Why does a "no consensus" vote at an article for deletion (AfD) discussion result in keeping the article. It would seem that if editors cannot agree an article should exist, then it shouldn't.

Since most AfDs attract little attention, the outcome is already weighted in favor of keep, since the creator and other contributors are likely to vote to keep.

I have seen cases where it took several tries before an AfD was successful.

TFD (talk) 13:02, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree, it runs counter to the principles of our policies like WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN, all of which require affirmative consensus for inclusion. I would support a "no consensus" outcome being a default "draftify". Levivich 15:42, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I would disagree, draftify should be presented as an option, or the closer can make a judgment call to take a poorly attended AFD no consensus as a draft. What we do not want is a high traffic AFD that is no consensus to be suddenly drafted. Masem (t) 15:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

There may well have been legitimate grounds for a 'no consensus results in keep' policy in Wikipedia's early days, when expanding the encyclopaedia took priority over adequate sourcing. That seems no longer to be the general consensus amongst most regular contributors, who quite rightly expect new articles to demonstrate notability (through proper sourcing etc) from the start. So yes, per WP:BURDEN, draftification for no-consensus content would seem a very good idea. As it stands, we are including content of debatable merit to our readers (and to search engines), with no indication whatsoever that it may be problematic. That cannot inspire confidence... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Plenty of AfD discussions net only a couple unsubstantial comments. Outside commentators might just "vote" and leave. A closer has nothing to work with. Does that justify deletion? SamuelRiv (talk) 16:09, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

• Chances are, when there are no sources at all, an AFD will not result in a “no consensus”. That usually occurs when sourcing is “iffy”… or when it seems likely that reliable sources should exist, but simply have not YET been added to the article.

The idea behind “no consensus = keep” is to give editors time to WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM. Remember that there is no rush… should it turn out that the problem can’t be fixed (because we assumed wrong, and reliable sources don’t actually exist), we can always hold a second (follow up) AFD, noting that we tried and failed to find sources. Blueboar (talk) 16:20, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

No-consensus draftification still gives time to fix problems - without displaying questionable material to readers in the meantime. If there is no rush, why the urge to display it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

The idea behind no consensus keep is to give editors time to FIXTHEPROBLEM. What is that based on? This happens on articles that have been around for years and years with poor (often primary) sourcing and questionable notability. The keep !votes are often from fans of a particular niche type article. MB 16:34, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

So what if there are fans of a niche article? The world is like that, a long tail distribution of interest in topics. I often see people deleting because they consider something far down the tail curve as inherently non-notable. Like, how could this community fire station in podunk town be notable?! It conflates popularity with notability. -- GreenC 18:17, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Notability is based on the existence of significant coverage in independent sources. Fans show up and say keep because they want to see articles on all community fire stations regardless of the coverage. MB 19:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Articles without coverage don't usually pass Keep at AfD. The problem is some see community fire stations and presume Delete first, then figure out how to discount sources second. -- GreenC 00:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

This was about No Consensus. Articles without significant coverage can end as Keep or No Consensus if there is little participation except for a few editors who have a much lower standard for what constitutes SIGCOV and a very idiosyncratic take on what is "independent" and "primary". Those are not my words, but a quote from a related discussion. MB 01:25, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

It might be true that "draftification still gives time to fix problems", but research indicates that articles get fixed faster if they're left in the mainspace. If you want an individual article to get edited, then you need to leave it out there where someone will feel like it's worthwhile to fix it. If you want an individual article to stay broken, then put it out of sight, and out of mind in the draftspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems like this is something that depends on the nature of the article and AFD in question--for recently created articles, TFD's criticism applies. For longstanding articles being brought to AFD due to forking, OR or WP:PAGEDECIDE concerns, keep makes more sense as a status quo outcome in the event of no consensus. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Other way around. New articles have a higher chance to be actually improved than old articles - the problem(usually that there is no consensus upon notability) has evidently not been fixed in a long time if an article has no consensus, and if it is between "keep" and "Redirect" the option "redirect" should always win(because it preserves the content and allows people to work with the old content if necessary and still applies WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN).Lurking shadow (talk) 16:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Lurking shadow, I think that perspective presupposes that "the problem" with the hypothetical article in question is real in the case of a no consensus outcome and that we should move towards the most likely long-term solution (that a new article can be fixed and that an old article cannot), whereas my view would be that a no consensus outcome means that there is no consensus and that we default to whatever the prior status quo was. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:10, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Except that there isn't always good reason for giving the status quo extra weight. Article age isn't one of them! Not all articles have been extensively edited(other than automated copyedits).Lurking shadow (talk) 18:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Sure, I can respect that as a perspective, but note that it would retrench rather than resolve the disagreement between AfD processes and our general "status quo wins when in doubt" rule that appears to motivate TFD opening this discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Expanding on "presuppos[ing] that "the problem" with the hypothetical article in question is real", here are the most four recent AFDs I could find with an outcome of no consensus:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roger Kirk (presenter) – No individual claims disputed; the only "problem" is whether we should inflict an article on this BLP. New sources added, which some editors believe meet the usual rules and others don't.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Cliffe – Dispute about whether WP:GNG requires multiple non-local sources. (Spoiler: It doesn't; nothing does. Even WP:CORP only requires a single non-local source.)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Mother of All Talk Shows – Dispute centers on whether the talk show should have an article that is separate from the talk show's regular host.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schön Properties (2nd nomination) – Third attempt to get rid of a WP:CORP article about a 50-year-old real estate business operating only in Arabic-speaking countries, which means we have WP:NEVERHEARDOFIT and also can't read/search the national news easily.

None of these sound like seriously problematic articles. The owners of Schön might prefer that their dirty laundry wasn't aired out for all to see, but there's no obvious harm to having the articles vs not having them. Also, I had to check three days' worth of AFDs last week to find just four AFDs that closed this way, so it's not a common outcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Only four NCs in three days? Something like 10% of all AfDs I participate close in NC, I would expect that number to be a lot higher... JoelleJay (talk) 01:37, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

At the "mass creation/AfDs ArbCom RfC" workshop-workshop, specifically in the context of NSPORT, I suggested a watchlistable pseudo-draftspace with a longer or indefinite incubation time before auto-deletion eligibility, as well as restrictions on how many drafts could be nominated at AfD or moved into mainspace per week. I wonder if something like that, if feasible at all, could work for NC closes. Users could watchlist the categories they're interested in to see what's added and moved out of purgatory, and the lists could be transcluded in relevant wikiprojects. JoelleJay (talk) 02:11, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I think there has been good input here. Now the TFD has brought this up I think it is worth looking at. If "no consensus" allows poorly sourced long term articles to remain then I think this should be changed to "dratify" or "redirect." This allows for the option of improving the article without having it listed on search engines (outside Wikipedia). This improves the quality of Wikipedia overall and, as has been mentioned, readers don't run away due to poor quality.

I realize this retrenches the status quo and doesn't resolve the disagreement mentioned by Rosguill, but it is better than the current status quo. Also, as Masem says, for high traffic AfDs "no consensus" should be optional draftify. Optional dratftify allows for a decision that would cause the least disruption, i.e., editors angrily going to DRV. And such high traffic AfDs can always be re-nominated. Concerning a "no consensus" new article, I'm not sure the best way to deal with that - let consensus about that rule the day. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:54, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

• I think this starts with a serious rule, like a policy, that in order to exist in mainspace, an article must meet certain minimum criteria (WP:V, WP:N, WP:BLP?). If a mainspace article's eligibility is questioned (like at AFD), there must be affirmative consensus that it meets the minimum criteria, or else some WP:ATD must be applied (e.g. merge, redirect, draftify), unless there is affirmative consensus to delete. Levivich 21:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

  So when editors don't agree that there's something wrong with having a separate article about this subject, then you'd like us to assume that there's definitely something wrong with having a separate article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

  Yes exactly. If editors don't agree whether or not an article should be in mainspace, it should not be in mainspace. Only that which we agree should be there, should be there, whether it's parts of pages or entire pages. Affirmative consensus ftw. Levivich 23:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

  Let's start by agreeing to delete WP:QUO. Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions anyway, so as long as we point the redirect somewhere, probably nobody would be any the wiser anyway. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Our general stance on everything is that if something is going to be controversial, we want to see an affirmative action to do it, and no consensus defaults to no action being taken. I don't think it has anything to do with AfD in particular. Just how the project works from a governance perspective. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:17, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: The main issue here is that you're interpreting this as no consensus to keep, but the alternative no consensus to delete is equally valid.

So we err on the side of inclusion because you can easily renominate the same article for deletion later, and WP:NODEADLINE/WP:NOTPAPER also apply. This also gives the option to find an alternatives to deletion, like a bold merge to some other topic. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:17, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

"No consensus" means no consensus either way. Perhaps the confusion appears because we sometimes say "no consensus" because we don't always want to say "really bad idea, dude". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

A deleted article can always be userfied so that the Keep side can keep working on it. But I disagree that articles have no consensus to keep because they are poorly sourced. Usually, it is because the delete editors have found there are too few if any reliable sources available to write an informative and balanced article. Since the article therefore lacks weight, it could actually misinform readers.

In my experience, articles that have no consensus to delete never get developed into reasonable articles. Can you provide any examples where they have?

TFD (talk) 22:57, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it depends on your idea of what constitutes a reasonable article. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Islamic fascism (the article has since be renamed to Islamofascism) closed as "no consensus", and it's currently a B-class article. H.V. Dalling looks reasonable to me. Kinetite is short, but still looks reasonable to me. Aziz Shavershian looks reasonable to me. List of largest shopping centres in Australia isn't a subject that interests me, but it looks like there is an inline citation for every entry. All of these ended with "no consensus" at AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Setting the very high bar of "reasonable article" being the same as a Featured or Good article, there are 26 that had previous NC results:

• Global Buddhist Network
• Jason Heyward
• Chrono Break
• Josh fight
• Snitching (song)
• 2010 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania
• Steve Palacios
• Michelle Leslie
• The Liquor Store
• Palestinian enclaves
• Ashley Smith inquest
• David Bednar (general manager)
• Watford Gap services
• West Coast Shit - No consensus result after becoming a Good Article
• Ludwig Augustinsson
• Downward Dog Pose
• Ashlyn Harris
• Cultural depictions of tuberculosis
• Terra Branford
• Adolf Hitler and Stefanie Rabatsch
• Chris Hussey
• Serious (Gwen Stefani song)
• Need for Speed: ProStreet
• Truth in Numbers?
• Tomo Miličević
• Neil Harvey with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948

-- GreenC 01:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Except article rating doesn't assess actual notability and is not a particularly consensus-driven process in the first place. That Neil Harvey article is a prime example of the overly-detailed, UNDUE trivia that accumulates when no one is actually discussing the subject directly, but which when well-crafted appears to satisfy article reviewers. JoelleJay (talk) 01:34, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I have some sympathy for the idea given that the bar for deletion is quite high. There are so many ways to get to nocon, I think one cannot easily legislate for them all. Selfstudier (talk) 22:40, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Deletion has balances of power because 1 person can nominate 10 articles in 10 minutes (or less) while to save those articles can take days of effort researching sources, improving the articles, arguing at AfD. It usually never gets done in practice for that reason. The valuable commodity is time. That's why we let it sit until someone has the time to work on it. -- GreenC 01:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

And one person can create 10 articles in 10 minutes, while to delete them it takes at least 7 days and multiple other editors each. If we actually valued community time we'd enforce greater restrictions on creation such that most of the time spent on any one article is spent by one editor who wants to document that subject, rather than that plus the effort of 8 other editors with no interest in the subject doing x% of the same work redundantly and in parallel over the course of a week. JoelleJay (talk) 01:48, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Just a random idea, maybe a bad one maybe not, but what if articles closed as no consensus were to be automatically added to a list of "AfDs closed as no consensus" & relisted for discussion a year down the line? That'd give people plenty of time to work on it; keeps the article in mainspace during that time which does attract more potential editors than draft/user-space; but still ensures there isn't a risk they'll get forgotten about for years and years until someone stumbles upon it again. AddWittyNameHere 02:21, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  I like this idea more than NC==keep. JoelleJay (talk) 01:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

  And a year later, WP:NODEADLINE will still apply. Just like in 3 months, or 5 years. Automatic relisting is just busy work and bureaucracy, we don't need that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:16, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

  Sure, some of the time, that will be the exact outcome, and in some cases, the article that gets relisted will so obviously have improved it gets into speedy keep territory. I'm not unaware there are downsides to my suggestion.

  However, in other cases, consensus on notability of a subject may well have changed and the article gets deleted after all. (After all, there's more than enough cases where an article survives one or two AfD listings before eventually getting deleted.)

  As things stand right now, a good bunch of these gets relisted down the line anyway and many of the others would have gotten relisted if folks actually remembered they exist. But it puts the burden of doing so on individual editors who have to remember those articles exist and judge when it's been long enough since the last time at AfD, and in some subject areas it exposes these editors to unnecessary drama and ALLCAPS shortcut accusations like WP:IDHT and WP:POINT levied towards them for re-AfDing it.

  At least if it's an automatic process, the burden of remembering the article's existence doesn't end up on individual editors; folks aren't required to possibly open themselves up to drama and accusations in order to get such articles up at AfD again; and it rebalances the outcome of "no consensus" more closely towards it's actual meaning: there was no consensus for either keeping or deleting (so let's try again some point down the line to see if an actual consensus in either direction exists now). AddWittyNameHere 08:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

...it took several tries before an AfD was successful

No, no, you're not understanding what we're about, here. An AfD is not necessarily "successful" if an article is destroyed; most times yeah, but often enough, it's a cockup. The attitude shown by that statement is just silly, in my view. It's not 2010 anymore. There's a whole culture of editors backslapping each other for destroying articles, and we are destroying more OK articles than we should be. Making it easier to destroy more is the opposite of what we need. Suggestion rejected. Herostratus (talk) 03:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

A lot of your examples are articles created about non-notable people who subsequently achieved notability. For example, the article about the baseball player Jason Heyward was created before he had ever played as a professional. When it was nominated for deletion, the full article read:

"Jason Heyward is an outfielder and first-baseman drafted by the Atlanta Braves. He played baseball in high school for Henry County High School in McDonough, Georgia. He was selected 14th overall in the 2007 Major League Baseball Draft. He is a 6 foot 1 inch, 220 pound player."[1]

At that time [18 June 2007], the subject lacked notability per Sports personalities as there were no sources providing significant coverage.

Your argument would therefore be a form of WP:CRYSTALBALL, which is creating an article now in anticipation of the topic becoming notable in the future.

There's an upcoming movie starring Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Luiz Guzman and other notable actors, but little has been released about it at this time. An editor submitted it to Articles for Creation, but it was rejected and they were told not to re-submit until the film had attracted sufficient media coverage to meet notability. But if they had created the article, it probably would have survived an AfD because of no consensus. I am sure however that it will attract attention, good or bad, based on the high profile of the actors.

AfDs BTW provide an opportunity for editors to find and add sources to articles. They don't need another four weeks, four months or whatever and then put the community through another AfD.

TFD (talk) 04:32, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

There are cases too where a notable topic exists, but the article is so poorly written that WP:BLOWITUP is the best approach. For example, Left-wing terrorism is a defined concept in terrorism studies with relative agreement on their objectives, methods and which groups it applies to. However, the original article was terrorists who happened to be left-wing, which is not the definition. There was overwhelming consensus for deletion. (See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Left-wing terrorism.) Four years later, I re-created the article based on reliable sources. I notice that AndyTheGrump is also a contributor. It was far easier to create a new article than to fix a bad article. And there was no public benefit to have kept a bad article for four years, waiting for someone to fix it. ([[I also recreated Right-wing terrorism which had been deleted at the same time.) TFD (talk) 14:33, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh yes, absolutely, most articles sent to AfD should be deleted. They're memorials, or ephemera, or unsourceable, or COI advertisements, or not-easily-fixable BLP or NPOV violations, or resumes, and so on and so forth. For all the rest, simplify your life. Throw away all the noise, throw away all the THIS CAPITALIZED LINK and THAT CAPITALIZED LINK and the general war of capitalized links. Instead, ask a simple question:

This article has X daily readers. Overall, it would improve the experience of people searching on this term to get a 404 rather than article, because _______.

If you can't fill in the blank with something useful, go do something else. There are cogent reasons that can go in the blank. It's just that "Rule X or Rule Y or Rule Z says to delete, beep beep" isn't one of them,

So, as you say, if the article needs to get blown up, its worse than nothing. If the article says things that are false or might be false (since there's no reliable source) and we probably can't source those with reasonable effort and deleting them all would ruin the article, the article's not much use. If the article cherry-picks to spin the subject, and we can't easily fix that, the reader would be better off getting nothing. If X is at or near zero, there's not much point in having the article. If the subject is so emphemeral that we can guess that X will be at or near zero in ten years or twenty, same. And there's lot of other reasons.

Even if you can, there are some other reasons. Sometimes the article is too far beyond our remit. A how-to. A bare recipe. An essay. Many other things. We've decided not to publish stuff like that, and that's fine. Or, the article might be a net drag on the project, for some reason.

