularly conservative jurisdictions.

As Wikipedia has evolved, the very onerous restrictions on anonymous editing (especially in difficult topic areas) make it necessary to have a named account to make meaningful contributions. It is my view that requiring users to link all their contributions by using the same account at all times will silence important voices that have a genuine interest and ability to contribute. I also believe that the present approach to dealing with socking is heavyhanded and unsustainable, and that we are better off evaluating edits based on their merit rather than their source. UninvitedCompany 20:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

My mood at the time was pretty specific -- I was really pissed off at Privatemusing's socking to "carry on and exacerbate drama", as I said in refusing an unblock request from him, and I was likely only considering it through my really intense hatred of socking in general. I think now I'd recommend deleting it; we don't need this blanket policy to deal with disruptive and/or dishonest socking when it's disruptive and/or dishonest. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 23:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Delete WP:PROJSOCK. Since this discussion has not yet closed, I'll add my voice to those who think the simplest solution is to get rid of PROJSOCK entirely. I asked earlier in this conversation if there was any disruption being caused by alternate accounts editing in project space that was not also covered by one of the other rules, and to my knowledge, no one has come up with one. But what's more concerning to me, as a checkuser and a member of the arbitration committee, is the number of times that obvious alternate accounts get checked solely because they edited project space, despite there not being any disruption or evidence of abuse. I don't believe such checks fall within the spirit of the CU policy, but they are justified simply because of this wording in the sockpuppetry policy. This is circular logic at best, and it's high time we fix it. – bradv🍁 21:53, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
  • User:Bradv, and many others, what do you mean by “Delete WP:PROJSOCK”? It looks like you haven’t read the text that you link. PROJSOCK says that you mustn’t use alternative accounts to circumvent policy. I think you might mean WP:SOCK#Legitimiate uses#Privacy??? I note that WP:SOCK is a mess in terms of structural logic of presentation of information, and debating by reference to SHOUTYONEWORDSHORTCUTS is not helpful. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:11, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

    SmokeyJoe, you're right, I should clarify. I mean that this line should be removed: Internal discussions: Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project. It's redundant to the actual problematic behaviour described in the subsequent lines. – bradv🍁 04:29, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

    @SmokeyJoe: I've tried to solve the problem by creating an anchor for that shortcut; WP:PROJSOCK should redirect to that sentence specifically. Sdrqaz (talk) 11:57, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

    User:Sdrqaz, I think that is counter productive. Too many non-intuitive shortcuts do not help understanding of the policy, and the6 make it harder to improve the structure and presentation. It would be better to quote text explicitly, and to not write in slogans. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:14, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

    SmokeyJoe, I agree that we shouldn't overuse these shortcuts (especially without linking to them when first mentioned) because it creates barriers of entry to newer users, but the immediate problem at that point was that it wasn't clear to where WP:PROJSOCK referring. That was the (admittedly superficial, in light of other concerns you've raised) problem I was trying to resolve. Sdrqaz (talk) 12:25, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

• I think the current policy is good enough. No significant changes. That's OK to have a different policy in English WP. Also, no scrapping WP:PROJSOCK as a whole. I think Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project just needs to be clarified. I guess it means editing in the project space, like the noticeboards and AfD? This needs to be more explicitly stated. My very best wishes (talk) 18:02, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  @My very best wishes: That line is the entirety of PROJSOCK, but before it can be clarified it needs to be agreed what exactly it is trying to prohibit and why. Based on this discussion the only things that everybody agrees should be prohibited are already prohibited by other parts of this or other policies, meaning that if we restrict it to that it's completely redundant. Nobody has yet been able to explain what "discussions internal to the project" actually means in practice, nor why an editor using a privacy alt should be excluded from all of them. Thryduulf (talk) 19:36, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

  I've already made some changes to clarify that disclosing an alt to CUs or ArbCom does not exempt the user form following the rest of the policy, I think we may need a follow-up RFC to discuss PROJSOCK only. It's clearly problematic and needs to either be clarified or simply removed. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:22, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

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

Hello, How about having a new policy for experienced Wikipedians in relation to WP:Don't Bite Newcomers that promotes sending "Welcome" over "warning"? A number of unconstructive edits by anonymous users don't happen to be pure Vandalism. They are either mistakes or test edits. Sometimes due to the lack of the knowledge of Wikipedia, they err the formatting. We have rollbacking tools like Redwarn that just warn those users. Whereas, the Welcome template has more helpful links for them to better understand Wikipedia and make constructive edits to Wikipedia. This way, we can retain more happy newcomers. P.S.- This need not be exercised for those who truly vandalize Wikipedia. They better be warned than getting a Welcome. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 02:56, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

That is a good idea. I always use ((Subst:Welcome to Wikipedia)) due to its pleasant and yet comprehensive content. VV 06:21, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• It depends on WHY you are warning the new user. Some behaviors are so unacceptable and egregious that they should be slapped down (hard)… no matter who the editor is. Blueboar (talk) 15:30, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  Certainly that is the case in some situations. But lets not have that get in the way of the broader discussion on being more welcoming to new editors in general. I agree that a little too often we are more likely to slap on a warning template rather than something a little more helpful and welcoming. PackMecEng (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree we have such users but not all are as I wrote in my post as well. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 06:00, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Although I am sure that mistakes happen and I know from experience that some new editors are too quick to issue a vandalism warnings, and that tools like Redwarn perhaps make it too easy to issue such warnings, I would want to see data about how frequent such errors are overall. In my experience, it is pretty easy in most cases to distinguish between good faith newbie bungling and malicious intent. I strongly favor welcoming and assisting the honest newbies, and I also favor ousting malicious people promptly. Convincing evidence of a widespread problem that cannot be controlled by existing mechanisms should be required to implement a policy change. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Cullen328, How to collect the data? I have no idea for this. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 03:34, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Lightbluerain, my personal skills are not in data collection on Wikipedia, but I will evaluate the data that editors with such skills collect. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:07, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Alright. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 10:06, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. The level one warnings have a pretty nice and welcoming tone if you read their texts from the perspective of a newcomer, and that is intentional. They also have the advantage of being brief and readable, with concise and specific instructions that newcomers can immediately implement. In my view, this is actually more helpful to newcomers than a generic welcome message which doesn't address the problem with their contributions. JBchrch talk 11:16, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

JBchrch, we have welcome templates on twinkle that addresses some of the problematic edits. I agree the level one warning templates have welcoming tones. The welcome templates addressing problematic edits have more helpful links than the warning one along with an encouraging edit summary. I use both of them considering the conditions I specified in my post. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 06:25, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Here is an example to demonstrate the need of the policy modification. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 08:17, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion (books) § Mark process as historical. --Trialpears (talk) 08:44, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Is this article about Skanderborg Festival or compilation from this concert? Btw. is here any place here to ask about thing in other languages? Eurohunter (talk) 12:59, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: There used to be the WP:Local Embassy for users to ask questions in other languages, but unfortunately it seems to be rather dead and I'm not seeing any Danish speakers listed. Perhaps try asking at WP:WikiProject Denmark or WP:WikiProject Intertranswiki? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 13:47, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@Ipigott: Hello. Maybe you will know? I think it should take minute or a two to realise. Eurohunter (talk) 16:11, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Eurohunter: Smukfest 2021 has been cancelled - see [2].--Ipigott (talk) 19:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@Ipigott: I don't understand. This article is from 2019. Eurohunter (talk) 20:14, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Eurohunter: If I may interfere: The festival was also cancelled last year. I believe the article is about some sort of Dj event with Den Sorte Skole featuring music from some of the favourite acts from the latest ten years of the festival (and mash-ups of them). I assume it was created as a substitute for the cancelled festival. It is not really a sort of music I am very familiar with, so forgive my inability to use the correct terms here.Ramblersen2 (talk) 20:44, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

My edit on Giovanni Berlinguer was reverted because it was considered useful to have these pronunciation on a page without opening two separate pages, even if they can be found on Giovanni and Berlinguer. Is there a policy about this topic? Thanks in advance.--Carnby (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Neither of these links are in the article, and neither should be in the article. The pronunciation should stay (it is fairly standard for non-English names and for those in English whose spelling is even less connected to pronunciation than usual). MOS:IPA is the relevant guideline. —Kusma (talk) 13:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't need to cite specific examples, just look up any article about a reasonably sized airport and you'll find an #Airlines_and_destinations section. I don't know if there's an explicit consensus for this (or, if there is, if it's a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS), but they seem to be blatant and obvious examples of WP:NOT (both because we're not a travel guide and because we're not an indiscriminate collection of information), in addition to being high-maintenance stuff. Would there be any objection to me starting an RfC (here) to get explicit consensus for their removal? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:52, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

It appears to be part of the standard Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content layout. Make sure you are clear in your RfC whether you are only talking about the destinations vs the whole airlines list also. DMacks (talk) 02:01, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

So LOCALCONSENSUS, as I was saying? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:24, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Not everything you didn't get a chance to vote on is a violation of "local consensus" and not every bit of text that appears at Wikipedia requires pre-approval by the entire community. Where the community has decided some principle, local consensus should not override it, but the community has not decided this issue in any meaningful way, and no one is doing anything wrong here. --Jayron32 14:40, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

It definitely feels like something to see if the project's standards are inconsistent with the overall en.wiki expectations. An RFC would be appropriate but you definitely need to make sure the Airports wikiproject is informed about it. --Masem (t) 02:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

On the other hand, we list all the stations train stations directly service, why not airports? --Golbez (talk) 04:01, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Trains really cannot reroute as freely as airplanes, in which there that's all up to what airlines decide to do for the most part. There are reasons to consider, particularly for smaller regional/municipal airports, to say that they generally serve to provide connecting flights to a major airport hub, but this reasoning doesn't make sense for the large scale airports. --Masem (t) 04:14, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

New routes opening and closing does get mentioned in the media. People seem to maintain them. Kind of the only reason I can see to remove them is that Wikipedia is the best place on the internet for this information. Which isn't such a great reason to destroy this useful resource. —Kusma (talk) 05:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

For a slightly more encyclopaedic reasoning, something like the destination list is necessary to understand what kind of airport a given airport is. From a European perspective, for example it is a characterising feature whether an airport has domestic flights or not. Nuremberg Airport is reasonably usefully connected to hubs and business destinations (plus holidays), while Dortmund Airport serves holidays and flights home for Eastern Europeans working in Germany. You can read this off from the destination list without having to make a judgement in the article whether you consider flights to Barcelona and Paris to be business or leisure flights. If you explain the character of the destination list in prose, you still have to give some examples, and then going for the full list isn't very far away. —Kusma (talk) 06:34, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

There's no reason what type of airport cannot be described in text using terms-of-art words for describing the airports. Eg: as I mentioned, a small regional airport likely only has flights to two or three major hubs so that can be briefly mentioned. But I would not list all the possible destinations for a major hub like JFK or LAX. Instead, something like "Atlanta International Airport is one of Delta's main hubs in the United States, serving its domestic routes and international travel to Europe, Central and South America." That future proofs the article from any changes that may happen to Delta's flightplans. --Masem (t) 15:02, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

That would be an issue if the destination tables weren't regularly updated. Look at any airport, I just spot-checked Heathrow: we have lots of airport editors who gnome specifically to keep the information up-to-date. Some don't make any other edits. SportingFlyer T·C 22:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

A typical small regional airport in Germany, on the other hand, has zero connections to major national hubs. From Erfurt–Weimar Airport, you can't fly to Frankfurt or Munich. Airports are very different in countries with functioning rail networks and countries without. Future-proofing could work well using "as of" and by hiding the lists should they become out of date. In practice, airport destination lists have been well maintained, unlike, say, electoral constituencies, which are commonly ten years old and outdated by two elections. —Kusma (talk) 16:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

• This comes up every so often, and is in my mind quite misguided. The tables have been kept up to date, and the destinations an airport serves receive quite a bit of media coverage. Furthermore, WP:NOTTRAVEL doesn't really apply here - as with train stations, a list of destinations gives an idea of the connectivity of a certain airport. I've often used Wikipedia as a reliable source to look at how places connect to other places. The airliner world often has to deal with poor WP:NOTTRAVEL arguments since it's transportation related - this may be a bit antiquated of an analogy now, but it's clear a table of airlines operating from the airport with the airline's phone number or web site without any destinations would be a NOTTRAVEL violation. A list of destinations has encyclopaedic value, and I'd be a strong oppose at any RfC. SportingFlyer T·C 09:50, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • This appears to be the most recent RfC on the matter. SportingFlyer T·C 09:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Here is another RfC in a central location that clarified that transportation lists are fine. —Kusma (talk) 10:16, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
    • The first RfC was held at the page of the relevant wikiproject, likely attracted relatively low participation from outside editors, and was 5 years ago. The second RfC is about list articles, not about this specific example, so I'm not sure its particularly relevant. The only reason to keep them is because they're already there (AFAICS) - i.e., an appeal to tradition and a sunk cost fallacy. This comment also seems to highlight issues of BIAS which I hadn't thought of so far. A prose description of the main destinations served by airlines operating from an airport would have much more encyclopedic value than a WP:NOTDIR listing of all of them with barely any annotations, and most often only based on routine coverage/primary sources if at all significant. The tables can go at Wikitravel, it you want, really, but it is rather clear that they're not encyclopedic here as they stand. As has been said, I think by Drmies (IIRC) or someone else, lists (as opposed to actual prose) are often excuses for crap articles, or in this case I'd say for a not particularly helpful part of an article. Option 1 of the relevant RfC seems to really be the only policy-justifiable one: Wikipedia articles should be a "summary of knowledge" (as fit for an encyclopedia), not a listing of all of it. WP:NOTNEWS would also apply, since the route changes only get routine, non-significant coverage. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
      • In the specific example of Dortmund Airport, the destinations sections adds detail to what is written in the History section. It illustrates the article, just like the images do. An "as of" is missing, just like the images should clarify whether they are historic images or current images. I'd like to see the lists more in a historical context than always up-to-date (1940s and 1950s Shannon Airport destinations are probably more exciting than the current list) but I really don't get how Wikipedia gets better if the level of detail provided in these lists is explicitly outlawed. Would you also like to remove the current route from London Buses route 406 or is that ok because it doesn't list all of the stops, but makes a selection with unknown criteria and possibly bias? —Kusma (talk) 14:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
        • What does the destination section add that is not already in the history section (ignoring that the history section itself looks like OR, since no sources are cited)? It just gives an unannotated listing of every destination served. Doesn't highlight the fact the airport is mostly served by low-cost airlines, nor does it tell anything about overall flight frequency or which airports are most frequently served... I don't see why you're deflecting to bus routes: these, like trains, aren't quite as prone to frequent changes as airports, and as we can see the route and its destinations/trajectory and proposed changes thereto gets enough coverage that some encyclopedic prose can be written about it. And yes, partial lists which only highlight the overall route (the links are to London neighbourhoods which the route passes through, not to particular stops) and interchange points with other transit (an objective criteria, easy to assess) are much less problematic then ones which would give every single stop (compare what's in the article with https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/406/ ) - that's what the equivalent of listing every airport served is for a bus route. "1940s and 1950s Shannon Airport destinations are probably more exciting than the current list": probably, but that would likely be WP:OR if you can't find secondary sources which report on the significance of these routes (for ex. "Shannon Airport was an important stop-over point for transatlantic flights, bla bla so on so forth...[sources]"). If the only sources are WP:PRIMARY (a directory-like listing of routes), then it likely isn't encyclopedic information. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:10, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
          • I like the analogy to images illustrating the text - listing the destinations rather than calling something a "small, regional airport" is a way of showing rather than telling. Perhaps adding clickable maps to the articles would perhaps be even better, but that is likely a bigger maintenance burden. CapitalSasha ~ talk 16:05, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
            • Illustratively, at least for smaller airports (not major hubs) which have only a handful of inbound/outbound routes, you could easily make a map to show these as means of illustration without the need for a table. I would not also be suprirsed that for the major world hubs, LAX, JFX, SFO, etc. that you can find RSes that document the principle routes in and out of these cities and use that illustratively (eg showing like LAX connects to several main western Asian airports as well as Hawaii, in addition to its cross-US flights). I fully appreciate the need to point out, relatively, where these airports sit in a larger scheme of airport networks, that to me is encyclopedic and something if could be visually illustrated, would be good, but full route info (subject to short-term changes) is beyond WP scope. --Masem (t) 20:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

