There's a BRFA to make a single run through all pages, adding ((Unreferenced)) or ((No footnotes)) to pages as appropriate. GreenC kindly did the leg work making the bot. As currently written the bot will not tag stubs, redirects, "List of...", "Index of...", "<year> in...", and some other cases. You can see test results here for where the bot would or would not apply different tags. There is concern at the BRFA that this run may appear disruptive if consensus is not gained at a wider forum first. Hence, this post: would folks support a bot run to tag unreferenced or no footnotes pages? Ajpolino (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• As it's easy to do, I'd like to see this new tag annotated such as |source=GreenC bot, with a link to some relevant explanation. We gain little benefit from tags and a lot of friction, especially where they're seen as "drive-by" tagging with no explanation.

Also, what happens afterwards? Will those articles then be speedied for deletion as "unsourced"? I can see all those itchy trigger fingers just waiting to do such a thing. And of course, a bulk deletion run of massive volume would have so much greater 'success'. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:06, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Also, will this recognise BLPs and treat them differently? Andy Dingley (talk) 18:23, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Do "unsourced" tags need an explanation? Natureium (talk) 18:33, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, because there's so much pushback against them (and many wind up mis-applied - an article without inline citations might still have references). If we're going to tag things, make the reasons and their provenance clear – saves argument later. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support - Now that new pages patrol is fairly organized, most new unreferenced pages are likely getting tagged. So a single run of the bot should be sufficient. Category:Articles_lacking_sources already has 184,000 articles in it. But a group of editors are making steady progress, and have chopped that number down from 202,000 a year ago. Knowing the scale of the task would be nice. Also, I usually search through the category by keywords so I can deal with e.g. all Kyrgyzstanian villages in one go with one good source. Having all the unreffed articles tagged would greatly facilitate that. Lastly, I see no down side to having unreffed articles tagged as such. Who knows, the tag might even cause someone to fix a few of them? Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 17:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support - Easier to find articles with issues if they are tagged. Easier to fix them if you can find them. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:11, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support - This would let us target unsourced articles. I stumble across one every once in a while, and try to find some source, but we should be more systematic. And if we can't find any source to support one of those articles, then we should delete it. - Donald Albury 20:07, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support - Would be super helpful for this to be implemented. --Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 20:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support AmericanAir88^(talk) 22:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support. This is a straightforward task that would save a lot of editor effort. — Newslinger talk 23:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. These tags sit very prominently at the top of an article and so ought to be used judiciously. ((Unreferenced)) should ideally be placed on articles only if the absence of sources isn't otherwise immediately obvious to the reader and there is reason to believe some of the article's content might not be completely reliable: for example, there's no point tagging short articles whose content is easily verifiable in a quick web search. This is a task that requires judgement and so it can't be performed by a bot. I understand that many editors might disagree with this view on the use of the "unreferenced" tags, but the case against adding ((No footnotes)) – which is also the major task of the bot as it's expected to affect over 110,000 articles – is much clearer. In-line citations, though useful in many circumstances, aren't a universal requirement (see for example WP:MINREF). It's perfectly acceptable to have a reasonably developed article with a list of general references at the end but not a single footnote. If it doesn't contain potentially contentious statements (or other material that needs to be supported by in-line citations), then there's really no issue to point to and so the placement of a "No footnotes" tag can be seen as disruptive. Again, the decision on whether to place the tag or not requires evaluation of the content of the article, and that's not something that a bot can do. And of course, if editors find it useful to have a bot flag up articles in such a way, then this can be handled in any of the less obstrusive ways that many similar maintenance task are handled: for example by the creation of a list in projectspace, or by the addtion of invisible categories. – Uanfala (talk) 00:26, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support very helpful. :) Siddiqsazzad001 <Talk/> 06:19, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support very useful, saving hours of editors' time. Carefully thought out and ready for a trial. Boleyn (talk) 20:31, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
• Strong Support On several levels. We owe it to the reader to tell them that we haven't checked the veracity of the article. To be able to counter the slur "Wikipedia is unreliable, people can write any nonsense" with "Not true- all articles require references- and if they don't have them we tag them prominently with "No footnotes- please help to provide them". Then, in talking to newbies at editathons- my line of "each wikipedia edit has three parts 'an interesting fact- a reference saying where you found it, and a note telling other editor what you have done" now has teeth. And, for the nervous new editor. ¨Don't try to start a new article- just go to one with the No footnotes tag and start there- it is unloved and you can only improve it.ClemRutter (talk) 14:07, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I disagree with pretty much everything but your last two sentences. Firstly Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a reliable source because people can write any nonsense. Go look at List of hoaxes on Wikipedia and see the 50+ hoaxes that existed on this website for over 8 years. One of 12 years was just deleted not two weeks ago. Second, the information has been checked by the the author of the article and if you doubt that you should challenge it specifically, not have a bot tag things that don't have a little blue number after them. Third, unless an article contains direct quotations, claims that have been challenged, claims likely to be challenged, or contentious material about living persons, policy does not require references: ...the policies require only that it be possible for a motivated, educated person to find published, reliable sources that support the material, e.g., by searching for sources online or at a library. Lastly, if we "owe it to the reader to tell them that we haven't checked the veracity of the article" then we should pending changes protect this whole place and turn it into Citizendium. Not having a template at the top doesn't mean the information is true, reliable, or even verifiable. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 05:24, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support - I agree with Clem. As for the tag's prominence, they ought be. Most of the time these conditions are easy enough to correct, how long they remain so situated is mostly an editorial choice (even for new users as referencing is usually a task learned early, even by casual contributors).--John Cline (talk) 14:28, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Uanfala and WP:CITEVAR. Articles don't need to have footnotes, see Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing, and I doubt throwing a ((No footnotes)) tag at the top of the FA Actuary will be helpful to anyone. ((No footnotes)) which would be added to Aerin says "its sources remain unclear" except that the source is very clear given it's three paragraphs on a Tolkien character cited to two of Tolkien's books. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the information about this Tolkien character comes from one of Tolkien's books (perhaps even the ones in the references). While ((unreferenced)) definitely applies to Love After Midnight, should it really be added considering the information is clearly available if you just looked at the album cover (a fair use image of which is included in the article, but a bot wouldn't know that). Inline citations are only required if material is challenged, so adding a tag to an article that is already verifiable isn't useful and bloats a maintenance category for pages that actually do have issues with verifiability. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 04:58, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

  To say: "Inline citations are only required if material is challenged" is to rest verification on diligence to only a fourth part of expected standards. There are four instances that necessitate inline verification. If you focus on the larger picture, where the other 75% may dwell, I think both you, and Uanfala would find it much more intuitive to support this reasonable measure; for the larger good that it will do.--John Cline (talk) 07:14, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

  I'm well aware, I mention all four in a comment I made above, but none of the other three apply in the articles I mention (no direct quotes, not BLPs, nothing seems likely to be challenged) so I didn't mention the other three. Determining whether the state of sourcing and verifiability is in line with policy is a task for humans and it should be done by humans. This is not a bot proposing to add ((BLP unsourced)) to unsourced BLPs, it's not a bot that would add ((Quote without source)) to direct quotations without an inline citation, it's not a bot that would add ((Disputed)) to articles which seem to be hoaxes, it is not a bot that would add banners which show actual problems stemming from policy but rather is asserting that a whole article has problems because it doesn't have little blue numbers. If the bot were to add any of those three banners (appropriately) I'd be more inclined to support, but right now this just seems like what will happen is a ton of articles that comply with policy and with style guidelines will get swept up in. Category:Articles lacking sources contains 3% of all articles. Category:Articles lacking in-text citations contains over 1%. It will take 9 years to get through ((unsourced)) at our current rate of 20,000 articles per year. I fail to see a "larger good" in bloating already massive categories with an unknown number that may not even be a valuable use of our time because no human actually triaged it.

  And this isn't even me hypothesizing. I went through all the type 2 ((no footnotes)) articles in the dataset listed at BRFA and many of them I would not tag at NPP. There are even articles like Fossilized affixes in Austronesian languages, Nummer 5 which would have been tagged but do use inline citations (with page numbers!) via parantheticals; the second article, Nummer 5, even uses citation template ((harv)). If you want to bloat those categories, I'd be fine with the bot adding the category alone, but if we're going to be prominently displaying a message to our readers that there is a problem with an article I want a human to have judged that it is in fact not in line with policy, not a bot failing to find its prefered citation style. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 08:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

  Your rebuttal is cogent and well reasoned; I respect your entire platform. I think it will not achieve more than its due recognition (as great philosophy) until nirvana hath come. Meanwhile, this reasonable thing (that we can do) should be done; and continuously improved (until nirvana hath come).--John Cline (talk) 08:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

  Addendum - I'd like to add that my support of this proposal is in no way meant as a dismissal of your valid concerns. They deserve mitigation,as they did (even before this proposal) and reasonably. perhaps, even more so amid the emerging consensus. I share your disdain for arriving at a page only to see a prominently displayed maintenance tags that inappropriately ascribe the wrong maintenance needs and very often show they have been mistagged this way for years. A bot that can add a tag ought always multitask to remove tags that are misapplied as well (that might do a lot, in itself, to reduce some backlogs. And to alleviate the potential of bloated categorization, it would be technically easy and editorially prudent to modify the categorization for each of the tags the bot will handle so as tags placed by the bot can be categorized as such, and diverted to a sub-cat of the main-cat eliminating any potential effect from bloat while allowing the segregation of bot placements where an editor may want to deal with pages tagged by the bot in particular, and thereby could. I hope they will do such things just because it is an improvement compared with not doing it. Anyway, I did not mean to seem dismissive, and I saw in my comment where it could easily seem like that is what I was attempting when I really was not meaning to. Cheers.--John Cline (talk) 12:22, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