Other than that, what's the harm of having an article about some bohunk footballer from Franistan or whatever. People like to write about that, people like to read about that. You might not like it, but you can't stop them. And our remit is to be a very large and detailed encyclopedia of football ("Wikipedia ... incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias"). Tell me what the harm is. If you can't, move on.

As to "AfDs BTW provide an opportunity for editors to find and add sources to articles", good grief no. I hope editors aren't of the mind "well, this article could use more sources, but I don't wanna do it, I'll send it to AfD so it'll be improved". That would be... not what AfD is for. I mean it is hard to add new sources to an article if we've deleted it. Right? Sure some few articles sent to AfD get improved and saved per WP:HEY. But a lot just slip into the grave. I mean this is an extremely risky way to build an encyclopedia, I really don't want editors to ever be thinking this. Herostratus (talk) 23:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Unless there has previously been an affirmative consensus to keep an article, no consensus should default to the article not being kept - either through it being redirected, or through it being moved to draft space. This is in line with policies such as WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN, and would also partially address some WP:FAITACCOMPLI issues related to article creation. BilledMammal (talk) 02:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Remember we are here to build an encyclopedia. Deleting pages does not achieve that. And as stated above, no consensus means we don't change the way it is, so if the article exists, we don't delete it. If you want it to be a redirect, then argue for that, and get consensus. If the policy is not clear on what the deletion decisions are based, perhaps we need more discussion on the policy. In my opinion we have far too many biographies that do not pass the GNG, but I don't normally waste time arguing about their deletion, because there are so many special criteria that allow keeping. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:18, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't see why building an encyclopedia means giving new page creators "first mover advantage", such that I can create any mainspace page and unless there's consensus to delete it, it stays. I'm here to build an accurate encyclopedia--and a curated one, WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Levivich 05:58, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

    I don't see why building an encyclopedia means giving AFD nominators a "second mover advantage", such that they can delete any mainspace page, and unless there's a consensus to keep it, it goes – especially since only one person can create a given article, but there are thousands of us who could try to get it deleted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

  Remember we are here to build an encyclopedia. Deleting pages does not achieve that. Only if the sole definition of "building an encyclopedia" is "increasing the total number of standalone articles". But one way Wikipedia defines itself is by what it is NOT, so removing articles that violate NOT is "building the encyclopedia" just as much as creating articles on encyclopedically-worthy subjects. And anyway, who would hire a gardener who not only doesn't weed your garden, but also actively plants weeds? JoelleJay (talk) 22:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• The problem is that article creation can be done unilaterally without consensus (or even proof of notability), but deletion requires research and at least 3 editors to reach consensus if the article creator contests it. –dlthewave ☎ 06:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose change (unclear status of the "proposal") - No consensus means default to inclusion because it is no consensus to change - no consensus by a new page patroller should mean return to draft. So the original burden is on the new article, unlike what is noted above. But the burden is instead on the change, which is in fact the norm on Wikipedia. That is why no consensus defaults to keep. Those suggesting it should be userfied are, in effect, proposing deletion by the backdoor. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:48, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

  I don't believe your assertion that there is a consensus for these articles due to the existence of NPP is accurate; the opinion of a single new page patroller isn't enough to form a consensus, and articles created by autopatrolled editors are not reviewed by NPP.

I also think we should avoid bolded !votes until there is a formal proposal. BilledMammal (talk) 12:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal on the former point, it's meant to be akin to that one person could add some content with a source, and if someone reverted it, the onus would be on them to prove it should be included. But if they added such, and someone else disagreed a year later, the onus would be on the remover. On the latter, I would do so, except for the fact we're in VPP, not VPI, and so it's supposed to already be a full proposal. If we don't want bolded !votes then we can shift the convo over to VPI and I'll happily strike. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:30, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose change per Nosebagbear. Exactly my thoughts. Pavlor (talk) 11:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• If Wikipedia's mission is to sort the known universe into things that are notable and things that are not notable, defaulting AfDs to keep makes sense. If its mission is to write an encyclopaedia that keeps growing and improving, not so much. – Joe (talk) 12:01, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• I think this is merely a discussion. The editor who opened this thread did not put forth a proposal. They asked a question and a discussion has ensued. No need to "oppose" or "support" because there is no proposal on the table. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 14:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• As others have pointed out, while keeping recently-created pages as a result of "No consensus" does create some WP:Fait accompli issues with regards to the article creator, I don't think this is really the major issue. The real problem is that some "No Consensus" closes aren't a reflection of genuine and plausible disagreement over something being notable, but are instead the result of !vote counting without due regard for those !votes actually incorporating policy into their reasoning. -Indy beetle (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• The answer to this question is simply that the burden of proof rests on the person who asserts the claim. For a deletion proposer, that's on them. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 08:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I have to disagree with Since most AfDs attract little attention, the outcome is already weighted in favor of keep, since the creator and other contributors are likely to vote to keep. An AfD with no participation results in a soft delete, and there are just as many "other contributors" who will come along and vote delete (or WP:PERNOM). If the nominator writes an effective rationale the burden is then on the keep voters to counter that. An effective rationale countered by a keep vote with no or poor reasoning is likely to be closed as delete. I would oppose any change here. NemesisAT (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose change. The article by definition already exists. Someone has bothered to write it. If there was consensus to delete it then this would result in deletion at AfD. We should err on the side of keeping articles that someone has bothered to work on rather than erring on the side of deleting articles that someone has decided they don't like. If you examine AfDs you will see that there are some editors who never saw an AfD they didn't want to vote delete on; it's just their dogma - if it's been nominated for deletion then it clearly should be deleted. Sometimes the same group of editors votes delete one after the other. As long as there are enough other editors who vote keep then the onus should always be on the deletors to say why it should be deleted and convince other editors of that, not the other way around. It's very easy to vote delete; it's not so easy to put work into writing an article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:07, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

  We should err on the side of keeping articles that someone has bothered to work on rather than erring on the side of deleting articles that someone has decided they don't like. would be putting the editor above the reader. The fact that someone "bothered to work on" something doesn't make it necessarily good or valuable, and it certainly doesn't mean it meets any of our policies or guidelines. We should not show the reader anything that we don't agree meets our policies and guidelines. The reader should know that everything they're reading has consensus as policy-compliant. Levivich 15:46, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

  No, it doesn't. But this about a no consensus result, not a delete result! That suggests that at least some editors think the article is worth keeping. The reader should know that everything they're reading has consensus as policy-compliant. Anyone would think that Wikipedia had fixed rules that must be obeyed! We don't and we never have had. That's why we have AfDs and not admin deletion of articles that are non-"policy-compliant" (which is clearly very often highly subjective in any case) without discussion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:23, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

  Articles are regularly deleted because they don't fit a strict definition of some guideline despite having many views. This deletionism is not putting the reader first. NemesisAT (talk) 14:05, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

  I bet you can't name three articles with "many views" that have been deleted. Levivich 14:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

  I don't know how we would get the page view counts for articles such as 2022 New Mexico parade ramming. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

  Straight off the top of my head is List of largest towns in England without a railway station which was the top result in Google for searches on British settlements without a railway station. Tell me how deleting that is putting the reader first. NemesisAT (talk) 23:23, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

  Where to even begin with this comment... JoelleJay (talk) 04:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are cases where non-policy-based "Keep" votes incorrectly lead the closer to a "No consensus" result. The solution is to better educate closers on discounting such votes. But where there is a legitimate lack of consensus, we should err on the side of WP:PRESERVE. Cbl62 (talk) 16:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
• oppose, no consensus has long meant status quo. There are speedy deletion criteria also. Andre🚐 21:43, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean, as usual, I find these discussions depressing. Before the slow Eternal September starting in IDK the mid to late oughts, there was a different attitude. Now we have many people robotically and rigidly following immutable rules and/or using rules as a club to battle for their ideology -- which is destructive often enough -- and other editors teaching new editors that that's the way to roll. It's hard to contribute by writing articles; trolling thru the project and finding articles that don't meet this rule or that rule or the other rule and trying to have them deleted is much easier -- and there are now many editors who will high-five new editors who do that. There are editors who are on a long-term class-warfare crusade to find grounds to have articles about low culture subjects deleted. And there are lot of nominated articles where the nominator, thru either misfeasance or malfeasance, hasn't done due diligence, and often enough nobody checks this. You get a few driveby "Delete per nom" votes from editors who have been brought up in this mindset, and then a busy admin who sees her job as to clear the backlog as quickly as possible, which is most easily done with a headcount..

From the days of Nupedia the rubric was (formerly) that if you had a good article, that people wanted to read, that was within our remit, then you wouldn't delete it. I had an article deleted, a good article, because we're working here with people... how to put this... maybe lack a subtle and nuanced understanding of how ref vetting works and really what we're supposed to be doing here... it is the encyclopedia that anyone can participate in, there's no threshold for subtlety of mind or commitment to the project goals. Anyway, I found this experience both alarming and alienating. Herostratus (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to BOLDly suggest a couple compromises, for the sake of discussion. So, "Delete" results could be split into to -- something like "Delete with prejudice" where the subject is inherently no good or the article was terrible or a BLP violation or what have you, and Deletes where the article was not that bad, didn't meet the GNG or whatever (or did, but was considered of interest only to the lower classes) but is not actually harmful for people to read. For the latter, we could have a process where: 1) The article is blanked (but not deleted) and protected 2) The reader is instructed how to go into the history and find the last good version and access that That way, the editors who like to delete OK articles get satisfaction, but the reader is also able to access the article.

Or, if we don't want the readers to access deleted articles at all, for the latter we could, instead of having the actually pretty insulting suggestion that reader make it herself (which is OK for articles that have never been made, that's different), we could have a page like this:

Hi, I see you're looking for information on [subject]. We could have an article on this subject. In fact we did have an article on this subject, a nice one. But we deleted it! Because, while we are here to provide information, we don't think you should have too much information. But we wish you luck on your Google search on this topic, and we hope and assume that you have time, interest, and skill to re-create the equivalent collection of sourced data on your own (just as all the other people reading this message will have to do individually, unless they just give up or settle for a lesser amount of information). Have a nice day, and fuck you!

I mean, we ought to be straight with the reader and not beat around the bush. Herostratus (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, because you can never have too many unsourced articles on people who played one cricket match in 1845. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:58, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Especially ones that are basically mirrors of the sports database websites where they get their only mention. We definitely need those! -Indy beetle (talk) 08:44, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Now you're getting it! Except for the "unsourced" part (if it means unsourceable with reasonable effort); we don't want to tell readers wrong things, or things that might be wrong. As you say, per the first sentence of the First Pillar, "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias" (emphasis added). It's important to keep this in mind, I think, because after all that is what I signed on to and so did others. People like to make these articles and people like to read them, and people who don't like it are advised to consider the Wikipedian's Meditation.

"Combines many features of" does not mean the same thing as "is". WP is not a specialist encyclopedia, almanac, or gazetteer even if it combines many features of them, but if you signed up to write one of those, you're in the wrong place. Levivich 14:57, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

And FWIW, if you really want to go after articles about very obscure subjects with sources to bare mentions in obscure databases, how about articles like Gogana conwayi? We have thousands upon thousands of articles like that. Call them "biocruft" and get them destroyed, why not. Oh wait, I forgot science is for our sort of people. Sports is for the peasantry. Phhht. Herostratus (talk) 10:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

actually, the more recent issue is recognition that these stubs around geolocations,sports figurrs, or special is to namw A few is that they highlight the plight around trying to create articles on underrepresented groups ( dye to systematic bias) like women and minorities, even in just Western cultures. these stubs would never have gotten through the current AFC or drafting processes to be put to mainspace, which the same issue faces those trying to create articles on women/etc.. this doesn't mean that we should delete the existing stubs, but the attitude (currently be drafted into an RFC about mass article creation and deletion) is that mass creation of these stub like article is not recommended without seeking community concurrence. But at the same time, we have to be aware that there are other ways to present the same info without creating microstubs, such as covering the arching genus of a spevies, each known species under it as list entry rather than a separate article, until GNG notability can be shown. Masem (t) 13:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

• We have a rule that AfD isn't for cleanup. We also have a rule that says there is no deadline to improve content. Because AfD isn't for cleanup and we don't have any other process with deadlines, any request to improve the sources for an article can be put off by other editors, and there is no limit to how often this can be done. I call this "infinite deferral".
  We also have a rule that says when we're talking about biographies of living people, editors should be very firm about requiring the highest quality sources, but because of infinite deferral, there is no venue at all where editors can be firm about sources. The "no-consensus-defaults-to-keep" facet of AfD rather exacerbates this, I think. I'm coming to the view that we need a place where we can enforce WP:BLP, WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS, all of which are paragraphs of core policy. If AfD can't be adapted into that place, then I would tend to suggest a new process.—S Marshall T/C 20:54, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

  You can be just as firm and rapid as you want about adding high-quality sources – as long as you're doing the work yourself, and not just ordering others to do it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

• I sort of 'Oppose'. This is because there are cases when people can't be bothered to be involved as the afd does not interest them, don't either bother looking for any sources, or don't actually look at the sources to see if they are any good. We therefore get no concensus, when Articles should either be deleted or kept. No consensus does not mean keep. Drafty became an option at AFD because editors could see that articles could be improved but didn't have time to do the donkey work at the AFD. My other issue is closers. There are editors closing or extending AFDs making decisions not actually based on fact. I recently nominated County Borough of Southend-on-Sea, for hardly any participation, which the editor extending the AFD deadline made a snide comment about the nomination, which a further editor pointed out was wrong.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:33, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose any changes. The OP brings up WP:ONUS, but article deletion is not the same thing as text removal. Article deletion says "Should we or should we not have a stand-alone article dedicated to this topic", whereas the information contained in such a putative article could still be covered at Wikipedia in any other appropriate article. Deleting an article is primarily about how we organize information at Wikipedia, it is NOT about whether or not such information should be included at all. Let's say, for example, there's an article about the Anytown Police Department, and lets say that AFD decides to delete the article, because the Anytown Police Department is not notable enough for a stand-alone article. That deletion decision has nothing at all to do with how we deal with properly referenced information about the Anytown Police Department at Wikipedia. Want to include a well-referenced paragraph on the Anytown Police Department in the article titled Anytown? The AFD decision has no influence on that. As long as the information passes proper referencing, and there is consensus (or, lack of objection) to adding it, go ahead and add that paragraph. So the comparison is NOT apt, and I find the argument in favor of changing policy regarding article deletion falls flat given that is the primary rationale for changing it. No consensus defaults to status quo, just as in other decisions, except in cases like WP:ONUS, which I think is a good exception to that standard policy. --Jayron32 17:43, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose any changes. "Wikipedia's purpose is to benefit readers by acting as a widely accessible and free encyclopedia that contains information on all branches of knowledge." If there's no consensus to delete the page then keep it.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
• Strongest possible oppose doing anything about this "problem." It is easy to nominate an article for deletion and harder to improve it, so the burden of proof must be on the person nominating an article for deletion in order to counterbalance it. In reference to your point of "contributors are likely to vote to keep," the sheer amount of AfDs that get extended prove this wrong. Wikipedia has existed for decades. The expectation that a subject-matter expert with access to high-quality sourcing who edited an article in 2010 make himself available for a discussion he doesn't know exists, during a 1-week timeslot he wasn't told about, needs to appear for an article to be kept will make the problem of notable content being deleted on poor/nonexistent WP:BEFORE research worse than it already is. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:18, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Texas' law that was passed last year, which makes it illegal for companies with more than 50 million users to moderate content based on political/ideological alignment, just got its injunction overturned by the 5th Circuit today. [2]. This could have implications on Wikipedia, since we do moderate content in a manner that I could see some politicians and others claim is against the law. Obviously, we should not take steps now, but hopefully WMF legal would step in if something like that hits us. Masem (t) 03:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The 5th Circuit decision conflicts with a May opinion by the 11th Circuit which held that major provisions of a similar social media law in Florida violate the First Amendment. These conflicting rulings could be cause for another appeal to the Supreme Court, whose May ruling did not touch on the merits of the underlying Texas case.[3] IANAL but I cannot see how the 11th Circuit decision isn't a more likely First Amendment one for the Supreme Court ruling. Companies like Facebook, Google, or even the WMF, a nonprofit foundation, typically are considered to exercise control over their platforms. It'd be like if I demanded you publish my political letter to the editor on the bulletin board of the local supermarket. You can always make your own website or newspaper and publish your own blog, but you can't demand that Wikipedia change its rules for your own opinions and call it free speech. Andre🚐 03:58, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean, there's Section 230 that's been the safety net for all major companies (including us) that use moderation, but this law technically is a challenge to that and rulings from the other circuits. But until we have the Supreme Court to rule on that, someone *could* use the Texas law to go after WP. Masem (t) 04:02, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that someone who merely reads Wikipedia without writing anything counts as a user. This is unclear to my law-deficient mind, but the ruling speaks of organizations like Twitter where the number of "active users" is that large. We have a lot of user accounts (but less than 50 million) but almost all are inactive for a long time. So I don't think it is obvious that the ruling applies to us. Zero^talk 04:59, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