          Oh, I'm sure there are secondary sources for that. Most transport geek stuff is well documented. My personal transport geek phase was more than 30 years ago, so I won't go and fix any of these articles. I'd suggest you go to WT:AIRPORTS to discuss how airport articles can be improved by adding context to these lists, and by concentrating perhaps more on the text than the data. —Kusma (talk) 17:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

          • • I'm relying on memory for this, but Wikitravel doesn't want the tables, since they're not really useful for a travel guide. (To be fair, I also don't understand the bus route argument.) I also don't think it's obvious at all they're not encyclopaedic, and that's ultimately what an RfC will be decided on, since there's not a clear policy answer here. We're probably also coming at this from completely different perspectives - I have a bunch of old books from the pre-internet days on airlines, aircraft, and airports, et cetera. Destinations and routes come up prominently, and I would expect a list of airlines operating to the airport at a bare minimum. SportingFlyer T·C 20:28, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

              Wikivoyage doesn't want the tables because they don't have enough volunteers to keep them all up to date. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

• Based on the above, and the sentiment I expressed, there seems to be some potential improvement, and at least a plausible chance of agreement, that replacing this with prose descriptions would be an improvement while still keeping the most important information about the airport's status and destinations in it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:30, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
• Feel free to come up with a better question if you can. I didn't expect the reaction to the below. @Kusma: re. 1911 Britannica: example, please? Link to the Wikisource entry for convenience. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

  @RandomCanadian, s:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Liverpool tells us the American ports the city is connected to by steamer. They consider this information worth including although it could change before their next edition. —Kusma (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Kusma: The commerce of Liverpool extends to every part of the world, but probably the intercourse with North America stands pre-eminent, there being lines of steamers to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Galveston, New Orleans and the Canadian ports. That's a one sentence mention, and it clearly isn't exhaustive, unlike the tables we have here. This would be equivalent of taking the example that was given earlier (Dortmund Airport) and saying stuff like "Dortmund is connected to most major European cities, such as Athens, London, Vienna, Prague, as well as to other low cost airports, ..." Your comparison is wrong. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:32, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

  @RandomCanadian: Heh, "encyclopedic"/"unencyclopedic" stopped being a good word to use while talking about what should be in Wikipedia more than 10 years ago because there is no longer anything that can be usefully compared to Wikipedia, which is rather sui generis. Anyway, back to Britannica: This is a one sentence mention in the main article about Liverpool, not in some specialised page elsewhere, so they seem to attach some importance to it. They are also paper, and we are not. Apparently you do agree now that destination lists are encyclopedic (whatever that means), you just object to airport articles containing, in addition to a prose description, a complete and up to date list? Don't you think the Britannica article would be better if it told us what "the Canadian ports" are or if it did not have this bias of listing all American ports but no others? Being exhaustive helps avoiding bias. —Kusma (talk) 16:47, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Kusma: "you do agree now that destination lists are encyclopedic" - nope, what I agree is that a summary listing, ideally in prose format, of the most important information about destinations from a given travel point, is a valid "summary of knowledge" as befitting an encyclopedia. The 1911 example you give uses this to succinctly make the point that "Most of Liverpool's trade is [was, circa 1911] with North American ports." Which ports exactly doesn't matter, though I assume that the ones listed are the most prominent and most frequently served. This is useful information, and in doesn't get stuck up in the minutiae of which destinations exactly, since that's not really an important detail unless you actually wish to go somewhere, in which case you're not going to be taking your information from an encyclopedia anyway, are you? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:08, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

  @RandomCanadian: Thank you for withdrawing the RfC. FWIW, I would support a suggestion to have some prose that augments and contextualises the tables in, say, Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content, but I don't wish impose this on the people doing the actual work, at least not without their involvement. For your last question, believe it or not, I have actually used these lists in my travel planning. Least annoying way to answer the question which of the 9 airports that I can reach with reasonable effort have direct flights to a given place. Saves me the trouble of finding the airport's official pages, clicking through ads and cookie banners, finding the content in a language I can read, find where they have their actual destinations instead of the page where they try to sell me some other flights... Thanks to an army of aviation nerds, I can just use Wikipedia instead, where it is in a standardised format that is the same for every airport. While WP:USEFUL isn't an accepted argument to keep this content, it isn't a good argument to get rid of it either. —Kusma (talk) 18:57, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Ariport destination tables

Hi folks! Is this OK to post here? I am wondering if consensus has formed regarding spacing around fields in multi-line templates. Before-and-after example. I have seen bots or WP:AWB jobs that pad fields with spaces so that the = signs are aligned vertically. This is usually how I see it in carefully-constructed articles. It makes it easier to edit the source. But of course, WP:Visual editor doesn't much care for that kind of nicety. Elizium23 (talk) 02:46, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I think it'd be good for us to decide and firmly establish what the optimum state is, since we don't want different tools undoing each other, as I've seen for other cosmetic edits like spacing between parameters for inline templates. But fundamentally this is extreme WP:Cosmetic territory, not anything worth arguing over. Hopefully someday we'll all be editing in an improved version of VE and it'll become irrelevant. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 08:34, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@Elizium23, if you want that infobox to have "the right" spacing, then you need to go edit Template:Infobox university#Parameter descriptions to establish what the right spacing is. VisualEditor and other tools will respect what you tell them the spacing should be. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Consolidating help venues

Are individual articles from non-depreceated sources automatically considered reliable, meaning per se they are blanket accepted, without there being an analysis of if the article from the source is reliable, and meets the journalistics standards expected? Sparkle1 (talk) 17:53, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

In this generality: no. Context always matters. There are reliable sources that participate in April Fools' Day, for example. —Kusma (talk) 18:09, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

We also look for thigs titled "opinion" or "op-eds" which may make them unreliable for use as facts in some cases though usable for their attributed opinions. Case-by-case evaluations should be discussed on talk pages. --Masem (t) 18:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, I was in a dispute where there was an argument that was boiling down to it is in a reliable source therefore the article is reliable because it is in a reliable source. Sparkle1 (talk) 18:19, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• Kusma and Masem, this editor is now using your replies here to justify rejection of reliable secondary sources based solely on their own OR and POV, as seen here. There are no April Fools' or op-eds involved here. The fact is that, in general, we do consider a reputable mainstream outlet, like the BBC, to be reliable, which is the whole point of the idea of verifiability and reliable sources, and any questioning of any particular claim has to come from other reliable sources, not an editor's own ideas. This is basic WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:V. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:05, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• I am not aware of any publication in which every article published is fully reliable. Experience at AfC in dealing with promotional editors has made it clear that otherwise reliable newspapers sometimes carry promotional material, especially in sections dealign with entertainment or products, but also with regard to any firm or person that wants the publicity--the very goal of high quality PR work is to get such articles written and placed. Adopting any such rule as this would let such sources be used for WP articles, and would destory the basic policy of NOT ADVERTISING. It would be akin to saying that everything in a book in a library was reliable. If a source is used wrongly, that's a question for the talk page and RSN, and dispute resolution in general. Most contested AfDs are primarily over the question of which of the specific sources used are actually reliable enough in the context of demonstrating notability, and the decisions in difficult cases increasingly rely on looking in detail at theactual contents of the individual proposed sources. In terms of content also, any source can be challenged, and once it is it must be discussed. There are multiple ways to deal wth inappropriate challenges or restorations, and in particular with editors who repeatedly make such edits.

I will also point out that it is usually inappropriate to deal with a particular article by trying to get a statement on a basic policy at a noticeboard like this. Policy by definition deals with general situations, not specific articles. DGG ( talk ) 18:13, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I believe WP:BLPSPS should be amended to clarify whether think tanks, advocacy organizations, and academic group projects are "self-published sources", whether these can be used on BLP articles, and indeed, clarify what an SPS actually is. This follows up a previous discussion on this page in February which generated much debate but ended without resolution.[3]

WP:BLPSPS warns against the use of self-published sources on BLP articles. Specifically:

Per WP:USESPS: "Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same."

Self-published material is characterized by the lack of reviewers who are independent of the author (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of contents.

Per WP: V: "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer".

My concern is that the current definition, read narrowly, could exclude almost ANY source that does not have a formal position of "editor". For example, under the current policy, since the Southern Poverty Law Center both writes and publishes its own material, is it therefore a "self-published source"? What about a group academic project staffed by experts? I think in its strictest interpretation, the current policy could apply a blanket exclusion on BLP articles for groups like:

• the Anti-Defamation League
• the Southern Poverty Law Center
• the Innocence Project

However, advocacy groups like these are used on BLP articles as a matter of course, including highly contentious pages: eg see Milo Yiannopoulos,[4][5][6][7], Richard B. Spencer[8] and Lauren Southern.[9] However, I have seen editors remove material drawn from these sources on the grounds that they are "self-published" from time to time. I believe it is contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the existing policy to exclude these sources. I think the policy needs to be amended to clarify this. Of course, there are areas of difficulty. For example, reports commissioned by think tanks can be rigorous and high-quality, but (for example) big companies will often commission and self-publish reports that are little more than PR exercises. Again, in February myself and numerous other editors recognised flaws in the policy but no real agreement or consensus was reached.[10] I think there is a genuine inconsistency in how the policy is interpreted and applied.

In February Newimpartial offered a suggestion for amendment that I thought was excellent:

it seems to me that at least some of the following should be allowed on BLPs: (1) SPS from acknowledged experts as references for uncontroversial matters of fact; (2) attributed judgements from relevant experts (individuals and groups), sourced to self-published or other sources where editorial control is not fully separate from the author or authors; (3) authoritative judgments using references by respected organizations that are responsible for their own publications.

Alternatively, are advocacy groups, think tanks, and advocacy organizations, not self-published sources, and how then to define this term? Again, I would urge rewording of the policy to clarify this Noteduck (talk) 10:58, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

"Advocacy group" and especially "think tank" are hopelessly vague terms that cover far too many very different organisations to have any utility at all for our policies. Thryduulf (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

• Some think tanks do have editors who edit works before they're published. I agree with Thryduulf—the reliability of these organizations ranges widely, just like with news outlets. Having more discussions about specific ones at RSN to establish which ones are usable and in what ways/contexts might be useful. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 16:24, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• Noteduck, in the future please link relevant discussions like the one you recently commented in, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_342#Think_tanks. --Hipal (talk) 16:41, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• Additionally, it is probably worth considering that a problem with think tanks and advocacy groups isn't necessarily SPS (many items go through at least some editorial review, and for example most medical specialty societies have their own peer-reviewed journals), but rather an issue of bias and NPOV. They can still be useful, but must be used carefully so as to maintain NPOV. For example, the NRA gives "grades" to legislators, similar to school grades, based on how well the organization views their votes and statements on firearms legislation. This could be useful information to include in an article about a politician, but it would have to be properly phrased and attributed, to make it clear that this is not an assertion of fact. It may also be a question of relevance, for example we might only want to mention the NRA "grade" for politicians who are already notable for their statements on the topic or where a politician has prominently mentioned their "grade" in ads (some politicians are very proud to earn either an A or an F).

  Also, consider that there are many different think tanks and avocacy groups out there, so we probably can't or shouldn't mention every endorsement or evaluation that a politician receives from every group, again relevance becomes important. That being said, one nice thing is that reliable sourcing for these groups is usually not difficult, if a group has a relevant and notable opinion, they're usually pretty good about making their views public and easy to attribute to the group. Hyperion35 (talk) 16:47, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

• My reading of self published has always been that it is meant to exclude single people who are say putting trash stuff on blogs, medium, or the various publish your own book services. I struggle to see how SPL or ADL are somehow self published, they are fairly large organizations with editorial oversight. If the SPL is self published, then so is the NYTimes. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:27, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• I really struggle to see how this can be read ambiguously unless you deliberately pretend not to know the ordinary meaning of words like publisher or editor. Otherwise, the SPLC are obviously a highly reliable publisher of sources on racism and extremism. So is the guideline actually a problem, or are certain people making it a problem so they can try to whitewash articles about Neo-Nazis? Because that's going to happen no matter how carefully-phrased our guidelines are. – Joe (talk) 17:47, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• The mere fact that an organisation publishes material written by its employees doesn't make it self-published. By that standard most newspapers would be self-published, since they publish material written by their own journalists. If the organisation exercises any sort of editorial control/oversight over what its employees write or then it's not reasonably described as a self-published source. In the case of the organisations mentioned I'd be amazed if this wasn't the case. An organisation which didn't would be little more than a webhost. Hut 8.5 17:50, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that self-published is not meant to exclude publications of adocacy organizations (except, of course, that they can't be used to prove that organization's notability). And we know that that we should not be letting advocacy organization make judgments for us. We can report their judgements, in context. The difficulty is rather that there is a general public view that some of these organizations are more reliable or neutral than they actually are, and our use of them may be misleading. There is no way to deal with this completely: we are here to offer information, not force it on the public. But we can try to word things to at least indicate the position, and to give other views--and to write accurate up=to-date articles about the organizations. The NRA is of course the simplest case possible--everyone interested knows what it advocates, especially if we spell the name out in full. Depending on. one's views, a low grade from them is for some people a strongly negative indication, for others, a equally strong positive. The problem is with organizations whose accuracy has ben challenged in some cases, such as the SPLC or the ADL--the reader may not know that there are disagreements even among their supporters, and I can think of no concise way of dealing with this if there are no equally well-known challengers from the same general orientation. Here, as elsewhere, we will always be limited by what's been published, DGG ( talk ) 18:58, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, since what's needed is in the other direction, towards emphasis how BLPSPS applies to all blogs and stuff by an advocacy mouthpiece's editor is pretty well by definition not under any editorial control except self-control. And one of the few things SPLC can be trusted for is their statement that splcenter.org/hatewatch is a blog. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

--Guy Macon (talk) 22:22, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

• Some time ago, there was discussion related to revising the wording of "self-published" as the "writer == publisher" was far too simple. The idea of self-published proposed (one I still back) is that there is little to none editorial hurdle between what the writer creates and what gets published. There may be an editor that does a spell-check or pretties up the print, but does not do the type of editorial work that a news editor at the NYTimes does, which includes fact-checking, thorough content review and other elements that underscore ethical journalism. For a non-self-published source, the editorial process didn't need to be independent but it needed the thoroughness we'd associate with journalistic integrity or peer-review in scientific literature. This would make it so that self-published sources would incorporate cases like Forbes contributors (which have some minor editing but almost no thorough review), YouTube, Medium, and other works where the author controls the publishing process outside of actually hosting the material, and to that end, things like these groups which may not have detailed oversight of what gets published on their blog portions of their websites. I think this idea still holds weight (I can't recall what the resistance was to it then, I think it was a wording issue) but this would definitely help here. We'd still want to be careful in some areas: using the SPLC, they have some content which has a clear editorial oversight (such as their summary of Confederate statues they did last year) but as Guy Macon points out, they also do a lot of off the cuff stuff too. --Masem (t) 23:19, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your helpful contributions. Hyperion35 Hut 8.5 I agree with your interpretations of the police, but I've seen even the most storied advocacy groups of the caliber of ADL, SPLC, Innocence Project reverted from BLP articles on the basis that they're "self-published".

Looking at the wording of WP:USESPS: One characteristic of self-published material is lack of reviewers who are independent of the author

Self-published sources can be reliable, and they can be used (but not for third-party claims about living people).