  Comment The name ((No footnotes)) is a bit misleading as the template says that both footnotes and parenthetical citations can count as inline citations. I think the bot should skip over articles with parenthetical citations, such as Actuary. Qzekrom (talk) 15:37, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Every mainspace article should be flagged for such sourcing problems; doing so is de rigueur for patrollers, but because of the decentralized way patolling is done, many article have been missed. Let's find and fix that.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:12, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support unsourced only some of the concerns about "no footnotes" seem legitimate; on a spot check, while many of those articles have problems, often the lack of footnotes is not the main problem with the article. Stubs like Forstegg Castle or Robert Săceanu don't have enough content to need footnotes, and David Garst is all clearly sourced to the one reference given. I don't see any reason to not support the ((unsourced)) run; the only false positive I found was a crypto-list at Clarinet-cello repertoire. I'm assured through the earlier discussion that templates that generate references are all included, it's not just checking for ref tags). power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:54, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support With Conditions. I am not too excited by the Template:No footnotes part of this proposal. It would really be a hassle if anything. However, adding unsourced is a great idea and has my full support. That would seem awfully useful for readers and editors alike. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 16:58, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I very much agree with the comments made by Andy Dingley and power~enwiki on this matter. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 17:02, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support (and tweak?). I don't think this is a bad idea, but I'm cautious about "will not tag stubs". A lot of stub-tagged articles are very long, not really stubs any more by any reasonable definition, and often these are some of the least well-maintained pages - the fact that they still have a stub tag suggests an experienced/confident editor hasn't worked with them enough to notice and remove it.

Would it be worth tweaking this so it's a little more sophisticated and eg/ only skips anything that's a stub and is also under, say, 5000 characters (a very generous upper limit)? If that's not practical, fair enough, but it would be good to include these large "not really stubs" as well if possible. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:39, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose all. ((No footnotes)) should not be bot-applied ever, because it will tag pages that actually contain WP:Inline citations (but don't happen to use ref tags – this includes several FAs, by the way). That tag requires human judgment. Bot attempts to apply ((Unref)) result in a number of errors, although usually a fairly small (couple of percentage points) number. But the problem is that this tag is basically pointless. Except with quite new articles, we have no evidence that anyone sees that tag and addresses the problem. Also, when it's a stub, I like to think that our readers are smart enough to see that there aren't any blue clicky numbers on the page.
  As an alternative, I'd like to see a bot remove the unref tag when refs are added (NB: not "substitute ((refimprove))", which is something that a bot can't form a judgment about; just take it out). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Which FA do you mean? Let's test it, see what happens (dry run mode). I've gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid spurious tagging. It's not a simple bot. Also, when it makes mistakes, I improve the bot further so that type of problem doesn't happen again. -- GreenC 21:57, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support unsourced only. As others have mentioned, articles don't require footnotes. While I agree that in the vast majority of cases adding footnotes will be helpful, I don't think a bot going around tagging all articles without footnotes would be helpful. Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 11:49, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• Note Above template was added by Uanfala. ^{[Username Needed]} 09:45, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose "Unreferenced" per Uanfala and others, and Strong oppose "No footnotes". The vast majority of non-stub articles have some references; and seriously - articles don't need footnotes! And based on (an admittedly unscientfic) clicking of the 'Random article' link ten times, 90% of our articles don't have them. So we'd be adding "Unreferenced" to a tiny percentage of articles, and adding "No footnotes" to the vast majority. What practical purpose would that serve - especially the latter case? Nobody visiting Millom Rural District is going to care - or try to find suitable ones for inclusion - if there are no footnotes there. An alternative useful proposal would be a bot that would add Category:Unreferenced to unreferenced articles - then all such articles can be easily accessed from one place, rather than plastering templates everywhere. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:12, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

The test data gives a statistical estimate how many would be tagged with 'No footnotes', it's either 0.02 (less than the number of already tagged with unreferenced) or 0.005 depending on which threshold is chosen. It's targeting the absolute worse cases using a conservative approach. If the article has a top hat of any kind, one of over 7000 templates (including infoboxes) etc.. it gets skipped. There are many many ways articles are skipped. -- GreenC 01:55, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support both. Would be helpful for all of them, and while articles (as stated above) don't need footnotes, it is however by far the most common form of referencing, and consistency is good for a reader passing by who may not know about the other forms of referencing. As for ((unsourced)), I am supporting so that the article gets added to the maintenance category, so that editors can find about it and do something. ^{[Username Needed]} 10:21, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support both. As a matter of principle, its inconceivable that any article beyond stub length would contain zero WP:MINREF material. In particular, practice has shown that just about any statement is likely to be challenged. Wikipedia is going to be here for a long time, and our standards on sourcing are getting more – not less – demanding all the time. Even for content that doesn't strictly meet MINREF criteria, inline citations are clearly expected by WP:V and WP:REF. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:01, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CONTEXTBOT. How in the world is this bot supposed to identify all appropriately formatted footnotes? Imagine that your article has zero <ref></ref> tags, because you've used a "Bibliograpyh" header with full citations, and you're using parenthetical citations for necessary details (e.g. page numbers). Maybe you can train the bot to notice if there's a section entitled "References", "Bibliography", "Notes", etc. with content, but how is the bot supposed to know that an article's properly cited if it doesn't use cite.php, and a typo causes there to be no header with a standard works-cited title? WP:CITEVAR says we don't convert an article from one style to another without consensus, and by implication it's wrong to tag an article for "no footnotes" if you just don't recognise the footnotes style. Obviously we need to forgive a human who's never seen parenthetical citations and tags articles inappropriately, but humans can easily be educated, while educating bots to be 100% error-free on the edge cases is impossible. Nyttend (talk) 23:53, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Well it's unavoidable the bot will make even a single error ("100% error-free"), but there is the other half of the equation, the vast majority of tagged pages that humans have failed to do anything about for years and decades. Do we leave those thousands untagged for fear of a few arguably mis-tagged pages? The bot is aware of common section titles, over 7000 templates and much else besides. Forget the <ref></ref> tags, the bot has many ways to look at it. The scenario you give sounds GIGOish. If no-GIGO and 100% error free is the threshold I withdrawn this bot and all bots. -- GreenC 01:55, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I get the feeling that many of the opposes above are based on the mistaken notion that the bot either requires the article to have <ref></ref> tags (thus negatively sanctioning other allowed WP:CITEVARs) or that ((No footnotes)) would be inappropriate if the intended CITEVAR was something else (the template – though named so – says no such thing; it says "sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations"). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I can't speak for the others, but my opoposition is partly based on the assumptions that the bot requires the presence of either ref tags or some sort of citation template (which would mistakenly flag up articles that have text-only inline citations: Wugapodes has given examples above), and more germanely on the fact that a bot can't discriminate between articles that do need to have in-line citations and ones that don't. – Uanfala (talk) 15:42, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The test data shows the bot is really very accurate. -- GreenC 16:16, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support I agree with Andrew Gray, the matter of stubs should be handled. Take, for example, Pakistani railway stations of which 1,254 exist in real life. In Enwiki, we have 1,172 stubs, almost all prepared by expert editors from one or no sources. One argument in opposition is that a tag at the top is distracting to the reader. A stub, however, is invisible. It allows large groups of articles to be ignored for years. There is no reason that 2,100 Indian railway station stubs should not be processed by this bot. Rhadow (talk) 14:11, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose no footnotes as footnotes are not considered essential or tag worthy for non BLPs, and this would be overtagging and unnecessary Atlantic306 (talk) 19:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose both' as for footnotes: Footnotes are never required for any article . Even for BLP, any way of associating a statement with the reference for it is acceptable.WP:INCITE says "Inline citations allow the reader to associate a given bit of material in an article with the specific reliable source(s) that support it. Inline citations are added using either footnotes (long or short) or parenthetical references. " Footnotes is the usual and recommended method, but not the only one. It's bas enough that the manual tag reads inaccurately, but we certainly should not be adding inaccurate tags by bot.

and as for "unreferenced" Looking at some at random, and remembering from a long experience, about one-third of them have external links or other ways of giving sources that could be trivially used as references. They just need moving to the usual place, not adding. Again, it's bad enough that a sometimes incorrect tag is often added manually, without doing wrong by bot. Even for quotations that people marked as needing sources, the sources are often there, but in a nonstandard way. DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Useless clutter per banner blindness and WP:TCREEP. Andrew D. (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose both. If you want Wikipedia to have a uniform referencing style then start an RFC proposing that Wikipedia adopts a uniform referencing style, but in the absence of such a consensus using a bot to expressly force other people to follow your personal preferences as to how you think articles should be formatted is pretty much the textbook example of tendentious editing. Wikipedia doesn't have, and never has had, any kind of rule that footnotes are required; there are featured articles without a single footnote. ‑ Iridescent 22:13, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment As the bot author, I don't like tags much either. A bot like this has a number of advantages for anti-tagging. 1- it will free up tagging editors (WP:NPP etc) to do something else with the knowledge a bot is on the job, resulting in overall reduction in tagging. 2- the bot has an accuracy rate of 98% or better, far less than manual tagging error rates (see DGG's 33% comment above) meaning fewer overall tags. For those who think a bot is not qualified or capable of these decisions, manual editors are worse. 3- the bot can just as equally remove tags. If it sees a page that would not qualify for a tag (that it would skip) but it contains a tag, it can be removed. This might result in a overall net-reduction in tags. The bot is tag-agnostic focusing on quality of tagging to reduce the amount of error-prone manual tagging and de-tagging. 4- there is a single point to make adjustments ie. tagging algos can be controlled and improved, unlike manual tagging. -- GreenC 23:27, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support with caveat The bot should not tag pages that have higher priority sourcing issues, see WP:OVERTAG. Qzekrom (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Correct, it does not do that. Indeed it does not tag any page with a preexisting top hat of any type. This is one feature of the extreme conservatism I keep mentioning. It will skip pages at the drop of a hat (sorry). -- GreenC 16:49, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support Makes sense. It will be very helpful.
  Sincerely,
  Masum Reza^☎ 16:51, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