However, WP:BLP leaves us with no wriggle room. Such material ... and must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States So while we can ignore it and await a ruling for all other articles, it must be applied to BLPs. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The key word there is "applicable". If Wikipedia is not within the scope of the law, and this is something that legal probably needs to weigh in on, then BLP does not require us to apply it. Thryduulf (talk) 09:52, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that WP should not be considered under that, but I can also see the potential that someone will try (at which point WMF Legal activates)

The longer term implication here is that this is a Section 230 challenge, which at least one Justice has considered the need to review. And if Section 230 gets undone, that could affect WP in that way. That's years off, though. Masem (t) 12:00, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The law's definition of "user" includes anyone who "receives content through a social media platform", so it probably is enough just to read Wikipedia, not requiring editing or even registering. On the other hand, it's 50 million users in a calendar month in the US. Do we actually have that many? If so, can we nudge ourselves below that by blocking all access from the Theocratic Hellscape of Texas? (Not actually serious, but it would make for a satisfying response.) —Cryptic 14:40, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I thought of that, but I think it's better to make sure the people in Texas can read Wikipedia so they can find information that isn't censored by their authoritarian regime. Andre🚐 14:52, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• Is the problem that we're subject to Texas law because we have a data center in Texas? If so, then the obvious fix is to not have a data center in Texas. Why should we contribute to the economy of a jurisdiction which is hostile to us? I see that one of the criteria for selecting that location was the (supposed) stability of the Texas power grid. That didn't work out as well as we hoped. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Texas has a long-arm statute that might apply even without the data center because we have editors based in Texas. MrOllie (talk) 13:56, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, Texas could argue that since we have editors/readers from Texas, then the law applies to WP. Masem (t) 14:12, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  On the other hand, people (and governments) can argue all sorts of stupid stuff. Whether it could actually stick is another question. Anomie⚔ 17:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• This appears to be mainly a headache for the WMF as the law purports to set forth requirements for, and authorizes suit against, a "social media platform" rather than users of the platform, but in the event that some disgruntled Texan sues the admin who blocked them or some similar scenario, such admin might find meta:Legal/Legal Fees Assistance Program of relevance. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 18:51, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  The admin who blocked this Texan could only be sued if he either was in Texas when he did it, or is a Texan himself. And the percentage of Wikipedia admins who are Texan is probably low enough that such a disgruntled Texan user would be more likely to be wasting his money checking this out than to actually find out that a Texan did it. Animal lover |666| 12:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  While I agree that a non-resident sued in a Texas court may have strong jurisdictional arguments why the Texas long arm statute does not apply, those arguments would still have to be raised in a Texas court or risk a default judgment. See Appearance_(law)#Special_appearance. I also agree that this would likely be a waste of money for the party bringing suit, but forewarned is forearmed. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 18:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Here's the text of the law and the 5th Circuit opinion if anyone is interested. If you look at page 3 of the law, it's almost 100% that Wikipedia is not covered, as we do not have >50M US active users/month (or anywhere near that; note the WMF's official estimate in it's most-recent Form 990 was 311,000 active volunteers for the year, worldwide). (The law is probably preempted by Section 230 anyway, and btw while this is really neither here nor there, Texas state court jurisdiction isn't really relevant because in the US we have federal courts with diversity jurisdiction.) Levivich (talk) 18:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

As noted above by Cryptic, the law's definition of "user" includes anyone who "receives content through a social media platform", so it probably is enough just to read Wikipedia, not requiring editing or even registering, so the number of volunteers is not equal to users. As for diversity jurisdiction, the law authorizes only declarative relief, including costs and attorney fees, and injunctive relief so the amount in controversy requirement of $75,000 would not be satisfied. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 19:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

The 5th Circuit is a federal court, not a Texas Court. Unfortunately, they absolutely can judge whether Section 230 applies. The ruling is completely bogus as a matter of legal logic, but I don't see why it wouldn't have jurisdiction. SnowFire (talk) 23:18, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

The law only applies to those within Texas, no? For example, Oklahoma is part of the same circuit, but Oklahoma does not have a similar law, so someone from Oklahoma need not worry. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 02:08, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

That's correct, but missing the point. The question is whether Wikipedia has to comply with the law at all, or not. If Wikipedia has to comply - even "just" for users in Texas (a huge state with a population greater than the Netherlands) - then that means setting up some sort of policy / dispute board / enforcement to ensure compliance, and spending lawyer time on reading the law. For example, does the law require that the user identify themselves as Texan? If not, theoretically everyone has to be treated as if they might be from Texas and thus might sue. If so, then that means developers might need to create a "Texas flag" for users that indicate that their political screeds cannot be removed. All of this is terrible - it'd be much easier on everyone if the law was flat overturned, rather than saying "it's just Texas." (Lest this come across as too doomy, I do think Wikipedia would have strong legal grounds for most of it not being a social media site, and it would largely apply to user pages & user talk and the like.) SnowFire (talk) 12:00, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Netchoice v. Paxton is an action brought by two trade associations in a federal district court under federal question jurisdiction seeking to enjoin the Texas law as violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The federal district court's ruling was appealed to the 5th Circuit which issued the unfavorable opinion and the trade associations can now seek certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, the stay on the Texas law is lifted and the Texas Attorney General and individual Texan users of social media platforms are free to bring new actions against social media platforms under the law in Texas state courts. Under certain conditions, defendants might seek to remove such actions to federal court under diversity jurisdiction but one of those conditions is that there is an amount in controversy over $75,000 which would not be met if only declarative and injunctive relief, and costs and attorney fees are sought. Under these conditions, any non-resident defendant would need to raise their jurisdictional arguments in the Texas state court in a special appearance or potentially face a default judgment. TLDR: if anyone receives service of process from Texas they should consult a lawyer and read meta:Legal/Legal Fees Assistance Program. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 17:40, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Y'all are missing the larger point. This prevents companies from removing posts based on ideologies. Unfortunately for Texas Republicans, as Wikipedia is both largely user moderated and does not really have "posts" to speak of, this ruling is not really applicable. How often do actual Wikimedia employees actually deal with reverting edits as part of official order? Not often. To have someone sue Wikipedia over this would be akin to someone sueing over getting downvoted on Reddit. The users themselves are the ones moderating and curating content. Why? I Ask (talk) 20:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you on the merits that this is mostly a matter for WMF to worry about, but I am not confident that every Texas editor who is ideologically aggrieved will have such a firm grasp on the boundaries between WMF and community functionaries such as admins and arbcom members or even other editors who delete their contributions. Having been granted a lawsuit hammer by Texas, I do not think it impossible they may aim that hammer at the wrong nail. They will likely lose any such lawsuit over jurisdiction or suing the wrong party or preemption or constitutionality but in the meantime whoever gets hauled into state court in Texas will bear the inconvenience, expense and risk involved. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 21:00, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

The solution should be to just block the website to readers from Texas, if this gets to be a problem (which it probably won't -- the fifth circuit is known for their dumb rulings, and it'll be appealed. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 07:56, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't WMF employ legal counsel? This is not something we need to worry about. --Jayron32 17:43, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I think they just consult with IP editors. Levivich (talk) 18:12, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Touché. --Jayron32 18:15, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

The WMF has legal counsel. The Wikipedia community does not as far I can determine. See meta:Wikimedia Legal Disclaimer ("The legal team represents the Wikimedia Foundation, which makes decisions through the Executive Director and the Board. We do not represent you, or any other community member, or the community in general.". But see meta:Legal/Legal Fees Assistance Program. WMF legal does not consult with me; I just read what they write. 68.189.242.116 (talk) 18:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

We should be aware that should someone find a way to place Wikipedia as a site that must comply with the law, then WMF Legal will likely figure some guidance for us to follow. But there are a pile of "ifs" that need to be meet before that happens. Masem (t) 19:41, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, assuming that:

1. Legal are aware of this law (I don't know they are, but I think it unlikely that they aren't); and
2. Legal haven't issued any statements advising the community that they need to take or not take some action and/or be aware of certain things (I haven't looked specifically, but if they had the chances of it not being posted in this thread and/or on the Functionaries mailing list are zero); and
3. The WMF don't want to get sued if they can help it; and
4. The WMF don't want Wikipedia (or the other projects) to fail, be taken down, or blocked in some or all parts of the world; and
5. The WMF would prefer it if community members didn't get sued, especially if there was a simple way they could prevent it (these last three are based on a mixture of past statements and actions by the WMF and common sense)

Then I think there are only two plausible scenarios for where we are right now, either:

1. Legal have finished investigating and in their professional opinion there is no need for the Foundation and/or community to take any action or change the way they do things; or
2. Legal are still investigation the situation, but based on their research so far they are of the opinion there is need for the Foundation and/or community to take any action or change the way they do things at the present time.

Thryduulf (talk) 22:44, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

How does Wikipedia treat pages like Bibliography of jazz or Bibliography of Ukrainian history? It seems like these would conflict with WP:NOTDATABASE. My thoughts is that pages like these are unsuitable for an encyclopedia, but I was unable to find a past discussion on the consensus of these (aside from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive AZ). I feel like List of important publications in mathematics that list specific notable publications are encyclopedic and author pages like Ernest Hemingway bibliography are obviously encyclopedic. But the subject bibliographies that just try to list every book and paper? I'm not buying it. So my question is: should we keep such pages? Are such pages within the scope of being an encyclopedia? Because as far as I know, dictionaries, bibliographies, and encyclopedias are all different things.

That being said, there is definitely an audience and need for pages like this (for example, to provide a list of sources to be used in improving Wikipedia), just not on Wikipedia. I would be down to WP:Transwiki these pages to a brand new wiki designed for subject bibliographies (e.g., "WikiBibliography" or something more creative), but I know that this is not the venue for that discussion. Why? I Ask (talk) 23:41, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@Why? I Ask, you might ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies. And see Wikipedia:List of bibliographies. StarryGrandma (talk) 01:16, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I know the WikiProject exists (and would be biased regarding this question), but bibliographies encompass more than just the subject bibliographies I was referring to (e.g., an artist's discography, a list of best-selling books; encyclopedic topics). That second link is peculiar though. Why bother having an index of bibliographies in the proverbial backrooms of Wikipedia? If the bibliographies listed are for the reader (i.e., main space) then that list should also be in the main space; if the bibliographies aren't for the reader, then why do we have subject bibliographies in the main space? Why? I Ask (talk) 01:28, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Conference websites often publish biographies of their speakers, see an example. Usually, these biographies are provided by the speakers themselves. Can such sources be used for articles - biographies of living people? Are such sources neutral and reliable? Is this reflected in any of the policies? --Shvili1962 (talk) 10:53, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Neutral? No. Reliable and usable in articles? There is no single answer to that. Like all primary sources, they should be evaluated on a case by case basis. – Joe (talk) 11:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

They are neither secondary nor independent of the subject, and so do not count towards GNG notability. They can be used as sources for non-controversial biographical details, though. JoelleJay (talk) 01:08, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I asked a similar question on WP:BLPN. I think your question can be rephrased: "Can any self-published or primary source", e.g web, author forward from book, interview, etc be used for a biography when the source material came directly from the biography subject. My read of the guidelines WP:BLP is that the answer is yes, but must be evaluated for authenticity. because subject's do exaggerate and/or make false claims. [[WP:BLP] stated: Primary and/or self-published sources may NOT be used "as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article". Note the 'unless' clause. This would be common sense because a subject's early life, education and aspect's of their career can often only be sourced from primary source interviews and/or written material directly from the biography subject. Second, WP:BLPSELFPUB explicitly endorses using self-published material IF "it is not unduly self-serving...there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and the article is not based primarily on such sources".

Can others confirm or deny this interpretation of the WP:BLP guidelines? MarsTrombone (talk) 19:57, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

This is a better question for the Teahouse. As others have said, it depends, but in general, non-controversial facts biographical facts such as official job title can come from a primary source. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Per the above, for noncontroversial, banal CV type information, such sources may sometimes be okay in case no other better sources exist which have the same information, then it can be okay. If better sources exist, use those. If better sources exist and contradict the information, then absolutely don't use it. If the information is controversial or likely to be, also find a better source. Ultimately, though, what you would need to do to get a better answer is "Can this source be used as a citation for this Wikipedia text" and then write the exact block of text you intend to write at Wikipedia with the exact source being used to verify it, and then you'll get a better answer. --Jayron32 17:29, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

My experience with conferences is that the bios are submitted by the speaker themselves (or an assistant to them, etc.). Thus they should not be considered reliable. --Masem (t) 17:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

also posted at WikiProject Source MetaData since it’s relevant there too

I’m looking for opinions on institutional policy and research reports in general as reliable sources as part of the WikiProject Policy Reports project. The example source types on WP:RS (scholarship, news, vendor etc) don’t quite cover our area of interest: reports, conference papers, discussion and briefing papers, strategies, policies and other docs (sometimes called grey literature). These are generally self-published by organisations (e.g. the WHO publishes WHO reports) but it’s obviously not the same as someone’s self-published blog or book.

I realise that for specific citations in WP it’s case-by-case. However, we’re looking for some guidance on what principles or criteria we could use to prioritise/sort organisations into 1) Generally reliable / 2) unclear / 3) generally unreliable since these sorts of items are likely often useful as potential WP sources in addition to books/journals/newspapers. As part of the project we’re looking to prioritise which organisations’ reports are most useful to upload metadata to Wikidata about.

If general principles aren’t really possible, it’d be helpful to have some examples to calibrate on e.g. these five organisations:

• The Australia Institute is an independent public policy think tank based in Canberra, Australia that carries out research on a broad range of economic, social, and environmental issues (APO-listed reports)

• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is Australia's national agency for information and statistics on Australia's health and welfare (APO-listed reports).

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is the New Zealand government department responsible for contributing to economic productivity and growth (APO-listed reports).

• Lowitja Institute is is a national research centre focusing on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing (APO-listed reports).

• Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is the peak body for the community services sector in Australia and advocates for action to reduce poverty and inequality (APO-listed reports).

Thanks in advance for the feedback on these! We’ve >70 publishing organisations that we’re focusing on so these will help us calibrate which sorts of organisations are worth focusing on uploading metadata to Wikidata. If anyone has an interest in the full list, please let me know and I can loop you in on the full project. Brigid vW (talk) 06:52, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

First, please define "generally reliable". Detailed feedback maybe given following your definition. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 12:12, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:GREL as defined by the WP:RSP Brigid vW (talk) 23:09, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@172.254.222.178 Sorry, thats: WP:GREL and WP:RSP Brigid vW (talk) 23:15, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Question is very broad but I think WP:RSN is anyway where you want to ask this question (some of your 70 may been discussed before, you can feed them into the search box at WP:RSP to see). Selfstudier (talk) 12:39, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

• I’m not sure we can (or should) determine reliability without the context of what we are supporting when we cite these sources. Certainly they are reliable for supporting attributed statements about the opinions of these institutions … but whether they are reliable for unattributed statements (in Wikipedia’s voice) would be subject specific. Blueboar (talk) 13:07, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier we are searching for all proposed organisations on the WP:RSN and WP:RSP before putting them forward. There is already one Australian Strategic Policy Institute that has been allocated WP:MREL.

@Blueboar So it's possible we could allocated a WP:MREL where attribution is required? Brigid vW (talk) 23:14, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

FYI I've asked a similar question at Wikipedia talk:Tiers of reliability#Grey literature. Levivich (talk) 18:10, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Great thank you. Brigid vW (talk) 23:04, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

IMO "Generally reliable" is an over generalization that should be eliminated. But on average, I would consider those to be more reliable than an average wp:rs. North8000 (talk) 18:27, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it depends on the particular publisher. For example, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Cato Institute, Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Middle East Media Research Institute are all yellow at WP:RSP; Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is pink (hehe); Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network is green (WP:IFCN). Levivich (talk) 18:46, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

If the OP list of examples is an indication, there are obvious issues. Any advocacy organization is by definition exclusionary, and its publications may be prudently a priori viewed as such. No amount of outside auditing of any kind can alter the fact that such entities are expressly formed to advance certain positions, and are correspondingly biased towards these positions, which may result in directed research, massaged statistics, and narrow-focus, unrepresentative studies. Strictly technical entities such as statistics agencies that collate data and offer multiple options of presenting such data without interpretation of any kind, may only be technically unreliable (i.e. there may be erroneous or outdated statistical processes employed). Such technical unreliability can often be exposed by outside auditors either official or unofficial (including journalists, interested researchers, and other parties). Government reports have multiple problems of their own. Depending on the issue they may be advancing or justifying the parent government's positions, even when published by so-called "independent" agencies and/or career bureaucrats. "Independent" is not a synonym of reliable. And career bias is a real thing, behind every report are real people whose job/career may be affected by it. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 19:50, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@65.88.88.91 Ok so advocacy organisations are definitely out. There are some cases where Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) has engaged university researchers to produce reports. This is one example. Would we rule out those as well?