This doesn't appear to leave any caveats for self-published source on BLP articles, no matter how respected the source is or the level of expertise the author has. I think the term independent reviewers is particularly fraught and prone to conceptual confusion. For example, ADL articles, unlike most newspaper articles, don't typically say "written by X and reviewed/edited by Y", so one can plausibly make the contention that without a clear demarcation between authorship and editorship there is an absence of "independent review". I don't believe that this how the WP:USESPS policy is meant to be interpreted, but I think the issue should be addressed so that the policy becomes less prone to incorrect interpretations. Hut 8.5 the context I've generally seen these sources challenged is when they are used to add unflattering material to pages associated with conservative, alt-right or far-right figures. Thryduulf and ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk, I agree that this is a very broad topic and more specific areas of discussion need to be explored, but I thought this was a good place to start Noteduck (talk) 01:33, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The proof is in the pudding. No reviewer would have ever allowed that claim that the the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub exists to stand. No reviewer would have allowed "Concerned Troll" posting on Daily Stormer website as a source. And no reviewer would have allowed a "correction" to be published that claims not only that the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub exists but that it is a statewide group.

Ironicly, some neo-nazis have started calling themselves stormer book clubs in the years since, according to the JDL.[14] --Guy Macon (talk) 02:16, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

you mean ADL? Well, I wouldn't recommend using a SPLC source marked "blog" but I think their longer reports are well-respected and are used in many RS's. Of course, even very good sources make big errors from time to time - quite recently the NY Times was severely embarrassed when their highly acclaimed Caliphate podcast was discredited Noteduck (talk) 10:27, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

All three articles that Noteduck used for examples -- Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard_B._Spencer, Lauren Southern -- contain multiple cites to the SPLC hatewatch blog. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

• When this topic is brought up I go by what's described in Note 9 of WP: V, and that is that Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of content. The unfortunate reality is that think-tanks, advocacy groups, and academic groups have an inherent conflict of interest with regards to their own work, and so we need independent publishers to provide the independent reviewers to make the material not self-published. That some sources are considered experts on the topic doesn't remove the conflict of interest, and in turn the self-published nature of the content. The difference between these and say newspapers is the presumed editorial independence of the editorial team which separates them from the writing team. There is potential overlap where newspapers move into advocacy, but that should be a case where we reduce the reliability of the source instead of lowering our standards. (Especially for BLP's, which is where this whole issue applies)--Kyohyi (talk) 16:29, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
• It depends on their individual reliability. Some advocate for fringe views including pseudoscience, some are religious, political, business, legal, scholarly, scientific. They usually have a history and a reputation. RSN may be used on a case by case basis. —PaleoNeonate – 05:33, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate I tend to agree, but the issue is that the current policy for BLP articles doesn't seem to allow any leeway or flexibility. Noteduck (talk) 06:21, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

This reminds me of this manual of style (not policy) conflict that advocates for whitewashing and avoiding reality even when it faces us and is supported by reliable sources: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch § Widely vs in text attribution. WP:CRYBLP also comes to mind... —PaleoNeonate – 06:39, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello all. I am not entirely convinced of the benefits of including authority control templates at the bottom of every article. For example, the British Armed Forces article has an authority control template with one link from something called "MusicBrainz" which links to a page which merely shows that they do not have any releases or recordings (well duh). I honestly have no idea what benefit this provides to the Wikipedia reader, and it seems to just clutter up the bottom of articles with nonsense. Can anyone enlighten me on this? Thanks. Elshad (talk) 10:33, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

For your specific article example, @Tom.Reding: added it in Special:Diff/1011070842. It does appear useless in this case, but the way that template works is that if wikidata gets more information it will show more. As your MBA one was useless, it (and then the entire template) can be deactivated such as in Special:Diff/1030346337. It looks like wikidata has a bot, User:MineoBot that seems to be affiliated with that site that puts this parameter in to wikidata - even when it is useless. So what can we / show we do? I don't know the best answer. For a single article fix, we can turn off MBA; if we find that wikidata has so polluted MBA claims we could turn off MBA on all our templates. There have been a lot of discussions on the benefits and annoyances of AC - it can be contentious. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:57, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I just removed the template altogether from there. It doesnt actually add anything at all to the article. (And was promptly reverted by someone with twinkle who clearly didnt look at the edit, or what they were putting back in, but thats another problem) Its a different issue when its AC and its got a mixture of useful and useless links. But in this case it was completely useless. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:17, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

And the above examples are why automated editing tools should be heavily restricted and/or audited. AC template was added using AWB as part of the genfixes. Do you think the editor actually looked at what the result was? Or did they just fire and forget. And since when was automatically adding a template that automatically draws un-vetted information from another wiki a 'fix' in any conceivable definition of the word that also excludes 'terrible'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:24, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

No, it wasn't part of Genfixes, it was the deliberate goal of that AWB run, and everything else in the edit was genfixes. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:37, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

So the deliberate goal was to add a template without checking what the template actually displayed? Gotcha. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:44, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

• When I look at this new addition, another MusicBrainz link whch has been added to an article flagged for lack of references for the past 9 years, it is predominantly just providing a mirror of the Wikipedia text, which if added to the article itself would fall under WP:ELNO criterion 12. AllyD (talk) 15:26, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

• I think we need an automated bot to remove all the useless crap added by automated bots. Blueboar (talk) 16:37, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

• Forgive me for asking such a basic question, but what does MusicBrainz have to do with authority control? It appears to be a user-generated database which (as well as having a doubly illiterate name) has no more authority than Wikipedia would have without any references. The term "authority control" has a specific meaning that goes well beyond just "database id". Phil Bridger (talk) 16:50, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

  There was a major discussion about whether ((authority control)) should include MusicBrainz about a year ago at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 182#RfC: should the "Authority control" template continue to include MusicBrainz identifiers?. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:01, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

• The RfC discussion does include some of the points above (for example Nikkimaria raised the ELNO 12 point that I mentioned above). It does seem to have been a finely-balanced consideration on whether to include MusicBrainz as an identifier within AC. It may be fair enough for it to be one of several identifiers in an AC, but this situation where it is the sole identifer in an AC template being placed in an article seems distinct: effectively embellishing a copy of Wikipedia article text (without its maintenance tags) with the word "authority". So I might suggest establishing a norm where a MusicBrainz-only AC template is not an appropriate addition to articles? AllyD (talk) 06:49, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I noticed semi-recently that we don't have an actual policy or guideline on how student assignments should function. The closest we have is WP:Student assignments, but that's an information page. There's been a lot of discussion over at the Wikipedia:Education noticeboard over the proper boundaries for class assignments and what should and shouldn't be permitted and I think it's time we either convert WP:Student assignments into an actual guideline or create some new guideline from scratch that outlines what our expectations are as a community for student assignments, given that quite a lot of expectations are informal and not really written down into a guideline. I'm hoping to get some input on other editors on whether this is a good idea and to get input on changes we might want to make to WP:Student assignments before turning it into a guideline. I'm making some changes to it now but I was hoping other editors might chime in as well. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 06:47, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I support the idea of being sure to make it clear what is expected, but I don't think making it a guideline or a policy is necessary. We currently offer advice and information. It is the responsibility of every editor to behave in a manner consistent with site policies, regardless of how they came to be editing Wikipedia. Making student-specific rules strikes me as problematic and probably unworkable. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:34, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

User:Chess, User:Beeblebrox - I think that there are some rules that may need to be stated more clearly about what student assignments should not be or do. In particular, they should not tell students that their grade will depend on getting an article accepted in Wikipedia. They also should not involve original research, and they should not involve articles that are opinion essays. We at Articles for Creation see some of the same wrong types of assignments, indicating that the instructor is not familiar with how Wikipedia works, over and over again. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:27, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I totally agree that explaining those existing rules clearly and firmly is a good idea. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:42, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I, on the other hand, support making it a guideline. I've hoped that this would eventually happen ever since I coauthored the original version of the page with another editor years ago. We need a guideline, or maybe even a policy, to govern class assignments. As for making expectations clear, we've already been doing that. That's what the WikiEd staff work on full-time, and they do an excellent job of it – especially if the instructor chooses to work with them and pay attention to what they say.

But we have a problem with classes that just show up without working with WikiEd. And that happens with regularity. And there's a difference between the general run-of-the-mill problems we always have with disruptive editing, and what happens when a class of 100 students shows up and simultaneously rewrites 100 different pages in ways that mess up the pages badly, and edit wars if anyone tries to revert them. A lot of editors feel bad about "interfering" with class assignments, even though classes do not WP:OWN the pages they work on.

To some degree, telling faculty and students to read WP:ASSIGN helps a lot. But things would be clearer if the community could say that some things are sure to be reverted and sure to end up at a noticeboard like ANI if they persist. WP:ASSIGN is written now as an information page, and would have to be revised to work as a guideline, but that may well be worth the effort. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:21, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I would never tell my students to read WP:ASSIGN, because I don't think it fit for that purpose; not to mention that for some exercises (e.g. "add a suitable citation where one is missing") it would take longer than the allotted teaching time for them to read it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:02, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't really think ASSIGN is intended for short assignments such as adding a citation, nor is anything special really needed for that purpose. But I hope that you would not take the position that you would never tell your students to read Wikipedia:Citing sources in that case. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I might include Wikipedia:Citing sources in a list of optional resources, but I would never tell my students (or any trainee) they have to read it, nor expect them to do so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:26, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Oppose per Beeblebrox. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:02, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support, a clear set of guidelines could only assist students and educators (and the community), even if it was predominantly a set of endorsed links to relevant policy and other guidelines. Cavalryman (talk) 23:11, 19 June 2021 (UTC).
• Oppose There is some good advice here but little or nothing that is appropriate or useful as policy. Editors who would like policy that governs what we permit Wikipedia editors to do should write that policy separate from this advice. ElKevbo (talk) 19:32, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

There's an open RfC proposing to make WP:Notability (media) into a ((Guideline)) instead of a ((Supplement)) essay: Wikipedia talk:Notability (media)/Archive 2#Status.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:16, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 14:51, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

If WP:Civility is a Wikipedia policy, one would expect that there should be a place where violation of the policy can be reported and dealt with. But out of all the noticeboards I've seen, there is no Civility noticeboard, which leaves WP:AN/I (previously accessible with the shortcut "WP:PITCHFORKS") as the only place to report users that are violating that policy.

And ANI is obviously ineffective at resolving that problem, because (1) it is a generic noticeboard for various issues that need resolving, (2) as some users have noted, there is not enough active participation there by the admins.

So my suggestion would be to add a new page where one can report violations of the Civility policy, or expand the scope of an existing page to serve that purpose.

02:54, 30 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

I'm afraid that's a bit of a "been there, done that": Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance. Cheers. DonIago (talk) 03:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

There's plenty of things from the Wikipedia of 2005 and 2012 that would not be considered applicable to today. I think it's worth trying again. 04:45, 30 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

ArbCom, the highest court in the land, already TBANs and SBANs people for being uncivil even when they are completely right content-wise, and in egregious cases (not going to name names) the community has also usually had the right answer when it was brought to ANI or AN. Civil POV-pushers are already among the biggest threats to the project without making their job easier. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:58, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

That's your opinion. The fact is, Wikipedia's "NPOV" is already biased to the left. It needs input from conservative/right wing editors, such as myself as well as newer editors, to return to truly being NPOV. 20:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

What does political ideology or NPOV have to do with this proposal? I thought that this was a proposal about civility issues? Hyperion35 (talk) 16:13, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

It is a proposal about civility. 聖やや explained that he opposes it because, in his opinion, "civil POV-pushers" are a greater threat than uncivil editors. I was explaining that that is just his opinion and in my opinion, some of the editors he calls "civil POV-pushers" are in fact trying to get Wikipedia to NPOV. So basically, this proposal per se is not about politics or NPOV, that was just a specific response to that user. 03:03, 2 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

Not all POVs are political, and only a small minority of political POVs can be attached to current US politics (clearly your main area of interest). I was referring to CurtisNaito (talk · contribs) and his ilk, most of which has nothing to do with what you call "left" and "right". (I will admit that there are some people in America, like the "America First" crowd, who see all viewpoints that are at all related to anything outside the United States as inherently left-wing unless they specifically involve the exploitation of resources in favour of the US military-industrial complex, but this view is irrelevant: by that logic all sides of the CurtisNaito disputes would be seen as left-wing.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:16, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, US politics is not my main area of interest. It's just the one that is most controversial on here. As disclosed on my user page, my main interests could be classified as generally being in transportation (aviation, roads, transit networks), universities (athletic conferences, other associations of universities), sports (the major North American sports plus a few more), etc. 04:08, 2 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

I would say that the most controversial area on Wikipedia (as in, among Wikipedians: I'm not counting anons and SPAs who don't actually contribute to the encyclopedia but come on here to violate WP:NOTFORUM) is electronic cigarettes, with other highly disputed topic areas being "diacritics" and "notability". The Israel-Palestine conflict is somewhere up there as well. "Post-1930 US politics" is too, but I don't think it's "the most controversial area on here" -- one might reach that conclusion if it were one's main area of editing interest, though. Again, you might also be interested in transport infrastructure (which, if you were going to claim it's not related to US politics, you picked an interesting time to do so[15]), but you didn't take my reference to civil POV-pushers as referring to transport, so it's hard to believe that it's as heavy on your mind as stuff like the fascist riot that took place in Washington six months ago. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:34, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

BTW, I would appreciate it if you would stop referring to me as "聖やや". It's not offensive to me that you thought I was Japanese, but it is offensive to me (as it should be to everyone) that anyone would think this was an insult, as with the dog-whistle-y "Pearl Harbor" stuff that was brought up completely out of the blue. (And "聖やや" is not my real name, nor is it even a real or possible Japanese name.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry but I'm not interested in continuing a discussion with an editor that wants me to be indefinitely blocked. So don't expect any substantial reply from me other than to correct something you said. For example, you are assuming that my use of the characters in your signature was intended to offend you. 04:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

I should probably note here that, shortly after TOA opened this thread, I pointed out elsewhere that last month TOA opposed a candidate at RFA because they were a former fascist -- not because they had been a fascist but specifically because they were no longer a fascist (technically I didn't point it out, but rather just linked to it and said it was "concerning"), and he responded by saying I must be a Nazi because where he comes from "88" is associated with Nazis (and therefore, I guess, people born on 8 August or in 1988 can't use that in their online handles without being accused of being Nazis...?). So, yeah, I guess "civility" is something TOA expects other users to grant him but sees no reason to make the slightest attempt to practice what he preaches. And honestly, his inserting politics into this is frankly bizarre: did he misread my completely right [i.e., correct] content-wise as referring to political leanings? That wouldn't even make sense... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:35, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

• There was also WP:RFC/U – Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct. That was closed down soon after WP:WQA, in 2014. The issue with both of those processes was that they lacked teeth. ANI and Arbcom have teeth – "nasty, big, pointy teeth" – which now dispatch high-profile cases such as RexxS.

