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RfC: Can editors request community review of the blocks of others?
Option 2. A summary precedes the discussion. — Wug·a·po·des 05:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The two main points of debate were: should third party appeals be allowed and in what circumstances? this is reflected in the three options under discussion, summarized as:
No third-party appeals of blocks
Third party appeals are allowed but discouraged
No explicit guidance on third party appeals
Consensus strongly favors allowing third-party block appeals. Option 1, which would have prohibited third party blocks, received about 8 support comments. These editors generally argued that the harms of allowing third-party appeals outweigh the benefits. Allowing third-party appeals removes the right for editors to decide when and how to argue for an unblock, and since our blocks are preventative lifting them without (or despite) the input of the blocked editor is pointless. It also opens the door for harassment or increased sanctions against the will of the blocked editor. The outright prohibition was countered by WP:IAR and WP:ADMINACCT---community consensus can overturn any action, and admins are required to explain their actions (including blocks), so a blanket prohibition is out-of-line with policy. While consensus was against a blanket prohibition, the arguments were well received and informed the second part of the discussion: under what circumstances should third party appeals be allowed?
This question was discussed mostly by those in favor of options 2 and 3, and both groups were generally sympathetic to the concerns brought up in favor of option 1. In general, both camps agreed that blocks, like all admin actions, are subject to community review, but third parties should request community review only when the block is out-of-policy or procedurally deficient---not just a proxy unblock request. Some editors point out that third party appeals can help editors who may not be able to navigate the unblock process and prevent admin abuse, but editors generally saw those benefits as outweighed by the harms brought up by option 1 commenters. Instead, unblocks "on the merits" should still be initiated by the blocked editor, with others intervening in rare cases. This interpretation was even shared by a sizeable number of option 3 commenters.
The main difference between 2 and 3 then was whether this needs explaining or not. Some editors note that this solution seems to be how we are already resolving the policy conflict, but disagree on whether that means we should document it or not. Editors in favor of option 3 generally point to WP:CREEP and note that the text proposed for option 2 is largely redundant with IAR and ADMINACCT so it is better to avoid needless instructions. While this point was never directly refuted, the numerical majority for option 2 cannot be ignored as most editors seem to prefer documenting the expectation over leaving it implicit in other policies.
Given the discussion, there is a general consensus to use the text in option 2. Third party block appeals are not forbidden, but they should be used sparingly. Per WP:ADMINACCT) editors should generally only start a community discussion after trying to resolve the issue with the blocking administrator. The blocked editor should, ideally, play some role in unblock requests or appeals, and this discussion should not be read to condone making unblock requests for editors in absentia. While third party appeals should not become the norm, neither should they be dismissed out of hand. Without a firm distinction between procedural review requests and unblocks on the merits, editors should weigh potential harms to the blocked editor against the need for community oversight when deciding how to handle third party block appeals. — Wug·a·po·des 05:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Can editors request community review of blocks of other editors, particularly problematic and/or out-of-policy ones? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Proposal (block review)
In July 2019 a section titled "Appeals by third party" was boldly added to the Wikipedia:Appealing a block guideline stating that appeals may only be made by editors subject to a currently active block; other editors may only discuss the block with the blocking admin (but cannot request review). This text was removed a few times by different editors, but was restored by Sandstein who stated consensus is needed to remove or modify the text. Talk page discussions to remove/alter the text didn't reach a consensus on whether to retain the text.[1] This section is currently in conflict with WP:ADMINACCT and WP:Blocking policy, namely: If editors believe a block has been improperly issued, they can request a review of that block at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Some editors have tried to cite this section in WP:AN block reviews, as a rationale for why the review cannot happen. De facto, block reviews still occur with some regularity.
This RfC is started to get broad community consensus of this addition, with three presented options:
Option 1: (text) Retain the current text: Appeals of blocks may be made only by the editor under a currently active block. Other editors may discuss the block with the blocking admin. The WP:Blocking policy should also be altered to this effect, to resolve the conflict.
Option 2: (sample text) Blocks should generally only be appealed by the editor subject to the block. Additionally, other editors may request community review of blocks they believe are problematic or out-of-policy (per WP:ADMINACCT) after attempting to discuss their concerns with the blocking admin first.
Option 3: Remove the section entirely.
Survey (block review)
Option 3, second preference option 2: The text at Wikipedia:Blocking policy is just fine and this section unnecessary. In my opinion even option 2 does not accurately represent the status quo (I only tried adding it in an attempt to compromise with Sandstein). I find the position advanced by some admins to be concerning, as illustrated by one example: last year I came across a problematic indefinite full protection which an admin made after receiving a phone call from the subject, saying that all future edits should be run through the talk page as edit requests. The protection was totally out of line with policy, but was defended by some admin wagon-circling on some low-watched talk pages. Once it reached AN, it was near-unanimously overturned.[2] I've also successfully requested block reviews before for good-faith but problematic blocks, which would likely have remained in place had a review not been made. That editors can request review of admin actions to the wider community is a fundamental safeguard against any kind of 'miscalculated' admin action, and this safeguard shouldn't be weakened by bold attempts to introduce a non-consensus change into a low-profile guideline page, which is in direct conflict with policy and precedent. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:06, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1. There are good reasons why only the blocked editors themselves are and should remain be able to appeal their blocks.
First, it's a matter of basic individual self-determination and autonomy. Blocked editors are people, not the objects of our entertainment. They are the persons best able to decide whether, when and how they want their block discussed in public - including, of course, their own presumably disruptive or embarrassing conduct that led to the block.
Second, and in the same vein, it's a matter of enabling the blocked editors themselves to frame the unblock discussion, including its timing and forum, and the arguments they want to advance. They may want to discuss the matter with the blocker first, or let another trusted editor do so. They may want to make arguments that might not occur to whoever else makes an unblock request, or they might want to ensure that any unblock discussion occurs at a time when they are available to participate. They might want to have the discussion individually with ((unblock)) reviewers on their talk page, rather than in a public forum.
Third, it's a matter of protecting blocked editors from well-meaning, but incompetent or detrimental unblock requests by others. If a poorly thought-out or disruptive unblock request by others is rejected in a public forum, any subsequent unblock request might be rejected out of hand because there is a perceived community consensus in favor of the block.
Fourth, it's a matter of not wasting the community's time with unblock discussions that presumably even the blocked editor themselves considers meritless (or they'd have made the unblock request themselves).
But, fifth, and perhaps most importantly, serious unblock discussions are impossible without the input of the blocked editor. A core principle of our sanctions mechanisms is that blocks are preventative, not punitive. Unblock requests are not about "does the punishment fit the crime?", they are about "is the block needed to prevent disruption to the project?". And this, in turn, means that we need to know whether the blocked editor themselves considers their own conduct at issue to be a problem, and whether they intend to continue with it when unblocked. Without hearing from them in their own words, we're in pure punishment mode, not in damage prevention mode, and I don't think we want to be there.