I've tried to provide 5 different types of organisations above to test out different scenarios. The Australia Institute being a research institute with a progressive leaning, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare a government funded research institute, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment a government department, and Lowitja Institute a First Peoples research institute (with funding from Government). Brigid vW (talk) 23:32, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

I went through the examples you provided, and the repository, in some depth. The previous comments were mostly a caveat against putting too much emphasis on the vague term "generally reliable". Imo it is a fuzzy concept, both 1. literally, the criteria used are basically subjective or opaque and 2. mathematically, a non-biased (statistically speaking) probability distribution of expected reliability cannot be determined from data based on the criteria. But the comments were not meant to summarily & ideologically label everything as unreliable, just that imo it is prudent policy, for the purposes of this encyclopedia, to approach sources as unreliable until proven otherwise, on a case-by-case basis. One may bring examples of proven past reliability, which is a descriptive, not predictive quality. Whether this is material in categorizing your various sources is not something that can be decided here, in my opinion. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 19:51, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

It is looking like the reports we upload in to Wikidata will need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis if used. So we'll be aiming to ensure the reports meet the WP:MREL criteria which will always require in-text attribution. And we'll only be selecting organisations that are either government or academic or established research institutes that are producing research reports (or policy documents in the case of government). Brigid vW (talk) 21:57, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Your candor and willingness to apply fact-based principles is refreshing. Best wishes. 69.203.140.37 (talk) 00:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia sister projects#Soft redirects to sister projects which needs input from additional editors. Thryduulf (talk) 12:41, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I have asked this question before and will ask it again. A page is in article space (mainspace) and is nominated for deletion. The author of the page moves the page to draft space. The AFD template on the page then displays an error message saying that the template is being used in the wrong namespace, and tells how to nominate the page for MFD. The error isn't use of the wrong XFD template, but a move after nomination, but that isn't the real question. What is the status of the page, and of the AFD? The AFD is still listed in the deletion sorting lists. Does the move to draft space turn off the AFD? If moving an article to draft space after AFD is a standard procedure, does a COI editor or an ultra get one free trip into article space to see if their article stays there? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:42, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't work AfD much any more, but when I was a regular, the rule was that you shouldn't move/rename an article while an AfD is live. It just makes everything confusing. If you think it should be moved to draft, say so in the AfD and that'll be one of the options people can consider. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah moving to Draft before the AfD closes is a bad idea, for a number of reasons, including templates getting messed up as described. -- GreenC 15:07, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear as to what I was asking or why. I agree that it's undesirable. What if anything should be done or is done about it or to prevent it? User:RoySmith says that

the rule was that you shouldn't move/rename an article while an AfD is live

. Where is the rule stated, and how is the rule enforced? It is not uncommon for the originator of a questionable article to move it to draft space in order to stop the AFD. (This may be an editor who was previously pushing the page from draft space to article space.) What should be done about the move? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I previously proposed that the AFD template should be modified to say not to move the article while the AFD is in progress. I got pushback, saying that sometimes it may be necessary to rename the article before the AFD is completed. The MFD template says not to move the page that is nominated for deletion, but MFD is a different, although related, process. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Rename in mainspace is sometimes useful IMO but moving namespace if entirely different. That's a defacto deletion. -- GreenC 21:35, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

User:GreenC - Moving an article to draftspace during AFD is done as an endrun around the deletion process by the author of the article, who is either a COI editor or an ultra. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

The COI moves to Draft to avoid the tarnish of a AfD, only to get it moved from Draft back into mainspace without a record of a Deletion. Seems like gamesmanship. =-- GreenC 15:29, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

My own opinion, and I may be in a minority, is that we should either prohibit moving the article while the AFD is in progress, or specify what the effect of a move is on an AFD. Maybe other editors would prefer not to specify because they think that moving the article is a variety of bean to abuse. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Like so many rules, it's part "rule", part "culture". In any case, WP:AFDEQ says, While there is no prohibition against moving an article while an AfD or deletion review discussion is in progress, editors considering doing so should realize such a move can confuse the discussion greatly, can preempt a closing decision, can make the discussion difficult to track, and can lead to inconsistencies when using semi-automated closing scripts. I read that as, "I'm not saying you can't do that, but please don't do that". -- RoySmith (talk) 20:29, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

The problem with the language in WP:AFDEQ that is cited by RoySmith is that it is addressed to good-faith editors about a problem involving bad-faith editors. Saying "please don't do that" isn't effective with users who are being stubborn, and they are the problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• A significant contributor to the problem is the fact that even articles that have potential are often deleted when they should be moved to draft. Potentially useful work in the edit history is lost. If the reason for deletion is that the subject is not yet shown to be notable, or that the article needs WP:TNT, then the solution should almost default to moving to draft, rather than immediate outright deletion. BD2412 T 20:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Okay. So the guideline was written by a mustelid. So I have a three-part question, specifically about a move to draft space while the AFD is running. First, does the move to draft space stop the AFD, or does the AFD continue running anyway? Second, will the AFD be closed in the same way as if the article had not been moved? Third, may a non-admin Speedy Close the AFD, and, if not, what should be done if a non-admin does Speedy Close the AFD? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:55, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

    I don't think there's any hard and fast answer to the first two. Let's say the AfD has been running for a couple of days, 5 people have commented, and they've all said, "Draftify". It would be silly to do anything other than just speedy close the AfD because where it was obviously heading has already been implemented. On the other hand, if those 5 people had all said, "This has already been created and deleted 3 times. Delete and salt", then I'd say moving it to draft space was just an end-run around the obvious result and shouldn't be allowed to stand. As for the last question, I'm inclined to think we're out of WP:NAC territory. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:01, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

    The last question is not a hypothetical. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:32, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

    Moving an article to draft space after it is nominated is not uncommon, but, in my opinion, is not done in good faith. It is almost always done by the originator in order to try to end-run the review process. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:32, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  • I agree with User:BD2412 that Draftify should be a close to many AFDs that are closed as Delete. However, that does not make moving the page to draft space while the AFD is running a good idea. It does make writing Draftify in the AFD a good contribution. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:57, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• This is why NOTBUREAUCRACY exists… be flexible as to what the right thing to do may be. If an ADF discussion is obviously leaning towards DRAFTIFY… there is no reason not to let that happen (even if it is “out of process”). On the other hand, if it is leaning towards some other outcome, then the AFD should be played out, and trying to “game the system” by draftifying would be considered disruptive. Blueboar (talk) 21:51, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
  • User:Blueboar - Maybe I wasn't clear. The move of the page from article space to draft space is never done because the AFD is leaning toward Draftify. The move of the page from article space to draft space is done by the author of the article when the AFD is written, in order to stop the AFD. I am not asking about good-faith editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:14, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    • It is also problematic when an article that could reasonably be draftified is deleted by a closing admin. The effective question in an AfD is whether the article should exist as an article in mainspace, or not. If a discussion has a half dozen delete votes and one good argument for draftification, the outcome should be draftification, every time. BD2412 T 03:20, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
• In this case we should warm the page mover, and the AFD should continue, but there should be a note on the AFD this has happened. If the result is draftify, the page can stay as a draft. But if the result is delete, then the draft is deleted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:27, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Graeme. Continue the AFD discussion, with a note saying that the page has been moved to Draftspace. What happens next depends on the outcome of the AFD discussion.

This is what I meant by being flexible and applying NOTBUREAUCRACY. It does not matter which “space” a problematic article is located in… nor does it matter which process (AFD or MFD) is used to discuss it… what matters is reaching a consensus as to what to do about the problematic article. That discussion can continue wherever the article is located. Blueboar (talk) 12:28, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• I don't know how much more clarity you're going to get with a VPP thread than the RfC you started on [more or less] this topic, with an outcome saying: both supporters and opponents have stated that forced mid-AfD moves to Draft or User namespaces may be too disruptive to the deletion process, but are divided on whether to prohibit pre-emptively or just revert them as they happen. That seems like reasonable grounds to move something back from draftspace to me. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:38, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Increasing Use of Draftification

I think that User:BD2412 is identifying a different issue that is not directly related to the issue that I raised, but is a valid issue, and that is that closers should be instructed to consider whether draftification is a proper close. It probably is a proper close if the main issue is that the subject is too soon. This doesn't have anything that I am aware of to do with moving an article to draft during an AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

How strictly should WP:V and WP:RS be observed for foreign-language phrases, non-Latin scripts, and transliterations?

• Many Wikipedia articles contain non-English names and terms, including in the lede sentence. The name's variants are in native language, ancient history, non-Latin scripts, etc.
• WP:INDICSCRIPT, regarding names in Devanagari, Brahmi, etc, scripts, mentions Additionally, there are too often problems with verifiability of the accuracy of the non-English spelling. A third reason is frequent disagreements over which native scripts to include; this led to a resolution to avoid all of them.
• Editors may often subtly modify the orthography or spelling of non-English terms, and this burdens reviewers with checking for sources that would support the old or the new version. Lacking citations in the lede sentence, we often find a similar lack of citations in the body.

Therefore, I have been placing ((citation needed)) in lede paragraphs where I was unable to verify foreign-language names. This has been disputed, so what is the way forward here? Elizium23 (talk) 19:19, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• V and RS need to be observed strictly and rigorously everywhere in the mainspace. The rules as they apply to foreign languages are set out at WP:NOENG (which is a link to a paragraph of WP:V), but what it boils down to is this: translations meet WP:V if they could be checked by someone with fluency in both languages.
• In other words, translations and transliterations have to be verifiable by someone. They don't have to be verifiable by you.
• If there's some reason why need a particular translation or transliteration to be checked but you aren't a fluent speaker of the language in question, consider finding an uninvolved Wikipedian who does speak that language fluently and asking them for help.—S Marshall T/C 21:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  WP:NOENG refers to non-English sources. So foreign languages in Wikipedia articles don't need reliable sources? Elizium23 (talk) 20:25, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  You realize that I'm drawing the inspiration today from working in Ancient Hebrew and Akkadian cuneiform; I also work in topic areas with Konkani, Gujarati language, Coptic language, Ancient Greek, etc. So please excuse my incredulity about you suggesting I find fluent speakers to verify stuff when there's a dispute about an unsourced translation. Elizium23 (talk) 20:32, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure about the other languages you mention, but there are many people fluent in both English and Gujarati here in the UK, so I don't think it would be difficult to find some of them among Wikipedia editors. There are also enough people who know both English and Ancient Greek, although, for obvious reasons, they are not fluent in the latter. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Okay, so if we find two people who write the language, and they disagree, which editor of English Wikipedia is a more reliable source? (EDIT: it's not "speakers" we want but "writers" because orthography matters here.) Elizium23 (talk) 20:50, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Your edits do not involve any disputed content, nor to they involve any translations from English into foreign languages (that I have seen). They involve pages whose titles are English translations or transliterations of well-known foreign terms. Every scholar who is fluent in those languages could tell you that they are WP:BLUE and do not require citation, as in fact every other user editing those pages has. GordonGlottal (talk) 20:27, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

  Here is an example of a discussion about this issue: Talk:Alexandria#Official names inclusion in lede and infobox. Thanks to the high visibility of this article, some other editors were able to locate citations for Arabic and Egyptian heiroglyphic translations. They didn't purport to translate them without providing sources. I think it would be ridiculous for English Wikipedians, who are not reliable sources, to translate out of English into foreign languages, especially names of things, historical ancient tongues, and non-standard orthography. Elizium23 (talk) 20:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  WP:TRANSCRIPTION says: Faithfully translating sourced material into English, or transcribing spoken words from audio or video sources, is not considered original research. Wikipedia:Translators available lists people willing to translate articles into English. What I'm not seeing is any policy that says that editors on enwiki are reliable sources for any and all foreign languages they claim to write. Elizium23 (talk) 20:58, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  If you want to go down that road then are editors on enwiki necessarily reliable sources for writing content based on sources written in English? We have WP:AGF for that, and it applies to content from non-English sources too. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I don't have to WP:AGF a translation that is found in a source. I don't need to fluently read and write the language to compare orthography and ensure that the word someone took from a reliable source is the word that's placed in Wikipedia. That's the whole point of having a source and non-expert editors; we can verify stuff we don't completely understand.

  I know enough Hebrew to tell the difference between vocalized pointed text and unpointed text, and I have someone telling me that even though there is no source for either of them, I'm an idiot and I should learn Hebrew and stop demanding sources for this stuff, and it seems that you're telling me the same thing, @Phil Bridger. Elizium23 (talk) 21:16, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure you understand: there are no non-English sources. If there were sources then I wouldn't be placing citation needed tags. Elizium23 (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  No, editors on enwiki are not reliable sources for writing content based on sources written in English. That is why Wikipedia is not a reliable source, that is why we have WP:V, and that is why we have in-line citations so that any reader may check a source against what editors have written. Our readership does not need to assume good faith about editors. Editors can hold the assumption even while checking sources (in Reagan's words, "trust, but verify."). But we need a source to check. I'm not sure how I'd cite a Wikipedian who's written out some Akkadian cuneiform in the article -- what citation format would we use? How to contact Joe Wikipedian in 2 years when there's another dispute about the orthography? Elizium23 (talk) 21:29, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• As long as we can cite the original non-English text, then the material is verifiable. If there is a question as to whether the original text is translated accurately, consensus rules. We consult with other Wikipedians who read/write/speak/understand the language and reach a consensus as to how it should be accurately translated. Blueboar (talk) 21:39, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I am not talking about translating non-English text. I am talking about taking a non-English term and placing it directly from the source into an article. Thank you for confirming that a citation is necessary. Elizium23 (talk) 21:42, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Nobody has told you that a citation is necessary in this situation.—S Marshall T/C 22:10, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Blueboar said "as long as we can cite the original non-English text..." and that's exactly what I'm talking about here. You don't seem to understand the issue. Elizium23 (talk) 22:11, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I am not referring to translating non-English words into English. I am not referring to a non-English source that's being used for an article. I am not referring to translations from English into another language.

  I am referring to original words in native tongues, foreign translations of names in historical contexts when English did not exist, and orthography that is non-Latin being placed into our articles.

  The sources for these terms and phrases are not necessarily non-English; they may be scholarly reference works or lexicons. But I am having trouble believing that Wikipedians are an adequate replacement for WP:RS here, and Blueboar has asserted that they're not, because we need to be able to cite the non-English text. Elizium23 (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I have modified my original question and the section heading because nobody but Blueboar seems to understand the issue. Elizium23 (talk) 22:19, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Elizium23 I think this would be easier to answer if you provided links to specific edits. Looking at a concrete example often helps clarify the issue. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:55, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I earlier linked to the talk page of Alexandria; here's a history of the edits. @Dr.K. refers to an "alternate names convention" which I'm unfamiliar with. Elizium23 (talk) 23:24, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Let's consider this specific edit of yours. You're saying, "prove to me that 'Alexandria' is spelled 'Αλεξάνδρεια' in Greek". I know that WP:BURDEN is rather absolute when it requires citations for all material whose verifiability has been challenged, but do you have any reason to believe that there's a different spelling? It's certainly verifiable; authoritative English-Greek dictionaries exist. So, we have no reason to believe somebody couldn't go look up Alexandria, and see how it's spelled in Greek. Or the other way around. Moreso, it's obvious where to go to verify the information; if I want to know how a word is spelled, I look it up in a dictionary.