This Encyclopedias for Deletion banner campaign for EU Copyright/Article 13 was originally Requested at Talk:Main Page#Please include banner in EU locales ("Regarding [3] please display https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/ prominently as a noticebox warning as above for readers in Europe. Thank you.") Please conduct the RFC discussion here. EllenCT (talk) 05:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• This request is specifically about using the main page. ~ R.T.G 17:41, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Only in the European locales. EllenCT (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Background information: Dimitrov, Dimitar; Davenport, Allison. "Problems remain with the EU's copyright reform". wikimediafoundation.org. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 7 February 2019. EllenCT (talk) 22:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Further background information, this time from an independent source because I don't like the pointiness above - BBC News. - Sitush (talk) 08:54, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

• Additional background information specifically about the impact on Wikipedia. The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia John Cummings (talk) 11:34, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Survey: EfD banner

• Oppose any use of the encyclopedia for political advocacy, even if a majority of a tiny subset of editors agree on a position. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:14, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per my thoughts at User:Mz7/Avoid political banners. Taking a side in a political debate necessarily jeopardizes Wikipedia's ability to maintain a perception of neutrality with respect to that issue. Neutrality is one of our most fundamental principles as a project, and it's not really something that's supposed to be negotiable. Additionally, as editors point out below, the proposed legislation makes an explicit exception for online encyclopedias, so I fear that a big banner that says that Wikipedia is proposed for deletion is sensationalizing it quite a bit. Mz7 (talk) 10:37, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons I stated earlier today in what is now the Discussion section of this RfC (it was not an RfC at the time). - Sitush (talk) 10:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Strong support. Neutrality is not a suicide pact, and Article 13 would destroy Wikipedia as we know it. It may be exempt from Article 13 as an encyclopedia, but the sister projects such as Commons and Wikidata are not and Wikipedia heavily relies upon them for content. However, we should not allow our interpretation of the law dictate whether a banner is worth putting out. Here's an article from the Wikimedia blog: "How the EU copyright proposal will hurt the web and Wikipedia". If we don't want to promote a third-party website because we don't trust it, we can link to the fastest-growing petition on change.org, and change.org is appropriate. Inaction is a slippery slope; when they start going after Wikipedia, it will be too late. wumbolo ^^^ 11:06, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support, You are allowed to have political opinions and biases, you just aren't allowed to taint the content with them or canvas. Try you and stop someone declaring they are republican or democrat either on their own talk pages or on other talk pages. You want people to declare their biases. You try and stop people declaring they are nationalists or anti-nationalists. It's just an enlarged version of a userbox. ~ R.T.G 12:09, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

  It's just an enlarged version of a userbox. Um, no. This is not about individual expression. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:15, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

It is precisely a request for the individual to express themselves. What was your statement trying to explain? ~ R.T.G 16:49, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose no advocacy for political reasons.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 12:26, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Wikipedia should make a political statement in this way if and only if there's an existential threat to the encyclopedia that has a serious chance of being enacted. No informed opinion on whether this meets that standard. Tazerdadog (talk) 13:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this banner, SUPPORT Wikipedia taking action. This proposal seems designed to fail -- it can be called inaccurate (since Wikipedia, last I heard, would have a narrow exemption), it uses an in-joke meme that sounds flippant to insiders and incomprehensible to outsiders. We need a banner but it must link to high quality information about the scope of the legislation and updated analysis of how it DOES affect our activities. Wnt (talk) 14:06, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because this is technically a form of fake news. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support as proposer. EllenCT (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mz7. We don’t get involved with politics. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per what Mz7 said. We should also get something about this written on WP:PERENNIAL since it comes up fairly often now. Killiondude (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mz7. Whatever other suggestions for banners are made below would be the same thing as well. Natureium (talk) 17:35, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support The Wikimedia Movement takes political advocacy positions and seeks to influence law, government, and legislation on matters which affect the right of the Wikimedia platform and routine Wikimedia engagement to exist and be legal. For example, we advocate that accessing and editing Wikimedia projects is legal everywhere. I agree that we need more policy in place - such as to determine which government policies affect Wikimedia platforms, and how we prioritize our attention - but in the absence of community developed policy, I think that that by default our standard for taking positions in the name of the community should be rather low. Wikimedia public policy is a perennial issue and eventually we have to address it. Some documentation of the last big related controversy on which the WMF board took a position is at meta:EU policy/2018 European Parliament vote, and see the related talk page. I dismiss all oppose votes that imagine that Wikimedia projects should accept local law and government without seeking to assert Wikimedia community interests. Editing wiki is not a crime, and anyone who tries to legislate the criminality of wiki is in error! Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:03, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Nothing to stop the WMF advocating, and I'm sure they have been in discussions about it, per notes elsewhere. That doesn't mean they can splash a political banner on every project. IIRC, even with the SOPA blackout thing they sought consensus of the community. - Sitush (talk) 19:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Right, the Wikimedia Foundation is free to organize advocacy that aligns with the movement, and individual Wikipedia editors are free to express their support of such advocacy. The relevant distinction is between this and making a statement as the collective editorial community of Wikipedia. We are not the editorial board of a newspaper; unlike other publications, Wikipedia specifically has a mission to create a neutral encyclopedia. Political banners like these take the somewhat hypocritical step of disregarding our mission in order to protect it. I'm fine with the WMF lobbying governments on our behalf, but I'm opposed in principle to holding any kind of discussion to determine whether we as a community endorse any kind of political issue. Mz7 (talk) 03:30, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose dropping an external link on the main page with a banner whose wording I find tacky at best - that the external link says nothing about Wikipedia at all doesn't help our readers either. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

  To summarize some of my other comments - I'm only opposed to us editorially adding this - if the WMF thinks this is a serious threat they should just do another Central Notice (and likely targeting readers that are constituents of the lawmakers involved) like last time. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose -The alleged effects on Wikipedia appear to be vastly exaggerated. This is not a threat to the encyclopedia or supporting projects at all. The requirement to provide "effective and proportionate measures" to prevent access to unlicenced material is what we claim to do anyway.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:18, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per exactly what Nigel Ish said. Wikipedia shouldn't be engaging in political activism at any time, and certainly shouldn't be adopting an fringe position based on the wild exaggerations of a handful of ultra-libertarian activists. ‑ Iridescent 19:29, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Iridescent: I am not a libertarian, let alone ultra. EllenCT (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Iridescent: I'm a social democrat. Do you believe me? EllenCT (talk) 06:43, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - Wikipedia should not engage in political advocacy on any topic... nothing more to be said. Blueboar (talk) 19:55, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose using the main page for political advocacy in general, though I'd support some exceptions, this isn't one, because online encyclopedias are exempt. "Free to use" is a promise worth keeping, "free to reuse" enriches for-profit publishers. Strong oppose to using this particular banner (or linking to that particular website) because we shouldn't link to propaganda. Leviv ich 22:48, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this proposal but support another neutrally-worded one like what we did in July. I’m all for inside jokes, but this is too important when you think about what effect this would have on Wikimedia. We should put up a banner that gets the message across but isn’t too heavy-handed about it. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 23:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as I always do when it comes to getting involved in political matters here. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:32, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this banner, but support the intent. A central notice/banner like last July would be fine. Wikipedia should be apolitical in matters that are unrelated to Wikipedia. This isn't one. This jeopardizes our core mission, and we cannot be silent on the issue thinking this is similar to taking position on whether or not the 2019 Canadian Food Guide should be endorsed or rejected. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:14, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• 'Support using Wikipedia for freedom of the internet-related political causes. Oppose the suggested banner per Wnt. —Kusma (t·c) 11:51, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment for the votes that oppose this on political grounds, what was the PIPA/SOPA blackout about again? Dax Bane 13:36, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

  Comment Once I have made a mistake, I am not forced to make the same mistake forever. I am allowed to avoid that mistake again, am I not? I am allowed to improve and become a better human, am I not? --Jayron32 16:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

  @Jayron32: are you saying the choice to continue to exist is a mistake? EllenCT (talk) 06:00, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

  I'm actually saying that Chicken Little is not a life coach. --Jayron32 13:16, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