Insisting that unblock requests are only made by the blocked editor does not prevent admin accountability at all, because it does not foreclose any avenue of appeal. It just makes sure that a useful and productive discussion can be had that takes into account the interests of the blocked editor as well. Sandstein 17:38, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 3. The other two options reflect text that was recently added to the guidelines, which contradicts the already pretty detailed policy section Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Unblock requests. I know a few admins are unwilling to countenance feedback on blocks coming from third parties, but this unwillingness leaves the impression of avoidance of accountability. (This impression may not be correct, but the fact that it's there already undermines trust in the system). I imagine that these admins' assumption is that all blocks are good, and so the only conditions under which they can be lifted is when the blocked editor themselves shows readiness to change their ways. But not all blocks are good. There may, for example, be a misunderstanding, and this is sometimes easier to catch by an experienced observer than by the involved party. We should be aware that there are different temperaments as well – some editors would rather leave for good than swallow their pride and ask to be let back in, particularly if they don't agree with the block. Sandstein makes some good points above, and they show it's important to always let blocked editors take part in any discussion about their block. However, this misses the fact that in most cases where third-party appeals are on the table, it's not so much the blocked editor's conduct that's in focus as the blocking administrator's. – Uanfala (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2, with possibly Option 3 as the second choice. The basic principle of WP:ADMINACCT demands that every admin action, including a block, be accountable to and reviewable by the community. There may be many situations where a block was abusive or just bad and against policy but where the blocked editor is for some reason unavailble or unwilling to lodge an appeal. New editors in particular may not understand how to do that. Editors may get sick or have family or other types of real life emergencies or committments making them unavailable. Or they may simply wish to avoid the drama. If a block was bad and against policy, the community still has an interest and the right to hold the administrator who issued that block accountable. That's why a community review of a block needs to remain available as an option even if the blocked editor does not appeal their block. Nsk92 (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 per WP:CREEP, WP:IAR and the points made by the OP. Also, the blocking admin or the blocked editor might not be available for a variety of reasons. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:58, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I support keeping the existing text where blocked editors are the ones empowered to appeal their blocks. As they are the ones who face the consequences of an appeal, they should retain control over when and how an appeal is made. Generally, due to community fatigue, there is one initial chance to word an appeal optimally. Other editors should not be allowed to preempt blocked editors from being able to craft their own appeals, in their words and when they are available, or to explicitly delegate this responsibility. I do appreciate there is overlap with the community's responsibility to provide oversight of administrator actions. Nonetheless I feel it is important to allow those most affected by an appeal to be able to manage their appeal. isaacl (talk) 19:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 Policy says there can be a review, I agree with that and I also agree that it is desirable that an appeal come from the blocked party in the first instance.Selfstudier (talk) 20:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 per the points made above.Sea Ane (talk) 20:41, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 as the full rationales for blocks are often not disclosed on-wiki, having unrestricted third-party appeals will be problematic. Having third-party appeals to change a block "to time served" often will not help the editor blocked. For blocks that are made in error, there isn't the same problem. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 3, with Option 2 as a second choice. The user who is blocked is just a witness to the event; they are not necessarily equipped with the knowledge, skill, or equanimity to argue policy to defend themself. I point to my improper block from December which was overturned because I was lucky enough to have support from others at my appeal when I felt helpless and lost (although I did make the initial appeal statement). Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:08, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2, with Option 3 as a second choice. Admins must be accountable to the community, and that includes having blocks they make reviewed by the community. It is generally preferable that reviews are initiated by the blocked party, but there are exceptions - not least because admins are humans and humans make mistakes. The only reasons why it is acceptable to review a block without having discussed it with the the blocking administrator first are where that administrator is unable or unwilling to discuss it (e.g. they don't have time, they apparently aren't around, or are just not responding) or have indicated that they prefer it to be discussed in a wider environment right away. Option 2 is the one that best captures this imo. Thryduulf (talk) 23:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Comment - Would contemplate an appeal by another member of the community besides the blockee, but only with a short time limit (i.e. a week or month). One should not appeal the blocks of others 3 months, 6 months, or a year(s) after the fact (i.e. after a community member has not been around for a middling to substantial period of time) because that would be problematic in various ways. That aside, once in a while disagreement over blocks metriculate to AN rather quickly by interested parties; would prefer a just slighly softer wording of Option 1. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 02:41, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 - anything else would potentially open up a Pandora's Box of frivolous appeals. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I see option 2 as a line of defence against such appeals, which I agree are undesirable, but would happily support something explicit. I currently have no good suggestion for how to word that though. Thryduulf (talk) 03:39, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 Unless there is some other iron-clad way that the blocked user is informed and explicitly consents to be being dragged through a high profile AN. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:24, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 Before I had experience on arb com I would have said option 3, but we encountered several instances where the blocked party did not want to be unblocked, and did not even want the matter discussed again. At least one or two of these was clearly a matter of someone else trying to harass the individual who had been blocked, which is of course entirely unfair. There has to be some discretion involved here, and #2 is a good compromise solution. DGG ( talk ) 01:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
@DGG: has this been a problem on AN before, though? (if so, any links/examples?) I presume someone harassing someone under the pretence of unblock requests would face a harsh WP:BOOMERANG? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:19, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
like this normally fall under arb com. DGG ( talk ) 17:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 An administrator's actions have to be reviewable by others. If a block is grossly out of policy, it should be brought to the community's attention. I hope this does not become a regular occurrence, but it should be possible when needed. Tamwin (talk) 06:08, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 largely per ProcrastinatingReader and Kolya Butternut. A blocked user may not always have sufficient know-how to file an effective unblock request. A third-party review request is likely to be more convincing as its initiation by itself means there is at least one person who feels that the block is wrong and cares enough about it to request a review. – SD0001 (talk) 11:05, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 mostly per Power and DGG, though I'm sympathetic to the arguments of option 3's proponents regarding forced compromise and would certainly prefer it to option 1. Vaticidalprophet 13:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 per Sandstein, Option 2 to seems fairly reasonable too. wikitigresito (talk) 19:33, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 per Sandstein. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 or 3 - I think those esteemed members of our community who have passed RfA and have never before been blocked dont quite get how infuriating it can be to be blocked for what you feel to be a bogus reason. Now in my lengthy block log there's only one or two that I felt that way about, and those definitely were not ones I was going to file an unblock request for. It felt almost demeaning to request to be unblocked for something that I felt I should never have been blocked for. And demanding that somebody do that strikes me, as somebody who has been on that side of things, as just one more affront. If a block is improper it should be lifted. It should not matter who makes the formal request to determine if the block is improper. We should not be demanding that people be contrite when they have been wronged, and yes some blocks are wrong. nableezy - 00:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2.1 If a bad block drives someone off the site, then as it is, there isn't really a set-up to call it to the attention of the Community. Unblock requests are also difficult for new editors to fully get, especially if they're doing so while impacted by the block. I personally don't mind third party reviews. However, as well as prior contact to the admin, I would also require a) the 3rd party ask the blocked editor if they want to appeal and, if not, do they mind the 3rd party appealing? b) Wait 48 hours after a. If there is no response, or the blocked editor goes "no, and no", then an appeal can be made. If the blocked editor doesn't want the appeal (or makes it themselves) then obviously the 3rd party shouldn't be able to make one anyway. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:48, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 3, with option 2 as second choice. I have been the victim of a bad block and I can fully understand why someone who's received one would quit. Under the current rules, this leaves the community with no jurisdiction to deal with the matter. We must be empowered to supervise, review and give feedback on blocking sysops' use or misuse of the tools. Some sysops are considerably more block-happy than others which leads to significant levels of inconsistency in our block-related decisions. As of now, any attempt to address problem blockers is hamstrung in every case where the sysop has successfully driven off their target. I believe that there should be a dedicated forum, separate from the Administrator's Noticeboards, for block reviews.—S MarshallT/C 10:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 Seems a good compromise between conflicting concerns.--agr (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 1st choice, Option 2 2nd choice. #3 because, more or less of instruction creep: we don't need to have this section specify who can make the request and under what circumstances; there isn't a problem of bad block appeals that we need to head off with instructions on a policy/guideline page. The PAGs should be as short as possible and this just doesn't make the cut for me. Option 2 as a second choice, because if we are to have a written rule about this, Option 2 is what it should say. Levivichharass/hound 03:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 as first choice; mix of option 2 as second so I think the reason there are so many "Option 2"s above is that we already have a mix of option 2 in practice. We allow third party appeals in extraordinary circumstances already, and what I'm concerned about with the wording use for the option 2 is that it would expand past the existing practice, which is somewhere in between option 1 and option 2. In other words, alleging your friend's block violated policy to appeal on their behalf will be much easier if we don't word an update correctly.In other words, I generally agree with Thryduulf above, but I would prefer this be eased into the existing wording rather than seen as something new. I don't see this as new (it can happen as an outside the norm thing when there's a serious error or something similar already.) Making sure that it retains the sense of being not-the-norm would be something I'd want to see in any wording. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 seems like the best option. This is not a "never" or "always" situation. Some blocks should NOT be overturned if the blocked user does not request it. Some blocks should. We neither want to encourage wikilawyering and excessive hounding of admins in cases of uncontroversial blocking, but neither do we want to hinder community review of bad blocks, even un-appealed ones. This is a case-by-case issue. For garden-variety, bog-standard blocks, it would be unusual to allow a third party to request an overturn, but practice CLEARLY dictates that we discuss controversial blocks at WP:AN, even if the blocked user does not request it. We're already basically doing 2, and that represents what has been standard practice for years. --Jayron32 16:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Not commenting on the merits here, but I just want to note that RfC's are supposed to be able to change practice. Admins are supposed to follow the will of the community, especially when formally expressed in a well-advertised and -conducted RfC. --Trovatore (talk) 18:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, but your point is irrelevant. What I am saying is not "never change practice". What I am saying is "the alternatives proposed by the current RFC to current practice are bad. Don't do them. What we have works and is best". --Jayron32 11:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2, now that I've had a chance to look at the merits. The problem with Sandstein's argument is that it assumes that there is something about the blocked editor's conduct that does need to change. This is not always the case; sometimes the block is just incorrect, and never should have been made in the first place. In that case it should not be necessary for the editor to come hat in hand and ask for review. --Trovatore (talk) 19:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 followed by 3, per Jayron32 and S Marshall. No such user (talk) 08:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2. I think that Option 2 harmonizes the best with other policy pages, and it also is the most reasonable way for us to go about it. It's a sensible middle. Option 1 is too rigid and is insufficient for the correction of mistakes, and is inconsistent with other policy pages. Option 3 needlessly opens up too many ways to game the system. But Option 2 sets the right balance, with self-appeals the norm, combined with appropriate ways to have more eyes on a problem. I endorse Nosebagbear's suggestions about including some sort of requirement that third parties attempt to get permission from the blocked user before going forward. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 (second choice option 3) as there should be no prohibition on discussion bad blocks or reviewing them by others. Frivolous requests are not encourage and can be quickly concluded. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 first choice; option 3 otherwise. While third-party requests for reviews of blocks – or any other sanctions – are uncommon, there's not a central policy basis to forbid them, and in fact they are accepted sometimes, including by ArbCom (I've seen it happen at least twice at WP:AE, including once within the last year or so). The most obvious reason they should be permissible is that a restriction against one editor is often going to secondarily restrict another (e.g. bring a halt to a then-ongoing collaboration, or restrain the other editor in what they may discuss with the editor subject to explicit remedies). Given the lack of anything like a disruptive firehose of third-party unblock-related "noise", there is no actual reason for the page in question to attempt to excessively nit-pick about these matters, especially as a) WP:ISNOTABUREAUCRACY and b) our policies exist to serve us, not the other way around, and should not be restraining good-faith editorial action of any kind without very good reason (cf. WP:EDITING policy). Whatever option is selected, yes do make sure there is not a WP:POLICYFORK going on between these pages. PS: I agree with Sandstein's criticisms, below, of the phrasing of the RfC question, but I think most of us understood the meaning and intent without any difficulty. But do try to write RfCs more neutrally, per instructions at WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 05:29, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 1 per Sandstein Majavah (talk!) 12:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Option 2. The community is able and must be able to override almost everything else by consensus, if need be. Policy stating otherwise would be just plain wrong. Mentioning that possibility in policy will help a review actually get started when necessary, while telling editors to first try to take it up with the blocking admin before starting an ANI thread will help prevent things from being blown out of proportion when maybe they could have been resolved much more simply. I agree with some others' secondary proposal that the blocked user should have to be asked first – starting a discussion on somebody's behalf only for it to turn out they didn't even want to be unblocked would be disrespectful of them and a waste of time. Finally, frivolous requests happen anyway, and this RFC isn't going to change that, regardless of outcome. – Rummskartoffel (talk • contribs) 21:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2: any administrator action should be open to community review, blocks included. A community member may have a legitimate concern about an administrator action even if they were not the target of the action, and even if the target of the action does not wish to appeal it. An editor having a concern about an administrator action should discuss the action with that administrator first, and only bring their concern to the wider community if that initial discussion failed to resolve it. Mr248 (talk) 05:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 first choice. Option 4 (just let us make third party requests} real first choice (were it available). We already have ADMNACCT and the blocking policy that is very clear, and we have trusted it to tell us we can make these appeals if we think there is problem. We should either support that policy in other places, or remove it from the other places where it conflicts. Huggums537 (talk) 09:36, 2 April 2021 (UTC) Also, most of Sandstein's arguments are based on the assumption that a blocked editor would somehow have no way at all to have any say so in the matter, or otherwise have no way to participate in the third party review process of their own block. There is no evidence of this because most blocked users still have talk page, and email access available to them, and even if they don't, they can still email someone. So, I have to disagree with his points based on that alone. Huggums537 (talk) 03:46, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 simply brings WP:AAB in line with the policy page it's meant to supplement and as such can't be reasonably opposed. Option 3 is my second choice—a very close second choice. Iaritmioawp (talk) 22:12, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 If a user appeals their block there is usually no reason to prevent discussion at the noticeboard. For example there is support for unblock at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1008#Meatpuppetry at Spygate from r/The Donald but not a specific proposal to unblock; when a review is started Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive308#Block review of KeithCu by Feezo it is closed almost immediately. Option 1 allows administrators to close any attempt at discussion, a decision likely to be influenced by the administrator's opinion of the blocked editor, of the blocking administrator, or of the editor requesting the review, or by politics, as much as by purpose of the block and the policies and guidelines. Peter James (talk) 12:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 – The wording that is most conducive to handling unblock discussions on a case-by-case basis. Kurtis(talk) 13:04, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Option three. Administrators have to be accountable to the wider community with regards to the actions they take and sanctions have to be subject to review. Where the editor that has been blocked is unfamiliar with relevant policy or generally-accepted practices, it would be unfair to expect that editor to be able to compose an unblock request with a good chance of success. I feel that option one is incompatible with the ideas of accountability, while option two is unnecessary advice that unfairly constrains those who wish the block to be reviewed. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 - The section was improperly added without a formal consensus and it never should have been added in the first place. That's not how policy works, we just don't write up new policy based on vague "previous discussions" and say "feel free to revert". The clause is completely illegitimate. ~Swarm~{sting} 22:28, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
I think you make an excellent point here Swarm. The proof the entry was invalid is the fact it has been much objected here or challenged so many times since it was added, and even if it were somehow valid by some stretch of the imagination, I agree with comments made by Trovatore above that the arguments for it made by Sandstein and others make too many unrealistic assumptions about the circumstances involving blocked users as pointed out in my vote above as well. Huggums537 (talk) 03:00, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
@Swarm: I agree that the said provision might have been "sneaked" into the policy without due consensus but your opposition based on that mere fact should bear no weight here since the very consensus may be build regardless of the way it was initiated. (please reply into the discussion below) --AXONOV(talk)⚑ 11:14, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, but that's not how any of this works. New policies must be proposed and require a high level of consensus from the entire community to be implemented. You can not simply add text without meeting this requirement, that itself is the community's policy requirement for the creation of new policies. This RfC does not frame the existing policy clause as an illegitimate policy in need of retroactive community validation, it frames it as an existing status quo to either be maintained or changed or removed, while glossing over the fact that it is not, in fact, even a real policy to begin with. ~Swarm~{sting} 00:13, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
As I said elsewhere, I feel this change was an instance of this. Other editors discussed it in good faith on talk in October, but it blatantly failed to get consensus and was still being forced in. This is not how we should be editing policies. It's worrying, the idea of non-consensus text added to policies like this and then (according to Nsk92 below) used in discussions. More generally: portions of PAGs are quoted in dispute resolution all the time and used as a basis for sanctions / resolving RfC disputes, but some of these texts don't even have consensus, and most people don't use WikiBlame all the time to figure out when the text was added and after how much conversation. This can result in bad outcomes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:22, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 - I hate indefinite bans. We shouldn't deprive third-parties from an opportunity to bring controversial bans (or evidence of wrongful ones) under the light of broader community reviews. This should be a first step preventing all sorts of hard-to-notice WP:GANGings-up and witch-hunts, make the process of behavioral-scrutiny more transparent and harder to misrepresent victims altogether or harder to make non-appealable bans. Considering that application of this provision may involve broader community attention it won't be abused. The lack of thereof would certainly embolden those with ill-intent. The WP:ARBCOM also routinely reviews some blocks so I don't see why community should be prohibited from doing so. This is a good proposal.--AXONOV(talk)⚑ 11:14, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 - if a block is within a reasonable interpretation of policy, then indeed the blocked user's own appeal should be the only grounds for unblocking. However, if the block is outside of the reasonable range of policy, it should be undone as soon as possible even without such an appeal; any user who notices such a problem should be allowed to request community feedback about it. 147.161.8.7 (talk) 23:05, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2. Admins should be accountable to the community in the utmost. Benjamin (talk) 03:16, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 Only the blocked editor can give assurances that a good block won't need to be repeated. But anyone should be able to challenge what they consider to be a bad block. ϢereSpielChequers 23:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Option #1 #3 & #2 There is a math problem here. The fundamental question is whether or not to have such a process, and the "yes" support is split between two different options. You need to combine the #1 #3 and #2 support as a "yes" to answer that main question. North8000 (talk) 18:21, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't follow, North8000. I view option one as being very different to options two and three, as option one effectively prohibits community review of blocks, while the others do not. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:59, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Sdrqaz. My understanding of the question is "Should third-party appeals of blocks be allowed?" (1) No, (2) Sometimes, (3) Yes. I don't think that any of them can reasonably be combined, but if you insist on merging any two it would be 2 and 3. Certainly I intended my expression of support for option 2 with option 3 as a second choice to indicate my opposition to option 1. Thryduulf (talk) 19:43, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
@Thryduulf:@Sdrqaz: I made an error in my post. Thanks for catching it. I'll need to figure out the best way to fix it. Sincerely, I made an error in my post. Thanks for catching it. I'll need to figure out the best way to fix it. North8000 (talk) 21:16, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I fixed my error. Just reinforcing, I didn't mean to merge for all purposes. More like combining #2 & #3 to to see if people say "yes we want a way to do that" and, if so, then seeing whether #2 or #3 has greater support regarding how to do that. North8000 (talk) 21:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 3 I see no reason why a noticeboard like WP:MOVEREVIEW or similar wouldn't be useful for something like this. Holding admins accountable should be a goal of wikipedia and it would be best to do so in a transparent way. Getting these types of conversations off ANI would be best considering how busy that place is. Also, this prevents some things going to Arbitration which is good. Swordman97talk to me 03:52, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 2 or 3, there are many situations where a user has been blocked without knowing what they did because of how broken the mobile app is. So allowing a community review of the block would be a good idea. However, there is a chance the editor who has been blocked could create alt accounts to try and get them unblocked by requesting community review and persuading those who are reviewing the block that the block should not have been placed in the first place. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 20:10, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Option 3; second choice option 2. The section overall is too bureacratic/instruction creep for my liking, but if there is no consensus to scrap it completely I would much prefer option 2 to the status quo. (option 1)Jackattack1597 (talk) 22:33, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Discussion (block review)
The question posed in this RfC ("Can editors request community review of blocks, particularly problematic and/or out-of-policy ones?") is not neutral or sensible. It should be rephrased as "Can editors request the community review of blocks of other editors?". The question omits that this RfC is only about blocks of others, not of one's own blocks. And presumably everybody who appeals a block believes that the block is problematic or violates policy, else why appeal it? This qualification is therefore also not needed. Sandstein 17:46, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Some questions: (1) If there is an improper block, and after discussion with an administrator it is not resolved, does that mean a discussion has to be about whether there should be action taken against the administrator? (2) Sometimes an satisfactory unblock request is declined because an administrator has not read it properly (3) There can be other exceptions such as misunderstandings [3] or blocking the wrong user. The unblock process is too slow, there is at least one unreviewed request from January. Peter James (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I see your point on the first (that it should be clear it's about other editors); I will tweak. On the second point: I think the qualification is necessary. There are different reasons to appeal/review, such as on the basis that the block is no longer necessary or that the editor has learned, etc, which doesn't mean that the original block was out-of-policy (though, it could still be misguided). Such discussions also happen with some regularity. I feel like introducing these two separate details directly into the RfC question will make this discussion a slight WP:TRAINWRECK. I have no particular opinion on appeals for other reasons and am happy with the actual status quo as it exists at AN. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I have always assumed that if an administrator takes an action against another editor, and I see a problem with that action, I could contact that admin to discuss it... and (if need be) I could post a thread at WP:AN to discuss the issue with the rest of admindom. Is this not the case? Blueboar (talk) 18:50, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Not when it comes to blocks. Or at least the situation is unclear when the matter comes to blocks. I am pretty sure that every time I have seen a community review of a block being started at AN/ANI without the blocked editor requesting an unblock, Sandstein brought up this particular provision of Wikipedia:Appealing a block ('third-party block appeals are not allowed'), usually resulting in protracted discussions of the matter. Nsk92 (talk) 23:19, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
What if there is a potential pattern of bad blocks? Surely we should be able to discuss the individual blocks to determine whether there is a pattern of poor judgement on the part of the admin. SOME flexibility is needed here. Blueboar (talk) 00:44, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