  Now, if you said, "I've got this English-Greek dictionary here, and it gives a different spelling than the one you've got", that would be something. But to insist on a citation for how to spell the name of a city in another language when there's no reason to believe the given spelling is incorrect seems excessive to me. See WP:BLUE. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  It's interesting, because when you put single quotes around the Greek spelling, I thought you'd included a "smooth breathing" mark, and I was confused when I did not see it in the article. Elizium23 (talk) 02:44, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• WP:INDICSCRIPT had to do with frequent edit wars between speakers of different languages fighting over which scripts to include, and which ones to include first in the infobox iirc. INDICSCRIPT doesn't preclude editors from adding "native names" where's it's uncontroversial or straightforward, such as works of literature written in a specific language. Verifiability isn't a problem in most cases as the work itself can be considered the primary source for the native name.
  "Natives names" aren't always that simple though. If there's a dispute I do think we should require reliable sources (in any language, English or otherwise) for it. It's hard to say anything about what you specifically have in mind without you giving some examples. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 23:19, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  A good example is with Mongolian places, where Mongolia (the country) primarily uses Cyrillic (with the traditional script being ceremonial), while Inner Mongolia (the autonomous region of China) only uses the traditional script for Mongolian. This is further complicated by the fact that the two scripts do not have even close to one-to-one correspondence, which has led to a lot of nonsense when naive editors have "converted" from one to the other. Theknightwho (talk) 13:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• For Alexandria you would certainly need a source for the "Ancient Greek" name. Either a primary ancient greek text where its clear its spelled that way, or an academic text. Per our translation policies, a wikipedia editor could only verify whatever the version is in a modern Greek text. If it was in Old English we wouldnt accept an English editor's word they speak it, we would want a citation to the text or a secondary expert. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:35, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
• I don't see foreign names as WP:BLUE at all; all foreign names should be sourced. A name is a specific verifiable fact, and not necessarily a direct translation. An unsourced name in a foreign language is also an easy target for vandalism. (Unlikely for Alexandria, but I've seen it on much less watched pages.) A specific foreign name is not the same as translating a source, for which we can of course rely on editors. CMD (talk) 02:56, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

  By that logic I could translate a paragraph of Russian without a citation but I would need to prove that I got Ivan spelled correctly. Is that what you intended?—S Marshall T/C 07:57, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

  Well presumably you'd have to cite whatever you're translating, and that citation would have the Russian spelling of Ivan. CMD (talk) 08:22, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale Valereee (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Some terms used in a title of an article receive different definitions by different sources, but yet there is no fundamental disagreement between the sources, because there is an easy translation from one source to the other. For example, traditionally in science, "heat" was often used to mean the internal energy of the medium responsible for its temperature or, depending on the context, it could also traditionally mean the amount of energy transferred that cannot be explained by macroscopic work. More recently, a tendency can be observed to only use "heat" with the second meaning, but it's not universally adopted. For example, Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg is not strict about the use of the term "heat" in his recent 2021 book The foundations of Modern Physics, that is, he adopts the traditional approach in science. However, again, this is very superficial. I suspect Weinberg himself would find this issue completely unimportant, as long as it's clear what the term "heat" means in each context. I mention this, because then it does not seem appropriate to insist that both terminological approaches are presented in respect of WP:proportion, say in the article Heat, because, if we start to do that, then we start to discuss an issue that is not even discussed in the literature, because it's not important. Therefore, it should be acceptable in Wikipedia to agree among editors for a particular terminological approach and simply adopt it, even though it's not the unique approach used in the literature, that is, we can ignore WP:proportion for these terminological issues. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:14, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

@Dominic Mayers, this is not a Wikipedia level policy consideration. If you want a wider view than you are getting at Talk:Heat raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:02, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I asked the question here, because I don't think the issue is specific to heat or even to physics. It's a very general fact that a word in a title can have different meanings (i.e., be given different definitions) in different sources, but it's nothing very deep, not as if it corresponds to different points of view : it's only a superficial change in definitions and one can easily translate from one source to another. They say the same thing in different languages. Still, in these cases, one definition for the term has to be used and editors can have to decide among them. It's a general policy consideration. In particular, I do not think that WP:proportion is a consideration in these cases. The specific definition attributed to the term should be chosen on the basis of other considerations, such as how easy it is for a general audience to understand the definition. However, of course, you are right if you meant to say that the specific case Heat can not be resolved here. I do not hope to resolve the Heat case here. That's not the goal. No, the goal here is only to consider whether or not, in general, WP:proportion is a strict criterion to apply in these cases. This would not resolve the specific case Heat, but it will be helpful in the process and not only for the Heat case. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I realize that the issue was not properly described. So, I retract the question. I will ask another question that hopefully would describe the issue more clearly. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

At several occasions I met a situation where editors must make a choice, say regarding a choice of terminology or regarding the scope of the article or any other consideration that is not uniquely determined by the sources and do not need to be verifiable. Of course, one cannot use a term that is not used in the sources, but when different sources use different terms interchangeably, then the editors must pick one of them. Similarly, the scope of an article is not uniquely by the sources. The exact scope of an article can be decided among the editors. There is no need to have a source that has the exact same scope. The most recent case is the article Heat. Some sources are picky about heat being defined as a special way of transferring energy and not as something that a medium can have. Other sources are less picky about this. However, no sources discuss that : it just a different technical way to use the term heat without any change in the underlying concepts. The details are not important. The point here is only that editors have to take a decision regarding the definition of heat in this case. It seems problematic that Wikipedia policy does not allow the editors to somehow describe the choices that have been made to write the article. Other encyclopedia are not so strict about that. The author of the encyclopedic article often describes that a particular terminology is used or that the scope was restricted in some way, etc. Why is this not possible in Wikipedia? Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:57, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Keeping with your example, why not present the various ways heat is described in the various sources? If there is, as you say, no change in the underlying concept, then proceeding from the various descriptions should be no problem. I personally can't see the use of describing, in the article, how the article came to be written. Am I missing something? Primergrey (talk) 03:07, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

But at some point, to avoid confusing the reader, we would have to say that we picked one approach among the two terminological approaches. Otherwise, the reader would be left with a question in his mind : what approach will be used for the remainder of the article? As you suggest, this seems to be against policy, because we describe an editorial choice that was made. I feel that it should not be against policy to do that. Unless you suggest that we keep using both approaches for the entire article, but that would make the text very heavy. Note that I refer to approaches instead of definitions, because one approach is to be not so picky regarding the definition of heat and let the context determines in each case what is meant by heat. This is what is done traditionally. The other approach insists that heat must always be used to mean a particular way to transfer energy. So, it's not really possible to use both approaches anyway : we are picky or we are not. Dominic Mayers (talk) 03:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Articles should be defining their scope early on in the lead section, including if the subject is based on usage in a specific field, or is covering usage across different fields. Often in the first case, the title will be refined to reflect this. In the case of the "Heat" article, the first sentence is defining the scope (with additional emphasis provided by the disambiguation note). isaacl (talk) 15:49, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Can you give other examples besides the Heat article in which the scope, the terminological approach or another aspect of the article is clearly a choice made by the editors and the lead describes this choice, because the title and the disambiguation note are not sufficient. In the case of the Heat article, the first sentence is

Heat is energy in transfer to or from a thermodynamic system, by mechanisms other than thermodynamic work or transfer of matter (e.g. conduction, radiation, and friction).

It fails to describe a choice. Instead, it states in Wikipedia's voice one definition as if it was the unique possible definition, despite the fact that some sources are not so strict about this definition. I don't think this is appropriate. It violates neutrality, because it makes Wikipedia state in its own voice a definition that is not universally adopted in the literature. However, let's not focus too much on the article Heat here. It's the general case in which readers should be informed of an editorial decision (made by the editors) that should be discussed. Therefore, if you have examples where this issue shows up and was successfully addressed by the editors, which I believe is not the case in the Heat article, that will be good. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:10, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Scope is implied by the disambiguation note. Having the title limit scope would be more clear, as is done, for example, with the various articles listed under Engineer (disambiguation), or Identity. Two of the articles for "Identity" explicitly describe the scope in the lead sentence by starting with "In (field X)", which is a reasonable approach. isaacl (talk) 20:28, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

In the case of the Heat article, the issue is not the scope, but the definition of heat. The scope and the definition of heat are two separate things. Moreover, it's the general issue that must be discussed here. It's not the place here to focus too much on the Heat article. It's a good case, because an editorial decision is taken to use a particular definition, but nothing more than that. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:50, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Words can have multiple definitions which are used by people in different contexts. I used "scope" to mean the context in which the subject of the article is being discussed. I agree the definition is not the same as the context. isaacl (talk) 23:17, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but what policy is being discussed here? So far I just see a bunch of content dispute about Heat. --Golbez (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• In general, when sources use different terminology there is a reason why they do so. There may be an underlying controversy that we need to explain to the reader. So… Part of our job is to lay out for the reader: a) who uses the various terms, and b) why they do so. Blueboar (talk) 22:03, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Assuming it's relevant. The Brits add some extra vowels into various terms (foetal, leukaemia), and I never feel any need to explain why. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• The nature of a Wikipedia article sometimes means that we cannot follow the structure of our sources. The scope of an article is a common editorial decision. So too is many aspects of its eg whether to use a chronological or topical approach. Other editors may make different editorial choices than I would make, and there is nothing wrong with that. You're quite right in that these are generally implicit, and usually non-controversial. Where the matter deserves discussion, the talk pages are there for that purpose. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:19, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• If you start by identifying the three (or five or ten or however many) best sources for the article, all the other questions will be answered. If you start by trying to write the article first and then backfilling sources, you run into these problems. To take the Heat example: what are the three best books about heat, and how do they define it? Levivich (talk) 22:40, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
  • And, more to the point, which sources will allow you to write an article that is accessible to most people? I am an educator, and regularly have to caution my students to not use Wikipedia for technical subjects. Consider, for example, USB or WiFi which make the subject far less understandable than would normally be the case from a "standard" encyclopedia. And let's not start on mathematical subjects... Black Kite (talk) 22:51, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• I think Dominic Mayers is basically correct. You can't always write an article based on using the exact language in the sources. Sometimes the language in the sources is too technical. Sometimes it's too slangy. Sometimes it uses the "wrong" WP:ENGVAR. There's also the problem – see Heat, apparently, but see also Ketogenic diet and many others – of the Wikipedia:Article titles and scopes process not being obvious, so people turn up on the talk page demanding that my subject be recognized as the One True™ Subject for this name, because the Ghits for this word are talking about my thing, so my thing belongs at this title, and who cares about your stuffy old contents? Heat is obviously supposed to be about what keeps my house warm during the winter, and the keto diet is the thing my bodybuilder friends do. Similar problems can be seen at most contentious discussions about WP:COMMONNAME.
  Our advice on this subject mostly comes from WP:FIRST, which advises editors to follow the example set by FAs in similar subject areas. I would be happy to see this expanded upon, perhaps in NOR's WP:STICKTOSOURCE section, to say that there is no substitute for knowing what the sources mean when they use a term, and being able to translate that into clear, informative English. That might (eventually) discourage people from saying that Truck needs to wobble confusingly between truck and lorry and vehicle depending on which source happens to be at the end of the sentence. "Stick to the individual source" or "Stick to the use in most sources currently cited in this article" can be abused to push a POV, especially for shorter articles (which is most of them: the median article is a stub). We do not want to set up rules that would make it easy for someone to replace most of the sources in our articles about Ukrainian cities with sources that "just accidentally happen to use" the Russian spelling for the city, and then say "Oh, but I have to spell it the Russian way, because Policy Says™ I have to stick to the terminology in the sources". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Edit conflict: I haven't read the comments that follow the comment of Blueboar. @Golbez: Blueboar has understood the policy that is at stake here. He says that the issue (whether it is about scope, terminology or any other aspect) must be discussed by the sources. The policy is verifiability or any other policy that implies that we cannot have a content that is not verifiable in the sources. The problem is that often it would be useful to describe an editorial decision, but an editorial decision is formulated in a way such as "Some authors use this approach. Other authors use this other approach. In this article, the approach of X is adopted." This is not something that can be verified, because it is a decision local to Wikipedia. Perhaps the last sentence can be considered verified, but the description of the decision must go beyond that. It must make clear that a decision was taken. It seems against neutrality to take this decision silently as if it was the unique possible choice, as for example, it is done in the Heat article. Instead, what seems more neutral is to mention the different choices and say some thing like "This article adopts the definition of X" and the readers will understand that a choice had to be made. I would like that an approach of this kind to be considered valid in Wikipedia. A key point here is that WP:proportion or anything like that are not the concerns here, at the least, not the unique ones. No, the editors can take the decisions because of aspects unique to Wikipedia, the fact that the context is different, etc. Yet, the readers must be informed that a decision was taken. These decisions cannot always be taken silently. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:15, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: What you are discussing is important, but my point is more basic here. I am not discussing whether an editorial decision is better than another one. I am just saying that, at the least, the reader should be informed that an editorial decision was taken with some context that allows this reader to understand that, for example, a more technical definition was adopted than one would expect. At the least, he will know that and he will be less lost. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

We do that, sometimes, in a few articles. Consider these:

• Quantum mechanics#Overview and fundamental concepts
• Plastic#Etymology
• Metal#Lifecycle
• Political spectrum#Spatial model
• Anti-aircraft warfare#Second World War
• Aspect ratio (image)#Distinctions
• Girl Guide and Girl Scout

Search for the words "this article" in each of these. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

I searched for other articles (excluding list articles) that also use "This article" with a similar purpose:

• Holiday
• Girl Guide and Girl Scout
• Client state
• Parliamentary opposition
• Carbonyl group
• Medal bar
• Pin (amateur wrestling)
• Halogenation
• Interregnum (England)
• Goblet drum
• Symmetry group
• Horse training
• Daytime
• ŁKS Łódź
• Fish market
• Sharpie (marker)
• Eastern states of Australia
• Dance in Vietnam
• State government
• Deixis
• Integral domain

Editorial decisions are indeed some times described in the article. This appears to violate the principle that a WP article should only say what the sources say : no source will describe a decision taken by editors in the WP article, for the obvious reason that it is a choice specific to the WP article. Therefore, many editors, not just me, might feel that they should not do that. However, this is a valid exception and it should be stated explicitly in WP policy that this is fine. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:34, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Taking a quick look at these, and the presence of "this article" is a code smell that indicates the article needs to be improved. If the subject is ambiguous, that's what disambiguation pages are for. If you don't want to handle other aspects (like ŁKS Łódź) then that should either call for an expansion request or a red link to a future article for the other sports. So I disagree that it needs to be stated explicitly that it's fine. It's not. --Golbez (talk) 17:07, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree that editorial decisions can be wrong. They can create a bias, lack of neutrality, etc. It can even be the case in some of the examples provided. I did not filter them. But, I disagree that it is possible to never take editorial decisions. I certainly disagree that when they are taken, they must always be taken silently. On the contrary, it's more transparent and informative for the readers when they are not taken silently. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

The use of "this article" in an article indicates a problem with the article. Levivich (talk) 18:33, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid#This Wikipedia article discusses ..., While Wikipedia is not a ..., Edit this page ... disagrees. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:50, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks * Pppery *, the guideline says clearly that an article can refer to itself. It says "... articles may refer to themselves ...". The context is that an article cannot refer to the Wikipedia's rules, because it prevents its use outside Wikipedia, but the article can refer to itself. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:33, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

While an article can or may refer to itself, it shouldn't. Levivich (talk) 21:11, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

This is not what the guideline says. It contrasts two cases: a reference to the article itself and a reference to Wikipedia's rules. It says while the first case may happen, the second case should not happen. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:15, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I am posting this here, instead of on WP:CP or WP:CQ, since it's not about a specific file, but a template that states copyright policy.

The ((PD-EdictGov)) template, while not wrong, and used across multiple wikis in the exact same form... is bad. It doesn't actually explain anything, or tell you "why": it only refers to the Compendium. Old conversations, linked from the talk pages of this template across multiple wikis, make it clear that questions about "why", since it's not stated in 17 USC, and "what does this actually mean", since it's buried in the depths of history, and "why are we listening to the Compendium about something that isn't in 17 USC", abounded, and were never really answered.

The decision in Georgia did not change this rule. What the Supreme Court did, in Georgia, is to validate a argument that actually places the "government edicts principle" on a basis that isn't buried in the depths of 200+ year old legal trivia...it instead divorces the "government edicts principle" from the vague "for reasons of public policy" justification, and places it on the grounds of fundamental copyright principles; giving us, in a way, a test that is actually usable, instead of just having to know "what is or is not an edict" and requiring a knowledge of the incredibly obscure history to actually get it.

Edicts of government are basically the same thing as monkey selfies.

To actually understand this.... unfortunately, the Compendium, and the Georgia decision, and even the English Wikipedia article on "edicts of government" don't give the needed context, which gets into obscure facts of history and the way copyrights actually came into being in the US: the history of "common law" in the US, and the exact intention of Congress when passing the Copyright Act of 1790.

I have started a discussion, on the English Wikipedia, at w:Talk:Edict of government#Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc. and the public policy argument, with what is essentially a long screed, explaining what the Court was telling us in Georgia, what they were actually telling us about this in Wheaton v. Peters, back in 1834, when actually first validating the "government edicts principle" as law in the US, and giving the "common law in the US" context to understand why it's not written down.

I'm mentioning this here, and intend to post this message across multiple wikis, to attract interested editors.... not to canvass for a discussion there, to change the article, but to achieve a consensus there, about rewriting that article so that it is based on something other than "the Compendium says so", that it can be used (the article, and the consensus) to rewrite this template on every wiki so that it actually says something useful, instead of the just "because the USCO says so" that seems to have been the conclusion of most discussions about this subject.

As a footnote, this doesn't apply to most edicts of the US federal government... since the definition of "works of the US Government" specifically says "prepared by", and doesn't require authorship, it includes such edicts. They are denied protection separately. Jarnsax (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

On any other website out there, if a regular user threatens another user with a ban, they would get chewed out for impersonating a mod and overstepping boundaries. Users who do not have the ability to ban users should not be permitted to leave threatening ban warning messages. That is a job for mods and/or people who actually have the ability to hand out the ban. I have seen countless instances of users with no administrative power whatsoever handing out these ban messages like candy to anyone they're in a disagreement with. It's fear-mongering towards inexperienced users, and it's just disingenuous in my opinion.