  Put differently, if Wikipedia can be killed that easily, it's valued far less by the world than we think. If that's the case it needs to be killed. I strongly doubt that's the case; rather, any legislation that proved to threaten Wikipedia's existence would be amended in short order to prevent that from happening. The global public would see to it. Advocacy like this isn't just inappropriate; it's entirely unnecessary. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:33, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per Mandruss. --Jayron32 16:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Not wikipedias job to do political activism. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:20, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose: While I am against the EU copyright directive, slapping a banner on the main page is a violation of Wikipedia's neutral point of view on the subject. However, another blackout (as some people have mentioned in some other places) over it is the Wikimedia Foundation's choice, not ours. Kirbanzo (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Sure. Sounds good to me. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:39, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. So I can look Uncle Fritz square in the monocle and say, "Nein!" Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 08:03, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - Personally I would maybe support a banner or something related but I cannot support the proposed banner (which IMHO is awful). –Davey2010^Talk 12:21, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - this banner is misleading because saying Wikipedia could not continue on the internet if Article 13 is approved is exaggeration. While I might support a banner similar to the previous banners that received consensus, I am strongly opposed to the ones that have so far been proposed because they all read as sensationalistic propaganda to me. Ca2james (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support the core sentiment, but oppose this specific message. This would affect the ability to access Wikipedia from the EU (but access from everywhere else would remain untouched, I guess). However, I do agree the banner should be toned down a bit. This should definitely be a neutral/informational advisory, not a deletion-style warning to "Vote Against Article 13 Or Else Wikipedia Will Die". Because as I said, access to Wikipedia from everywhere else, like the US, wouldn't be affected by Article 13. epicgenius (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mandruss. I don't care which governments pass laws limiting Wikipedia. I did not give anyone permission to perform political advocacy here, especially in Wikipedia's name. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:35, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, just like with other advocacy-on-the-Main-Page proposals, like the SOPA situation some years ago. Individuals may express opinions privately, e.g. in messages to each other or with userboxes, but placing political advocacy of any sort on the Main Page, or on normal articles, is throwing one's toys out of one's pram. Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support While I generally agree that Wikipedia shouldn't engage in political advocacy, I think an important exception needs to be made for issues that threaten the very function of the project itself. Benjamin (talk) 23:04, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, per Mz7, Sitush, and xaosflux. Wikipedia is not a platform for political or social advocacy or activism, and this proposal is simply a sensationalist reaction. If they must, as owners of the encyclopedia projects, the WMF can go ahead ad do what they like - on their web site. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:14, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Wikipedia is an exemption from Article 13. I am happy with us having banners which take a stance on political events that could affect the existence of or a fundamental principle of Wikipedia, but this is not such an event. — Bilorv_(c)(talk) 03:19, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not feel that Wikipedia is a place to take any type of political stance. -- Dolotta (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support in theory, without the hyperbole. WP has a long history of opposing "our brains are falling out on the floor" legislation that would harm freedom of online expression. However, "Encyclopedias for Deletion" is a silly name, and in-joke only some people will get, and claims like "interfere with the ability of Wikipedia to continue on the internet" are nonsensical. Lay out the facts dispassionately and without hyperbolic activism antics. (I say all this as a former professional activist, so I know it when I see it.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose anywhere. It may be appropriate on a userpage, but even there, political campaigning doesn't really belong. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
• Strong support for the idea of a banner or a blackout or another kind of message to encourage readers to take action, I don't know what the right form should be. John Cummings (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support even if indeed Wikimedia projects are only slightly impacted, this is still a threat and a slippery slope for copyright law that will endanger Wikipedia even more. Cheers, VIGNERON * ^discut. 14:08, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
• Strong support Silence in the face of something that poses a threat to our ability to create an encyclopædia is not only a position being taken in itself, but it's also a position in direct opposition to the Wikimedia Foundation's mission. — OwenBlacker (talk; please ((ping)) me in replies) 09:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
• Suppport a banner, the exact look and wording doesn't matter too much to me — While the proposed directive has definitely improved since the vote in 2018, it is still problematic in a number of ways. I strenuously object to the notion that the encyclopedia carveout (which, by the way, doesn't definitively prevent copyright lawyers from attempting to claim that CC-BY-SA content isn't non-profit) is enough to protect the general free knowledge infrastructure that Wikipedia is a part of. In other words: The Wikimedia projects might weather the storm, but they and the free knowledge movement will be worse off. I already explained why I think the "no political advocacy" argument is bogus (mutatis mutandis for the new wording of the directive, of course) and won't bother to do so again. Sincerely, InsaneHacker (💬) 15:10, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Free access to knowledge is itself a political act. While its content should be neutral and apolitical, it's hopelessly naive to insist that Wikipedia itself is not political. Gamaliel (talk) 15:45, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

  @Gamaliel: I never understand this argument. Free access to knowledge can't be done unless it's with the aim of influencing legislation or government policy? Or is this a different definition of "political", that inherently lumps together building encyclopedias and changing laws? --Yair rand (talk) 23:14, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support, with preferences for plain non-insidery phrasing as per pythoncoder above. There are a few topics for which Wikipedia should take an advocacy position, and open free use of the Web is one. Alternative 1, below, suits me better. econterms (talk) 20:30, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose in all proposed forms, as per WP:NOTPROPAGANDA. MrClog (talk) 23:33, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Alternative 1: Please don't let Europe take your freedom

In response to Wnt's valid concerns, I will in one week ask for expedited closure considering this alternative:

If there is anyone in support of the original who is not in support of this alternative, please say so. EllenCT (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

EllenCT will you please clarify matters because I and several other people think you are asking for a banner to be displayed on the main page but RTG, and seemingly RTG alone, thinks you are just promoting the fact that the banner exists. Obviously, if someone objected to the banner existing then the correct venue for discussion would be WP:TFD. And promoting it in the hope that more contributors will put it on their own pages does not require an RfC. - Sitush (talk) 17:02, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I am asking for a non-template banner such as either proposed alternative to be displayed on the Main Page, and have announced my intentions to ask for expedited closure due to the existential threat to the freedoms we have been promising re-users since the start of the project. If there are serious plans to try to accommodate the proposed EU legislation, then it is incumbent upon those opposing advocacy to prepare a series of RFCs on changes to all of the wikipedias' content licenses and associated policies and guidelines. EllenCT (talk) 17:16, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Hopefully RTG sees your reply because they're spouting nonsense all over this thread due to getting the wrong end of the stick. - Sitush (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose for almost the same reason as in the above section, if the WMF considers this to be an existential threat they should put up a CentralNotice as the server owners. Targeting only the English Wikipedia, and targeting it to readers that are not constituents of nations that have no vote in this proposal is wasteful as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:11, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I'm fine with a Main Page banner; I'm not sold on the specific phrasing and link target used here. In these regrettable times, Wikipedia is political, just because it tries to be factual. We shouldn't pretend that we are "above" politics just because our mission has, in principle, no partisan alignment. We might dodge Article 13 based on the particular exemptions they decide to carve out, but Article 11 is enough to leave a massive amount of our reference work in legal limbo. If the Wikimedia Foundation is gravely concerned, a banner on the Main Page is the least we can do. I suggest re-using the banner from last summer (with the date updated appropriately). XOR'easter (talk) 19:18, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

  @XOR'easter: if the WMF thinks this is a grave issue, they can just put up a CentralNotice - it doesn't need to be an editorial decision from the enwiki community. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:37, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• A CentralNotice would be even better. The Foundation is unlikely to be able to obtain the necessary community agreement to relicense existing already-contributed content, to comply with the law as currently proposed in Europe. That is certainly an existential threat to a vast portion of Foundation pageviews. EllenCT (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per my previous comment; Wikipedia shouldn't be engaging in political activism, and certainly shouldn't be engaging in political activism based on the lies and exaggerations of the unholy alliance of the ultra-libertarian lunatic fringe and the anti-European nationalist hardliners. ‑ Iridescent 19:32, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• There is no point in proposing “alternatives”... Wikipedia does not and should not engage in political advocacy... even on (or even especially on) issues that might affect Wikipedia itself. Blueboar (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Apart from concerns about whether Wikipedia should engage in activism, the link in this banner does not explain in any way how this proposal would damage Wikipedia, but simply invites people to sign a petition. I do not agree that we should do anything at all, but, if we were to do anything, it should link to something that actually explains what is going on rather than invite people to oppose it blindly. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:43, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. EllenCT, that would be me. I preferred the original and would not support this banner. Thank you for all you do! :D ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 20:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Aww, thank you! I'm waiting to see what Jimbo proposes before I commit to specifics. EllenCT (talk) 21:25, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Please don't do that. Jimmy Wales's opinion should count for no more that anyone else's. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:36, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

He might be our best liason to the Foundation, sitting as he does on both the Board of Trustees and the Advocacy Working Group, and having dealt with existential threats in the past. EllenCT (talk) 21:38, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

There have been no existential threats in the past, and I don't believe that this one is either. Nobody in this discussion has linked to any neutral explanation of what the proposals actually say, but only to sensationalised interpretations of what they imagine they might lead to. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:00, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Good point; here is some background information: Dimitrov, Dimitar; Davenport, Allison. "Problems remain with the EU's copyright reform". wikimediafoundation.org. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 7 February 2019. EllenCT (talk) 22:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Yet again, that not neutral background information, but something produced by the Wikimedia Foundation to justify why so much money should be spent on peripheral issues such as employing people to write drivel rather than what should be their central purpose of providing infrastructure. Surely it's not beyond the human wit to actually say what the proposals are rather than offer links that tell us what's wrong with them without actually saying what they are? Phil Bridger (talk) 22:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger: are you looking for [4] and [5]? I like this part: Online services are means of providing wider access to cultural and creative works and offer great opportunities for cultural and creative industries to develop new business models. However, although they allow for diversity and ease of access to content, they also generate challenges when copyright protected content is uploaded without prior authorisation from rightholders. Legal uncertainty exists as to whether such services engage in copyright relevant acts and need to obtain authorisations from rightholders for the content uploaded by their users who do not hold the relevant rights in the uploaded content, without prejudice to the application of exceptions and limitations provided for in Union Law. This uncertainty affects rightholders' possibilities to determine whether, and under which conditions, their works and other subject-matter are used as well as their possibilities to get an appropriate remuneration for it. EllenCT (talk) 06:56, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Without wanting to sound too sarcastic, if you seriously think that the Pirate Party are a neutral source on matters of copyright you should probably withdraw not just from this discussion but from any discussion regarding copyrights. ‑ Iridescent 08:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I posted this BBC story here earlier today. Is that any use? And, fwiw, I too am not happy with the appeal to Jimmy, nor the excitable tone being used in the templates. - Sitush (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Sitush, and sorry for missing that before. That link confirms that there's nothing for Wikipedia to worry about, as we don't rely on users uploading copyright-violating content, which is the target of that proposal, in the way that YouTube and similar services do. I'm sure that Google can afford to do its own lobbying without unpaid help from us volunteers. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:16, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per Iri and my comment above. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Note I replaced "free content" with "freely licensed content" in this proposal after the above comments. EllenCT (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I could support this initiative if it were highlighting a Wikipedia article on the topic, but I can't support it with the external link. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per my !vote above; oppose anything linking to that website. Leviv ich 22:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose mostly per above. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 23:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as I always do when it comes to political advocacy here. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:33, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose any use of the encyclopedia for political advocacy, even if a majority of a tiny subset of editors agree on a position. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:03, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Mainly per Iri above. Political activism when its directly affecting ENWP is one thing, at least that might be justifiable (although I would still object). Political activism based on disinformation and in some cases, what I would consider active misrepresentation by people (including wikipedians) who certainly know better? No thanks. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:18, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not that much better than the one above. –Davey2010^Talk 12:24, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this is worse than the previous suggestion because it's even more misleading than the first one. While I might support a banner similar to the previous banners that received consensus, I am strongly opposed to the ones that have so far been proposed because they all read as sensationalistic propaganda to me. Ca2james (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, again for the same reasons: per Mz7, Sitush, and xaosflux. Wikipedia is not a platform for political or social advocacy or activism, and this proposal is simply a sensationalist reaction. If they must, as owners of the encyclopedia projects, the WMF can go ahead ad do what they like - on their web site.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose anywhere. It may be appropriate on a userpage, but even there, political campaigning doesn't really belong. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Alternative 2: Wnt's text linking to EFF