It seems like a potential other option is to require the blocked person to consent to a third party requesting review (or to provide a window of time in which to object). I think some of Sandstein's objections are persuasive, but also know that blocks are emotional and confusing times, such that third party review is potentially extremely helpful to some users who don't feel equipped or otherwise feel overwhelmed/uncertain about the situation. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I do appreciate that being blocked is a confusing time, and I sympathize with blocked parties feeling overwhelmed. I think it is important, though, to try to guard against this becoming a situation where they agree out of distress to a third-party appeal, without taking time to consider what is the best course of action. In a different context, Bilby suggested having advisors provide guidance to aggrieved parties on possible future steps. This could be useful for this scenario. isaacl (talk) 20:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
If I understand the intent of Option 1 correctly, I think it is a reasonable description of common practice that doesn't necessarily conflict with WP:ADMINACCT or the blocking policy, although it could definitely be worded better. Essentially, whenever a third-party editor posts on AN or ANI asking for a block to be reviewed, the community will generally want a statement from the blocked user that explains their view on the situation. Outside of situations where a block is a clear error or clear misapplication of policy, I can't think of a situation where we would unblock someone without hearing from the blocked user first. The intent is not to give administrators carte blanche to make bad blocks with impunity as long as the blocked editor refuses to appeal their blocks, but merely to convey that in the wide majority of cases, appeals will be unsuccessful if we don't have a statement from the blocked user themselves. Mz7 (talk) 21:24, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Block reviews are generally distinct from appeals (usually being made on the basis of being out of policy; Sandstein reverted this change too so I presume he disagrees with it). The community is generally inconsistent on what to do about actual third party appeals ime, often it depends on the editors participating in a given discussion on a given day. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:51, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Hmm, having looked into this a little more, I think I better understand the context of the dispute here. I would agree with you that if a third-party user comes to ANI asking that someone else's block be reviewed, e.g. accusing the administrator of being WP:INVOLVED or some other clear policy violation, we should not dismiss their argument just because it did not come from the blocked editor themselves. The rationale for this would be WP:NOTBURO: in legal disputes in the United States, it is not uncommon for a court to dismiss pending litigation purely on procedural grounds before reaching "the merits", e.g. if the plaintiff lacks standing to bring the case; Wikipedia is not a court, however, and NOTBURO states that A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request. With all of this being said, I think I would still support adding language that discourages most forms of third-party block appeals/reviews, unless a block is obviously flawed. The status quo seems to be fine, but I am concerned that with this RfC, we will inadvertently tip the status quo towards encouraging more third-party reviews to the detriment of our time and energy. Among the options here, it looks like Option 2 is the closest to my views, although I feel that a bit more emphasis should be placed on the "should generally only be" part. Mz7 (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
The problem is a bad appeal can ruin the opportunity for a reasonable appeal in the short-term. It's not an issue of ignoring arguments, but letting the party most affected by the appeal manage when and how those arguments are made. It's unfair to blocked editors to allow anyone to make an appeal, without any co-ordination on its form, wording, emphasis, or other aspects. isaacl (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I think trying to invoke WP:NOTBURO or WP:IAR as a reason for allowing is not an ideal approach. It tips the scale in favour of editors who understand community norms, or editors with lots of TPWs of such editors, who can reconcile different policies together and know how the community responds to different issues in practice. Guidelines should reflect that status quo, documenting it so that people less familiar with back-office operations can also request the community review issues (and indeed, many times such editors have picked up on valid problems). It's probably undesirable not to make this clear for all editors, and unacceptable to provide a misleading image of this (which is what the current section does). I am aware folks get overly cautious on 'tipping the scales' too far, which is why I tried to compromise with Sandstein in what was, in my opinion, a careful worded change opening the door to block reviews for out-of-policy issues but not too wide. (my actual opinion is slightly more wide, though acknowledging isaccl's concerns on something too wide.) None of the choices explicitly say "any editor can appeal for any reason they want". So at best option 2 is still carefully worded and option 3 just reverts to whatever editors believe the status quo is (without documenting such) (which is pretty much in WP:BP: you can, but use common sense). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:44, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I'd add that, in my experience, the admin making the allegedly problematic action rarely ever backs down in local discussions (possibly because they firmly believe in their action, or the saving face aspect, or both). Indeed, in all the actions I've appealed to AN that were overturned the admins all declined to reverse themselves. This isn't really an indictment of the admins (people can naturally disagree on application of policy), just the fact that I think "you can discuss with the blocking admin" (from the current text) is toothless/unhelpful in practice. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Regarding those supporting option 3 as editors may not know how to appeal or are overwhelmed: I dislike the community making an appeal on their behalf without discussing it with them first. Communication is a bedrock principle for a collaborative project. We should be attempting to work with the blocked editor to determine the best path forward, and not assuming we know best. isaacl (talk) 23:29, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
IMO: the immediate problem with that view is [4]. There are several secondary issues, ranging from confrontation and high-profileness (similar to fears against running RfA), to the community's role in admin accountability (if a poor action is so painful it causes an editor to quit, and other editors can't request review with the community, is ArbCom now the only choice?). Blocking is the pointiest stick in the toolbox. It should also be the one used most cautiously, and subject to the most avenues of review when it is not. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
There are always special circumstances that can be handled differently. This does not warrant, in my view, removing any restrictions (as per option 3) on who can initiate an appeal. When it is possible to communicate with a blocked editor, we should be trying to do so, and it poses no significant barrier for reviewing an administrator's actions. isaacl (talk) 00:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I presume you don't object to option 2, then? As I feel like your statement does lead to significant barriers if you also oppose option 2 (it would mean ArbCom is the only viable option [though, per remedy 5.x, that viability is in question]).
For option 3: I've seen thoughtful appeals come from third parties, like Ritchie333, which have helped in cases (in some they don't, but usually because editors say third party appeals bad, which comes around into a loop to this very RfC). I believe WP:UBCHEAP can apply in many cases, and more importantly don't really believe the art of crafting a persuasive block appeal / wider community relations has much to do with whether someone has learned and can be a productive editor. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't like trying to list specific circumstances; I think individual cases should be evaluated on their own merits. I don't like that there isn't any mention of trying to work with the blocked editor. There have been fine third-party appeals; I've also seen poor third-party appeals. It's not about the blocked editor having to learn how to do the lobster quadrille. It's inconsiderate to take an action on someone's behalf without even trying to co-ordinate with them and understand what they want to do next. isaacl (talk) 01:00, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
On the second half that's a fair point. It's worth noting that both option 1 and option 2 were each mostly written by a single editor without being churned through stages of policy-writing (hence my emphasis on sample text). I didn't feel extra specifics mattered because in this particular RfC I'd like to see the broader ideological issue resolved. I agree to adding text regarding best practices in third party appeals if option 2 passes. Although, I do think block reviews or criticism of the blocking admin is distinct from appealing on behalf of a person (a fine line, admittedly). On the first part I still don't follow; surely with option 1 cases can't be evaluated on their own merits, since it's a blanket ban on third party appeals? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
On general principle, special circumstances can always apply to any guidance; start listing some exceptions out, and people can start thinking those are the only special cases. In this particular case, "problematic" is so broad that almost anything could be put into that category. isaacl (talk) 01:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Genuine question, could I ask the option-3 !voters why they think option 2 (or whatever tweak someone might want) wouldn't be your preferred choice? If it's just "prefer not to have more rules" that makes sense, but presumably any block someone would question they must think is problematic? Nosebagbear (talk) 13:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Because the community needs maximal freedom to address issues of poor sysop judgment. If I see a sysop handing down a problematic block, I would like to be completely free to raise that with the community. And it might well be that my unprompted, disinterested expression of concern about a block is more convincing to the community than the target's concern.—S MarshallT/C 18:03, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
@S Marshall: but you say it's a problematic block, so it would fall within proposal 2, surely? Nosebagbear (talk) 16:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Just as a general note; I didn't see a fourth option available to just simply allow for third party requests regarding block reviews. This didn't seems to offer an entirely unbiased amount of options to everyone from a totally neutral point of view. Huggums537 (talk) 09:03, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Strike that last part. I don't like the way it sounds. I was just curious why a fourth option wasn't thought of that's all. No offense to the OP. Huggums537 (talk) 10:27, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, I've been gone from the project for a while. What's all this first choice, second choice crap about? How's a closer supposed to tally that up? Huggums537 (talk) 12:58, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I've seen a great deal of people talk about adjusting the guideline according to what the "regular practice" and "current norms" are, but what does that really have to do with anything? That's like saying, "Our crime rates are very low, and it is the current norm to have little crime so we should write our criminal laws to notate that crime is not the regular practice." It makes no sense whatsoever, and really serves no obviously valid or useful purpose. It also begs one to wonder why anyone would want such notations in the guidelines. Huggums537 (talk) 01:19, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
@Huggums537: The answer is a bit of a cultural one: Wikipedia is not a legal system, and our policies and guidelines are intended precisely to describe regular practice and current norms, not prescribe them. See WP:PG (Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages describe its principles and agreed-upon best practices) and WP:NOTBURO (Although some rules may be enforced, the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice). In general, the reason why we refer to "regular practice" is because that is typically what has been tried and tested through experience. Sometimes, that experience informs us that we need to change our practices, and then consequently the policies and guidelines, which is the purpose of these kinds of discussions. Mz7 (talk) 03:32, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
Mz7, thanks for responding. Wikipedia might not be a legal system, but many people still frequently make the comparison to a legal system in order to illustrate stupidity, as I did above, and I see nothing wrong with that. I have a very "culturally" different interpretation of what you have provided. I like to think of myself as someone who is able to interpret things from an "un-Wikipedified" point of view. In fact, the first quote you gave above seems to indicate to me that the order in which things should follow are that policy makers first decide what it's principles are, then agreed upon best practices are described in guidelines, not the other way around. In other words, it's not the current practices driving policy, but rather a predetermined set of principles with best practices that have been discussed, and agreed to beforehand. The lead of WP:PG mentions "standards" and "principles" multiple times. These are things typically associated with predetermined sets of values. It prominently mentions the WP:Five pillars as one of these predetermined sets of principles. I think my interpretation is very fair when you put it in this context with all the rest of the lead. Your interpretation of it only seems fair if you take a portion of it out of context, and interpret with your own narrative of what you think it ought to mean, and I have no doubt you would "in practice" have many who might not agree with me on that, and therein lies my actual point, you see very little clearly succinct policy to back up actual practice in many cases, while the majority of policy seems to indicate something else. It's contradictory, and seems to set a double standard. This appears to be a pervasive issue on Wikipedia. Additionally, the second quote you provided makes it a point to mention, "some rules may be enforced", and references WP:ENFORCEMENT. It must have been mentioned in the policy because it is relevant, particularly in this discussion where we are determining the issue of potentially bad blocks and the conduct of admins., so I still think an over-emphasis on "regular practice" is both unwarranted and senseless in this case as I pointed out before when I made the comparison to the legal system. Huggums537 (talk) 10:18, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
I also want to add to my comment that I think adding such senseless and unwarranted "regular practice" insertions are an actual detriment to policy and contribute to the pervasive issue of creating contradictions that lead to the double standard problem I mentioned earlier. Huggums537 (talk) 14:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In Talk:Hitler_family#Infobox_and_ethnicity_template an editor argued that there should be an exception made for this particular article since Austria-Hungary was at the time a multiethnic country and that stating one has Austro-Hungarian citizenship would not help a reader determine one's ethnic background. Is there a provision to make a custom field for ethnicity for particular articles? Do the editors support this?