The Teahouse is worth mentioning as a place where users can get advice about anything. Its branding suggests that it's a gentile place to have a nice cup of tea and a sit down but it's just a Q&A board like the help desk. For places where you can socialise, network and seek solace without people being rude to you, try meet-ups, editathons and chatrooms such as Discord. Such forums are much less adversarial and confrontational than Wikipedia and so are good sounding boards when editing seems stressful and unpleasant. And, as they are usually online currently, you can easily make your own cup of tea.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:17, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

• I'm sure that all of those can be helpful, but that doesn't mean that they always are. I have seen no evidence that meet-ups and editathons have been unhelpful, but have often seen discussions here that have obviously been canvassed on the Internet at places like IRC (which thankfully seems to be dead now for our purposes) and Discord. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:23, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

• For context: The owner of all has been frustrated in their repeated attempts to get me sanctioned for false claims of incivility and edit warring, ever since I reverted some clear POV pushing they engaged in a few months ago at Snopes. Thus far, the closest they've come to succeeding was when admins ignored their comments, and they've been threatened with a block more than once for WP:GAMING and WP:FORUMSHOPing. See here and here for examples. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:52, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Stop twisting things. It's not a violation of FORUMSHOP to report edit warring to the edit warring noticeboard and then report incivility to ANI. 20:00, 30 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

I'm not twisting anything. I explained in clear and factual terms exactly what happened and why, and I provided evidence. Stop campaigning to get me sanctioned. I note that you included one of these threads in your examples below, which only helps prove that you failed to take to heart the very clear warning Jayron gave you in that thread. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:29, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

MPants… “Do not feed” applies here. Just saying. Blueboar (talk) 12:35, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Blueboar You're right. And I did kinda need the reminder, thanks. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

That is yet another violation of WP:Civility and/or AGF, NPA, etc. Blueboar has implied that I am a troll. That is false, and I respectfully request that you please strike that statement. 23:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

• There used to be exactly this kind of dedicated noticeboard at Wikipedia: Administrators' noticeboard/Personal attacks. Didn't turn out to be a good idea. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 15:28, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
• TOA, if there isn’t enough admin participation at ANI, what makes you think there would be admin participation at a civility report page? Your idea would simply be doubling the number of pages admins have to watch. Blueboar (talk) 15:58, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
• As a very first step we would need some examples of where WP:ANI has failed in this, rather than just come to a conclusion that someone disagrees with, which it will do in nearly all cases as there has to be a disagreement before a case is heard there. It has certainly not been my experience that there is too little participation there by admins. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:04, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Here are some:
    • [16] Failure to sanction uncivil editor
    • [17] Failure to sanction anyone involved
    • [18] New editors evading a block to engage in harassment of another new editor, no one sanctioned
  • 20:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
    • • And what makes you think any of them would have reached different conclusions at a different noticeboard? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:58, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
        • If there were a noticeboard with less drama then the IP block evading harassers (IP of User:JilleeLean, User:LilleeJeanCloutChasingFraud, etc) might have been blocked. In fact the consensus had been that they deserved a block. I suspect that in that case they eased off of the harassment because they knew they had been reported. 03:08, 2 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
          • @The owner of all: - why do you think that a page dedicated to accusations of civility-breaches would "have less drama"? And do you have a reason to think that admin capacity on ANI is purely drama-linked? And what about non-admins, since outside of DS, admins only decide brightline cases, normally we just execute community consensus Nosebagbear (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Speaking of civility, who else around here is old enough to remember this? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:22, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

  RoySmith I work in the industry, and I assure you that most civil engineers are anything but. I've literally heard threats of violence in discussions about where to order lunch from.

  As for the commercial, I've never seen that one before today, but I remember asking my father what this was about and him telling me to ask my mother while chuckling under his breath. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:48, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

• For this to make a difference we would need the new noticeboard to get more attention to those issues than they get at ANI. Are there lots of people who would be interested in participating at this noticeboard who don't participate at ANI? Furthermore it would only make sense if these cases are where the sole issue is incivility, if incivility is combined with other forms of disruptive editing (edit warring, harassment, POV pushing, etc) then it's probably best handled at a noticeboard which deals with all the issues rather than just one. Hut 8.5 18:02, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
• In my pre-admin days I worked WQA quite a bit. It did work sometimes, and I liked the idea that al we were doing was trying to talk it out withut the threat of blocking looming over everything, but a rather high percentage of cases there ended up just being a stepping stone to ANI anyway. I don't see any reason to expect anything different from this idea, and the OP is rather openly asking for this to make it easier for them to push their POV,so that kind of taints the entire proposal. In one of the discussions they link to as evidence that this is needed someone told them "If those are your standards for intolerable incivility, you're probably going to have a difficult time working with other people in all aspects of life. " and i think that's probably something they should ponder. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:33, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I've already stated that I don't deny the statement about having a difficult time working with other people in all aspects of life. 23:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
• ANI just seems like it's already the appropriate place to handle this, and it already does. After all, aren't most ANI discussions closed with a note that says something along the lines of This appears to be a content dispute best settled by RfC on the article talk page. Editor1 is advised to remember to seek consensus for controversial edits. Editor2 is TBANNED indefinitely for edit-warring. Editor3 is blocked for a week for calling Editor1's mother a prostitute, in violation of WP:UNCIVIL? Hyperion35 (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
• This proposal is a time sink and, as others have already mentioned above, proposed with the undercurrent of an ideological bent. In any case, I agree that civil POV-pushing is a bigger problem in the grand scheme of civility enforcement.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:54, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• For those concerned about POV pushing, it isn't an all or nothing issue. Civil POV pushing can be dealt with by civil NPOV editors. And in a case of a dispute between a civil POV pusher and an incivil editor, the POV pusher can be sanctioned for POV pushing while the incivil editor gets sanctioned for incivility. TOA The owner of all ☑️ 15:58, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• At best, this would be yet another drama board, requiring admins to watch yet another page, sucking up even more time with procedural matters: "This should have been filed at the Civility noticeboard instead of AN/I" (or DRN, or AIV, or whatever). We don't need to facilitate forum-shopping. XOR'easter (talk) 22:03, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not entirely sure what problem TOA is trying to solve here, but I'm sure the solution isn't another noticeboard. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:56, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia Talk:No personal attacks § Adding spirituality as a group of people that shouldn't be targeted by personal attacks. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 06:58, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello!

I ran into a couple of unsourced BLP articles (i.e. Kev Hopper) and proposed them for deletion via Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people. I noticed that they had authority control templates, but that was it. The BLPPROD templates were later removed on the grounds that authority control counts as sources in the same way that external links would. While this reasoning makes sense, authority control is pulling links from Wikidata. The Wikipedia page source code only shows {authority control} and nothing else, so in my mind, the Wikipedia page itself contains no sources in any form. That's the disconnect for me.

Whether authority control makes BLPPROD ineligible or not, I think it should be explicitly specified in the policy to avoid this confusion again, such as "adding article contains no sources in any form (as references, external links, authority control identifiers, etc.)". Mbdfar (talk) 19:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• This is ridiculous, authority control is not a substitute for sources. In the case of the particular article, you mentioned the "source" in the authority control is unreliable anyway (see WP:UGC). The BLPPROD template clearly states Once the article has at least one reliable source, you may remove this tag., yet it was removed even though there are no reliable sources anywhere in the article including the authority control template.--Rusf10 (talk) 19:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, GB fan would have been in his right to remove the tag if authority control does count for sourcing. Per the policy, "to place a BLPPROD tag, the process requires that the article contains no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc.) which support any statements made about the person in the biography. Please note that this is a different criterion than the one used for sources added after the correct placement of the tag." So if the authority control does count for sourcing (no matter the reliability), I would have placed BLPPROD incorrectly as the page would have been ineligible. Mbdfar (talk) 19:14, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• 100% agreement with Rusf10 here. The authority control listed at Kev Hopper links back to a database of user generated content, and even if the content were editorially controlled, that would not in any way establish notability, as there's no bar for inclusion that roughly translates to GNG. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

MPants at work, Rusf10; Right, but you guys are missing the point of this discussion. My apologies for being unclear. This is not an argument about subject notability, nor about the reliability of sources. This is about WP:BLPPROD. BLPPROD states that "to place a BLPPROD tag, the process requires that the article contains no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) " For example, BLPPROD is invalid on an article that has so much as a link to a tweet. My question is whether pre-existing authority control identifiers qualify as a source contained in the article. In other words, is an article BLPPROD eligible if it has a valid authority control identifier? The policy should be made clear. Mbdfar (talk) 22:32, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

No it isn't, because "To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) supporting any statements made about the person in the biography". In the case of Kev Hopper, the AC link (which is to MusicBrainz) does not support any statement mde in the prose of the article. And even if it did, it's not a reliable source, which makes me wonder why we bother with it. Black Kite (talk) 22:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Black Kite, if I may ask a follow-up question; If an AC link DOES support a statement made in the prose of the article, would you consider it a valid "source" (thus rendering the article BLPPROD ineligible)? Take the page Jorge Niosi for example. He has many identifiers that support his birthdate, nationality, and publications. Would you consider this page BLPPROD immune? Mbdfar (talk) 22:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The AC link definitely does support material in the biography -- it verifies an item on his discography, and by having a discography, it verifies that he's a musician. Is it a reliable source? Probably not, but that is not (and should not be) a requirement for preventing BLPROD, which is meant to wipe the most blatant cases. If this concern about AC and BLPROD is something that arises frequently, then yes, it should be added explicitly to the BLPROD descriptor. If this is a rare case, then probably not worth the hassle. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The AC link verifies nothing because its NOT reliable. (WP:V is about using reliable sources) A source that is not reliable does not count. Otherwise, someone could just create an article and link to their own blog to circumvent BLPPROD.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

But BLPPROD does say reliable or otherwise, so someone could circumvent it that way. JoelleJay (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

A source that is not reliably absolutely counts for making the BLPROD illegitimate. Per WP:BLPROD, "The requirements can be summed up as: only add a BLPPROD if there are no sources in any form that support any statement made about the person in the article, but once (properly) placed, it can only be removed if a reliable source is added." If you want to change the core of BLPROD, that's a much larger discussion to have. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

There are alternatives to get rid of pages with only unreliable sources such as speedy delete, prod, or AFD, so no need to be concerned about gaming the system. Unreliable sources need more examination to see if they are, so not great for fast deletion of articles based on that. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Authority Control should be considered valid for external links, provided that (as far as we can tell, after the fact) the link in question was actually there when the tag was added. 147.161.12.57 (talk) 06:21, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Mbdfar, I wholeheartedly concur with Black Kite's response to this comment. The AC template is not, and should not be considered a source. It is an index which allows one to find data on the subject, but it doesn't guarantee the existence or relevance of said data. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:23, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• I would agree that the AC template, on its own, is not enough to prevent a PROD... however... it does link us to an index of potential sources that should be reviewed prior to a PROD (per WP:BEFORE). If it is likely that one of those potential sources could support information in the article, then don’t prod... go directly to AFD if you wish to question/challenge notability. Blueboar (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The question is not is the AC template enough to prevent a PROD. The question concerns WP:BLPPROD. The BLPPROD policy says that any source, reliable or not, on the article that supports any information in the article makes it ineligible for BLPROD. If we have this scenario:

1. We have a BLP.
2. The BLP has ((authority control)) in its source code.
3. In the authority control template that renders on the article there are link(s).
4. In at least one of the links there is some piece of information that is also in the article.

Is this enough to make this BLP ineligible for BLPPROD? ~ GB fan 13:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

GB fan, I would say that depends entirely on whether or not the information in that link exists and meets our standards for reliability. In the example listed above, it clearly does not do the latter. If there's a case where it does... Well, I think that such cases should be discussed, which probably puts me on your side of things for those cases. In general though, the presence or absence of an authority control template on a page should not be a factor in dealing with BLPROD. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Exactly... Do due diligence BEFORE prodding. First check the potential sources linked through the AC template. If any of them could be cited in the article, then PROD is probably not appropriate. But if none are usable, then go ahead and prod (and mention that you checked AC and found no viable sources). Remember that PROD is for clear cut cases. If there is any doubt, don’t PROD. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

MPants at work: Why should an AC link be treated any differently than any other external link when it comes to BLPROD -- i.e., if it contains any of the information in the article, even if it's not reliable, then BLPROD is not allowed? If there's some reason, that would seem an exception that would have to be built into BLPROD, which it currently is not. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:43, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

NatGertler, because there's no guarantee that it will contain any information at all, let alone any information that's in the article.Just because something's indexed in a database doesn't mean there's any data attached to that index. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

MPants at work, so it sounds like we should treat it like any other external link. Merely having an external link doesn't void a BLPROD. "To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) supporting any statements made about the person in the biography." An AC link that supports statements in the bio would seem to fit quite nicely into the "etc." in that, if not simply as an "external link". I'm still not seeing the "but not Authority Control" exception in this. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:09, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• snicker* good luck with that. The wikidata crowd dont want it treated as an external link because then it would be subject to WP:EL and its content being removed in many cases. The solution to this is to alter BLPPROD to allow BLPRODing of articles that do not contain references/sources. External links or templates are not a consideration if something can be prodded based on the sourcing, because they are not sources or references. Just remove the wording that is causing this. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:17, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

the "but not Authority Control" exception for me (which lead me to starting this discussion) is that the AC links are hosted on Wikidata, not Wikipedia. The links on Wikidata can be changed or removed without leaving a changelog on Wikipedia. I think this is important in a BLP context. The Wikipedia page itself hosts no external links or sources, which lead me to interpreting BLPPROD this way. Mbdfar (talk) 16:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the distinction of whether data/link content is stored on Wikidata or on Wikipedia is particularly useful to make. We use images from Commons in our articles all the time although that means we don't have local control over changes. In the case at hand, had someone turned the AC template into a MusicBrainz link would not have made the situation any better, or any worse. —Kusma (talk) 18:52, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• NatGertler, Merely having an external link doesn't void a BLPROD. I agree, and believe that merely having an AC template should not void a BLPROD.

An AC link that supports statements in the bio would seem to fit quite nicely into the "etc." in that, if not simply as an "external link". Yes, hence why I said above that it's worth discussing in those cases. I agree with Blueboar that checking the AC links should be normal due diligence for BLPRODing an article. I also assert that double-checking the AC links should be part of the normal due diligence for removing a BLPROD. Finally, I also agree with Only in death below that external links should not be included in the criteria at WP:BLPROD. There should be actual sources to void it, not simply external links. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• As I understand it, BLPPROD uses bright line rules. The Musicbrainz link was present in the article (doesn't matter whether through AC or directly), so the article wasn't a BLPPROD candidate. However, the link doesn't verify anything useful, and I can't find sources that support much other than #REDIRECT [[Stump (band)]]. I would support strengthening BLPPROD to require presence of a reliable source/a reliable xlink before use, that would make adding and removing the BLPPROD follow the same rules. —Kusma (talk) 15:53, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Are there any serious objections to redirecting? We still have this unsourced BLP to take care of... —Kusma (talk) 18:54, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

If only we had a clear cut policy to take care of unsourced BLPs ;)

Jk, I think a redirect is rational. Mbdfar (talk) 04:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

The current version of WP:BLPPROD is, if there is any source in the article, whether it is reliable or not, and that source supports any statement in the article, the article can not be BLPPROD'd. So an external link to the BLP's personal self published website that supports some statement in the article makes the article ineligible for BLPPROD. Going back to the article that was mentioned in the first post in this section, Kev Hopper. It has an authority control template with one link. That link goes to musicbrainz.org. The musicbrainz page says that Kev Hopper released an album called Stolen Jewels in 1990. The first entry in the list of Solo albums in the Kev Hopper article says that he released Stolen Jewels in 1990. So we have an external link that supports information in the article. Under the current version of BLPPROD, is this eligible for a BLPPROD? ~ GB fan 17:51, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• Not eligible. —Kusma (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Ignoring for the moment, the unreliability of that database, I don't think the name & release year of an album really rises to the level of being considered a source here, else one could just as validly point to the article's name as being sourced to the AC link. I'd want to see some substantial facts in the AC link, not just a single datum that does nothing to really tell us anything about the subject. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:22, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• If you determine that a subject is not notable then just use a different procedure to propose/nominate it for deletion. The BLPPROD procedure is simply something that was introduced in the midst of a moral panic when some disruptive editors, egged on by Jimmy Wales, thought that it was more urgent to delete unsourced articles that said "Joe Bloggs is a footballer who plays for Anytown United" than to delete genuine BLP violations, which often cite loads of sources. Please let's think about things, rather than blindly follow procedures. I'm still convinced that the difference between what is valid for placing a BLPPROD tag and what is valid for removing it was a simple accident of wording caused by the rush to put something in place, rather than the philosphical talking point beloved of Wikilawyers that it seems to have become. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to adjust the policy wording to include "authority control"