Regarding [6] I am copying Wnt's suggestion here:

My current thinking is to ask Foundation officials to use some combination of Wnt's and my proposals in a Europe-geolocated CentralNotice, and study the institution of a double-blind editorial bonus award system based on need times contribution. EllenCT (talk) 15:29, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

You should check out meta:CentralNotice/Request where these are handled. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:06, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. EllenCT (talk) 06:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose any use of the encyclopedia for political advocacy, even if a majority of a tiny subset of editors agree on a position. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:14, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Good grief, you're not going to stop flogging this dead horse are you? Oppose for the third time. ‑ Iridescent 17:15, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Still Opposed - tweak this any which way you want... it still isn’t appropriate. Wikipedia is not the right venue for it. Take the political advocacy off wiki. It is verging on being disruptive. Blueboar (talk) 00:39, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Sigh. I did not propose this for a vote here because as I said in the text this was taken from I think WMF can arrange with the ALA for a better landing link, and doubtless better text, if it desires. But to call freedom of expression "political advocacy" is wrong, because what is the alternative? The position of banning freedom of expression leaves no room for advocacy! You people are complaining about bias when the position being advanced is one where in the EU, in China, in Russia, in Australia, wherever, the story is always the same, that people are only allowed to hear what robots allow them to hear, programmed by private unaccountable billionaire companies to comply with idiotic public officials' written and unwritten demands! Who will fight "bias" then? You will be whitewashing every last detail that might support some position you once actually agreed with, pretending that by doing so you will gain some concession from implacable machines bent only on your enslavement, and still it will not be enough! Wnt (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Take it elsewhere... see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Blueboar (talk) 00:51, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose This one is better than the other three because it is more factual and less sensationalistic. However, it does not actually ask anyone to do anything (so there's no clear point to the banner) and I oppose links to external organizations. Ca2james (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Needs action, otherwise good - in a similar vein to Ca2james, it's a much better phrasing, but could use more of a suggestion of what to do if you agreed with the point. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because the first sentence is accurate, the second sentence is not accurate, and the third sentence contains a better link than the last ones, but still a link to one particular organization, and we shouldn't endorse organizations in banners or engage in political advocacy (per the second pillar). Leviv ich 19:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

@Levivich: Would the UN be acceptable to you? Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: [7]. Wnt (talk) 01:47, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Wnt: Yes, changing the link to a link to that UN report would satisfy my concern about the link; that's a neutral reputable source. It wouldn't change my !vote, however, or my general feeling about a banner on this subject, because, as noted in the UN report: The following entities are excluded from this definition: Non-profit “online encyclopaedias,”.... As I understand it, the proposed law would not restrict WP, but would only restrict people's ability to re-use WP content, and that, in my opinion, isn't something WP should be advocating for/against. Leviv ich 02:07, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm actually more concerned about interference with our ability to obtain information. Use of news aggregators is a routine part of making articles about relatively recent events. Having a comprehensive listing of sources and long headlines to scan through is essential for spotting the articles that aren't carbon copies from large syndicates, allowing us to broaden the number of independent reliable sources, hence document notability and reduce POV bias. Wnt (talk) 09:54, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose again for the same reasons: per Mz7, Sitush, and xaosflux. Wikipedia is not a platform for political or social advocacy or activism, and this proposal is simply a sensationalist reaction. If they must, as owners of the encyclopedia projects, the WMF can go ahead ad do what they like - on their web site. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:22, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose anywhere. It may be appropriate on a userpage, but even there, political campaigning doesn't really belong. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Alternative 3: Proposer's draft CentralNotice request

Here is the meta:CentralNotice/Request I am presently planning to ask of the Foundation upon closure of this RFC:

As above, I also intend to ask the Foundation to study a more equitable double-blind bonus system for the best editors scaled by their need. EllenCT (talk) 06:25, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose any use of the encyclopedia for political advocacy, even if a majority of a tiny subset of editors agree on a position. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Still opposed - per all the arguments (repeatedly) made above. Blueboar (talk) 12:17, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Modest support. I don't see much obviously wrong with this, though the second link is not strictly necessary. It would be better to have WMF guidance, coordinated action with the ALA, etc., and I'm not sure I like the visual format, but at least it's a tenable starting point. Wnt (talk) 15:23, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. The first sentence is about Article 11, which does not affect Wikipedia in the same way as Article 13, and the second is about Article 13; putting them together the way they have been conflates the two and is misleading. Also note that links outside of Wikimedia do not meet the meta:CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines. While I might support a banner similar to the previous banners that received consensus, I am strongly opposed to the ones that have so far been proposed because they all read as sensationalistic propaganda to me. Ca2james (talk) 17:35, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as Article 11 - Article 11 is pretty irrelevant to us. I once again agree with @Ca2james: on each point. The prior ones (esp opt 1) were better. I actually am in favour of vastly more attention - I'd actually support another SOPA-style blacking out, but once we've caught people's attention, we need text that doesn't make us look like we're frothing at the mouth. Jimbo did say 5 days ago he was chatting over what actions to take with the WMF (they've asked him not to communicate publically atm) - we'll see what comes from that aspect, but until then we can at least work on the message that works better. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:11, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Still strongly oppose – this is less accurate than Alternative #2, and doesn't address any of the problems with Alternative #1 or the original proposed banner. Also oppose more proposals until consensus is gauged as to whether we should have any banner at all. Leviv ich 19:29, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: have you spoken with the owners of the website to which you are linked to find out if they're capable of managing the potentially massive hit (and accompanying hosting service cost) of people clicking that link? Aside from that, this is not appropriate and is highly biased. Risker (talk) 05:13, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
• Still Oppose, per Mz7, Sitush, and xaosflux. Wikipedia is not a platform for political or social advocacy or activism, and this proposal is simply a sensationalist reaction. If they must, as owners of the encyclopedia projects, the WMF can go ahead and do what they like - on their web site. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
• Still oppose. Posting the same lie a dozen times is not going to make it the truth. ‑ Iridescent 21:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose anywhere. It may be appropriate on a userpage, but even there, political campaigning doesn't really belong. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
• Focusing on article 11 is an improvement, because Wikipedia is clearly affected by it (not to mention Wikinews, Wikidata and Wikiquote). Nemo 09:11, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Alternative 4: The crux of the issue

Restrictions placed upon access to knowledge is evil. Nocturnalnow (talk) 05:14, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose anywhere. It may be appropriate on a userpage, but even there, political campaigning doesn't really belong. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

What is the political campaign you reference? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: yours, here at Wikipedia. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Not that I know of. This is, as you say, not a productive place for a political campaign. It is, hopefully, a good place for discussing the effectiveness and content of an encyclopedia and how best to promote said effectiveness and content and protect said effectiveness and content. Perhaps my banner is too assertive/aggressive/non-passive or maybe some just don't like it, but its the type of banner that would get my attention, interest and spur me to action; now maybe you think any sort of action is political, but I don't believe that. Anyway, you are opposed, and I accept that, I just still fail to see the political campaign nature of my banner. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:16, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, your banner contains your personal political interpretation ("will inhibit"), and it asks people to "act today" by clicking an external link to a political petition website. Your proposal to introduce this banner to Wikipedia, anywhere, is a political campaign for your suggested action and your personal political opinion. The bludgeoning shown here also makes me question your "acceptance" of the opposes. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:02, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose polemical and inflammatory statements on any topic are evil. --Jayron32 18:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Which part of my "statement" is polemical or inflammatory? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Every part. It starts with a blatant appeal to emotion by referring to someone who died a few years ago, then goes on to present opinion as fact, and finishes by linking to an advocacy site that contains no explanation of what these proposals actually say. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:51, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with emotion, the absence of emotion is a problem, and Aaron Swartz didn't just die, he was hounded to death by the same type of control freaks we are up against in this matter; and that's a fact, not an opinion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose any use of the encyclopedia for political advocacy, even if a majority of a tiny subset of editors agree on a position. (Sorry for the repetitiveness, but it seems procedurally necessary.) ―Mandruss ☎ 15:53, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
• Yet another oppose. Can someone please close this? This shoot-till-you-win game the handful of supporters are playing is now well into WP:IDHT territory. ‑ Iridescent 20:24, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