The issue with ethnicity is that it is a nuanced concept that requires context and explanation to make sense in a biography. A field in an infobox does NOT provide the necessary context NOR does it allow nuance. The discussion in question is merely about deprecating the use of the ethnicity field in infoboxes; it does NOT prevent an explanation of ethnicity in the body of an article, which in many cases should be done. --Jayron32 15:29, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
What Jayron32 said. If necessary, a complex aspect like ethnicity can be discussed in the main body of the article, with proper context, but it should not be squeezed into the infobox. And there is nothing exceptional about the Austro-hungarian empire, lots of other countries were/are multiethnic. Nsk92 (talk) 16:08, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
I think we must remember WP:IAR. If you read the discussion where it was deprecated the issue was adding in articles where it was not really notable, not to rid it from articles where it was notable. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:26, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
If so, we need clear guidance on where that line should be drawn. When in doubt, I would err on the side of NOT including the parameter. Blueboar (talk) 15:45, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
The idea of IAR is probably that you can't (and shouldn't try to) legislate everything in advance. Creating guidance for when to IAR would be defeating the point (and that guidance itself would be subject to IAR anyway). I think the rough consensus is not that there's XYZ situations where ethnicity is appropriate, but rather that it's pretty much always inappropriate. Such edge cases where one wants to use it should probably be discussed on the talk page in advance (the value should at minimum be verifiable, especially noteworthy for the subject, and worthy of inclusion in an infobox). If there's consensus to use it, in regards to the technical limitation of |ethnicity= no longer existing, I guess you could embed a pseudo-infobox with a label/value pair. See Template:Infobox#Embedding. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:56, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
There may be cases to invoke IAR. This one case is not one of them. --Jayron32 18:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Define "recently" for CSD R3
Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#R3: "This criterion does not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move, unless the moved page was also recently created."
Proposal: define "recently" as "less than a month ago". (i.e. if a page is created on 2 February, last day to be eligible for CSD R3 is 1 March) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:32, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I think a month is about right. The big hurdle for R3 should really be the obvious implausibility, not the exact recentness - and something that made sense in 2006 might look implausible now but should be discussed, but something that looks implausible now probably still looked implausible in February 2021. I've previously not really thought this needed to be codified, but if people are really raising a stink on the basis of recentness when it happens to a day-old redirect, maybe it's worth making an actual solid line. I'd also like to mention that I just can't read ((db-redirtypo)) without my brain reading it as "re-dirty-po". ~ mazcatalk 15:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
As I indicated at WP:VPI#Define "recently" for CSD R3, I'd prefer a bit longer, but this is acceptable. I'd also prefer if we didn't have to spell it out, but clearly we do - not so often in practice about people complaining about the speedy deletion of days-old redirects as about people complaining about the declination of years-old ones. —Cryptic 16:07, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
This has come up lots of times at RfD over the years and the rough consensus has always been that there isn't a firm cutoff but it's measured in weeks not months (or, by implication, days but I don't recall that coming up). Generally the more implausible it is the more lenient people generally are about recentness. If there is really a need to define it rigidly then certainly 1 month is acceptable, but I'm not convinced that there is such a need. Simply writing down the consensus of "weeks, not months" as guidance somewhere would seem sufficient to me. Thryduulf (talk) 16:54, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
There's not real problem here, just Fastily being more conservative than they need to be. The redirect in question probably could have been speedy deleted as a request by the only creator of the page anyway. No big deal, let's move on with our lives. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 17:24, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm with Oiyarbepsy on not seeing any problem here, unless one can be shown by a link to the actual screaming rather than a second-hand report of it. Like most things its best left rather vague because bright lines tend to lead to gaming. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:39, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Regarding "link to the actual screaming", Alexis Jazz already asked for it, and I declined because this site really doesn't need the extra drama. Let's keep the focus on defining a suitable interval based on its own merits please. -FASTILY 22:41, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
This gets brought up from time to time (for example, in these twodiscussions from 2019). One month is consistent with most people's views, but my impression has been that there is broad agreement that flexibility is good and that having an explicitly set cut-off point is undesirable. – Uanfala (talk) 11:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
@Uanfala: The problem is that some people interpret "recently" as "24 hours" and others as "a few years". (Wikipedia is 20 years old, so anything created in past 2 years was recently created) My personal interpretation was about a week, but I'll use a month as a guideline now that I've seen that that is how most people interpret it. Couldn't we at least change "recently" to "recently, typically about a month" or something to give readers a ballpark? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 05:36, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Given that others have caused a concern, perhaps putting a suggestion would be a good thing. --TheSandDoctorTalk 05:46, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I'd support noting in the documentation something along the lines of "Users and admins are expected to show discretion, but a rough guideline for 'recent' should be one month". Elli (talk | contribs) 01:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
well that previous discussion was closing in on 30 days being added to the text, But now the debate starts all over again. I think we should add that 30 days in to give a guide and a bar. It many mean that the deleter has to check when the redirect was created, but I hope they already do that! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
The word "recent" needs to be defined for the first mention in R3; when used later (such as in the section quoted by the OP), it should?mean precisely the same thing. 147.161.8.151 (talk) 23:32, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
30 days sounds long enough for people to notice it. I note that CSD A10 also lacks a defined "recent" cutoff, and I'd recommend the same threshold there. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 21:17, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I also think that "30 days with some room for discretion" is reasonable; if an admin declined at 28 or 29 days or deleted it at 31 or 32 days we shouldn't get bent out of shape over it. 30ish days is sufficiently long enough. --Jayron32 18:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
What is your opinion regarding the essay WP:SANTA?