I propose that we update the policy to read To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, authority control links, etc., reliable or otherwise) –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. I've had one of my BLP prods declined for this before, and it was not intuitive to me. I think it needs to be explicitly stated. I don't have an opinion on whether authority control should count or not, I just want to make sure that if this is the de facto standard, that it is stated clearly in the policy. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support, seems I've made a mountain out of a molehill, huh? I echo everything stated above. Mbdfar (talk) 03:51, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• There are good arguments above for this. Namely that BLPPROD is a special circumstance, PROD is still available, and authority control does imply potential. That said, what about just a link to a google search for the subject's name? The idea of a "source" implies to me that it could in some way have been intended as a source for the text of the article. That is, it was added to support material in the article, even if it happened to be added as an external link, etc. That seems unlikely for authority control... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for your comment. The policy currently states "sources in any form, reliable or otherwise". Seems to me like any source or link invalidates the use of BLPPROD. If we wanted to discuss making the application of BLPPROD broader (having some links be "so bad" that they don't count as links, essentially), maybe we could start a second proposal. I have some opinions on this, but I'd prefer to discuss them in a different section, since at its heart it is a different proposal. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not so sure "sources" applies to absolutely any link on the page. Again, what about just a link to a google search? It makes more sense to interpret this as "if someone used a source but only included it as an external link rather than a citation, that's still a source" rather than "any link=source". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support only if a strengthening of BLPPROD does not pass. This proposal is a useful clarification that may save us pointless discussion in the future, but "BLPs must have a reliable source or be eligible for BLPPROD" might be a better approach overall. —Kusma (talk) 10:03, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support Makes sense. Perhaps have authority control in between 'references' and 'external links'? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  People !voting below seem to ignore the fact that AC provides a demonstration of notability (the example given isn't a good one, since MusicBrainz often isn't seen as a reliable source - but, say, the British Library?), and that the policy already includes 'external links' not only references/citations. Mike Peel (talk) 16:34, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

  The problem is exactly that, that authority control links include random databases like MusicBrainz (quite why anyone would want to link to a database written by people who are doubly illiterate, in that they both don't know how to separate words and can't spell, is beyond me) as well as very reliable links like the British Library. I had always thought that authority control was about verifying that sources were about the same subject, but that goal seems to have been subverted on Wikipedia into being about any database that refers to a particular name, whether that is the same subject or not, and whether the database is in any way reliable or not. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:50, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - A database of potential sources is not itself a viable source. The sources linked through AC may or may not invalidate a BLPPROD... but we don’t know without checking them before Prodding. I would also remove the “or otherwise” in the parenthetical - but that may require a second RFC. Blueboar (talk) 11:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose An authority control link is not a source. The language regarding external links is quite clearly to permit sourcing that's not properly cited, a common mistake by new editors. But any editor capableof implementing an AC template with the link, is capable of making proper cites. Given that an AC link doesn't guarantee to contain any info beyond the name of a subject... There's no reason to treat it like a source. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

We can not even assume that the AC template was added by a human editor. It might have been added by bot, with no one checking to see if any of the potential sources are actually viable. Blueboar (talk) 10:28, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Damn good point, this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:03, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Authority Control in some cases (including the one above) does not even use reliable sources. If anything we need to improve the quality of sources being used for BLPs.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:25, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - authority control is not a reliable source. Levivich 15:04, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  NOTE that BLPPROD does not (currently) require sources to be reliable to negate the PROD. Even the presence of unreliable sources can do so. (We can change that requirement if we want to, but that is a different question from what is being asked).

  The more fundamental problem is that Authority Control isn’t a source, but merely a generated list of databases in which potential sources might (or might not) be found. Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  Good point, thanks. I updated my !vote. Levivich 21:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I think the wording's confusing about what constitutes a "source." An authority control is not a source. It could be a source, but it would need to support content in the article. We include "external link" because we have several different ways of referencing which new editors may be unfamiliar with, and may use direct links as a source - those words exist to not punish those users. SportingFlyer T·C 21:26, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – a source, by definition, is something that the author relied upon in writing the article. Authority control, by definition, is a navigation tool. That's really all there is to it. Authority control templates are means by which someone could hypothetically find reliable sources in the future. They are not sources in and of themselves, any more than ((BLP unsourced)) is a source because it contains links to search engines that might hypothetically find reliable sources. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose AC is a link to potential sources, it is not a source itself and does not satisfy sourcing requirements for articles. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:51, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose AC is basically WP:ITEXISTS. It's not a source and cannot be used to support any form of content in an article, thus if a BLP article only has an AC template somewhere then it still is unsourced since the provided "source" is not actually supporting any of the material in the article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:04, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose changing the wording because sometimes AC links verify information in the entry and other times they don’t, as discussed at length above. And for what it’s worth, if they do verify info (even unreliably), to me that’s a source that renders the entry ineligible for BLPPROD. But this morass is a great example of why I would support WP:TNT for the whole process. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support. If there is an authority control link that verifies anything in the article then it is ineligible for BLP-prod regardless of the reliability or otherwise of the authority control information. If you want to change the requirements of BLP-prod so that sources must be reliable and/or explicitly link to some particular statement then you need to get consensus to do that first. Thryduulf (talk) 19:59, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, AC is not a source, reliable or not. Cavalryman (talk) 21:36, 13 June 2021 (UTC).
• Oppose. AC is not even intended to be a source, let alone a reliable one. This seems to be more of an attempt to subvert the intention of the policy to me. Risker (talk) 00:59, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose AC is not a source, period.Jackattack1597 (talk) 18:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose AC is not a reliable source. It does not demonstrate notability (ORCID exists for most academics), it does not necessarily demonstrate existence (VIAF has many bogus entries) or reliably prove any claim (VIAF has sometimes wrong birth dates and gender). MarioGom (talk) 06:51, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose AC is not a source. -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 15:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose AC is not a source, and it violates existing policy anyway (WP:NOTLINK & WP:EL). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:31, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - seems incredibly lazy to think that adding a template suddenly makes an article not suitable for PROD. Authority control is not, and never will be a substitute for a source. How is it any different from having a wikidata link with parameters? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:47, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Alternative proposal to explicitly exclude authority control as a source

I alternatively propose the following wording: To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise). Authority control and any templates with the same function do not count as a source for the purpose of determining BLPPROD eligibilityJackattack1597 (talk) 18:07, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support. I support any attempt to clarify the BLPPROD page. Doesn't matter to me whether authority control counts as a source or not, as long as whether it counts or not is stated somewhere on that page. The proposal above this one is trending toward authority control not counting, so I support adding this proposal's wording or something similar. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:37, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support per above. Mbdfar (talk) 02:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Alternative proposal to give BLPPROD teeth

Articles should be eligible for BLPPROD if they have no reliable sources. The rules for adding and removing the BLP prod tag should be symmetric: BLPs should be eligible for sticky BLP PROD if and only if they have no reliable sources. One reliable source for any statement in the article is enough. —Kusma (talk) 21:47, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support The current process is confusing, in that it can only be BLPRODDED if it has no sources, but the tag can only be removed if a reliable source is added. Jackattack1597 (talk) 00:48, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support - The current state of affairs is that an obviously unacceptable source, such as IMDb, effectively blocks a BLPPROD. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 01:04, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support if "reliable" (or "unreliable") is more clearly defined. I could definitely see BLPPRODs being contested based on disagreements over whether a particular obscure source is reliable. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
• Conditional support - if there is a good faith disagreement about and/or it is unclear whether a source is or is not "reliable" and/or whether a source supports any particular statement, then the article is not eligible for BLP prod. Thryduulf (talk) 23:42, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose -- unneeded. There are plenty of deletion procedures, this one is intentionally a minimalist one, and allows the original placement to be done without arguing over whether a source is reliable. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:56, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

  The procedure already only allows the tag to be removed when a reliable source is added. —Kusma (talk) 08:23, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Yes, but that's a much rare situation to be dealt with. BLPROD is intended to be an easy sweep for a large amount of absolute junk articles on which there was not even an attempt to source. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:25, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support – BLPs are too important to play fast and loose with. A reliable source is a minimum for writing something about a living person and posting it on the fifth-most-visited website and (almost always) the top Google search result. I'd support a rule like "clearly reliable source" or even "WP:GNG source" or requiring two such sources or three, but just adding "reliable" to "source" is a good start. We really can't overdo it when it comes to requiring that our BLPs are well-sourced so as to meet our V, NPOV, and BLP policies. And it's really irresponsible of us to allow people to create BLPs with anything less than solid sourcing. BLPs have to be the area where we are strictest about sourcing. Levivich 13:35, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
  • The current presumption is "don't delete it unless it's clearly unsourced." That should be reversed for BLPs: delete it immediately unless it's clearly properly sourced. I can go create a page about Levivich based on some shoddy (even user generated) source, and it'll be live for at least a week before it gets deleted at AFD. During that week it may get indexed and mirrored. That's almost outrageous to me. I can't imagine why the rule for BLPs isn't a very hard "proper sources first, then article - no article without proper sourcing." I truly don't understand how anyone can think the benefits of not deleting outweigh the risks of not deleting, or that the potential for improvement is more important than the potential for harm. (And I don't understand why we leave BLPs live while we discuss whether they should remain live. BLPs should at least be in draftspace unless they're clearly properly sourced, e.g. two obvious GNG sources. /rant.) Levivich 19:08, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• The problematic phrase here is the parenthetical “reliable or otherwise”… this implies that a non-reliable source is enough to negate a BLPPROD. I would require reliable sources.

That said, WP:BEFORE needs to be factored in to any prod. For a prod to be successful, there has to be a reasonable belief that no reliable sources exist, not just that no reliable sources are currently cited in the article.

To tie this into the discussion re authority control: Authority control is not a source. So… a link to it is not (on its own) sufficient to cancel a prod. However, authority control does point to potential sources… and it is those sources that need to be reviewed and checked for reliability BEFORE prodding. Due diligence is required. Blueboar (talk) 14:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per the RFC at Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_deletion_of_biographies_of_living_people/Archive_7#RfC:_Articles_with_only_IMDb_references_eligible_for_BLPPROD?, which resoundingly rejected a weaker version of this proposal (and all the other times this has been raised at WT:BLPPROD). There will never be agreement on which kinds of sources are reliable or not, so the best thing is to treat all sources equally for BLPPROD purposes. The existence of BLPPROD doesn't stop WP:PROD (easier to add) or WP:AFD (harder to remove) from being used. Iffy★Chat -- 17:03, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  OK, so let's recap: If an article has an IMDB link via Authority Control as only source, it is eligible for BLPPROD per the above. If it is a direct IMDB link, it is not eligible for BLPPROD per the discussion you just mentioned. However, if a BLPPROD is placed on an article with IMDB-via-AC, adding the direct IMDB link is not enough to remove the BLPPROD. Could we, perhaps, simplify this process to remove special cases? Or we could just get rid of it. —Kusma (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  Assuming the above discussions is a consensus for the notion that authority control isn't a source, then yes; because in the case of the direct IMDB link, someone added the IMDB link with the intention of using it as a source of some kind and therefore the article is not unsourced. In the case of the AC-derived IMDB link, Adding the IMDB link directly doesn't defeat a validly placed BLPPROD because IMDB is not a reliable source. BLPPROD was designed to get rid of unsourced BLPs, not poorly sourced BLPs. Iffy★Chat -- 18:50, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Iffy, WP:PROD already exists, if something uncontroversially fails WP:GNG use it, if that is contested, AFD exists. W42 17:33, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• Ehhhhh The goal of BLPPROD is to avoid having to make judgement calls about whether sources are reliable or not, considering other alternatives to deletion exist. I completely agree with the sentiment here, though. SportingFlyer T·C 18:31, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. As stated above we have plenty of other deletion procedures that can be used if no sources are available for a subject. This procedure was only introduced because we had several editors, egged on by Jimmy Wales, who seemed to think that deleting perfectly innocuous articles that could be sourced in seconds took precedence over fixing genuine WP:BLP violations, which often have loads of sources. It was a case of "something must be done", "this is something", so "this must be done". A form of reasoning that seems to have taken hold here. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:40, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• So in your PoV BLPPROD should just be replaced with AfD? —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 19:32, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• It's not about "replacing" anything. This is the new kid on the block when it comes to deletion procedures. We have speedy deletion and WP:PROD as well as AfD. No deletion procedure takes any longer than BLPPROD. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:35, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Judging whether a source is reliable in a given context is not necessarily obvious. The place for such discussions is AfD. , not the judgment of a single admin. DGG ( talk ) 17:57, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Why often name from article name isn't the first one so hypothetically it is: "A web search engine, commonly known as search engine is (...)" instead of "A search engine, also known as web search engine is (...)" in search engine? It is proposed example but there are also different examples. Eurohunter (talk) 14:34, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Always start with the thing from the page title and then list the also known as things. Did the page get renamed at some point? The page probably should be called web search engine — a search engine can search things that are not on the web ... — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 15:12, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: I thought it's logical but unfortunatelly opposit way is popular~and thing above just was proposed by someone... Eurohunter (talk) 20:37, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

My interpretation of the MOS:BOLDLEAD guidelines is that there is no strict preference one way or the other. Yes, the example on the general MOS:BOLDSYN guideline lists the article title first, but it is not specific on which order to use. So, you get consensus on topic-specific guidelines like MOS:PSEUDONYM and WP:NCCORP#First sentence to list the official, legal or technical name first. And therefore you get articles like Lady Gaga that begins with her legal name of Stefani Germanotta, and like Chase Bank that begins with its legal name of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. On the other hand, WP:MILMOS#CODESTYLE says the opposite and that the Normandy landings page should list the alternative name of Operation Neptune later in the first sentence. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:40, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The WP:COMMONNAME is not always the official name, or the one that makes sense to use. I don't see this as a problem, really. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I think having a policy that says that an indefinite ban is defacto infinite is currently what we have and runs counter what Wikipedia is about. For example, I'm currently tbanned and one way ibanned, and in my appeal I noted how I acknowledged the reason for it, but it's been ages without incident and should be looked at. Those opposing said that "it's working now, why change?" Which is like telling someone in prison that they haven't committed any crimes in prison so why let them out? Right now it's very difficult to overturn an indefinite ban of any sort and I do think there should be a limit on the length of an iban or tban without explicit community action, or behavior that warrants it. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

How many years? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:16, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

• There shouldn't any inherent sunset clause, since many individuals don't seem to improve, and therefore they'd just time out their sanction. Given you've been blocked repeatedly, including 3 times in 2019, that could well apply to you. I do agree that I get annoyed that individuals use "well clearly it's working in various TBAN and IBAN appeals, so we should leave it" as a justification, without suggesting what concrete steps they'd accept as sufficient evidence of improvement for an appeal, as it functionally makes changing or eliminating the sanction impossibly unfair. But a flick through your talk page for the last 2 years makes me concerned that you would not act as an ideal example of this, and this is more a proxy method of getting around its limitations Nosebagbear (talk) 00:43, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• First off, prison metaphors are never helpful. A restriction from taking certain actions on a single website is not comparable to being stripped of your rights as a citizen and locked up in a facility that dictates every aspect of your life. As to the actual issue: while I agree that "it's working so why get rid of it" is not the most helpful comment, I don't know how anyone is supposed to know the magic time frame after which someone will be able to exhibit the necessary self-control sufficient to prevent them from doing whatever it was that got them so restricted. If we did automatic expiry on tbans or ibans, and the person has not changed, that creates needless drama and they'll just end up sanctioned again. So, as a general idea this is just not good. Since you bring up your specific case, your block log and talk history shows multiple instances of violating said bans, and doubling down when blocked, resulting in loss of talk page access. For someone like that it should be difficult to overturn a valid topic or interaction ban. The vast majority of Wikipedia editors are under no individual restrictions of any kind, maybe consider why it is that you were so restricted in the first place, and work on that instead of trying to change policy so you don't have to. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:06, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  I never violated the IBAN I requested to remove. As for my history, we have admins mixing up bans and topics and when I said "let it rest" a rogue admin came in and took away my talk page access, and then when I sought clarification from OTRS how letting it rest is considered being disruptive, that said admin denied the request. So as to why things happen, it's because this place is toxic with bad admins running around, That's why I don't edit as much. All that has nothing to do with my request that indefinite should not be infinite without proof of it being needed. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:16, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  This is the explanation you were given when your talk page access was removed. Since you are still making unfounded accusations against people, and calling this place "toxic" rather than evaluating your own contribution to that environment, I recommend rereading and considering Swarm's advice.