• Quite. There seem to be some people who believe that Wikipedia is part of some campaign to abolish all copyright laws, whereas in fact we are very strong supporters of copyright, both in regards to copying other people's intellectual property and to repecting the copyright of our contributors. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:33, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussions

Discussion: EfD banner

We do not spread fake news. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:40, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

A story on the BBC News website in the last week said that online encyclopaedias were specifically exempted from Article 13. Is that not correct? - Sitush (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

It is true, but that provision does not allow us to keep our licenses' promise of reusable content, for both commercial and noncommercial entities. EllenCT (talk) 04:54, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

That is the reuser's problem, not ours. - Sitush (talk) 04:58, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Do we place any faith in our own promises? Our terms and conditions of service? Those promises are woven deep into the fabric of the encyclopedia's policies. If you deny this is an existential threat, then it is your burden to propose changes to those policies. Are we as good as our word? EllenCT (talk) 05:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

No, we are not as good as our word. I get fed up of reporting copyvio here and at Commons. - Sitush (talk) 05:04, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

That is not a solution. It's an end. It's just a pouring out. You shouldn't make a decision without checking that attitude is present. Maximum copyright will not make it more difficult to pretend there was no copyright. It will make it harder only for those who are honest. ~ R.T.G 16:46, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Why? If someone uploads a copyrighted photo to Commons it could take many years till the violation gets discovered, so assuming that the photos from Commons are free is a legally unsafe assumption anyway. Same applies to plagiarized text. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate that we are plagued by plagiarists, but that doesn't mean we should break the promises made by non-plagiarist editors, or that the Foundation can break those promises without permission from the volunteer community in the form of replacing our licenses with a claw-back of permission from those to whom we have promised free commercial and noncommercial use. EllenCT (talk) 05:25, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I, for one, would be quite happy if we scrapped that promise. It is unworkable anyway. But it is a different discussion. - Sitush (talk) 05:34, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

We still tell reusers to review all media provided on WP for reuse within their country, even media from Commons. There are some obscure copyright rules that even our commons media cannot be reused there but are fine in the bulk of the rest of the world. Our disclaims have this warning. --Masem (t) 05:39, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Just because we equivocate such that we can does not mean that we should break the promises woven so deeply into our policy. EllenCT (talk) 05:44, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of what other users here have said so far, I still think it is a nice thought. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 07:10, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

?? Chocolate cake is nice but no-one suggests we put up a banner advocating it. - Sitush (talk) 08:11, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

If your chocolate cake is under threat, put a banner up. Interested? Child labour in cocoa production. ~ R.T.G 15:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Wumbolo: regarding your support !vote, if Article 13 really is such a big deal for Commons then merge it into a WP project so it becomes part of the encyclopaedia or, hey, abandon it because it is half-broken already. As for WikiData, well, that's had five years or so to get going from a relatively high start base in terms of experience in policy formulation etc and it is a pretty much a disaster. Certainly won't be any loss to WP. - Sitush (talk) 11:27, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

BOO! Argument from ignorance. False. Search results for "commons is a failure"... 7 hits. How many of the seven are about Wikipedia? They are all listed here with this post. ~ R.T.G 12:09, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Where did I use the word "failure"? Talk about ignorance! AS for the notion in your !vote that it is just a "large version of a userbox", well, it isn't: main page does not have userboxes and it represents all of us, not one person. - Sitush (talk) 12:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

If broken is not failure... Extreme copyright prevents the emergence of living artists on the grounds of uniqueness. Today is a renaissance of art. Ultra-extreme copyright makes that a narrow path through a desert. Talk about ignorance rather than simply using the word as a form of attack/defense. I didn't talk about ignorance, I linked an article about reason and debate. If you haven't read it yet or understood it, by the definition of ignorance... I am sorry, but this request is not for use on the main page, is it? It's a request for you to use it your self in user space. Argument from ignorance. ~ R.T.G 15:44, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

As far as I can work out, the request was for it to be used on the main page. That's what other people thought also., and it was certainly the original request. If people were arguing whether the thing should exist or not then that would be a matter for WP:TFD. Nothing to do with my ability to reason, I think, but rather your ability to understand the purpose of this RfC. And, no, "broken" is not a synonym for "failure", nor did I say it was "broken". You think you're dealing with an idiot here but, I assure you, you are not. - Sitush (talk) 16:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I didn't mention your ability to reason, but I said quite clearly that you haven't bothered. You are responding that my disagreement in terms is a claim to your idiocy. You say that a thing which is broken has not failed. Sheesh. What sort of reasoning is that? It's fighting talk. How do you know, if you reasoned with me, and your reasoning was true, that I wouldn't accept it even though I still hold my personal wishes? Well, you don't. ~ R.T.G 16:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

You are now trolling and deliberately missing the point. End of. - Sitush (talk) 16:34, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

You don't have to use personal attack to avoid admitting you have no debate. ~ R.T.G 16:43, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

No. You said a lot more than how you feel about the main page. Sorry. ~ R.T.G 17:38, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Political advocacy is actually an express mission of the WMF, like it or not. Benjamin (talk) 23:03, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta: WMF owns the place and they are free to do what they want. They either care what editors think about the matter, and I'm strongly opposed, or they don't, and this entire discussion is an irrelevant waste of everybody's time. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:37, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

So you fundamentally oppose the mission of the WMF? But anyway, votes are judged on the merits of the argument, and you didn't really make an argument. Benjamin (talk) 08:26, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Using the encyclopedia as a delivery vehicle for political advocacy, using a single voice to represent all Wikipedia editors, when there is absolutely no reason to believe that even a simple majority of the editing population support the message, is not the only means available to WMF to pursue that mission. Wikipedia is fundamentally a group of volunteer editors and their work product, not the face of the WMF. I'm sorry you don't think I've made an argument. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:41, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Quite. The Foundation is perfectly entitled to get into bed with the likes of UKIP, PiS and the Lega Nord in defending the right of corporations like Google and Facebook to dominate the Internet by riding roughshod over less powerful people's intellectual property rights, but it should not use a volunteer-written encyclopedia as a vehicle to do so. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:18, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Noting that my position has nothing to do with the specific political issue at hand, which is why I haven't addressed it any of my comments. To my mind it's beside the point. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:40, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that anyone who takes the same position as I do on the issue of a banner necessarily shares my opinion on the EU proposal, and apologise if I seemed to make that implication. One of the reasons why we shouldn't have a banner is that Wikipedia editors do not have a uniform opinion on this or any other matter. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:06, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

You claim getting rid of Google and Microsoft will be like some sort of big step, for humankind. But you have no expectation of what will come afterwards though do you. Where have all the homeless come from? "And the bull ran little races, and capered sportively around the child; so that she quite forgot how big and strong he was, and, from the gentleness and playfulness of his actions, soon came to consider him as innocent a creature as a pet lamb." Your government doesn't care what the name of the corporation is. This is not a divorce from the corporation or a step against them. Scatter Youtube today and piracy will come back to life before the weekend is out. Freedom is based on restriction. Copyright should be suitably restricted to culture a healthy society, just like everything else is. Once they raise corporate bars they never go back, no matter how tricked you feel later, they allocate the money. When someone comes along and says, we want to change back this corporate decision, they say, can you replace the revenue? Cognition#Metacognition. ~ R.T.G 18:09, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

This just underlines my comment elsewhere in this discussion that this seems more like a 1970s student union meeting than a mature discussion on an encyclopedia. I remember one person (the sole representative at my university of some Trotskyist splinter group) who would, whatever the issue, make a completely incoherent speech against it and finish with, "this issue is totally irrelevant to the one important task: let's all go away and prepare for the revolution!", and then he would walk out expecting everyone to follow him. You remind me of him. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:26, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I said, this isn't aimed at what you are hollering it is. This is not part of the revolution against the corporation. I said, the reality is quite the opposite. ~ R.T.G 18:54, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta: That is false. The WMF Mission remains "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally", and that's it, regardless of what certain individuals within the WMF would like it to be. Wikimedia is not about advocacy, and does not accept advocacy except in very limited circumstances, if that. The WMF maintains strict guidelines for when advocacy may be acceptable. --Yair rand (talk) 21:21, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation will not associate with or endorse policy, political actions, or political associations, unless the community, Meta, or the Foundation staff recommends they do so. They are very strict about that, and only eager towards politics that challenges the WP missions.

There is no guaranteed public domain release, and copyright has exhibited an endless upward crawl of mission creep since almost 40 years.

About the methodology behind copyright today. If you are an artist from an early age, and you lose your life before you are a teenager, there's 70 years off your copyright and that can only prop up super-uber-mega-conglomo-corporat... It's not for the artists, even if they think they might get something, get that!

Creators and performers do not need absolute copyright. They just need some. What they need is buyers. They need you to want the art and performances. Like philosophy, art is behind everything civilised that humans do in todays world. There is art in all human creation and activity. Yet desire to be an artist, in this "western world", is supposed to be a joke. The same people calling artists a joke are saying that life+70 on reimagining old work is going, to make things easy, for creativeness.

The word artisan is become archaic in the "western world". On one hand you make a joke of them, while on the other you believe in the strictest laws upon them. What did artists and performers ever do to you, except set you free? Like so many problems in todays world, it's not just the law, but the buyers who have no interest in the product, leaving a swinging door to profiteering. ~ R.T.G 23:02, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Yair rand: Wikimedia Foundation: "Another main objective of the Wikimedia Foundation is political advocacy." Benjamin (talk) 00:18, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta: The WMF's objectives are not, in fact, set by an incorrect Wikipedia article or a mistaken statement by the Guardian. --Yair rand (talk) 00:44, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Yair rand: Are you sure that they're incorrect? https://wikimediafoundation.org/advocacy/ https://policy.wikimedia.org/ Benjamin (talk) 00:49, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta: Yes. The WMF Mission remains the actual WMF mission. The WMF takes certain limited stances in order to avoid interference against the Wikimedia projects, so that we can continue our work here, but it is not an advocacy organization. To quote a rather important message from the Executive Director to the Board:

What is not the core work of the Wikimedia Foundation?