The essay states several reasons that Wikipedia should make it clear that Santa Claus does not exist. I personally agree with it, but what do you think about it? Félix An (talk) 16:56, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
Félix An, parents should stop lying to their kids. We should replace "legendary character" with "fictional character". If we can't get consensus for that, maybe use the term "fabricated" or "mythological". If you're old enough to know what those words mean or old enough to use a dictionary, you have no business to be believing in Santa. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 17:07, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I tried, but unfortunately, they were opposed to calling it "fictional character." In the interim, I tried to clarify that "legendary" meant "from folk tales" by wiki-linking it and the word "character" to clarify the meaning. Félix An (talk) 17:26, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
Well, legendary does justice to both being an imaginary character and losely based upon a real person. To tell the truth: real, hard-core Dutch Protestants hate Sinterklaas, Santa and Christmas, as popish propaganda. According to them a Christmas tree is Pagan at best and Satanic at worst. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:31, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
For the record, I love Christmas, and I sing Christmas songs at Christmas and say "Merry Christmas" to people. I just don't like the fact that I was lied to for so many years. I even helped the owner of emailSanta.com get his article published in AfC, while modifying it so that it clarified that the website was merely a simulation as per Wikipedia:NPOV and Wikipedia:NOTCENSORED. Félix An (talk) 17:33, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I had a professor who had a Catholic grandma and a Protestant grandma, and for them Christmas was an occasion for quarrel. As a compromise solution, he had an unadorned evergreen branch in his room. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I should have expected this, but a request for comment on the topic exists and resulted in "legendary character". Also in the RfC is the suggestion "In traditional festive legend, the character of Santa Claus is said to bring gifts" which would be accurate. I'd have to disagree with "imaginary" though, Donald Duck isn't imaginary either. I think "legendary" is pretty bad. Dragons and those who slay dragons are legendary. By the common definition, Santa isn't. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 17:37, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
What do you think is the best choice of words used to describe Santa? Félix An (talk) 17:41, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
Félix An, that's irrelevant. The question is what lead text could have consensus. I think next July a new RfC can be started. (a year after the last one) Start a discussion before that to collect viable alternatives. Present the alternatives in a clear fashion. Ask voters to include their second and/or third choice. Limit the new RfC to the description in the lead section, don't muddle the RfC with questions about the inclusion of parents or criticism. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:10, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
OK, that seems like a good idea. I hope you can suggest some good alternatives too. Thanks for the idea! Félix An (talk) 18:11, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I think the essay is an appropriate endorsement of WP:NOTCENSORED. I'm okay with the current phrasing "legendary", since it's both fully factual and doesn't ruin the myth right in the first sentence/top of Google results. I'm assuming we elaborate in the body, but if a kid has the maturity to read through an adult-level historical account, they're probably ready to learn the truth. I've never been a fan of having a custom where society lies to children, but I think per WP:PLA we can make the slightest bit of deference to it by using "legendary" rather than "fictional". But that deference has to immediately end the moment it would interfere even the slightest bit with our ability to write a neutral encyclopedia. ((u|Sdkb))talk 20:03, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
I think "legendary" is more accurate than "fictional". The word "fictional" implies origin in a work of fiction — a novel, a play, something like that. In what novel was Santa invented? "Folkloric" might be still better. --Trovatore (talk) 20:22, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Since you ask, I think it's stupid and jejune, and pretty insulting to boot. "If you are going to edit on Wikipedia, you should form principles and you should stick to them", which I guess translates to "agree with me". Thanks for the lesson on principles. The essay? It's appropriate for a high-school level of discourse I suppose. It's does represent a remarkably dense cluster of statements that meet the Tiresome Trifecta: didactic, false, and annoying. Jesus fuck, what a killjoy. Remind me not to invite this person to my kid's birthday party ("We all die and rot in the ground and it all comes to nothing, and now you're a year closer to that, and your parents will go first and leave you all alone. What's that? I'm just telling him the truth.) Oops sorry to criticize your essay there, but to the quote a commenter above, parents should stop lying to their kids, so just applying the same principle here. Herostratus (talk) 00:16, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
This discussion, and the antecedent essay, remind me of one of my favorite adages: The honesty axis and the asshole axis are orthogonal. --Jayron32 18:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Orthog... [shuffle, shuffle]]... negatively related? Anyway, there is the old proverb "Anybody who invokes NOTCENSORED is probably up to no good." For the rest, on stuff like this, links to this rule and that rule and the other rule impress me less on matters like this that what's good for the world generally. Remember the world? You're part if, even when you sit down at a keyboard. Tell me "We should do such-and-so, and that'll be a net benefit go humanity because ________". Fill in the blank with something compelling or go home. Herostratus (talk) 21:33, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
The point is that they are unrelated see definition 5; being honest and being an asshole are not simultaneously required, despite the fact that people who are assholes insist they are just being honest; as though being honest was somehow the cause of their assholery. It isn't. One can be honest and not be an asshole. --Jayron32 11:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The text of Santa Claus makes it abundantly clear that Santa is not a real person, and there is a strong established consensus that "legendary character" is the most appropriate for the lead. Felix has re-hashed this debate not once, not twice, but three times now in the span of nine months, and each discussion has re-confirmed the same consensus. Felix, I know you have good intentions, but I think MrOllie put it best: your endless attempts to chip away at the consensus wording are becoming disruptive. — The Only Zac (talk) 21:06, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree with The Only Zac above. This strikes me as a WP:STICK situation, and I recommend we all move on to actual issues facing the encyclopedia. Mz7 (talk) 01:04, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Abolishing G5 section of Speedy Deletion criteria
SNOW close as clearly not going to pass, however, per a number of individuals, editors are reminded that the current policy specifically does allow exceptions to the rule (beyond the usual IAR) and thus should be used with nuance. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:09, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
When I was browsing one day, I noticed something shocking. I discovered that there was a page for Jerry Smith, a character from Rick and Morty, which had been deleted because it was created by a user in violation of a block/ban. I do not think that this is right. When a user creates a page, it is not that user's page, it is a page that the user has submitted to the community. Deleting a page based on the creator of the page rather than the content of the page is detrimental to community building and the functioning of an encyclopedia since it results in the removal of legitimate content. I say we get rid of G5 of Speedy Deletion criteria, which is the section that says that pages created by users in violation of a block or ban are deleted. Again, it does not matter who creates a page or edits a page: Pages are not owned by anybody. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 22:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
WP:DENY is our only tool to handle the very large number of long-term problematic contributors. Johnuniq (talk) 22:43, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I never said anything about recognition. If you create a page, that is not your page, you do not own that page, it is submitted to the community. That article specifically talks about troll feeding which has absolutely nothing to do with this proposal. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 22:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
And if it is a vandal page, that is different. Jerry Smith is a real character from a real TV show and not a hoax, so his page would be legitimate content, regardless of who created the page. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 22:53, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
If we allow banned users to contribute, then they aren't banned users. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I never said we were allowing it. But again, it is not their page. I am not encouraging ban evasion, but any constructive contributions made by a banned user should remain, because constructive contributions should never be deleted regardless of who made the constructive contribution. And with pages it is even more so, because regardless of who creates a page, the page belongs to the community, not to one specific individual user, and the removal of legitimate content, like I said, is detrimental to the functioning of an encyclopedia. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 23:23, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
So you're saying we should accept constructive edits by banned users and not accept non-constructive ones.... which makes them different from non-banned users how, exactly? No, we don't need to put the energy into judging whether their edits are constructive. They're banned. They don't get to edit. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:01, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
There is no need to strictly delete stuff from banned users just because they are banned. If a banned user makes an edit identified as constructive, there's no good reason to delete/revert it. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
If you don't want to have banned users, that's an entire different discussion to have. But pretending to ban users while letting them edit does not serve any purpose. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
This isn't "letting them edit". These are edits that have slipped through the cracks - they weren't allowed to do them, but we're not a bureaucracy. We don't ban people for the sake of banning, we ban them for being a net negative. If they've made positive contributions, there is no reason to revert them. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
As an admin who regularly does WP:SPI work, I think I'm probably one of the most frequent users of the G5 criterion. The spirit of G5 descends from WP:BE, which states:
Anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a block, without giving any further reason and without regard to the three-revert rule. However, this does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a blocked editor (obviously helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.
G5 should be interpreted in the light of this policy: basically, administrators should not consider G5 to be an inflexible command, but rather use their discretion to apply it in cases where there is sufficient doubt as to whether the contribution was constructive. I've found G5 to be most helpful, for example, when combatting users who create many sockpuppet accounts to try to create articles about non-notable or borderline-notable subjects. Ordinarily, deletion nominations for lack of notability have to go through WP:AFD, but G5 allows us to short-circuit the AfD process at our discretion if the creator was evading a block or ban—which makes sense, as blocked editors should not be editing anyway. If you notice that an article was deleted per G5 that you think should have been kept, I recommend asking the deleting administrator either to restore it or to userfy it into your userspace so that you can personally develop it further. If the article was truly constructive, I'd imagine that most administrators would be willing to be flexible here. I hope this helps clarify the G5 criterion and why it should not be abolished. Mz7 (talk) 03:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The short answer is no. The long answer is that you should just improve the coverage of the topic on your own; if appropriate you can ask for a WP:REFUND (though, once again, you probably won't need one). I don't see why minor characters from an animated TV show need stand-alone articles, so I've re-established that title as a redirect. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be a consensus about whether G5 deletions can be reversed at WP:REFUND; see Wikipedia talk:Requests for undeletion#Refunds for G5? for discussion of this. Until December 2020, the instructions forbade it, and at the moment I see a request there declined because it was deleted under G5. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Right, I don’t think G5s can be reversed unilaterally by admins at REFUND like G13 or G7 deletions can, since they require a bit more discretion than those categories. But as I mentioned above, if you just ask the deleting admin, “Hey, I noticed you deleted this page per G5, but I think it could be a notable subject—could you userfy it so I can work on it more?”, I suspect many admins would be receptive to such a request. Mz7 (talk) 04:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Disagree because of what has been said above, particularly that which says if a banned user creates an article, they're not a banned user. Yes, Wikipedia has the "utopia" view that the moment you press post, you don't own what has been published. However Wikipedia also contradicts its own utopian vision all the time. There has to be a way to treat banned users, many of whom are amongst the worst vandals here, as editors who are WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. This is one of those functions. doktorbwordsdeeds 04:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree with the nominator's philosophy, but I also find Mz7's comment above persuasive. So ultimately I don't think we should get rid of G5, but it might be worth clarifying/emphasizing that it should be applied with discretion, not as a blanket universal action. ((u|Sdkb))talk 08:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