Ban warnings should only be given out by people who can actually ban you. This prevents them from being misused. (inb4 someone uses the ban warning I was just given as justification, as if that's the ONLY time this issue pops up) 2604:3D08:7481:AF00:9C4C:1DD6:DE9D:5241 (talk) 02:49, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia works on the principle that if someone sees a problem they should try to fix it. If a non-admin user sees someone making edits that violate policy, the user should let the person know what the problem is. The alternative of interrupting an admin and requiring that they intervene would be too cumbersome and unable to scale to deal with the many problems. Johnuniq (talk) 03:01, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, contrary to the OP's claims otherwise, the talk page messages and edit summaries used by this IP were personal attacks / incivility that definitely merited at least a warning [6] [7] [8] and they were not being warned as "fear-mongering" or because they were in disagreement with another editor. 163.1.15.238 (talk) 17:03, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

• Warning a disruptive editor that they might be banned is not a “threat”. It is a courtesy, giving them a chance to change their behavior. Blueboar (talk) 17:23, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
• IP, should you believe you have seen cases where a non-admin editor is handing out unjustified warnings that would be unjustified even if an admin did them then you should first communicate with the editor or, if a recurring issue, raise with an admin or on ANI. If you see cases where a non-admin is handing out warnings that would be justified if an admin did them then there's no issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nosebagbear (talk • contribs) 09:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• I think there's an important distinction to be made here between a warning ("You may get banned") and a threat ("I will ban you"). The former is commonly used, also by non-admins, and is not a problem. The latter is, I think, inappropriate for non-admins to use. --rchard2scout (talk) 16:50, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Johnuniq, Blueboar and Nosebagbear. I think there may be confusion between a block, which can only be imposed by an administrator, and a ban. The authority to ban resides with the community, ArbCom and WMF. They are the only people with the ability to hand out bans. However, all three can delegate that authority to impose bans on such terms and conditions as they see fit, and there is nothing to stop it being delegated to non-admins. It has long been accepted that non-admins have the ability to ban editors from their own talk pages. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:53, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

• But it doesn't matter whether it's a block or a ban. As Blueboar says, a warning of either is a warning, not a threat, so anyone receiving one should be grateful rather than complain about it. We shouldn't care about what other web sites might do, because Wikipedia is a work place to create an encyclopedia, which "any other website out there" is not. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:36, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

For reference, here is the current template for the strongest vandalism warning:

This is your only warning; if you vandalize Wikipedia again, you may be blocked from editing without further notice.

Notice that even it does not say who the block will come from; just that the block may happen (and strongly implying that it will). When used properly, this is correct even if the user leaving the warning has no authority - I'm not a cop, but I can tell my friends "if you rob a bank, you may get arrested". It's just a warning that their actions will have consequences, and if they wish to avoid those consequences, they should stop. WPscatter ^t/_c 16:28, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

An issue recently came up (discussed off-wiki, details not important) where somebody was using Special:EmailUser to send a messages to a large number of users on a topic which was marginally related to enwiki but basically WP:NOTHERE and WP:PROMO. As far as I can tell, we don't have any policy with explicitly prohibits that. WP:EMAIL (which isn't even policy) mostly talks about privacy concerns. All the other policies I can find are concerned with things that happen on-wiki.

I think we need an explicit policy statement which says: "The wikipedia email facility is intended to support the goal of building an encyclopedia. Use of this facility for any other purpose constitutes abuse and is prohibited". Or do we already have such a statement and I just haven't found it yet? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:09, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I haven't found anything relevant on en.wp. The terms of use prohibit

• Engaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism; and
• Transmitting chain mail, junk mail, or spam to other users.

Which the preceding issue at least arguably comes under (especially given the volume), but might not in all cases so I think having something along the lines you suggest would be good. The one caveat to that is that it should be enforced with common sense giving established users a little leeway in the same spirit we allow them use of userspace for occasional small-scale off-topic matters as long as they don't take the piss. Thryduulf (talk) 17:36, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

As far as the "large numbers" part - there should be a throttle on this action, depending on your definition of "large". — xaosflux ^Talk 18:00, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I've added this text to WP:EMAIL. That should cover it. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:23, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

That's a good and well worded addition that I agree covers everything. Thryduulf (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't exactly disagree, but I expect that to produce complaints when editors have differing views about what supports the goal of building an encyclopedia, and what constitutes "substantial". There is a throttle in place; I think it's only possible to send 20 e-mail messages per day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Recently the new article Religion Nisei was created and I don't think the title to properly conforming to our Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) guideline. "Nisei" (二世) is a transliteration (romaji) of the Japanese term which means the "second generation". According to the English versions of few reliable Japan's media, "second generation" is exactly used instead of the transliteration,^[1][2][3] but the article creator user:Penerrantry believes otherwise. I'd like more opinions from other editors who are familiar with Japan-related articles on English Wikipedia. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 06:24, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I believe that the word "nisei" has become incorporated in the US English lexicon. A simple search of Google News finds thousands of uses of "nisei" in news stories in publications across the country, especially in outlets on the US West Coast. I also note that "Nisei" does not appear as a misspelled word in many word processing applications, including Wikipedia's text editor. - Enos733 (talk) 15:43, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@Enos733 and Penerrantry: My problem is that nisei seems to only denote "second generation of Japanese migrant (in the US)". It is the "migrant" part that I am having trouble with because "religion nisei" has nothing to do with "migrant" at all. Also I checked the online version of Oxford and Cambridge English dictionaries which don't have the "nisei" entry. Both dictionaries have entries from modern culture like mod, so I am not so sure how incorporated "nisei" has become in the English lexicon. Leaving "nisei" untranslated in "religion nisei" seems to do more harm. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 00:36, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that there is a Wikipedia article on Nisei. While there may be some differences with this particular article, I believe our community has accepted "nisei" into our lexicon. - Enos733 (talk) 02:15, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

"Nisei" may be accepted in the American English lexicon, but "religion nisel" is a totally different story. There are only 8 results of "religion nisei" from my google search, so it's safe to say that we are inventing a new term by ourselves when the major English media sources avoid leaving it as is, including BBC^[4]. I really want you to give further consideration in this regard. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 02:26, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I believe the current title likely fails Wikipedia's policy on neologisms. As mentioned, the term Nisei generally refers to first-generation immigrants in the English context. As most news organisations translate the term in this context (I can't find a reliable English-language source that doesn't), I think this should be renamed. -- QueenofBithynia (talk) 22:08, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm unsure if this is the right place to raise this topic, so if it isn't, my apologies in advance. Some time ago I noticed that a fraction was used in an article (e.g. 1⁄2). The fraction affected the line spacing, so I replaced it with ½, because ½ is in the list of symbols. However, the change was quickly reverted. (There are other symbols for ¼, ¾, and eighths.) Is it Wikipedia policy not to use the symbols that are readily available? Prisoner of Zenda (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Might I suggest that WT:MOS would be a better place for a question of this nature. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:13, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

You'll also want to see MOS:FRAC. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:14, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, @RoySmith. MOS:FRAC has "If ¼, ½, and ¾ are the only fractions needed, they may be used in an article body, article title, or category name, maintaining typographical consistency within an article where possible." Since the changes I made (on 23 July 2021) were to 21⁄2 and 11⁄2 (to 2½ and 1½ respectively), and they were the only fractions in the article, they shouldn't have been reverted. Maybe the bot was given a clip over the ear, because my change to 3⁄4 on 7 Jan. was not reverted. :) Prisoner of Zenda (talk) 09:27, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@Prisoner of Zenda None of your edits were reverted by bots, they were reverted by other human editors. Your edit on the 23rd was probably reverted because you replaced the conversion templates with hardcoded unit conversions in addition to adding precomposed fractions. 192.76.8.81 (talk) 14:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, 192.76.8.81 - but ½ was the only fraction in the article, so I figured it complied with MOS:FRAC (see extract above). Apparently not; can you enlighten me? Even if I did transgress by replacing "the conversion templates with hardcoded unit conversions in addition to adding precomposed fractions", that didn't change the sense of the article one iota. Prisoner of Zenda (talk) 01:23, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

The TechConductCommittee blocks users from technical spaces without providing sufficient information on why exactly. See this topic about MZMcBride's block by Liz and the warning I got. It's like a small scale Framgate.
This kind of, to quote Anomie, secret court ultimately ends up being harmful for this project too. If users get blocked without sufficient information and/or warnings, that's a serious problem. English Wikipedia (and all other projects) are interwoven with the technical spaces. We need each other. Secret courts with zero accountability have no place in that.
After thinking about this, I was only able to come up with one solution: block all members of the TechConductCommittee from English Wikipedia. I know that sounds ludicrous, but sadly I am dead serious in thinking that's the only way up. An unaccountable secret court is a threat to this project. This block would not be punitive: once they reform they can be unblocked.
It would be nice if someone else could come up with an equally effective but less rigorous method, but I sure can't think of any. I'd really wish I could, especially considering it seems doubtful this idea would garner much support. But discussing this might lead us somewhere. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:45, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

The Tech Conduct Committee is a secret tribunal, a star chamber for sure, as you can see on the MZMcBride topic thread, where we have been assured that there is plenty of damning evidence, but the only links to evidence provided thus far have shown low-grade to moderate incivility that would result in a level-one warning (accompanied by links to diffs!) here at en.WP. If en.WP chooses to pursue a conditional block of those editors, what would the policy or guideline rationale be? If we choose to follow the path of evaluating a potential block, we should certainly act with integrity and transparency by using one of our established processes, notifying all affected parties, citing relevant policies or guidelines, and presenting relevant evidence. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:31, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

TechConductCommittee is a role account for a wiki that is not this one. Well i have my own objections to the whole thing, it is for mw.org to figure out how we want to be governed not en-wikipedia. If you somehow think its contrary to the principles of Wikimedia, you could start a discussion on meta, but it is not any of english wikipedia's business. Bawolff (talk) 01:59, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Jonesey95, the rule might be something like "If you serve in a function on a Wikimedia project where you block users or otherwise restrict their access to parts of Wikimedia, you must always provide the blockee with the exact links or quotes of their offenses that are the rationale of their block. Your process must also include that the community can overturn any block for which no charges were pressed with the authorities of the relevant government."
Well i have my own objections to the whole thing, it is for mw.org to figure out how we want to be governed not en-wikipedia. If you somehow think its contrary to the principles of Wikimedia, you could start a discussion on meta, but it is not any of english wikipedia's business.
Unfortunately, it is. We can pretend to be isolated islands, but we're not. They don't want to be blocked from enwiki any more than we want to be blocked from the technical spaces. English Wikipedia can't decide how mediawiki.org governs itself. I doubt anyone can, even if the community there collectively voted to dissolve the TechConductCommittee, I don't believe they would go down without a fight. But we can decide what's acceptable. And if anyone decides to harm Wikimedia as a whole, even if they don't do it on enwiki specifically, we could decide that's not OK. MediaWiki suffers from severe survivor bias, it's unlikely that community can reform itself at this point without outside help.
There is actually a kind of precedent for this: m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Kubura. Kubura created such extreme survivor bias on hrwiki as a corrupted admin and crat that they couldn't be blocked on hrwiki. So they got globally banned. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 03:28, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Jonesey, let's not hold up English Wikipedia's enforcement of our policy on civility as the shining example to compare TCC to. While there are some valid criticisms (transparency dominant among them - I share no love for the TCOC and its committee), that's not the one we should want to chase.

To some degree, there is hope on the transparency front: the UCOC will bring the TCOC under its umbrella (maybe even cause the TCOC to go away) and the expectations for the assorted committee should provide good cause for that group to adjust. And if they don't, that can be heard by the U4C (systemic issues). Izno (talk) 17:17, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I'll be surprised if the UCOC and its committee do not turn out to behave in the same manner. I'll not be at all surprised if we get another WP:FRAMBAN-type situation with the UCOC as the hammer being used to justify it all, since that seems to be exactly why it was created in the first place. Anomie⚔ 11:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• @Alexis Jazz: Given a lack of alternatives for dealing with the problem, I would support this proposal if it were made. jp×g 19:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello.

i made a mockup for a technological solution of improving reliability of wikipedia.

To be blunt, i am disappointed that an encyclopedia that has many thousands of contributors, many of which are working each day to improve accuracy, cannot already provide any substantial reliability guarantees, and provides little technical assistance to make citing more economical.

Looking for feedback to evolve the proposal. Nowakki (talk) 12:13, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, and no amount of "verification" will make it one. You are now suggesting (basically) that we have a subset of individuals who audit our content the moment a reference changes. If you would like a completely fact-checked encyclopedia, look at Brittania, or any other suitable text. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:16, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

you are interpolating my proposal to such extremes that it becomes easy to disagree with it.

i propose "reliable enough" to be used as a reference inside wikipedia (where there is no deadline). like a reputable journal is reliable enough, even though journals can be wrong and issue corrections.

all that happens is that a reference becomes flagged. i am not proposing to create an army of slave labor that solves resulting problems.

i am not proposing a completely fact checked encyclopedia, but rather an encyclopedia that contains fact checked tables, lists, sections that provides a guarantee that the external reference has been properly quoted. wikipedia at this moment already does proofreading of citations. that is nothing new. Nowakki (talk) 14:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

If a reliability of a certain section is determined by checking its sources, why not just cite those sources directly? CMD (talk) 15:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

go through 5 pdfs and a book that is not on your shelf, instead of linking to an already produced summary. saves time. if further references are added to improve the reliability of the original, both places where the references are used as a source benefit.

the mere reader of a page can confidently believe in the accuracy of the data, without even having to worry one second about vandalism.

if a fact is established in one place and used in many places, it is much more likely to receive scrutiny because of the larger potential impact of a correction.

editors will be incentivized to be more careful about citing something.

an articles value can be improved if it can be established that parts of it have gone though a peer review and that it has always been one version that all peer reviewers have agreed to over time. Nowakki (talk) 16:14, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

It's worth noting that vandalism, as it is understood on Wikipedia, really isn't part of the problem when it comes to verifying content in articles. Our bigger problems are systemic bias and savvy POV-pushers. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:22, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

yes and murderers may use knives.

if a POV is pushed by very accurately quoting a source, that is nothing i can do anything about. Nowakki (talk) 17:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposals for locking verified content preemptively are perennial, even when solely talking about featured articles, our highest standard of vetted content. See Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Protect_featured_articles. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

but this concerns whole articles and the objections revolve around featured articles not being finished and continuing to improve.

that's different from establishing a set of facts from sources. A data table or a section of an article or its infobox. the facts are not going to change. Nowakki (talk) 15:56, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not deal in facts, it deals in claims, and claims change all the time. I would suggest that you get more familiar with Wikipedia's processes before making sweeping suggestions that include a half dozen nonstarters in them, or at least bring them to WP:IDEA before VPP. I'd recommend Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth as an entry point to Wikipedia's discussions of epistemology. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

i don't read about a single non-starter.

wikipedia can be verified. people who verify wikipedia can be given tools. wikipedia can become as reliable as the references linked to with a high probability of correctness.

the whole thing could be run off-site and wikipedia wouldn't have to change one bit. if a wikipedia article uses facts established by a secondary source that gives the primary sources for verification itself, then that would be a good source to link to.

sorry i meant to say claims, not facts. Nowakki (talk) 08:01, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

But what does "reliable enough" mean? This is another fuzzy term. Either a statement is reliable (i.e. based on easily discovered source material that is easily verifiable as factual) or it is not. If a statement is "mostly reliable" (?) then further analysis is needed to determine whether the lesser, unreliable part of the "mostly reliable" statement is in any way related to what the statement purports to support in wikitext. Or whether any depemdencies exist between the mostly reliable part and the other, less reliable part. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

"reliable enough" refers to the probability that the verification process was flawed.

in the mockup example i made, do you attach different chances of accuracy to the before and after? Nowakki (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok, basically then you propose a process for 1. validating citations and 2. determining citations are contextual (not just reliable but pertinent to the wikitext)? How do you arrive at the probability numbers? 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:18, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

the ratio of verifications that are still not falsified by a user versus the total number of verifications. it is based on the track record of the user giving the thumbs up. Nowakki (talk) 16:22, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Validating citations for reliability and relevance is not a bad idea, it is actually necessary. If this website was publishing an encyclopedia (just because Wikipedia says it is an encyclopedia doesn't make it so) then the existence and validation of citations would be some of the mandatory requirements for publishing an article. This wouldn't make the article overall reliable; there are more criteria to consider. Also, per your proposal, I would not protect anything unless WP:PP has a reason to apply. And there are other, technical considerations.