The Wikimedia Foundation is not a think tank or a research institute. We're not an advocacy organization or a lobbyist, and our core mission isn't to keep the internet free and open. We are not a general educational non-profit. (We are a website, or set of sites, and everything we do needs to be understood through that lens.) We don't just reactively "support the community"—responding to requests from editors and doing what they ask us to do. Our purpose isn't to provide MediaWiki support for third parties (but it's in our interest to ensure that a healthy third party ecosystem develops around MediaWiki). We're not, ourselves, content creators. Our purpose is not to ensure the chapters grow and develop, nor is it to support the chapters in their growth and development: rather, chapters are our partners in supporting editors and other content creators.

The Wikimedia Foundation is not the only fish in the sea of free knowledge; not everything that needs to be done must be done by the Wikimedia Foundation, and it's not our job to do work that other individuals or entities are better positioned or mandated to do, however important that work may be. When we try to do work that more properly belongs to other individuals or groups, we imperil our ability to get our own core work done, and we arguably make it less possible for other entities to do what they're supposed to be doing.
— then-Executive Director Sue Gardner

--Yair rand (talk) 03:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Notice of possible intent to withdraw proposals

I am considering withdrawing these proposals, and replacing them with a request that the Foundation, "institute a copyright royalty distribution program designed to compensate editors in proportion to their needs times their likely future contributions." EllenCT (talk) 05:17, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

There is no contradiction between gratis and copyrighted. I may release my text under copyleft because I own the copyright. See? No contradiction. I am an adult and decide for myself to volunteer. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:30, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I am also an adult and find your use of the "fake news" epithet along with the claim on your profile page that you report computer hacking to Moscow charming. You'll fit in great around here. EllenCT (talk) 06:38, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

For details see https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/kaspersky-in-the-shitstorm/19794/ Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:21, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

This sounds like someone throwing a tantrum, EllenCT. Was that your intent? Are you seriously suggesting some peculiar form of paid editing? Your repeated links to Jimbo and his talk page add nothing and read like an argument to authority ... but Jimbo has no substantive authority and, in the eyes of a fair number of people, isn't even a half-decent editor. - Sitush (talk) 07:42, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Attacks opened and ignored, makes further ones, difficult to intercept, and perceive. Get up off Ellen and Jimbo. Ellen is just trying to make an interpretation of something which may affect the site. This topic doesn't even affect you and you are spitting attack. You give no reason, just opinion laced with personalised attacks. It's bitter. She is making an argument to authority. We are only free on equal terms. No personal attacks. I don't care how important you think you are. NO PERSONALISED ATTACKS IN ANY FORM. "Would you like to know more?" ~ R.T.G 13:23, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I think consensus is clear

Should this be Snow closed? Blueboar (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I am strongly reminded of Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Indefinitely_semiprotecting_the_refdesk, in which a "landslide" of votes for deleting the Refdesk was marshalled in a short time, yet that was not the consensus in the long term. The specific wordings advanced (even my own, which I did not put for vote here) were not ready for prime time, because this is a developing news story, but I want to be clear that any rapid voting on this issue is at most a rejection of those specific proposals and not in any way evidence of meaningful consensus against having a banner or taking other action in general. If you want to claim that kind of consensus you at least have to propose such a general statement and line up convincing support for it. Wnt (talk) 00:59, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

The mere fact of a large majority in opposition, after less than 48 hours, does not warrant a SNOW close in my opinion. I was about to respond that it's too early to close because the proposals are not clearly and objectively inconsistent with some Wikipedia policy or principle. In the process of checking myself, I ran across this at Pillar 2: We avoid advocacy.... On that basis I think a SNOW close is in order. If editors wish to propose that Pillar 2 be modified to say, "We avoid advocacy except in cases that some editors believe are existential", they are free to do so separately, but for now we are in violation of a "fundamental principle of Wikipedia" and the discussion lacks legitimacy. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:11, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

That is talking about articles, not notices to editors. Does Wikipedia commit "advocacy" by collecting images from museums, or in trying not to be banned from collecting images from museums? Wnt (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the image issue you refer to, so I can't respond to that. Did it involve a banner that encouraged editors to support one side of a political issue with the aim of influencing pending legislation? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:35, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia has WP:GLAM that works to put people in with museums all over the world and get permissions to improve public access to materials in their collections. Why should we not urge viewers to retain our access to things like news aggregators, scholarly reviews, and public forums where free-licensed photos of events may be posted -- if fear of unlimited liability and the excesses of corporate censorbots do not stop them from ever being made available to us? Wnt (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Museums and other institutions and collectors have already donated millions of digital copies of public domain images for the sake of Wikipedia. If one museum were to be given a powerful copyright effect, and hold ransom, that could destroy the other museums for joining in the change of the world, as instigated by Wikipedia. If a government were to decide they wanted to enact copyright across the board on images of museums artifacts, because they couldn't or didn't want to work on getting the public into the museums to experience the effect of a fine gallery, or were just greedy for the maximum (eating cake and dropping crumbs), wouldn't they be asking to close Wikipedia down? I have here an old news sheet on Commons about a suffragette who killed herself upon the kings horse. The servant children are running after the royalties because they might throw some pennies. Why did Emily kill herself on the kings horse? Was she hurt? Abused? Or was she just oppressed and bored, her enjoyment of life, even in wealth, having ended long ago, after the age of running after pennies? You cannot have (piped)something from nothing, and Wikipedia depends on people appreciating that, or else it will be somewhere far off in the future and take perhaps even more than twenty years to rebuild, we will all be dead before it comes back if it is tried again shut down by an international convention such as copyright. ~ R.T.G 02:19, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

False equivalence. Editors and readers don't see that unless they specifically seek it. But I'll admit my pillar/SNOW argument isn't as airtight as I first thought, and I'm prepared to let these proposals fail for lack of consensus.
There will forever be strong opposition to allowing a relative handful of editors to speak for all Wikipedia editors, in a space visible to all editors and readers in the normal course of editing and reading, on any political issue. I don't think anybody would support including a disclosure like "62% of 0.13% of active Wikipedia editors support this statement.", but such a notice would be highly misleading and highly inappropriate without that. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:24, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I must apologise, my statement there does beg for the point. When they make these harshly restrictive decisions they hark back the attitudes of Emily Davidsons day, when a harsh life was promoted as a good thing. When beating and breaking people was said to give them character. Fear is what it gave them, and suicide was the response because in those days if you simply protested in a group of men you were likely to feel this--> File:Edinburgh police truncheons (19thC).JPG or worse, (deadly when used the knock out protesters). These harshly restrictive decisions hark back to a time of attitude that we don't understand any more and should fear. Pretending the world is perfect to accept harsh restrictions because the world is modern, and you are superficially safe, also calls back those days. You can't have freedom without restriction, but you must have some freedom or what have you. I hate talking aganst copyright because copyright is a good thing, but life+70 so that you can pave the immortalisation of corporations? That doesn't "encourage" anything! That's more of a sentence than a decree. ~ R.T.G 05:32, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

No, there's not a chance this should be snow closed as there is both clear support and clear opposition here, and a WP:TROUT upon you for suggesting it.

Personally, I'm disappointed in the extremely vocal minority here who blindly oppose any sort of banner on the basis of "the rest of the free content world might burn, but they wrote in an exception for Wikipedia so we'll certainly be entirely unaffected (never mind those contrary experts) and must not do anything", or "this only directly affects the EU and not the rest of the world", or "our policy of NPOV in articles must be blindly applied to all communication". Or worse, those who seem to be opposing even if it would destroy Wikipedia.

Yes, the specific proposals here are not very well done and EllenCT is doing themself no favors by flooding the discussion with slightly modified alternatives that seem to be fatiguing everyone except the blind opposers, but these people are taking it to the opposite extreme. Anomie⚔ 13:29, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Anomie, exactly what i was thinking and exactly why i simple didnt bother participating here. Btw julia reda just confirmed, that its not like we are exempt from article11 either. Seems lik a nice courtcase waiting to happen for us to waste our doner money on, and possibly will require excluding the EU from distribution. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:19, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh, please, do we really take a twitter post from an MEP from a fringe, childish, party as gospel here? Is this an encyclopedia or a 1970s student union meeting (of which I unfortunately have experience)? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

• Twaddle to SNOW - I suspect know from the former discussions, plus Jimbo's page (where he isn't participating for now due to a WMF request), there is a deluge of individuals who would support some variant. At this point, I suspect a firmer point/some method of gathering attention could probably manage it. I've said that in a bit more detail in option 3, but I wanted to specifically note my unhappiness to consider SNOW closing this topic so soon. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:14, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

  @Nosebagbear and Mandruss: A week later, do you feel SNOW closure is inappropriate? (I note it's near-unanimous opposition to every proposal here.) Leviv ich 03:53, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

  I think SNOW is misapplied when it's used for cases of !voting greatly leaning one direction; see Wikipedia:Snowball clause#A cautionary note. This is not in the category of "bureaucratic discussions over things that are foregone conclusions from the start."—if this had been foregone from the start, it would have SNOW closed in the first day or two.
  But that's semantics. We can close any discussion when we judge that it has received enough discussion, when all stated arguments and viewpoints have been sufficiently discussed and the likelihood of any significant new arguments or viewpoints is deemed to approach zero. That includes RfCs. I have no opinion on whether it's time to close; only that I think we're well past the window for SNOW. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I despair

I checked this page again today, and, amazingly, find that people are still pushing versions of this proposal. The whole basis is flawed, because neutral sources, rather than opinion pieces written by fringe groups such as the Pirate Party and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, confirm that there is no threat to Wikipedia or its reusers from these proposals.