  As for the broader topic at hand, bans should remain in place until the community is convinced that the potential for disruption has been mitigated. At the time a ban is placed there is usually no way to know when that will be. In your particular case, judging from your comments here, the answer is clearly "not yet". – bradv🍁 17:47, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  As I posted on my talkpage, ". I'm OK with leaving this site for a month, I'm just upset over the toxicity of ANI and how I was railroaded, IMO." That is clearly not disruptive, and certainly not disruptive enough for TP revocation and certainly not to be dismissed by the same admin who took it away. Certainly not unfounded.

  Regardless, none of that is about the IBAN which I haven't violated, and the reasons given were "it seems to work, so let's just keep it. I will wait for people that don't automatically see my name and decide a certain way before taking away my claim that this place is toxic. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:59, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  If people are mixing up which of your restrictions you violated, that says something about you that you might want to consider as, again, the vast majority of users are never subject to even one such ban, let alone a small pile of them. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:25, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  By small pile you mean two, right? And again, this isn't necessarily about me but about a policy that makes indefinite into infinite. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:59, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

  User:Sir Joseph - This may seem like a stupid question, but I will ask it anyway. If you characterize Wikipedia as toxic and think that it has rogue admins, why is it so important to you that your restrictions be lifted? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:04, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

  I agree that WP:ANI can be a very unpleasant forum. It is especially unpleasant for editors who bring their toxicity with them. But editors who think that Wikipedia is as toxic or as corrupt as you seem to think it is tend not to last very long. You have survived much longer than most editors who have been comparably negative. But why do you want to be here if that is your opinion? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:04, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

  The standard offer is always available though, as I read this thread, the OP is nowhere close to being able to use it. There are too many examples of editors who simply waited out their block or ban and resumed their toxic behavior once they expired or were lifted. MarnetteD|Talk 04:15, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

  Pretty much what Beeblebrox said. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:47, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

  User:Sir Joseph - I have some advice that you probably don't want. If you want the partial bans lifted, the best thing to do is to stop complaining about the alleged toxicity of Wikipedia and about the behavior of rogue admins. This does not mean that being quiet will end those restrictions, but it does mean that being noisy means that, at a minimum, the existing bans will be left in place. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

• Disagree Indef puts the onus where it ought to be, on the offender, who needs to convince others it ought to be lifted.Selfstudier (talk) 13:33, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
• Why would we allow a TBAN or an IBAN to expire without any indication that the user accepts what they did wrong and will not repeat their behaviour? This makes no sense. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:10, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Because sanctions are preventative not punitive and there is no connection between a person "accepting what they did was wrong" (what the heck does that even mean?) and a person not doing it again. Levivich 14:18, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
    • There's no connection? Really? If someone doesn't understand why they were banned in the first place, they aren't more likely to repeat? Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:29, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
      • "Understand why they were banned in the first place" is not the same as "accept what they did was wrong" and neither are the same as, or even connected to, "will not do it again." Levivich 16:06, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

• Disagree. I don't think it would be a good idea to allow potentially disruptive editors to simply wait out the clock until the sanction expires. We need to trust the community to exercise good judgment and repeal sanctions when the time is right. Sanctioned editors should have to demonstrate publicly that they have changed the way that they edit, and if so the community will gain confidence that the problems won't recur. ErinRC (talk) 05:44, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
• It depends on the reason for the ban; for example if a ban is imposed because an editor was involved in a dispute with an administrator over that administrator's actions on two occasions then opposed that administrator's request for additional rights should that be infinite? Particularly when it wasn't all one way. There are also the two-way bans: if one editor is unlikely to be disruptive should they remain under restrictions because of the other editors behaviour? Peter James (talk) 13:18, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
• @Sir Joseph: Do you know what an indefinite ban means? If it is Arbcom-imposed, it means infinite until successfully appealed to the committee. If it was imposed by the community, it means infinite until successfully appealed to the community. If you want your bans to be removed, don't bring a blizzard of WP:SNOW, appeal them! 🏳️‍🌈 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 11:04, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I dealt with / tried to help "recovering" editors (usually recovering from not yet understanding that Wikipedia is different than most other forums and places). What needs to factored in here is that asking to come back or get a restriction removed can be an unnecessarily difficult and random process, and sometimes (when it was overkill) requiring the editor to be disingenuous. I think that something like a 2 year automatic sunset clause would be good and reasonable in both directions including for IBans and TBans. North8000 (talk) 12:52, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

There is no "requirement" to be disingenuous. If an editor is in a situation where being disingenuous is the only way to continue editing, they're currently not welcome to do so. Of course, the community may be unable to enforce a ban, but this doesn't make the banning process a problem by itself. A site ban is a formal exclusion from the community that is enforced where possible, but valid without enforcement as well. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

To get a sanction removed sometimes requires a person to be disingenuous. For example where the decision was actually a bad or overkill one made unilaterally by an admin. A disingenuous 100% Mea Culpa with no mention of those issues is typically the only way to come back.North8000 (talk) 22:28, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

• I agree regarding interaction bans. The rule should be that a first IBAN expires after a year, and the second one is permanent. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:54, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Disagree Indefinite is not limitless and only imposed to prevent disruption. They're always lifted after the community is convinced that the disruption won't continue. If TBANs always have an ending date automatically, the guilty party could easily retire or stop editing entirely when the BAN comes into effect, only to return when the BAN expires to continue their disruption. Best, —Nnadigoodluck███ 04:24, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

  That's not the case I am talking about. Assume a person gets an IBAN and continues editing Wikipedia without incident. That IBAN should have a sunset date. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:40, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

Hallo, I'm sure I often read about cornering the system as a bad sin, consisting in twisting the rules around until I can bypass them or maybe in beating the system with its own means but I cannot find the relevant policy page or any link whatsoever. Is my memory tricking me? Thank you 2003:F5:6F0E:7300:C1D5:F373:C240:349C (talk) 19:28, 13 July 2021 (UTC) Marco Pb

Are you talking about Wikilawyering? CapitalSasha ~ talk 19:33, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Or Wikipedia:Gaming the system? Anomie⚔ 21:19, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, so it was gaming, not cornering, the system. 2003:F5:6F0E:7300:A888:2AFF:3DDC:4842 (talk) Marco PB

Discussion at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard § Archive.org hosting of copyrighted material indicates that there is an apparent need for wider discussion.

The problem: Open Library (OL) provides unlicensed access to copyrighted works despite protests by numerous rights holder organizations. Currently, a lawsuit by several large publishers over this matter is pending.

Wikipedia has tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of links to such holdings of OL, either directly or via WP:Book sources in conjunction with ((ISBN)).

The guideline WP:COPYVIOEL states editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception [...] material that violates the copyrights of others}

The policy WP:COPYLINK states if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work (my emphasis)

I maintain that

• The current contested status of OL's practice of lending copyrighted works constitutes reasonable suspicion.
• We therefore have to delete links to copyrighted works.

Seeing as several editors have protested this view, a few questions arise:

1. Is Open Library's practice "reasonably suspect" according to WP:COPYLINK? Does it apply?
2. If WP:COPYLINK does apply, should offending links to OL be removed on sight, or is it ok to risk letting them stand?
3. Should WP:COPYLINK be changed to make the same exception that is currently made for archived web pages?

Paradoctor (talk) 06:15, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Ummmmm... before we get too far into an actual policy discussion, it should be clear that non-Wayback content provided by Internet Archive includes both links to "OpenLibrary.org" and links to "archive.org".

I will not pretend to understand the details of the distinction between these two, but both of them provide links to material that is "in-copyright". So referring to "OL" is generally confusing unless you are intending to exclude the non-Wayback archive.org links.

There is also the fact that WP:Book sources will provide OL links if available, when you click on the book identifier (e.g. ISBN) and then select the "Open Library" option. Fabrickator (talk) 09:11, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Relevant prior discussion: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 159#Stop InternetArchiveBot from linking books Anomie⚔ 11:24, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Ok, there are ongoing RfCs about the series boxes for US Presidents and series boxes for VPs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Presidents. I am helping get the word out and have already placed the RFC notices at Talk:Abraham Lincoln, Talk:JFK, Talk George Washington, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics/American politics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Presidents, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States. I need some feedback from experienced editors if notices should be placed on all the US Pres & VP main bio articles.
Other than the ones I've already placed a notice on, that will be almost 90 articles and I really don't want to get some kind of CANVAS notice when I am just trying to do the right thing...but then again I don't want slews of editors to come in afterwards and not know about it. I want to make a good-faith effort to let any and all interested editors know about these RfCs. So advice please. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 15:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Shearonink, by posting this question, everyone now knows, so no need to get the word out! A post at WP:VPR would be more appropriate next time though. Sungodtemple (talk) 17:31, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Sungodtemple Sometimes it's a toss-up for me figuring out which VP to post a query at...this one seemed most appropriate at the time. Heh, I didn't think about "everyone now knows", duh on me. Shearonink (talk) 02:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, I think posting at ((CENT)) and all those aforementioned WikiProject talk pages (eight!) was more than enough, but others may disagree ... Sdrqaz (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Sdrgaz Ok thanks, appreciate your thoughts on this. Shearonink (talk) 02:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

As mentioned before, the result of the RfC will directly affect the content seen on those US president + VP articles so in my view I think it is a good idea to.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Spy-cicle. Shearonink (talk) 02:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

At the moment the shortcut is running straight to Wikipedia:Merging#Reasons for merger, however I just used the shortcut as a point for deletion on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suriname national football team 2016 which I started. Surely duplication should be covered as a delete argument also which the redirect does not point out. Govvy (talk) 11:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

• WP:RFD is probably a better venue for this discussion, but it seems to me that in most cases if we have a duplicate article that we would want to merge content from one into the other and then redirect the title to avoid the duplication happening again. In this case there isn't anything to merge, but redirection is still more appropriate than deletion so I see the current target as correct. Thryduulf (talk) 12:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

  RFD seems more of a delete process, okay, I just thought the info written at Reasons for merger, seemed, a bit short. Govvy (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

  RfD is Redirects for Discussion and proposals for retargetting are common. Thryduulf (talk) 23:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Just curious how we categorize the guidelines and criteria for good and featured articles? Are they policies, guidelines, essays, or what? See WP:PGE. I notice they lack the header that typically identifies such pages. I don't particularly care, just looking for guidance. Not that it is directly relevant, but anticipating someone might ask I'll volunteer that the inspiration for this question was the discussion about "high quality" sources at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria#"high-quality"_reliable_sources and I got there from an RS discussion at an article talk page, here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:27, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

The criteria can't be easily changed, just like policies and guidelines can't be easily changed. Doesn't mean there is any point in wasting screen space by advertising this fact with a banner. —Kusma (talk) 17:50, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

They are not any of the above. They are just, I don't know, information pages? Maybe? But they definitely aren't policies, guidelines, or essays. Not everything needs to be shoehorned into an arbitrary classification or ranking system. Sometimes, things can just be useful and not need to be anything else. --Jayron32 17:51, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

They are controlled by the respective projects (as are the DYK and ITN equivalents). In effect, the community has sub-contracted to these projects the running of these areas. Johnbod (talk) 17:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. That sheds a little light. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:31, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure "sub-contract" is the right word, but yes, these are WikiProject guidance pages. The community can decide some WikiProject guidance is unwarranted, but generally as long as no undue onus is placed on those uninterested in the WikiProject in question, editors interested in a given initiative are free to determine their own operating procedures. isaacl (talk) 23:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, is there a template to help others like myself understand when we run across those .... project ... uh.... "maintenence page"? Errrr, mmmmm, "local project consensus page"? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:06, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm really not getting what you don't understand about it? It's a set of criteria for what makes a featured article. If you want an article to become featured, it needs to meet those criteria. --Jayron32 16:30, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, I understand them now but only because I took initiative to come here and ask. We have these templates that appear at the top of the respective pages

• Template:Essay
• Template:Guideline
• Template:Policy
• Template:Info page
• Template:Supplement

all of which are intended to help people just arrived at those pages understand what they are looking at, without coming to the Pump or Teahouse to ask. Seems like the GA/FA pages would benefit from something similar, not to help you or me, but to help editors new to those areas. Do you disagree? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

It's the featured article criteria. It's the criteria for an article to be featured. I'm not sure it requires specialized knowledge beyond basic competence in English. If someone doesn't know what, for example, the word "criteria" means, I'm not sure what good a template would do them. --Jayron32 13:13, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Jayron; it would provide the missing info "criteria according to who" and provide navigation links to the respective project pages and any relevant WP:Policies and guidelines. Just like the examples of other procedural templates listed above. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

That makes a lot more sense. You had never expressed what information was lacking. I still don't think we need to fit it into a pre-defined category like "policy" or "guideline", but if something like WP:WIAFA needs a link to an explanation that better describes the history and process of the featured article system and by what authority the criteria were defined, that may be useful in answering your confusions (assuming such information exists). --Jayron32 13:38, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much for helping articulate why I showed up here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:18, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Maybe what the newcomer really needs to know, though, is what the specific page is about, and not how that page or process fits into various broader schemes. (Also, you missed Template:WikiProject advice and Template:Wikipedia how-to and probably several others.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

It's the same as all guidance in English Wikipedia: it reflect consensus views of the community. Guidance for any initiative is by definition applicable within the scope of that initiative. Anyone can start a conversation to discuss altering the guidance, though just as in real-life, it's easier to be convincing when you're already an active participant in the initiative and have demonstrated some level of commitment to it. isaacl (talk) 22:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

In terms of level of consensus required to enact changes, it's as strong as a guideline. The difference, however, is that you can choose to ignore the rules and procedures of FA, GA, ITN, DYK, etc. by not participating in them, whereas you are forced to follow real guidelines across the entirety of Wikipedia. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:04, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Exactly! During a friendly content discussion I was directed to one of those criteria pages. I had never been there before and found myself asking "How did all this get established? If I want to understand context and read discussions building this consensus, where do I go? Who is involved?" I wasn't thinking of making changes, only seeking WP context. So I looked for Wikipedia Namespace template at the top, which usually answers such questions and it wasn't there. So I came here and asked. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:18, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I would say whether they're ((Wikiproject advice)) pages (as mentioned above) or ((guideline))s depends on whether it takes a widely advertised RFC to change them, or whether just a consensus at the relevant project's talk page is enough. Levivich 03:32, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

excellent distinction! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:18, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

The usage of peerage titles in lists and tables has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. DBD 14:06, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Are there any WP policies that relate to a WP editor citing a RS journal article which the WP editor has himself authored? Of course, I understand that the source must actually be RS and that the material added must meet all WP policies, but are there any policies or guidelines specific to this situation? I am not asking in order to play "gotcha" or to report an editor, but to act preemptively by advising a friend whether such policies exist. If this question doesn't fall within the focus of this page, please direct me to the correct forum. Thank you and happy editing! YBG (talk) 04:43, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