That's like everything at Wikipedia because very rarely does a rule apply in every situation. People should not do things that they think will not benefit the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 10:16, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Never going to happen, Blubabluba9990; but if WP:G5 ever needs a 'Historical background' section, Mz7's comments should be codified there. ——Serial 10:33, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose removing it, but I am in favour of clarifying that it can and should be applied with discretion and thought. ReykYO! 11:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose removing it or adding any clarifications or any changes whatsoever. The OP is allowed to create the article in question if they want. No one here will stop them. --Jayron32 11:38, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. G5 is one of our most powerful defenses against edit-for-hire socks. Any attempt to dilute it just moves the balance of power in favor of the socks. -- RoySmith(talk) 13:43, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose speaking as an admin on a wiki that has explicitly rejected G5. The lack of a G5-like criterion encourages sockmasters who create moderately-disruptive pages to continue socking. Requiring that the deletion of sock-created content always be judged on the merits nullifies our most powerful tools, WP:RBI and WP:DENY. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 13:53, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
But what if the page is not disruptive. Jerry Smith is a real character from a real show and thus the only reason why the page was deleted was because it was made by a sock. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 19:05, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. It is open to any editor in good standing to take responsibility for an edit by a banned or blocked user, including an article creation, if it has merit, but otherwise we shouldn't waste time on evaluating such edits, as that would render a ban meaningless. If an editor has been banned they have forfeited to right to the assumption of good faith - if not they shouldn't have been banned in the first place. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:23, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose poorly thought out proposal with no basis in logic. TAXIDICAE💰 18:09, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Comment I think people seem to be misunderstanding what I am saying. I am not encouraging ban evasion. I am just saying that a contribution should be judged by the content and quality of the contribution, not the user who made said contribution. And you also seem to think that every single edit made by a sockpuppet is a bad-faith edit, when that is not always the case. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 19:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Discretion is already applied to G5 tags, so this whole thing is pointless. TAXIDICAE💰 19:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
That has nothing to do with what I said. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 19:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose This would remove an important tool in the neverending fight against spammers, sockpuppeteers and disruptive trolls. This character is already covered at List of Rick and Morty characters and I see zero evidence that this character ought to have a freestanding article. Any editor in good standing who disagrees is free to write a policy compliant article. Cullen328Let's discuss it 19:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The page was actually turned into a redirect. Also, what if a sockpuppet creates a page that is extremely well made and about a very notable subject, and contains tons of sources. We shouldn't delete it just because a sockpuppet made it. Also deleting a sockpuppet's pages doesn't really help stop sockpuppets. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 19:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
There is no need for you to comment over and over and over again, Blubabluba9990. You have already been informed that administrators have discretion in dealing with the rare G5 article "that is extremely well made and about a very notable subject, and contains tons of sources." You have already made your point, and repeating it does not make your argument more persuasive. Cullen328Let's discuss it 19:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
For future reference, proposals to add, amened or revoke CSD criteria should be made at (or notified to) Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion (WT:CSD). The archives of that page contain many similar proposals that would have saved editors a lot of time if they'd been consulted prior to initiating this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:30, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
RfC: Notability of fictional characters
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus was reached that an award does not imply notability Consensus was reached that characters should not be presumed notable simply because the portrayer of the character has received a major award for their work. However, that doesn't mean the character is non-notable. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 21:22, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Should a fictional character in film or television be presumed notable if the portrayer of the character received a major award for their portrayal of the character? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 07:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
No — the award means people have praised the actor. That doesn't mean the character is notable.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:53, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Enough for an individual article for the character? No. There needs to be ample coverage on the character's conception, characterization and reception. —El Millo (talk) 08:02, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
No, the award of the actor does not imply notability of the character. For an example, I don't think anyone would reasonably presume that the character Hal Fields in Beginners is notable enough to warrant an article, despite the actor who portrayed him, Christopher Plummer, receiving an oscar for his performance. --Volteer1 (talk) 08:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
No - Acting awards rewards just that, acting. There's little to no connection between how well a character is played and how notable that character is. Volteer1's example above is right on the money. PraiseVivec (talk) 10:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Of course not. It is instructive to look at Academy Award for Best Actor and see how many of the roles portrayed do not have standalone articles (the vast majority of bluelinked roles are not fictional characters). —Kusma (t·c) 11:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
No, and suggest snow close. ((u|Sdkb))talk 14:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
No - The fictional character needs to be notable themselves; the notability of the actor who plays that character is not so important. Agree with the comments above. Netherzone (talk) 14:37, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
No As per other editors, the character has to be notable because of articles and reviews, not because someone played them won an award. Characters like Lady Macbeth and Bill Sykes have pages because they have been discussed and written about.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A late comment - I agree with the above comments, with one addition: There is a reasonably good chance that if the actor portraying a character has won an award for the portrayal, the character has also received at least some coverage. Do a thorough search for that coverage WP:BEFORE nominating. Blueboar (talk) 21:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: Could you please clarify the close statement? Right now it technically states that someone winning a Grammy isn't notable nor someone who won a Nobel prize etc. Those things can make someone notable on their own for having received it per WP:NMUSICIAN/NBAND, Wikipedia:Notability (academics), (parts of) Wikipedia:Notability (sports), and WP:ANYBIO/NBIO itself. The close statement should oull specifics from the question to indicate its scope (i.e. something like "Consensus was reached that a fictional character in a film or television series is not presumed notable solely due to the real-life portrayer of the character having received a major award for their portrayal of the character.") --TheSandDoctorTalk 04:06, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: All good! We all make mistakes etc. Thanks for fixing the scope of the closing statement. --TheSandDoctorTalk 08:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
LOL. This one was pretty obvious. VP need not be mired in predictable-outcome RfCs. Just look for extant examples that prove the case. E.g., Linda Hunt (unquestionably notable actor) received an Oscar (unquestionably notable award) among other awards for her cross-gender and cross-ethnic role in The Year of Living Dangerously (unquestionably notable film). But the character is not independently notable and pretty much no one remembers the name. Similarly, Fisher Stevens (notable actor) played a cross-ethnic role in Short Circuit (notable film) and (with the character's surname inexplicably changed in a pointless retcon) its straight-to-video sequel Short Circuit 2 (marginally notable film). Yet the character, whose confused name no one remembers either, is not independently notable – despite a great deal of controversy around these portrayals, which even resulted in Stevens being indefinitely persona non grata banned from traveling to India. Such fame and notoriety adhere to the actors, not the characters. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 05:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Moving articles without updating its title in lead and infobox
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@Iffy: What is the point of moving articles without updating atleast its title in lead and in infobox (if it has one) expect making mess? For me it would be something not naturally to do such edits. If you are not going to update all three places, don't move (?). Eurohunter (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
Why did you move this discussion to this board 4 minutes after you pointed this out on my user talk page (and without notifying me of where you had moved the discussion to)? And why didn't you fix it yourself after noticing the issue? I have updated the page now, but I don't see why this is here and not on my user talk page. Iffy★Chat -- 23:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
You got notyfication via ((re|)). I moved it here because it's like 1000th time someone is moving page without updating lead and infobox, not mentioning even Wikidata... Eurohunter (talk) 07:16, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The movie posters for Born to the West (such as the one in our article and this example from the Italian release) are colourizations, too, but a human exercising skill would at least have agreed with them that Wayne's shirt is red.
original image
https://imagecolorizer.com/colorize.html is a robot colourization service; one submits a black-and-white image and, using "AI technology" and (per the WWW site marketing blurb) with no skill on the submitter's part required, a colourized image comes back.
(The "AI technology" is a robot trained to make guesses based upon a data set. Calling this artificial intelligence is a misnomer.)
Back when those colourized old movies of New York et al. came out a while ago, people sought comment from historians.
The historians thought that they did bring history to life, but stated that they weren't good for actual history as they were clearly not historically accurate, and of course added and lost information in the process.
(Ignore the clickbait headline and sub-head, by the way. The historians quoted said no such thing as can clearly be seen from reading the article itself.)
I think that the same applies to an encyclopaedia.
Using such an image is, literally, giving the reader a false picture of something.
Two undeniably false pictures, rendered with this service, are above; alongside a very dubious third one that a human would not have produced.
This addition of outright falsehoods to original images by a guesswork-by-robot service is not aligned with our goal of producing an accurate encyclopaedia.
Do we want this at all in Wikipedia?
I think that we should not accept any of this service's colourizations, as these samples show imagecolorizer.com to be a robotic source of major falsehoods, with no human thought entering into the entire process.