I don't think any such proposal has much chance of success. The great majority of the miniscule minority of Wikipedia users that participate in these discussions seem content to let the mainspace area be filled with content of the same apparent quality as any random internet site. Vast swathes of unverified internet posts masquerading as knowledge, even when they look good. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 17:20, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

actually i was hoping this problem was already being worked on and i would be redirected in no time to a project page where technical details would be worked out.

the the logical next step in the evolution of wikipedia Nowakki (talk) 17:54, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

There is a request for comment about mid-sentence and mid-article title capitalization of the in the full name of the LDS Church at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC on mid-sentence and mid-article title capitalization of the in the full name of the LDS Church. Please contribute there. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I just created Wikipedia:Impersonating an administrator (it is still rather stubby) as an essay, and I am actually rather surprised that I was unable to find a policy page saying that a non-administrator pretending to be an administrator is not okay. If I'm missing something, please point me to it, but this should actually be a policy. BD2412 T 05:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Wary of WP:BEANS. I'd assume handling impersonation would be common sense and akin to WP:MISLEADNAME.—Bagumba (talk) 07:21, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not quite as WP:BEANS-wary—it's pretty easy to see if someone claiming to be an admin is or is not one. BD2412 T 15:29, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure it's easy for experienced editors & admins like you two "to see if someone claiming to be an admin is or is not one", but the most useful content in the essay would be to explain exactly how to do this, which the essay doesn't address at all! Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Good point. BD2412 T 19:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

• I have a quibble with one of your examples in the essay… saying “I will block you” or “I will delete this article” isn’t necessarily an assumption of Admin power. It’s more a mid-statement of procedure. We have mechanisms in place, after all, where non-admins can get someone blocked, or can get an article deleted. Ok, technically They need to involve actual admins to push the button, but when there is a serious issue, actual admins are happy to oblige. Blueboar (talk) 19:55, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
  • @Blueboar: You are, of course, welcome to edit the essay to clarify this, but there is a clear distinction in my mind between an "I will block you" kind of statement and an "I will get you blocked" kind of statement. BD2412 T 20:03, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

  I think it would be nice to warn against that kind of language without suggesting it's always impersonation. It is reasonable to conclude that someone saying either phrase has the ability to follow through single-handedly. On a related not, I'd like to see the essay/policy/guideline explicitly endorse the continued use of templated warnings, many of which say something like "You may be blocked from editing if ...", as I do see new editors every now and then upset that non-admins have posted such warnings. If not addressed, I think we'll see such editors citing WP:FAKEADMIN. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:07, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

  While I agree non admins shouldn't use language suggesting they may personally block an editor, we often seen including in a talk page discussion above, editors who seem confused and think that even the standard templates which are intentionally worded in such a way to avoid that, suggest an editor is threatening to personally block the warned editor. Even when they accept that the wording doesn't suggest the editor may personally block their warned editor, many still feel as also seems to be sort of shown in a discussion above, that non admins shouldn't warn other editors which of course isn't and couldn't be how things work around here. IMO these are bigger problems than non-admins being careless with their wording although I appreciate this isn't something an essay is likely to resolve. One thing that is IMO a bigger problem and perhaps an essay could help is to remind admins that even they have to be careful with the wording they use. While it's probably fine to threaten to personally block an editor if you're considering that because it's a situation where you can, I've seen cases where an admin has threatened to personally block someone in cases where they accept they should not do so because they are involved (in a non administrative capacity). Personally I find this more troubling than a non-admin threatening to block another editor when the threat is justified since even an experienced editor who bothers to check will know that this is a threat coming from someone who has the technical ability to block so may be more concerned. More importantly, it can lead to confusion by inexperienced editors on how things work, and IMO justifiable annoyance from experienced ones who know that it's not how things work. Note that this also means if you're going to give warnings with such language, you need to consider whether you are involved first rather than only doing so when it comes to using the tools. Nil Einne (talk) 09:03, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Nil Einne: I have added a line noting that admins should not be making threats in content disputes anyway. BD2412 T 19:28, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines § Behavior that is unacceptable states the following: Do not claim to be an administrator or to have an access level that you do not have. User access levels can always be verified at Special:ListUsers. isaacl (talk) 21:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
  • @Isaacl: I have incorporated that point, and tweaked the page around it a bit more. BD2412 T 01:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

This is something I've long been in disagreement with the community so to get me to shut up, I'd like to have this decided. So. In list tables for politicians, the trend appears to be towards including more information about them, rather than less; I say this damages accessibility, semantics, and adds little information to the article.

Here are two sample entries from List of Governors of Alabama:

Governors of the State of Alabama

No.	Governor			Term in office	Party	Election
13			Reuben Chapman     July 15, 1799 – May 17, 1882    (aged 82)	December 16, 1847 – December 17, 1849 (lost renomination)	Democratic	1847
13			Reuben Chapman	December 16, 1847 – December 17, 1849 (lost renomination)	Democratic	1847

The first row contains multiple datapoints: Name, lifespan, and age on death. To accomplish this requires extra formatting, such that the using of ! to begin a table cell to emphasize it as the scope of the row, as per Help:Table: "Row headers are identified by ! scope="row" | instead of |". The second row has how I think it should be, for the focus of the row: Just the name. My complaints go past the accessibility issues to the fact that I don't feel the lifespan adds anything to an understanding of the subject, which, in this specific case, is "list of governors of Alabama." Getting deeper info on a governor, beyond that which is immediately relevant to them being on the list of governors, is as easy as clicking their name. But, the accessibility issue is a bigger concern than me saying "i don't like it".

(note: yes, the next column also contains two datapoints, and I'd be willing to discuss that too if necessary, but my point here is that the governor, the scoped cell of the row, is one where we want to be as clear to the reader (and their tools) what the datapoint is, right?)

If there's a better place to discuss this please point the way, but it's time for my one-man crusade to end, one way or another. I think the method used in the first row is unsound, and I would like to know how the community feels. I figure this could go to an RFC but I wanted to check here first to see if I am just completely off base and not even go that far. --Golbez (talk) 20:29, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I've no objections to removing the governors birth & death dates. GoodDay (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I would object to removal, as this will likely impact all lists like this. I supported the initial proposal to add these dates to the List of presidents of the United States, and it's based on the reasoning I gave there that I oppose this here. - wolf 22:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Support, oppose - who said anything about a vote? This is about factfinding. If the first one is in fact inaccessible, then it doesn't matter how much you support it, it shouldn't happen. --Golbez (talk) 04:11, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, @wolf. I notice several supporters at that discussion clearly wanted it limited to year and not full DOB: birth and death year in small text, Year only, to avoid cluttering, more is better, unless it's too much. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 23:51, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I would consider the first example to be unnecessarily confusing. It is not at all obvious that a date range in a list of holders of some particular office is their lifespan; it might alternatively be their term in office. In this particular example, the fact that the date range is 82 years wide suggests that it is in fact a lifespan, but parsing that requires extra mental overhead. If lifespans are useful information in this kind of table, I would think it makes much more sense to list it as a separate column of the table (which would also have the benefit that it could be sorted on in a sortable table). If it's not important enough to get its own column, is it important enough to list in the table at all? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:43, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto-public: It's clearer on the List of presidents of the United States; the column heading is "Name (Birst - Death)", and the next column is "Term" so, no confusion, just readily visible and useful information. (fyi) - wolf 16:21, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that the example at List of presidents of the United States is clearer, both because the table heading explicitly says what the dates are and because the age at death isn't also included as a third data point in the same cell. I still think that it's clearer for each column to cover one piece of information. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:18, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

If you have to have birth and death dates (which I don't understand) then it should be in a separate column. Just saying it's a lot of work to fix doesn't make it suitable to retain. This table is against WP:ACCESS for many different reasons. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:31, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

MOS:DTAB (and its how-to MOS:DTT) is generally quite clear on how data tables should be formatted for screen readers (which is the WP:ACCESS issue I am assuming you are referring to). You need a good reason to do something that fails WP:ACCESS, saying that, multiple data points in a single field is not in itself anti-accessibility providing the table is formatted correctly. What is the exact accessibility issue here? Is the first not rendering correctly for screen readers? Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:00, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't know, I don't have one; that's why I'm asking. One thing I do know is that the first one lacks scope=row, which would seem to be less accessible; and a screenreader would presumably say that the 13th governor of Alabama was Reuben Chapman July 15 1799 May 17 1882 aged 82. But I don't use one so I don't know. --Golbez (talk) 13:16, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

First of all, this is a sortable table with three things it could be sorting for. Why wouldn't you have a column for the dates? Why do you require more than one piece of information in a cell? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:04, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Governors of the State of Alabama

No.	Governor			Born	Died	Age at death	Start of Term in office	End of Term in office	Party	Election
13			Reuben Chapman	July 15, 1799	May 17, 1882	82	December 16, 1847	December 17, 1849 (lost renomination)	Democratic	1847

(Reply here for lvl-1 indent with reply tool) ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 22:33, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Instead of more data in few columns, the third option is more data in more columns. This helps column sorting and copy-paste reuse, at the expense of readability and layout. I think the data-oriented table goes against the spirit of a "list article". ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 22:33, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

More specifically, for people, I don't mind years as qualifiers Reuben Chapman (1799–1882): that's done a lot in art-gallery and library cataloguing, and is easily parsed out. The full date of birth and death seem off-topic for a list of governors, though. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 22:33, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. - Enos733 (talk) 21:09, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

For the record, this is an example of an entry at List of US Presidents;

List of presidents of the United States from 1789 – till date.

No.	Portrait	Name (Birth–Death)	Term	Party		Election	Vice President
1		George Washington (1732–1799)	April 30, 1789 – March 4, 1797		Unaffiliated	1788–89 1792	John Adams

Unlike the Governor's table being debated above, there is no detailed birth and death dates, just the years, and there is no age at death. I'm not sure there is a need for such details, but I am sure there is no need to create three extra columns just to include such details. - wolf 23:15, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

(ec, or rather simultaneous post) Indeed, I replied to similar effect further up. Apologies for forking. :) ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 00:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

So does no one here really know about the accessibility issues in removing scope=row and adding multiple data points in a cell? --Golbez (talk) 13:33, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

A very wide table has a different sort of accessibility problem: it's very difficult to read on a smartphone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay but I didn't ask about a wide table. --Golbez (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Golbez: For accessibility, so that non-visual browsers correctly understand the table, each row in a table should have one cell that is marked as a header cell (with !scope=row). Those cells should be the "primary" column of the table, e.g. it should "define" the row and you shouldn't be seeing a lot of duplicates. So, in the Governor example, is that the row about Reuben Chapman? Or is it the row about the 13th Governor? Either is fine. Ideally, the primary cell should also be the first cell, but it doesn't have to be. It does look better that way, though.

In regards to multiple data points, for non-visual accessibility just read it out to yourself (or if you have a mac, command-F5 to turn on voiceover. "Governor. Reuben Chapman July 15, 1799 May 17, 1882 aged 82". Is that enough context, on its own, that you knew what was said? I think it's almost fine- what's missing is what's in the President list, the (birth-death) line in the header, which would make it "Governor birth death. Reuben Chapman July 15, 1799 May 17, 1882 aged 82".

There's also the concern of it being cluttered, which can be an accessibility problem for people with poor eyesight or just visually overwhelming for anyone. Consider doing what the President list did, and making the birth-death bit just (1799-1882), and leaving the details up to the article. --PresN 14:33, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, there should be a scope=row, which is not possible unless we want the entire lifespan bolded, which is a bit much.

I would say the row is about Reuben Chapman, who was the 13th governor. Put in another example, Grover Cleveland properly shows up twice in a list of US presidents, and both times it is he who is the scope of the row, not the number of his presidency. However, I could see arguments both ways; as you said, there shouldn't be many duplicates, and if we are being strict about "list of presidents" and not "list of presidencies" then yes, one could suggest that he only appear once, and a list of presidencies/presidential terms would include him twice, with the number as the scope cell. And that's a viable discussion but beyond the scope of this one I think.

As for that, okay, so a screen reader will read this (without knowing it's the primary cell, mind you) and that seems like really poor form. Why is it that every other column should get clean data but the governor column, the primary column, throw three facts at the reader?

I consider the "what should we do otherwise" to be outside the scope of this, but, eh, this discussion is dying and I'm too lazy to make an RFC so why not: Why do we even need to include their lifespan to begin with? It adds absolutely nothing to an understanding of the subject, adds maintenance concerns, and opens the door to other pieces of info like spouse, birthplace, etc., which have similarly zero to add to the understanding of the subject. --Golbez (talk) 16:32, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the death of this conversation means no one cares, or if it needs an RFC. Shrug. --Golbez (talk) 15:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, this thread didn't die unattended. Several editors responded, and there simply wasn't a consensus. At least, not the consensus you were looking for. That in of itself could be considered an answer. Perhaps it's time to move on... - wolf 16:42, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

It seems like merely putting "(Birth–Death)" in the header would go a long way to clarifying what the date-range means. DMacks (talk) 16:50, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Well no one wants to discuss the accessibility and semantic ramifications so I guess time to move on to my other objection: why should we include that? --Golbez (talk) 18:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• My ranked preferences is to omit birth and death dates in a row because of accessibility issues. People can click on each officeholder to know more about the individual, but people reading the table are probably more concerned with the period they served in office. At minimum "(Birth–Death)" should be placed in the header. --Enos733 (talk) 23:59, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

  Is it possible to discuss something here without people having to state a preference or a vote? Seriously, can we just... talk about it first? No one ever established this as some kind of vote, and yet nearly everyone here... is this all we can do now? Really? Maybe trying to engage with the community was a mistake. I do better when I just do my own thing. --Golbez (talk) 18:06, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think trying to engage is ever a mistake. It can often solve problems before they become out of hand, or even start. That said, I'm not sure what more there is discuss. You want to reduce, or eliminate altogether, multiple data-points in a single table cell. It's not all that suprising that some people are responding with !vote-like responses. I can see where, in some cases, you have a point, but not in others. This is demonstrated in the two examples we have just above (Alabama Governors & US Presidents). I think the best you can do is tackle this on a case-by-case basis. Tables such as "List of POTUS" is pretty stable now and unlikely to change, but you may have more success in changing the "List of Alabama Governors", and other tables with the same set-up. At least, more of a chance of success, that is, than continuing here, or in trying to create an RfC that will somehow cover every possible variation of table set-up we have, both now and in the future. And you may have to be wary of forum shopping as well. Hey, at least you gave this a shot, and good on you for doing so. - wolf 19:32, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm just annoyed that I asked a 'why should we include it' and the next comment was 'my ranked preference is not to include it.' Sorry, I'm in a [permanent] mood and should just do what I said and disengage. --Golbez (talk) 20:39, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Meh, I don't think you owe any apologies, afaic, you didn't come across as cranky. But just the same, taking a break is never a bad thing. - wolf 21:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Please look at this RFC about non-nominative insults and death threat against LGBTQIA+ people to integrate them in the oversight policy Scriptance (talk) 09:46, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

if somebody shouts across a crowded room, asking how many votes Joe Biden won in the 2020 Arkansas election, what should my personal policy be:

1. meddle for 20 seconds and read the number on the wiki page
2. meddle for 20 seconds, read the number on the wiki page and add: "but i don't know if that's accurate"
3. meddle for 2 minutes with the sources on the wikipage and read out the number from the cited source

Nowakki (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Shout “Next round’s on me!” and change the subject. (Well, that’s my policy anyway).Blueboar (talk) 00:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Article titles for years: BC/AD or BCE/BC. Interstellarity (talk) 14:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The controversy over the issue has given rise to repeated consensus being later over-written or deleted for at least the last eighteen months that I've been editing. There are multiple issues on a number of pages continuing Foreskin - current discussion on repeat from last year - some deleted content now restored. I'm not looking for dispute resolution here - talk is ongoing - but some pages suffer so badly it makes wikipedia look wrong. Masturbation does not contain the word foreskin, it does contain the word lubricant. I post this because I read a noticeboard discussion about cabals. I think we need to do something about the entire subject area but I have little experience in the admin world so apologies if this is in the wrong place. I'd welcome broader feedback about bias problems across subject areas. Thanks.Thelisteninghand (talk) 22:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

What issue? What consensus? Back up and explain what you are talking about. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

There is a lot of discussion on the talk page, but no formal RFCs yet. ECP is also a possibility if there really is a problem with instability and disagreement. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett: Thank you. "Instability" is an exact description - the prepuce infographics restored last week, now deleted again on Foreskin because it used the term 'function' - medical doctor is over-ridden. (foreskin 'must not have a function' bias - the reason why it's missing completely in some articles) But I want make it clear I am not complaining about one page. NPOV has gone to the wall over many circumcision related articles - which is why WP perhaps needs to consider what its policy should be in terms of page protection or sanctions. Apologies, what's ECP? Thelisteninghand (talk) 18:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed protection, which would restrict editing to user with at least 30 days tenure and 500 edits. Often, a good first step in researching an unfamiliar acronym here is to slap a "WP:" before it and use the search bar. See WP:ECP. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education, the organization I work for, runs an extensive program where college and university students edit Wikipedia as a class assignment. We have one university instructor who's taught with Wikipedia through our program several times who is teaching a course beginning in January where her students will be inmates in a correctional facility (see Prison education). These students will be taking her course for college credit, but they will not have internet access. She is interested in printing out our how-to-edit trainings, printing out an existing article, and working with the students to collaboratively improve an article with citations to books or other physical sources they have at the facility or that she would bring with her. When she comes back to her office at the university where she has internet access, she'd then incorporate the edits to the article.