It is not generally prohibited, but you want to be really careful about WP:COI, WP:DUE, and the perception of self-promotion. I don't want to name names, but there was a WP editor who was interviewed for a news article in a major outlet on Slate Star Codex and many felt that he had a COI regarding the article (though the interview was not the only reason people felt that way). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:17, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

See WP:SELFCITE too. Meters (talk) 05:25, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that is the relevant policy. I've cited my own work, and its seems reasonable to me. (Others cite it as well of course.) There is no WP:COI issue. WP:COI: Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships. WP:SELFCITE says: Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I would also say that a editor who has appropriated outed themselves on WP and known to be an expert in a given field would probably not find a lot of resistance to using their own papers (through peer-review) to cite things on WP. We don't want every grad student to push their freshly published paper onto WP, but someone with a career history as to be labelled an expert would be different. But key would be that peer-review to assure the addition wasn't an SPS, and of course long-term behavior may point towards a COI (eg if such an editor were dropping citations to their paper every article that a certain term is named, that would be a problem). It definitely would be better if the editor made the suggestion on the talk page ("Hey, I have this recently-published paper that may help") and let the other editors deem if its appropriate. --Masem (t) 05:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

We don't want to discourage editors who happen to be experts in an area from editing in the area of their expertise, whether disclosed or not. We also don't want to compromise the privacy of editors who are editing under names designed to protect their identity. If an editor is citing a source and it's a good source, reliably published and relevant to the article for which it is cited, then that should generally end the inquiry. If an editor (self-citing or not) is removing existing good sources in place of a source that is not particularly a better source, or making WP:ONESOURCE articles, or citing something to the point that its relevance is strained, that is the point where a problem needs to be addressed. BD2412 T 05:56, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

If someone is uncertain whether a particular source is relevant or due then they can ask on the talk page and/or at a WikiProject page. Thryduulf (talk) 09:18, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sanguine about authors citing their own works and not getting yelled at and/or reverted. If someone who disagrees with the content even suspects that a newcomer is citing their own publications, then that's one more thing they will claim in an effort to force the "right" content into an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:57, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

See also WP:CITESPAM -- there is a difference between adding WP:DUE new information with reference to an RS you created, and adding citations for already-cited or insufficiently relevant information with the aim of steering people to your writing or increasing your prominence as an expert. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#MOS:DEADNAME for non-living people, which is a discussion of several competing proposals to extended DEADNAME coverage to the recently deceased for a period or indefinitely, or to extend it to all subjects including in pre-modern history.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:09, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I have started a discussion on the paid-contribution disclosure talk page regarding whether or not it has been approved by the community as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy, in the manner described in the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use. Feedback is welcome. (This is the same discussion that I mentioned in another discussion thread earlier.) isaacl (talk) 05:40, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

As of signature time, the backlog of outstanding edit requests by WP:COI editors is 150 requests long. Apparently, the bot maintaining the page broke on 29 May, so it’s not clear how old the oldest requests are, but we can easily find requests that have been open since December 2020 [19][20].

A significant portion of these requests consist in very large rewrites and substantial additions to articles. These are very difficult to implement, since WP:COIRESPONSE calls for an in-depth review of the proposed changes. As a result, these requests are not likely to ever get a satisfactory (from the COI editor's point of view) response. A good case study here is this one, where a COI editor has requested complex, WP:MEDRS-sensitive edits and is insisting on a review.

I propose that we limit the scope of COI edit requests by specifying that such requests should, in principle, only consist in corrections and small additions to the article. Edit request consisting in wholesale rewrites or substantial additions could be closed without action at the discretion of the reviewing editor. This amendment would affect WP:COI, WP:PSCOI and WP:EDITREQ. JBchrch talk 16:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Alternative proposal: Several editors have proposed an automatic close of unanswered requests after a set period of time, such as one month. JBchrch talk 19:48, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I know of at least two other editors who have advocated a similar view, and I'm taking the liberty of pinging them: David Eppstein and Melmann. JBchrch talk 16:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Oh geez, yes please. COI-edit request needs to be fundamentally reconsidered, particularly when it comes to WP:PAID editors snowing us under a mountain of detailed requests that meet the requirements at first glance, but are often carefully crafted to hide WP:BALANCE and WP:NPOV issues. These people people are literally professionals at getting you to believe what they want you to believe, and responsibly checking their requests can be very time consuming effort. As Wikipedia continues to become more and more important in defining the public image of companies and kind of people who have a PR company on a retainer, we need a better system. In turn, genuine COI requests such as Talk:Greg_Woolf#Personal life section languish being unanswered until eventually somebody digs into the queue and offers basic guidance.
I am supportive of a proposal made here, although it obviously needs to be more fleshed out, but almost any change is a change for the better. Alternate idea I had is to establish a new WP:PAID process where any page that sees substantial WP:PAID activity can be protected with the Pending Change protection so that the paid editors can implement all their changes themselves and then submit them for review, and the reviewers would have wide discretion to decline the changes based on any policy-based argument. This puts the onus of implementing the requests on editors who are literally paid to do this, while the few COI/PAID volunteer reviewers we have should be in position to deal with more requests. I also think that reviewers should have more discretion to be firm and sharp with WP:PAID editors who almost never WP:HERE and almost never edit constructively outside of the topics they are paid for. Of course, we should remain civil and professional, but I think that any WP:PAID editor who demonstrates failure to engage with core policies such as WP:NPOV or WP:BALANCE should be simply WP:SNOW-ed without the editor being expected to walk them through doing the policy reading they should have already done. Melmann 16:49, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

In the winter I reviewed Talk:Bordier & Cie. This review took a month to complete because there were sourcing concerns, problems accessing sources, POV concerns, and I had to research the firm to understand the edits. I don't like completing requests like that anymore. I would prefer it if COI editors proposed edits in sections, or a maximum of four paragraphs of changes (about the max size of a section). This makes it easier for editors to evaluate the edits. Also, shorter requests tend to be responded to quickly, so increasing the chance of quicker responses will make COI editors happy.

I also suggest that COI requests be automatically closed as "stale" if they remain open for more than a month. This is what requests for unblock does (albeit their time limit is two weeks). If a request is closed as stale, we can link to a page that outlines common reasons why it was not responded to, such as length, number of requests and problematic sourcing. This also lets reviewers know that the requester is probably going to be active on WP to answer the request's concerns. Z1720 (talk) 17:41, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe this needs any change to policy, but simply when a COI editor makes a long request they should be told quickly that the request is likely to take a very long time, and it is more likely that they will get some of what they want if a request is split into smaller chunks. It should also be made clear that any edits requested by COI editors are subject to a volunteer being willing to perform the edit, which may never happen. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:55, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger: Regarding which may never happen: What's your view on Z1720's idea regarding automatic stale closures after a set period of time? I am asking because it would be still be useful, for "backlog management" purposes, if unanswered requests stopped appearing at CAT:EDITREQ at some point . JBchrch talk 18:35, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

As a sidebar, don't just think about paid editors. WP:COI covers situations immensely broader than that. Anyone who has children has a likely COI when writing anything about children.  :-) But more directly to the point, such would preclude COI editors from having any legit way to make any edit of substance. North8000 (talk) 18:30, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I did a lot of work for an exemplary COI editor. Their submittals were immensely careful, policy-knowlegable, well-explained in any questionable areas, open and honest, and Wikipedian and fully ready-to-go. So they basically cultivated a relationship with me to be trusted, minimize and respect my time and in turn I was happy to help. Perhaps giving some guidance to editors that they really need to do that, especially with substantial edits, in order to get a volunteer to help them. And closing the long ones as stale after a 1 month wait would be a way to say "you didn't do that" or "your edit was too big, messy or problematic". North8000 (talk) 18:42, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

BTW the exemplary COI editor was a paid editor. North8000 (talk) 19:51, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I hear you, and you are not wrong, but in my experience, all the most difficult edits are WP:PAID. Most non-paid COI comes from a place of desire to make things better, and often can be relatively easily guided towards a better place. Alternatively, if the COI editor is really not acting in good faith, it is relatively easy to use existing enforcement mechanisms to to correct and ultimately control their behaviours. PR professionals, on the other hand, are subtle and sometimes downright deceptive, and it takes lots of effort to check their edits when most of the time you lack context and expertise and you really have to research in depth to see their edits for what they really are. I think that one of the fundamental mistakes of the current policy is lumping paid editors with general COI editing as paid editors are fundamentally playing on a different level in terms of PR expertise and incentives compared to a general COI concerns. Melmann 18:53, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I know. I mentioned it to keep in mind that anything we write applying to wp:COI editors also applies to all of those other un-paid folks.North8000 (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think COI edit requests should only consist in corrections and small additions. In fact, if the corrections are small enough, no edit request is required, or it might be fulfilled faster. The main problem with many edit requests is that they are not clear. Edit requests should state the exact change, and if they do not, we should decline them early and let them prepare the request better. Sometimes a rejection for a borderline request may be harsh, but it's probably less harsh than silence. MarioGom (talk) 19:05, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

  (ec)Most COIs doing big edits have good intentions, but they don't understand the policies like other editors might. They are also frustrated because they read articles with promo language and think that's acceptable when in reality it just hasn't been flagged and/or fixed by an experienced, non-COI editor yet. Right now editors who request big edits see their request languish for months without action. By having a bot close it as stale, they get a notification that there was a problem with their edit and they need to reconsider how it is formatted. Z1720 (talk) 19:06, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

(ec) Limiting COI edit requests to small fixes will make editing harder for open paid editors, effectively forcing them to go UPE. If anything, we should make disclosed paid editing easier to discourage UPEs. A pending changes like process per Mel's suggestion would be sensible, although we should somehow highlight these requests as accepting pending changes merely indicates the absence of obvious copyvio and vandalism (per Wikipedia:Pending changes § Reviewing pending edits). Paid editors could also implement their request, then revert themselves and provide the diff at the COI request to make reviewing it easier. Automatically closing stale requests sounds good to me. The current lack of reviewers means that a period of one or two months seem appropriate to me. 15 (talk) 19:40, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Paid editors could also implement their request, then revert themselves and provide the diff at the COI request to make reviewing it easier. this would make reviewing requests SO MUCH easier. Having to actually make the edit is such a pain, I almost never look at COI requests for that reason alone. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:08, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

(NB: I'm a paid editor and have been for many years. Posting here on my own behalf, not speaking for my employer or any client.) I agree with this take – some articles really do need substantial updates, and I'm not sure that several small requests are actually easier to review than one larger request, especially when all the relevant information is interconnected. In particular, there are often occasions when an article has been rewritten with a negative POV by someone with a grudge, and correcting that requires nuanced and thorough review of the article's contents and sources. I believe doing so does make Wikipedia better, and I'm not sure there's a way to do it and ensure it's neutral that doesn't require some investment of effort.

I also have seen my own clients get frustrated with the edit request process when they're seeing competitors get better results with obvious UPE that goes unflagged. (I myself have fired clients in the past for turning to UPE over my objections.) Making edit requests even harder will incentivize UPE.

Also love the idea of implementing and then reverting edits to streamline review of the diffs. Personally, I'm always happy to do whatever I can to make my requests easier to review. In my experience, different editors often have different preferences for how requests are formatted and presented. Clearer guidance would, I think, benefit everyone. Mary Gaulke (talk) 22:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• Opppose. This proposal effectively aims to ban meaningful paid editing. Edit requests are already mandatory for COI and/or paid editors. The policy doesn't actually say that but if you spend any time at WP:COIN you will see that the policy is enforced that way. Banning edit requests from proposing "substantial additions" to articles will effectively be a ban on any meaningful paid or COI editing, given that there will be no other option than to just ask on the talk page without a template and never get a response. Do you think all the people banned from COI editing will just say "well, I guess I just won't edit Wikipedia anymore"? Or will they just turn to UPE to try to make changes to the article? Automatically declining COI edit requests after a month is effectively equivalent to just banning them altogether given the length of the backlog.
  Not all corporations or people with COIs that seek to edit Wikipedia do so for nefarious purposes. As Mary said, there are many cases where there are legitimate concerns that paid editors raise with the content of articles. In order to effectively deal with this we need to allow paid editors to have meaningful changes be made to articles in a reasonable amount of time when those changes advance the goal of creating a better encyclopedia. There is already barely any incentive to choose legitimate paid editing over UPE and this proposal would reduce that incentive even further. We should be focusing on increasing those incentives rather than decreasing them and part of that is ensuring that opportunities exist to legitimately engage with the process of creating an encyclopedia. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 02:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Chess: I respect your views but you are not addressing the concrete problems here, i.e. the size of the backlog, the complexity of some of these requests, and the shortage of editors willing to work on them. JBchrch talk 09:30, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Chess. I appreciate there is a problem, but the solution proposed here will solve only a small aspect of it but will come with significantly worse problems in other areas. The answer to me would seem to be two parallel processes - one for small tweaks for things that can be reviewed and accepted or declined with at most about 5 minutes work from a reviewer, and another for more substantial changes. This on it's own wont stop the backlog of large changes but it should solve the issue of them blocking small changes. Paid and COI editors wanting to edit Wikipedia is a fact of life whether you like it or not, if we want them to work with us then we need to make it easy as possible to do so otherwise they'll just go ahead and edit without declaring. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons already stated by Chess and Thryduulf. In particular, I agree with Thryduulf's last sentence, that any limits we impose will simply drive them to not cooperate. That said, I recognize that having a long backlog is, in itself, a disincentive to cooperate, but I'm afraid that just reflects a strain on what Wikipedia can currently accomplish. The best way to clear the backlog is to clear the backlog (and yes, I'm implicitly volunteering other editors to do tasks that I don't feel like doing). There are ways to get more editors working on the backlog. Messages can be posted about it at locations where there are more eyes, and there should particularly be periodic notices about it at WP:COIN. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Tryptofish: you may have seen that COIN has a huge sidebar with all the requests. Maybe a way to incentivize editors could be through events or contests like Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives—with, however, two caveats. First, that's way above my pay grade as a relatively new editor, so I'm also volunteering for others by proposing this. Second, WP:COIRESPONSE lacks an "immediate fail" criteria like WP:GAFAIL, which prevents sub-par requests from being closed quickly. JBchrch talk