If people want to defend the right of those cuddly little underdogs from Google and Facebook to make billions of euros/pounds/dollars on Youtube and Instagram on the back of practically unenforceable copyright violations of the work of those grasping capitalist producers of music, videos, etc., against the evil Illuminati lizards who control the European Union and the rest of the New World Order, then they have a right to do so. Just please don't try to drag Wikipedia and its editors into it.

I always thought that Lenin had a good name for such people, who consider themselves to be good right-on liberals, but from reading our article on the phrase it seems that he never used it himself. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Yep. I, too, suspect that at least some people haven't got to grips with what is being proposed and its actual effect on Wikipedia. Outrage from US-based institutions who can appeal to the First Amendment and similar "freedoms" doesn't really wash and, for the umpteenth time, I will remind people that the proposals specifically exempt non-profit online encyclopaedias.

I also think that even approaching meta for a central notification that applies just to Europe has problems that some may not have considered. Our projects are language-based, not country-based and, obviously, the English WP has a much wider audience than just English-speaking areas of Europe. I would imagine that the same applies to the French WP and perhaps also Spanish. Certainly, linking to online petitions in such circumstances is likely to turn off politicians etc, who will recognise that potentially a big chunk of those signing up are not even within the European constituency (let alone the EU constituency, which is even smaller). There is also a massive political problem in Europe regarding the general role of Facebook, Google and the like, whom the politicians are quite happy to kick for all sorts of reasons, notably privacy and tax avoidance. (I agree with them on that issue, fwiw, but most politicians are opportunists anyway and if they see a chance to give a kicking to a bogeyman, they'll do it.) - Sitush (talk) 22:07, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

CentralNotice messages can be configured to only display in certain countries. I'm not endorsing such a message in this case (I don't really have a strong opinion either way) but just want to clarify that it would be possible to show one only to visitors within the EU. the wub "?!" 00:00, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, that's good. Thanks for letting me know. - Sitush (talk) 19:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and a point specifically relating to the UK: the UK chapter is a registered charity for the purposes of education. Political campaigning by charities is a very dodgy area in law and they could be tainted by association. As I understand it, WMUK struggled to even get registered in the first place, so although I am not involved with them I should think they would like to avoid the possibility of their status being challenged. - Sitush (talk) 22:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

WMUK is absolutely NOT a registered charity for the purposes of education; applications on this basis were refused because we do not test or award certificates etc as required according to this appeal judgement against the Charity Commission. A reapplication under a different heading was successful. Yes, charities need to be careful about anything that approaches political campaigning, but lobbying and activism to enable the the charity to fulfill its non-political charitable purposes is not uncommon. They know where to get specialist advice, and don't need it from those who clearly know very little about their situation. Johnbod (talk) 22:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok, sorry. I stand corrected on that point. It is a while since I looked into it. I believe the Institute of Economic Affairs are being investigated, and would have thought they knew what they were doing. - Sitush (talk) 23:28, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Many would argue their entire purpose is political, and that is always going to be tricky. Our article begins: "The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) describes itself as a "free-market think-tank" dedicated to "analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems".^[1] It has been described by others as a "right-wing think tank".^[2]"

Johnbod (talk) 01:21, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I see references for some side-track here, and links to "useful idiots", but where is this neutral commentary that reassures us that a wave of massive censorship isn't really going to cause us any trouble?

The apparently unsourced argument that Wikipedia has a narrow exemption doesn't really hold water. The problem is that somebody has to write articles. How do people write articles if not just Google News but any other kind of news aggregation is banned? Do you suppose there are still microfiche readers in the library to read through all the hardcopy? And how long do you suppose Wikipedia's little exemption is going to last if we are really the one place that people can go to get a broad, comprehensive look at all the developments leading to an event of political relevance, when all the others are banned? and when non-serious editors are coming here to try to upload and share things that censor-robots find seconds faster on any other site? And most fundamentally, if the EU and China and a lot of countries in between have decided that the way to deal with "expression" is to force companies to run automated censorware on everything ... how long can the concept of an encyclopedia anyone can access, or of making information of any kind free to anyone, continue to exist at all? Wnt (talk) 02:57, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Once again you are believing the far-right conpiracy theorists rather than looking at what this proposal actually does. Part of the problem here is that only those who believe that the European Union is an evil empire controlled by New World Order Illuminati are particularly vocal about this subject, because more level-headed mainstream opinion is that there is no great problem with these proposals, apart from for the companies that make billions out of advertising on copyright-violating content. The statements that "not just Google News but any other kind of news aggregation [will be] banned" and that this will "force companies to run automated censorware on everything" are totally ridiculous hyperbole. Maybe you should read an encyclopedia article about the subject rather than believe what you are told by the lunatic fringe on the Internet. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:40, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger: Yeah, lunatic fringe on the Internet. Like the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, for example. Obvious nutcases, probable terrorists, ought to be held in a camp sucking off an electric cattle prod and really will be once the EU makes their next big set of reforms, no doubt. Not good people, clearly. Wnt (talk) 22:59, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Deference to the text, not links, of the prior proposals achieving consensus

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive_151#Proposals for wording of a neutral banner recently came to my attention on JimboTalk. The wording of all of the proposals there which achieved consensus are, in the opinion of this RFC proposer, better than the wording all four of the proposals here. However, I will refrain from asking for expedited close until next week (as I said I would above) to allow for further discussion and link mix-and-match updating, as I feel the SaveYourInternet.EU/act and EFF links are both superior to the links in the CentralNotice proposals in the archive. And I do think this is important enough to deserve some kind of an exclamation mark on the Main Page, for Europe only. EllenCT (talk) 20:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

How are links to fringe advocacy web sites better than a link to a neutral explanation of what these proposals actually are, which is not what you think they are? Once again, you are believing the conspiracy theories about evil scaly Illuminati running the European Union and the rest of the New World Order rather than the facts, which are that the EU proposal attempts to rein in the ability of Google and Facebook to make billions of whatever currency you use out of copyright violations of work produced by musicians, filmmakers, etc. And, if you want to be taken seriously here, please stop referring to Jimmy Wales and his talk page. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:19, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Reptiles, idiots, and children? Your attacks are mostly based on insult. You seem almost, to have something to say, but it is really about stopping others saying things. If you want to talk about it, read this and this. If you simply want to express the severity of your emotions, then we can discuss the expression of the severity of your emotions, while this is neither the time nor the place for that, @Phil Bridger:. ~ R.T.G 13:53, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

There's no need to remove attacking speech as it comes up. It stifles debate but, well you know, reptiles and stuff. And anything that reminds you of children well, sheesh, right Phil? ~ R.T.G 13:56, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Billions. Billions, I tell you! But not Jimmy Wales though. Where does he think he gets off, giving advice on train stations!? ~ R.T.G 16:00, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy with Jimmy Wales expressing his support for having a station at Aylesbury, or wherever it was, on HS2. At least while he's doing that he's not supporting far-right conspiracy theorists on Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:14, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing far-right about suspicion of maximised law. Copyright law is directly significant to Wikipedia. Jimbo didn't support conspiracy theories, but Wikipedia theories. I don't get it. This is about copyright law in Europe. Copyright law directly affects Wikipedia. ~ R.T.G 23:05, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Good Faith Question.

Notes

I just refactored the threads. Previously, the whole thing looked like this wherein things went (A)Proposal, (B)Survey, (C)Discussion, (D)Alternative, (E)Notice, (D)Alternative, (F)Conversation, (D)Alternative, (D)Alternative, (F)Conversation, (G)Question. I found that format unworkable and confusing since conversations did not correlate directly with the previous alternative above. This should help with closing unneeded threads, I hope. (Non-administrator comment) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:19, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I have also put in a request to close any alternative proposal sufficiently opposed per WP:SNOW. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:35, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Is it a good idea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainiac245 (talk • contribs) 03:37, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Brainiac245: unregistered users don't have account preferences to enable Twinkle, so unless you are proposing that it be enabled by default that wouldn't work. As for unregistered users, I don't think it is a good idea to use Twinkle at the beginning - honestly I would have been totally overwhelmed. What does (AGF) mean in "rollback"? What is "CSD"? "DI"? "PROD"? "ARV"? etc. --DannyS712 (talk) 03:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

No they need an acct to activate twinkle. That is a good thing. Twinkle abuse would be easy and is best tracked with an account. Legacypac (talk) 04:01, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

There are enough socks, etc. blocked each day that it'd just be a vector for disruption. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Hell no. There is enough mindless editing done with automated tools by experienced editors, without us adding to that number. My particular bugbear at the moment, that I have seen several times in the last few weeks, is with people adding ((underlinked)) to articles where there is only one additional link possible. If you simply edit the article then it is just as easy to add "[[" and "]]" as it is to tag it, but because only the latter can be done with automated tools many people prefer to do that and put the article on someone else's list to fix rather than make a simple fix themselves. I would prefer it if the access to such tools was restricted further rather than opened up. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:05, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - It doesnt benefit the project as a whole. For most new users, the learning curve is steep on how to navigate within Wikipedia, let alone on how to use the tools appropriately and the guidelines that come with them. Giving tools to new unregistered users who abuse of them would just not only disruptive but adding unnecessary work load. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:17, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose god no When I think back to first using wikipedia I had to learn what you are supposed to do and how to do it properly, which takes a bit of time and effort and getting things wrong and being corrected. Automated processes are great when you know what they are for. Mramoeba (talk) 15:55, 19 March 2019 (UTC)