So my question: how does she do this in a way that follows policy? These students obviously can't create their own accounts because they don't have internet access. Should she make the edits with her account and provide credit to the person's name in the edit summary? Or is there a better solution? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

One issue is copyright and attribution. Normally we would not allow putting in others work, but if the students were prepared to sign a permission sheet releasing their writings under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 saying what attribution they would like and who is going to be uploading them, then the instructor would send that to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Then when the instructor inserts contributions on the writer's behalf, they can put the attribution in the edit summary, along with the ticket number where permission can be confirmed. However if the only work is adding references, perhaps that is too simple for copyright. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This brings up an interesting question of how we can accomodate editors who are physically incapable of entering text. What if I were assisting a disabled person who could not use a keyboard? Perhaps they were to dictate to me and I would do the typing. That's not fundamentally different from the situation here.

We surely would have no problem with a disabled person using an electronic speech-to-text device. Why should a human acting in that capacity be any different? And if I were acting in that capacity, would I be expected to log in under my own account and provide attribution in the edit comment, or would I be allowed/expected to log in to the account of the person I was assisting? In some ways, using their account would be better. Why should their contributions be called out as "entered on behalf of xxx because they're in prison and can't do it themselves"?

Just to be clear, I'm asking a question here, not handing out official advice. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:50, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

There are a couple of issues to deal with, copyright being first. If the off-line contributors release their work as CC-0, anyone can freely copy it for any reason; a CC-BY would be another possible option. Next would be the editorial decisions. Is the staffer going to take responsibility for the edits, or do they intent to act as a "proxy" only? Are they going to be making these edits as a function of their job (WP:PAID editing)? I think this is a good idea, but there may be better ways to get it started right away. Researching things and providing summarized, cited research - releasing that summary under an open license - then adding that as research notes to talk pages could help. Then an editor could incorporate it to articles as it makes sense editorially. That helps get around the problem of how to communicate with the editors, what to do if a revert happens, etc. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support There are a set of issues to address but I believe that typical Wikipedia editors can navigate them and assess themselves to do all the right things. Here are some previous conversations:
  • Should prison inmates be permitted to edit Wikipedia? by me
  • meta:Wikipedia in jails
    • meta:Wikimedia_CH/Annual_report_2013#Kiwix_in_Jail
    • meta:Static_content_group#Wikipedia_offline_in_jails
    • meta:/Journal_on_Meta#Kiwix_in_jail:_a_Swiss_cooperation
  • WikiFundi - edit Wikipedia offline
    • meta:WikiFundi/en
    • meta:WikiAfrica Offline Resources/en
    • https://www.wikifundi.org/wikifundi/wikifundi-read-more/

Bluerasberry (talk) 17:50, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Support... what? The opener said, "How does she do this in a way that follows policy," which isn't a support/oppose kind of question. --Golbez (talk) 00:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• IANAWEL (I am not a Wikimedia-employed lawyer) but I think that if the professor got their students to sign a form or a statement of some sort releasing their contributions to the class under CC-BY-SA, and then uploaded a screenshot somewhere (commons?) to link in the edit summary, would something like that work to ameliorate copyright issues? --Jayron32 18:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
• Beware of edit conflicts. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
• This is all helpful, thank you! Is anyone aware of a template we could use for such a form to have the students sign? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  This was written for a different context, but c:COM:OTRS#Email message template for release of rights to a file might be useful. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

There is an RFC on the Republics of Russia talk page that could use more editor input,Talk:Republics of Russia#RfC: Should Donetsk and Luhansk_be included in the table and infobox?. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

About Klingon scripts, see talk:§ Does this article need to include private-use characters?. The script is not defined in Unicode, but has Private Use designations. Question is whether this wiki can use these (requiring supporting font). Discuss over there please. DePiep (talk) 13:37, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Articles for deletion is overwhelmed. There needs to be no discussion over this - everyone knows it.

And that's because there are not enough people to do source search checking.

Patrolling articles is also overwhelmed. Deletion of articles is often done without WP:BEFORE checks.

There might be no WP:DEADLINE, but unmaintainable articles(not notable articles, hoaxes etc.) continuously accumulating in Wikipedia is not acceptable either.

We need a solution to the problem that takes these problems as facts or solves these problems.

One possibility is blanking; replacing an article with a template "This article was removed because of quality concerns" if the problem is notability, no one has claimed to have done a WP:BEFORE check, and there is no valid redirect target, and the article subject isn't a BLP. But that leaves out BLP's.

But it is something that needs to be solved. Deletion is generating ANI threads at high speed, and got already one arbcom case. Let's not end with DS on deletion. (I submitted this here because the idea lab is not for policy discussions)Lurking shadow (talk) 15:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Seems like a non-issue to me. Let's say an article is deleted. Let's say that any time in the future after that you decide to create that article again, but when YOU do so, it has enough sources and context to easily overcome WP:N concerns, complies with all of Wikipedia's content policies, isn't a copyvio, etc. Guess what? Nothing happens. The article just exists at Wikipedia, from that day forward. I'm failing to see the problem here. --Jayron32 16:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

This just seems like another example of #I propose that an article being tagged for over a decade as completely uncited should be a reason for deletion. I don't see what blanking a page does to help other than being a soft delete that means no one sees the article. If there are hoaxes, then these can be dealt with at CSD. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:18, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that is ALSO a bad idea. AFD is valuable for the reason that (when it works), it is supposed to be a discussion, and it gets eyes on articles. If AFD finds sources and ends up improving an article that was moribund for 10 years, then we still win. If AFD decides the article should be deleted on the merits, then that is ALSO fine as well. What isn't fine is when we make decisions not based on the merits, like when we clear some arbitrary hurdle like "been tagged for over 10 years" or something like that. --Jayron32 18:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

No, it isn't. It would be an alternative for soft deletion... or when consensus to blank exists.Lurking shadow (talk) 16:25, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

But this is just one idea. Let's not just focus on that. Do you have a good idea for fixing one or several of these problems?Lurking shadow (talk) 16:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it's all that different from WP:PROD regardless. I'm a bit confused where the issues are. You started this by stating that there's a massive issue at AfD, but I'm not sure I agree. Items being soft deleted due to lack of participation is fine. Whilst having articles on non-notable people isn't great - it's hardly the largest blight upon our website. I'm not sure how you'd get a consensus for blanking. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:47, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to be bold and try what has been rejected in the past.

Articles for deletion is broken. Vast amounts of badly or barely discussed articles are being deleted, or kept. There are way too many AFD cases every day. The edge of uncertainity is too great: AFD should be for special cases, not obvious cases. The discussion standards in AFD are terribly low. It's way too easy for less-well meaning people to nominate articles for deletion without being stopped fast.

1.New PROD criterion similar to BLPPROD: Articles created after October 2022 and more than 48 hours ago can be prodded with a prod that should not be removed as long as all sources in the article including its history are:

-obviously not independent

-obviously not connected to the subject

-deprecated

Obvious means: Immediately visible at first glance.

Editors must consult the history of the article before nominating. These articles can be deleted by an admin after 14 days have passed. The admin is required to make a second history check.

2.Enhanced AFD standards: Nominators must include a detailed analysis of the sources in the article if a reason for deletion is notability. Everyone is asked to provide detailed analysis if possible.

These low quality articles are lowering the standards in AFD. Increasing these standards will help AFD becoming what it should. In the beginning of the project these sourcing standards made sense. There were lots of extremely important unwritten articles. Right now, the focus on quantity is holding Wikipedia hostage. There is no immediate need to fill every article space with low quality articles; articles having low interest are much more prone to undue weight, special interests, and more, and bad info stays vastly longer; these should be held to higher standards to ensure accuracy, and allow minimum fact-checking by readers and editors alike.Lurking shadow (talk) 21:19, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

On the particular suggestion (1), a prod has to be easily handled by a single admin; this would put a lot of the burden currently spread over AfD onto the relatively small number of active admins who work in deletion. On (2) and more generally, we're just about to start an RfC on deletion at scale; Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/AfD at scale. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:04, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Per Espresso Addict, PROD and BLPPROD is designed to require little to no work or interpretation on the part of the tagger or the admin involved. Sources are impossible to evaluate immediately at first glance. You have to open the source, read it, interpret it against standards, etc. That takes time and energy, and requires a modicum of interpretation, where opinions may differ. In those cases, AFD is the only appropriate course of action. the scenario described above literally doesn't exist. --Jayron32 11:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Aside from the merits of otherwise of this proposal I’m surprised at the timing. AfD doesn’t look overwhelmed to me at all. Back some months we were often up to 120 or 130 listings a day and that has dropped back to something more manageable. Similarly NPP has gone from 14,000 to zero and us now at about 400. Both seem to me to be working ok for the moment at least. Mccapra (talk) 13:03, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict, Jayron32, and Mccapra: The burden is lower than for a single admin on a normal PROD, unless that admin doesn't take the job seriously. Enhanced AFD standards might be able to shoehorned into that RFC, the general deletion change could not. Sources can show a lack of independence at first glance sometimes, but mostly not.

There is no standard for obviously unreliable except deprecation, which is easily accessible. The scenario does exist, although many do fall under CSD A5. No sources at all do happen. This discussion is what brought me here. There might be a low number of AFD nominations currently, but this might change. Some current AFDs are problematic. A few:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/StayPlain: The nomination does not discuss the sources in the article.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medanta: Some sources, but no source evaluation.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ikemba Chisom Sophia sources in the article, but no detailed source evaluation.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Connecticut Party (2021) No detailed source assessment.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/First Lady of Mato Grosso do Sul Eight sources, none of them analyzed publicly.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asabe Shehu Musa Yar'Adua No analysis of the sources in the article, again. Just a blanket assessment that it doesn't meet GNG.

And that's with low nomination numbers. Lack of source analysis in the nomination statement is bad(if the articles has some), If no one challenges that assessment then the article gets deleted, which might be problematic(the ANI discussion linked above tells you why).Lurking shadow (talk) 16:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I went and added some comments to each of those. You know you're allowed to do so yourself. Be the change you want in the world; if it bothers you that participation is low at AFD and the comments are not high enough quality, and then you don't make any comments yourself on these AFDs, you ARE the problem you are complaining about. Wikipedia is a volunteer organization, and the only reason things get done is because people who care about things just do them. If you care enough to write an entire post at VPP about something, you should care enough to do it yourself. If more people just did the thing they complain that others aren't doing, it would already be done. --Jayron32 18:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what sort of source analysis you are expecting, nor why you'd expect the nominators to have to provide this. Nominators can add AfDs for any reason, although they are better to explain why. How would blanking a page make a lack of a nomination statement better? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:30, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The nominations are not enough high quality. The deadline for these discussions is not today. I am not obliged to do that immediately. Me adding comments there will probably help the discussions but it will not change the problem with the nominations. Nomination standards should be increased.

@Lee Vilenski: Blanking a page is a seperate issue. And no; nominators should not add AFD's for any reason, and the explanation is what is missing, at least the detailed one. Lurking shadow (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Lurking shadow: sorry but I’m not sure I properly understand your point above (“the burden is lower…etc.” if I understand you correctly you’re saying that a lot of nomination statements (and following comments) don’t provide much detail. That’s true but it’s not clear to me that it’s problematic. We’re not giving evidence in court and if a nomination is not well founded my impression is it generally doesn’t find support. I’m still not seeing any clear case that AfD is broken or needs some fundamental change. Mccapra (talk) 00:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

It generally doesn't find much support(but it does by drive-by deletion voters), but it may not find opposition; if there is a flood of deletions like previously... which can come back at any time. Lurking shadow (talk) 08:06, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Now I'm really confused. You think that people nominating items at AfD aren't doing a good enough job, so therefore it's suitable to just blank pages instead? What do you want to happen to people that nominate items at AfD who don't leave long nomination statements? Quite often a simple statement that someone simply isn't notable is fine. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:18, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok well we kind of rely on admins to properly weigh up skimpy nominations and drive by ‘delete’ votes and balance that up in their conclusion of where the consensus lies. Any other system of deletion (??) would also ultimately depend in the judgement of the admins, and I guess the people taking part in nominating and discussing wouldn’t have my more time to invest in it than they do now, so my sense is we could spend a lot of time trying to work out a better system only to end up with the same people doing more or less the same things in a somewhat different format. Mccapra (talk) 08:37, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Quite often a simple statement that someone simply isn't notable is fine. - Lee Vilenski

No, it's part of the problem. I could nominate anything with these statements; I am not backing up that it's actually true. The article might be notable, and have acceptable sources, but the nomination might sneak through and then the article would end up deleted. Or the article isn't actually notable but a few drive-by keep votes say it is, and it's kept.

We rely on admins. And the admins will make better decisions if the matter is being discussed for real; if the nomination and subsequent statments are all WP:ATA then the admins will probably make more mistakes. Lurking shadow (talk) 09:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

There's quite literally nothing you can do to have ANY impact on what anyone else does in terms of nominating articles at AFD. All you can do is make your own comments. If, for policy or guideline based reasons, a nomination was made inappropriately, you are allowed to make a comment to note exactly that. --Jayron32 11:07, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

You could indeed nominate any article for "not being notable", but while nominators missing an easy BEFORE check is already irksome, nominators who proposed an article for failing notability which already had clearly sufficient sources would be a quick trip to ANI for a TBAN. And even speaking as an inclusionist, notability is a positive duty - the article has to show it's notable not vice-versa. Nominators should provide additional reasoning if they need to clarify a query or rebut a logical (but apparently incorrect) objection in advance. For example, clarifying that a source from a RS is unsuitable because, say, it's an op-ed. But the large bulk of 1-line nominations are where a look at the article while confirm that yes, that's correct. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

No, we aren't going to ban someone at ANI because they made a nomination once that didn't properly address sources. Please stop suggesting such silliness. How about if you find a nomination that isn't sufficient, and you don't comment on it to make it sufficient with your own comments, we banned you from Wikipedia? That's just as stupid. Please stop suggesting that the way to fix problems is to punish people. It isn't. The way to fix problems is to fix them yourself. If you find it too onerous to fix it yourself, then it isn't that big of a problem. --Jayron32 12:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

You could indeed nominate any article for "not being notable", but while nominators missing an easy BEFORE check is already irksome, nominators who proposed an article for failing notability which already had clearly sufficient sources would be a quick trip to ANI for a TBAN. This should happen maybe, but it definitely does not in my recent experience. Jahaza (talk) 02:51, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Whatever process is used to delete articles won't work well unless enough people participate. Let's concentrate on getting more people involved, the first step of which is getting involved ourselves, rather than on changing the process. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

As a general rule, it seems that direct threats of political violence are not allowed (WP:VIOLENCE, WP:CIVIL). However, it seems that indirect or implied threats or advocacy of political violence are more nebulous. I recently nominated a few userboxes supporting political violence to MfD, but consensus seems to be divided on whether they're appropriate for Wikipedia. Is there a policy that describes to what extent users may support political violence, military action, terrorist groups, etc? Would it be beneficial to hold an RfC on advocacy of political violence on Wikipedia? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC) Discussion moved below. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

That is so funny. 😂 I was creating a village pump thread at exactly the same time you did. Would you be opposed to merging your point into my below thread? 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:49, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

It was your suggestion of an RfC that prompted me to post this! I'll migrate it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:57, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Resolved

..Moxy- 17:29, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Some of our country demography articles have become dominated by tables of statistics without much by way of prose. See Demography of England for an example. What's the policy on this? WP:NOTSTATS states that "Statistics that lack context or explanation can reduce readability and may be confusing; accordingly, statistics should be placed in tables to enhance readability, and articles with statistics should include explanatory text providing context". The statistics in these articles are in tables, but I'd hardly say that the articles are readable. Relatedly, do we have (or do we need) a maintenance template for such situations? Moxy recently tagged Immigration to Canada with a template for excessive images. Is there an equivalent for tables? Cordless Larry (talk) 07:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Demography of a particular country is a stats-heavy topic; if readers want something other than stats, there are a lot of other articles relating to England. Espresso Addict (talk) 15:49, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

agreed demographics of articles are a "Dumping Ground" for these sorts of things. But "DATA" spam is definitely a problem as seen at European Canadian. Moxy- 00:34, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this sort of article is always likely to feature more statistics than the average article. However, it's the complete lack of balance between prose and tables that I think is the problem here. Making sense of the tables requires prose, which can describe, explain and contextualise in ways that the raw data does not. Is there a maintenance template that can be used to highlight this issue? Cordless Larry (talk) 11:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

This article is in list format but may read better as prose. You can help by converting this article, if appropriate. Editing help is available.

? Moxy- 12:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

That was the closest I found but it doesn't really cover it. What's needed is something to explain that more context is required for the tables. Perhaps a new template is in order. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

We could un-redirect Template:Toomanycharts and replace it with coding from Template:Toomanycharts/Draft

((Toomanycharts/Draft))

Moxy- 02:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Forgot to ping.... @Cordless Larry:. Moxy- 02:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

That looks great, Moxy. Thanks for creating that. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Category has been set up. Moxy- 14:48, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

 Done all set up and runing.Template:Toomanycharts/doc and Category:Pages with too many statistics Moxy- 17:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)