  Yes, in fact I checked how it appears at COIN before I posted my remark. My thinking is that it is just that – a sidebar. It's easy to overlook it when checking to see if there are new reports at the bottom of the page. So I think that it would be helpful to post, periodically, a new section to the page, drawing attention to the backlog (the fact that it would be a notice instead of a report of a particular COI should not be an issue). --Tryptofish (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose to both proposals per Thryduulf. As someone who's actually been in the weeds reviewing and carrying out these COI/paid edit requests, this idea is well-intentioned but will simply move things underground. Not all of these large requests are bad. I have implemented quite a few that I strongly believe were improvements: culling unsourced puffery in a BLP and replacing it with sourced material, and comprehensive rewrites that undoubtedly made the article far better. Please see the difference between this with one! inline citation to the organisation itself and this with 30 inline citations. And this bloated and largely-unsourced BLP and its current state, with some work left to do. This severe limitation in scope for COI requests would not have allowed those improvements to occur. The large backlog of edit requests is due to the fact that many editors simply have zero interest in helping with that backlog; while the automatic expiry of those requests may ostensibly help "reduce" it, I would much rather that human eyes made that judgement on which were good and which are bad rather than some arbitrary time limit. If that part of the proposal passes, I hope that those here advocating for it would actually try to tackle the backlog, instead of just seeing the number go down and think to themselves "well the system's working, job done". Sdrqaz (talk) 17:45, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Sdrqaz: This comment is unfair to the editors commenting here who have worked on many edit requests, and you may exclude me from this category if you so wish. JBchrch talk 18:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  I've struck it, with apologies. I was being too snarky and thank you for reining me in / giving me a reality check. Some of my frustration stems from the fact many editors (perhaps not here) wouldn't touch the COI/paid request process with a bargepole because they are disagree in principle with COI/paid editing, and would rather the practice was banned completely. No amount of trying to make the process simpler would help. As someone who's worked with these requests but have never been paid or edited in areas where I have a conflict of interest, I've been accused of being paid twice in three days (here and here) without evidence. In my opinion, it is that hostility that puts people off working the backlog, and the perception that you're doing a paid editor's dirty work. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:44, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you Sdrqaz. Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of one of those too, strangely enough in the same topic area [21]. In any case, all I'm trying to do is find a balance between what we want to do for COI editors and what we actually have the ressources to do. I'm absolutely not making a moral judgement on COI editing, just attempting to streamline the process and make it work. JBchrch talk 19:23, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• There are a few things going on here so it is difficult for me (with limited time) to make individual replies. Firstly my comment above about splitting edits into smaller chunks was intended to allow at least some COI edits to go through earlier than would happen with large edits. Yes, some rewrites need to go through in one go but it takes time, which, as I have said, is limited in many volunteers, to check for neutrality and balance. There's also the opportunity cost of reviewing COI edits - it comes at the cost of making edits here which do not have any COI. If more editors concentrate on the backlog then they will perform fewer other edits. Do we want COI edits to have priority over others? I don't pretend to know the answers, but people should at least be aware that there are serious questions about this process. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
• Comment / idea Give guidance as follows: A requested edit is a request for a volunteer to spend their time reviewing and doing the edit. Editors are usually more willing to invest their time on edits that improve the encyclopedia than on those that appear to serve primarily other purposes such as promotional. Also please be sensitive to factors that affect the amount of time that is being requested. Things that reduce the amount of time required are a finalized and clearly formatted request (such as substitute "xxx" for "yyy" verbatim), being not borderline or problematic, being consistent with and reflect knowledge of policies and guidelines, and smaller proposed edits. So a proposed edit that is mindful of the above is more likely to get done or done faster. When a requested edit makes large departures from several of these, it may fail to get a volunteer to work on it. It it is unable to do so for 2 months, the request will be automatically removed for that reason. North8000 (talk) 18:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  @North8000: You raised your experience with a COI editor where you were able to communicate in a way that significantly reduced the workload of the edit requests they submitted. I was wondering if there's a way we could better encourage communication between COI editors and the people reviewing their requests because it looks like your practices might work significantly better than the existing method where we look at the request, spend a bunch of time researching it, then stamp an approval/denial at the end of the process. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 23:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  Of course getting a really good proposed edit according to the above criteria and sensitivity / respect for the volunteer's time helped a lot. But the communication was also a big help. Of course working with them on several articles helped build fluency and trust so maybe that longer term pairing can be a part of it. So once they were a stellar paid Wikipedian editor, there was something that still took a few cycles for them to fully understand. And that is that unless they describe the exact proposed edit very clearly as described above, they were inadvertently making it a lot bigger job for me. They were also an immensely experienced Wikipedia editor. Maybe if I could coax them ( @CorporateM: ) a bit out of retirement they could add a few tips. I also worked with a second stellar coi editor through multiple edits at one article ( Girl Scout cookies ) and this was also the thing that it took the most time to get them to understand. What's handy there is that the entire process is visible on the current talk page and one talk archive page. Another key point was that both situations made the work enjoyable for me. North8000 (talk) 01:24, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  I was going to bring up CorporateM as the kind of paid editor that we need to cultivate. We need to make legitimate paid editing a viable option for organizations or people that have legitimate issues with the content of Wikipedia articles. We're already massively struggling against UPE and I don't think full-on prohibition is a battle we can win. If we can siphon people with real concerns out of UPE and into a system where they can hire editors that are actually willing to comply with our policies (not just on disclosure but on NPOV or what not) that's the lesser evil. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 04:39, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Chess: I would argue that we are not currently providing a viable option to paid editing: a backlog of 3 to 6 months is very close to a "no", at least in a US/UK corporate context. JBchrch talk 10:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  I don't have experience at that request area, but could it be that the people who already in essence follow my proposed guidance above are getting their edits handled and those who don't don't? And that maybe if my proposed advice/ routine were adopted that could help kill many birds with one stone?: 1.Show that there is a good viable route for declared COI's thus encouraging vs. discouraging declaration 2. Encourage behavior that will reduce the workload 3. Thus reducing backlog 4. Encourage behavior that will make it more pleasant/fun for the reviewing volunteers. 5. Thus also getting/keeping more reviewing volunteers 6. Then for requests that do age out, there were reasons for it and thus that was a part of the process (and guidance for a 2nd try) vs. being just a "system that didn't work" North8000 (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  I think this could work, at very least as a starting point to see how things can improve. The only thing is that there is some opposition in this section to the idea of automatic closes. So maybe the only thing I would amend is the last sentence: we could say that editors may close requests older than 2 months and, when doing so, should try provide guidance to the COI editors as to how they could improve their requests. JBchrch talk 15:26, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  I don't think any request made in (apparent) good faith should be closed without a response. For requests that are not done or partially done that response should explain why, even if only briefly, and if resubmitting in a different way would be worthwhile then the response should say that and give an indication of what that way is. This needn't be voluminous or overly detailed - just a "sorry this was too detailed to properly review, if you break it into chunks it will more likely get a proper review. See also WP:Guide to effective COI edit requests." Conversely, saying "This will not be done because ..." will discourage people resubmitting it/similar requests - requests not submitted cannot add to the backlog. Thryduulf (talk) 15:50, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  I generally agree and (for clarity purposes), that's why I mentioned that maybe editors should be closing these requests => i.e. not a bot. JBchrch talk 15:59, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: Was the red link a typo or a reference to a potential new page? If we agree just there would be links to it in the most useful places, I be happy to start that page as an essay. North8000 (talk) 23:48, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  It's a link to a potential new page, there are probably better titles for it. Thryduulf (talk) 01:10, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with that; the practice (not based in policy) that all edits be done via edit requests is flawed. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 01:15, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• I would oppose the original proposal, as just contributing to UPE, not to mention leaving companies with significant problems on their articles with nowhere to go to. That said, a multi-month response time also drives UPE, by failing to offer a specific solution. I think an update to ERW is the way to go here - how can we structure it to encourage smaller, more comprehensible, edit requests? How can we drive more eyes to the issue? And given the circumstances, I could back encouraging a greater willingness to can borderline proposals. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:43, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
• Note, @JBchrch: while one bot may be down - this report does seem to include most of the backlog information you mentioned and appears to be current: User:AnomieBOT/EDITREQTable. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:25, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux: I may have misunderstood your comment (no good with computer) but it looks like there's the same problem here, which is that a large number of requests are dated "2021-05-29 11:55", although they are much older than that. JBchrch talk 17:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  @JBchrch: ah OK, sorry I misread you. It looks like that bot did break and used that as its "earliest date", that bot does seems to be working right now so the number of entries and more recent dates are correct after that. The oldest one I saw looks to go back to October 2020. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux and JBchrch: AnomieBOT didn't break. Humans changed the category, which made it seem like all the opened requests were closed. Then when the bot was pointed to the new category, it saw them all as new requests. It uses the "page touched" timestamp as the date of newly-seen requests, which in these cases was the timestamp of the change to the template. It's not worth trying to parse the page history trying to find a more accurate date when usually "page touched" is close enough. Anomie⚔ 22:25, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Anomie: Those pesky humans, ruining the good work of bots! Thanks a lot for the clarification. JBchrch talk 13:07, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

In seeking to implement the linking, I've yet to find a real "guidance" place for coi editors (or more to the point, paid coi editors) . It might need a sentence added at WP:coi. North8000 (talk) 12:33, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Alternate proposal #3 (edit requests)

Add to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Dealing with edit requests from COI or paid editors that an edit request may be closed after two months if no editor has responded to the request. The closing editor should, however:

• Consider implementing the request themselves.
• Explain why the request has not been implemented prior to the closure, if only briefly.
• Indicate if resubmitting in a different way would be worthwhile and provide a short guidance as to what that way might be (including by linking to Wikipedia:Edit requests § General considerations).
• If resubmitting might not be worthwhile, indicate it and briefly explain why.

This proposal is not strictly an alternative to Alternate proposal #2: both could be implemented cumulatively. If that is the case, the bullet points above could say that the closing editor may provide a link to WP:Guide to effective COI edit requests. JBchrch talk 17:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Comment. I'm opening this sub-section as suggested by North8000. The concept of allowing unanswered edit requests to be closed after a period of time has received some form of support in the discussion above. This specific proposal is pretty much copied from a suggestion by Thryduulf. JBchrch talk 17:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

• This seems fairly reasonable to me. If a request sits for two months with no response, that implies no non-COI editor is interested in implementing the proposed changes as written. This is hardly surprising as it is generally a terrible idea for a COI editor to completely rewrite an article. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:51, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I need to think more about whether I support putting a firm timescale on things before supporting this proposal as written, everything else does get my full support though (probably unsurprisingly). Thryduulf (talk) 17:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  Oppose specific timeframe. After further thought and reading the comments below, I have to agree with others that regardless of the intent, a firm time will be seen by at least some reviews as a time limit after which requests can be dismissed without review simply for being old. That is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Everything else about the proposal is good though. Thryduulf (talk) 12:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Before this gets too far, consider that "Explain why the request has not been implemented prior to the closure, if only briefly." might be an inadvertent poison pill for the proposal. In essence / inadvertently it requires review and rejection of the edit request, which IMO defeats the purpose of the proposal.North8000 (talk) 19:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. What'll likely happen is nobody will give a shit about COI edit requests and we'll pretend the problem is "solved" because we've managed to get the COI edit request queue under 2 months long. It will also create editors who spend their time robotically declining COI edit requests once they've gone past 2 months. What will likely happen in those cases is editors will just reply with a link to a policy that explains nothing about what was specifically wrong (if there was anything wrong) with the edit request. COI edits will respond to this by either a) giving up and hiring UPEs or b) just resubmitting the same request over and over again which doesn't actually address the problem of "too many edit requests". This will create exciting fodder for AN/I when the first editors are accused of "tendentiously resubmitting COI edit requests" with zero improvement without being told about any actual issues with their edit requests beyond "it's been two months since you've submitted it". This'll end up like something out of a Franz Kafka novel. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 21:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Chess: I really don't mind you opposing this proposal. In fact it's not even my proposal, really, it's just an attempt at summarizing what some people have said above. However, in light of your contributions to this discussion, I feel compelled to ask you the following: do you think that the current system of edit requests cannot be improved in any way? JBchrch talk 21:47, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  @JBchrch: I'm planning on !voting for proposal 2, although that's not the only improvement I would like to see. For instance, many editors brought up the complexity of COI edit requests. I'm wondering if there would be some way to "atomize" requests and enable partial responses by using templates. For instance, a template that allows responding editors to fill in the individual changes that were requested, the response to said changes, and the reason for declining if applicable. This would allow editors to implement some changes while holding off on implementing others. It could also provide for an easy reference point for communication with COI editors, allowing us to refer to the specific problems that we have with specific parts, e.g. "would it be possible for you to provide a page number on the source for change 5?". It might also improve our general workflow.

  Preferably said change would be accompanied by asking COI editors to format their requests in a specific way in order to simplify atomization and analysis. For instance, bullet points containing each specific change along with the reason for that specific change. An inability to atomize can result in declines. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 04:36, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

  The essay under #2 suggest breaking up large proposed edits into smaller ones. North8000 (talk) 12:03, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

  I'd disagree inasmuch that I'd rather see one COI template with a bunch of different requests in it than a bunch of COI templates with only one request for each one. I'd also like to see clearer guidelines than "break up large edits" and more in the realm of "list every individual change that you want to make" in the style of Git where the general rule is one feature = one pull request. I'd like to see the same idea applied to edit requests given that it's the same general thing. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 00:55, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think that, broadly, this is a good approach. I would suggest removing any time schedule, though. There is no reason why one would have to wait a specific amount of time before closing a request, so long as the kind of explanation described here is given for the closure. Depending on how flawed the request is, it could be closed (with an informative explanation) soon after being opened, or at a much later date, depending on the availability and interest of reviewing editors. I don't think that it will be a "poison pill", so long as there is either constructive criticism about how to fix it, or an explanation of why it is incompatible with our policies. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:38, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral, leaning oppose. I appreciate that there are caveats to this two-month "limit", with the closing editor meant to consider whether or not to implement it themself. However, that time limit tips the scales towards rejecting the edit request after the requisite two months is up. Edit requests should be considered on their merits (and I appreciate that the proposal attempts to do that), and I feel the imposition of such a time limit would discourage that, even if the reviewer isn't consciously aware of it. And let's face it: in the context of COI edit requests, two months is barely anything. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:15, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm slightly in favor of the core idea of a fixed expiration date, so this is more related to secondary factors. Regarding the item "Explain why the request has not been implemented prior to the closure, if only briefly.", even with the "if only briefly" qualifier, this in-advertantly self-cancels the entire proposal. If someone has to make a determination in order to write such a thing, that have largely had to review and have reviewed the proposed edit, thus defeating the purpose of the proposal. Second, if #2 passes (=linking that essay) the essay basically acknowledges that if a proposed edit has a lot of those challenges/issues, that it may not be able to garner a review and so it more softly introduces this concept of "might never get reviewed" and so at least partially satisfies the intent of this proposal #3. Amongst other things, this could provide relief for the volunteers who what to keep that venue in reasonably good shape. The guidance will cause the submitters to submit less of the problematic ones, the reviewers don't have to consider a few aging out as being a failure of the venue, submitters might self-remove the ones that are aging out in order to change or reformat their submittal. And for (now fewer) those which never get reviewed, the "timeout" could be informally implemented with "wasn't able to garner a review" becoming more clearly a reason. So in short, those later points make it so that there is less of a need for a hard time-out. North8000 (talk) 12:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

  submitters might self-remove the ones that are aging out in order to change or reformat their submittal. do we say anywhere that people can do this? If not we probably ought to make it clear that it's perfectly acceptable and there is no penalty (as long as it's being done in good faith). Thryduulf (talk) 13:10, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Feedback is requested at WT:MOS#NavFrame removal (soon) about how to deal with some 1400 articles that are using WP:NavFrame. Izno (talk) 16:03, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I came here because I noticed the Justin Wilson (chef) article has quite a lot of portals listed, but WP:P doesn't really mention anything regarding the tidiness, sorting, nor limits to portals... not even as a suggested guideline. Is there a limit to how many portals should appear on a page, or the preferred method for when there are a lot of portals for a given article? Should a § Portals exist in articles with a substantial amount of portals? — CJDOS, Sheridan, OR (talk) 22:15, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Good example of portal spamming. .....should just list the most relevant. ...if any apply at all.Moxy- 22:55, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

In terms of ordering if there are multiple portals I'd say a portal about the subject of the article should be listed first, followed by others in alphabetical order. So for example Brazil might have:

• Portal:Brazil
• Portal:Countries
• Portal:South America

In that order. Thryduulf (talk) 11:17, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Have the ((portal bar)) module sort them into alphabetical order — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:32, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

GhostInTheMachine, that parameter isn't shown in the Template:Portal bar documentation, and I didn't find it in Module:Portal. Does "have" ing the module sort the portals alphabetically exist, or is that just the image look-up? I'm unfamiliar with wiki module programming, so what I can see is limited. Line 274 seems to suggest that having the template sort alphabetically is not an option. — CJDOS, Sheridan, OR (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry to be unclear. There is (currently) no parameter to request sorting. To keep life simple, I suggest that the module is altered to always sort the portals into alphabetical order. It would be just one statement at about line 204 — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 18:34, 3 August 2021 (UTC)