Unknown color source and copyright status, was used on Monroe Doctrine
Uncle G, c:Commons:Colorization touches on this. When the colors are based on an actual source (like a similar but unfree photo) it can be acceptable for Wikipedia but when it's just guesswork we shouldn't use it. Guesswork may be acceptable for popular history where historical accuracy isn't as big of a deal (like the History Channel showing the Turin Erotic Papyrus) but not on English Wikipedia. (other projects could decide to have different standards) Also note that copyright can be a problem as colorization done by humans can be eligible for copyright. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Commons has its own problem (c.f. commons:Project:Administrators' noticeboard#Recolourizations as "own work") namely that things labelled "own work" are neither the uploader's own nor the product of any actual work done by the uploader, given that the photograph was taken by someone else and the colourization was done by someone else's robot. Commons lacks a standard designation for such things, not considering (as can be seen by that page that you point to) that colourizations may now be entirely robot produced. Like the quoted historians, though, as encyclopaedists our issue is not whether these guesswork-by-robot things should exist (on Commons or otherwise) but whether they are usable by us; whether their demonstrable inaccuracies and lack of any fact checking in the process make them something that we should avoid in toto. Uncle G (talk) 08:41, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Ha, "do we want this at all?" No, we do not, and not just because these colorized images are absolutely awful. Whether a picture is ever a real image of something is another matter, though, and it's interesting that this underlies a deletion request on Commons happening right now. But I agree with Uncle G on everything else. Drmies (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
In terms of copyright, "mechanical" treatment of freely-license/public domain images - such as simple rotation, cropping, etc - are not considered elements of a new work, and thus remain under the same license or lack thereof. Colorization is definitively not mechanical (even this which is being done by an advanced AI method) and there's definitely debate that the colorization step done by human hands is a new copyright (all those colorized B&W movies carry new copyrights for example), though there's no case law yet to establish this. For these reasons, we should absolutely reject colorization done by anyone else but the copyright holder (or for purposes of demonstrating colorization and other such technical factors). --Masem (t) 15:37, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
WMF legal has opined that work done by an AI program (in the context of machine translation) is not copyrightable. The bigger issue is whether mechanical colorization is ever accurate enough to be useful. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:19, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Machine translation is much more mechanical than colorization, and even with that, that WMF is a preliminary statement as there's no good case law to discuss computerized translations. On the other hand, colorizations while not tested by case law are broadly considered to fall under derivative works because of the amount of creativity needed (even if that creativity brought in by the AI). --Masem (t) 04:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Case law has well established that while software is copyrighted by its author, its output is not. And human translations absolutely are copyrighted as a derivative work, so they're not as far apart as you'd think. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:20, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Let's flip it around: Outside of any simple/mechanical transformation of an image (rotation, scaling, cropping), any alteration of an image can be seen as copyrightable derivative within US law, or "sweat of the brow" in UK law. That makes a new copyright, regardless if it the user that does it or the software that aids them in doing it. And that complicates the image rights of that transformed image. To that extent, unless that transformation is necessary for an encyclopedic purpose (eg as to explain what colorization is), we should not allow user-made alterations of images on en.wiki, nor allow those made by other users other than proper copyright holders to be included. Eg a colorized image of an old Doctor Who episode colorized by the BBC (or an entity under license by the BBC) would be fair, but not one done by a random fan. This also addresses the issue of the problems with colorization - as the copyright holder is the only likely to be producing the proper colorized version or as what they think would be the best colorized version in the first place. --Masem (t) 13:21, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure I've thought through all the potential circumstances well enough to say that we should never allow autogenerated colorized images in mainspace, although I can't think of any situations in which I'd find it appropriate. I think that it is essential that anytime an image is colorized, that fact be disclosed in the caption, and I would policy/guidance to that effect. More broadly, I think that there is a lot more Commons ought to be doing to mark manipulated images (as part of the fight against misinformation), as currently it's very possible to use one that's been manipulated without knowing it. ((u|Sdkb))talk 16:13, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
You are expanding beyond what I asked, though. This service is demonstrably providing falsehoods. Clearly, yes, Commons needs a way to mark these and other such robot generations as something other than "own work", but the question for us is whether we should at all use the images from one guesswork-by-robot service that can be shown to produce wildly inaccurate pictures, and makes a point in its advertising of no human involvement, skill, or fact checking; sidestepping the reliability question entirely at https://imagecolorizer.com/blog/image-colorization-tools.html and claiming "more manageable and realistic" results when clearly realism is utterly lacking. Uncle G (talk) 16:28, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
I've done quite a bit of colorization, both for WP and personally. I'm actually somewhat torn here. Colorization seems fine to me for images that are used for illustration purposes. And there's a case to be made for images whose colorization is based on factual information about those colors. But the whole concept of documentation (and documentation is, in fact, a big part of WP's mission) is one which necessarily should prohibit all but the most inconsequential modifications (I think the most acceptable level might be the erasing of borders and the removal of dust and scratches). In any case my point here was to say that I'm an editor who engages in colorization, and I wouldn't shed a single tear if we adopted a no-colorization policy for the encyclopedia, but I also wouldn't necessarily advocate for it. What I would advocate for, however, is a policy in which any colorized image used on WP should be labelled as colorized in the caption, in a way that's unmistakable, such as by starting any such caption with (colorized).
With respect to these auto-colorized images, I'm in favor of banning them entirely, unless and until the technology improves significantly. Each one in the array above is atrocious, with the first one being particularly bad. We should really prefer high quality images here on WP, and just about any halfway competent colorist can do a better job than even the best of those (the middle, by the way, is the best).
P.S. The image to the right is shown with what are probably original colors. Color printing is much older than most people think, and the style here demonstrates rather clearly that the original image was in color (watercolor or ink wash, to be precise). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 16:43, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
MjolnirPants, you are referring to the Monroe Doctrine image? Here's the odd thing: it has a "Fineart America" watermark. So it came from Fineart America. Fineart America got it from Granger. Granger is known to get stuff from Commons, but in this case they couldn't have considering the watermark. So the source is a mystery. All we know is that originally it was published in Judge (magazine). Maybe the issue can be viewed online somewhere. I remember comparing it to File:Keep off! The Monroe Doctrine must be respected LCCN2002697703.tif. The colorized version bears no additional detail that couldn't be explained by sharpening and they share some imperfections. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 23:39, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz:The colorized version bears no additional detail that couldn't be explained by sharpening and they share some imperfections. I disagree. The pattern of colors on close inspection is indicative of old-school color printing, the line-work is finer in a way that suggests an ink pen, not the blurring/sharpening process by which upscaling is usually done and the only imperfections I can see in both are those that are probably in the original. Check the printing on the sign-board for an example: The yellow color is printed in dots of varying size, on a grid that's lined up with the page. The overlying red (to tint it slightly orange) is line up on that same grid, and shows signs of having less ink rolled onto the print heads. I see that a lot in very old prints. Also, the linework looks to have been scanned at a much higher resolution. Finally, there's some distortion from the crease present in the black and white version that's not really noticeable normally, but isn't present in the color version. See here for two images; a screenshot of one section of the full-res preview from Fineart America and a gif showing the distortion difference between them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 01:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Mr. Pants may be correct in that there may be a graphic here or there that's needed and is acceptable; but, I suspect they are far and few between. For almost everything I'm with Uncle G and I feel it needs to be addressed before it gets out of hand. I may have watched the couple Dick Van Dyke Show episodes that were colorized, and perhaps even sat through the Miracle on 34th Street colorization, but I can't say they were "better" than the originals. Just say "NO" to colorization. — Ched (talk) 17:29, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
We don't allow machine translations of text, because a bad translation is worse than no translation at all. Same prohibition should apply to machine colorization of images. A bad machine colorization is worse than no colorization at all. RudolfRed (talk) 21:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree partially with multiple people here - Bad colourisation is worse than no colourisation at all and everything I've seen says that imagecolorizer.com produces bad colourisations and so should not be used on en.wp (with two possible exceptions - as an example of bad colourisation in an article that discusses such, and in an article that discusses imagecolorizer.com and/or machine colourisation more generally). Wherever a colourised image is used, then the caption must make that clear (although I oppose being too prescriptive about precise wording). I oppose a blanket ban on colourised images on en.wp as, even outside of articles about colourisation (which obviously should include examples) there are plausible use cases. The first and last images at wikt:fender#Gallery contain colourised parts for the purposes of identification and both images are used on at least one non-English Wikipedia for exactly that purpose - indeed I'm tempted to add File:Fireplace fender (false colour).jpg to Fireplace#Accessories. Thryduulf (talk) 22:41, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
I think an outright ban on automatically colourised images would be appropriate, but I think a complete ban on colourised images would be an overreaction at this point. An image that's been colourised by a skilled restorer with some kind of reference for the colours may be usable in articles, and as Thrydullf points out there may be use cases for highlighting parts of images, but these auto colourised images are a travesty.
The OP didn't even get the worse ones, look at this mess: inappropriate colour choices, massive amounts of artifacting, spill over into the background, just an all round disaster. 192.76.8.91 (talk) 00:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree colorized pics shouldn't be used, as they're basically not accurate. (Also, I think color is a poor way to highlight something; arrows/circles are clearer and more accessible.) Levivichharass/hound 14:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
If anyone's interested in directly comparing hand coloring to this bot, see here. The top image is, quite literally, one of the worst rush-jobs I've ever done, in GIMP (rather than Photoshop), using a mouse (rather than a stylus), at work while I'm writing code (rather than focusing), over the span of 45 minutes (rather than the 3-4 hours it would usually take). The second is the bot. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 16:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
As another example of the quality and accuracy of the bot's work, I desaturated a colour digital photograph of mine and asked it to colourise it. You can see the original and colourised versions below. Look not only at the colour differences but also the added grain (especially visible on the faces of the people in the back row) and colour bleed. Thryduulf (talk) 18:54, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Maybe I'm showing my age (I remember black and white television, when a snooker commentator famously, and probably apocryphally, said, "for those of you watching in black and white, the blue is next to the green"), but I see nothing wrong with leaving black and white images as they are, rather than have an automated process guess the colours in the ludicrous way demonstrated here. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
The other worrying thing in Thryduulf's test is the fact that it's added green ivy to the building in the background. The snooker wasn't apocryphal btw, it was Ted Lowe. - X201 (talk) 14:05, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Irrespective of whether these are usable photos, there's some license cleanup to be done here - they're all claimed as "own work" when they're demonstrably not. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:15, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
That is a problem for Commons. It lacks the mechanisms for classifying entirely robot-colourized out-of-copyright stuff where the uploader doesn't own the work and didn't even do the work. No-one on Commons appears to want to tackle it, but it's not Wikipedia's problem. Wikipedia's problem is the inaccuracy.
Sad to say, other Wikipedias have yet to notice what has happened to es:John Wayne.
New user landing page should link to search results
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I think the new user landing page should have a link to search results for whatever page name they typed, just like the regular landing page. A new user is less likely to be qualified to create a page than a regular user, yet the current system makes them less likely to see the other alternative (that a page exists for what they're looking for under a different name). —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 18:45, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
@Lights and freedom: what policy or guideline are you making a proposal to change? If none, I suggest you move this to idea lab. — xaosfluxTalk 18:48, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: I thought this was about things that would actually be changed, and idea lab was about things that still needed to be discussed before somebody could come up with a final proposal. —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 18:49, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
@Lights and freedom: see the very first line at the top of the box on this page for what this venue is for. The talk page of the page you actually want to change, linked in from VP:Proposals may be good; but I don't see you referencing any policies you want to amend here? — xaosfluxTalk 22:01, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Oh, I'm very sorry, I meant to post on proposals not policy. Got here by accident. Moved. —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 01:02, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Last day of UCOC local consultations
Just a reminder that Wikipedia:Universal Code of Conduct/2021 consultation has its deadline today, and certainly could still do with significantly more individuals commenting (Phase 1, for example, had more participation), even/especially if individuals answer the questions most crucial to them. Nosebagbear (talk) 02:32, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Make autopatrol an optional right for administrators
I propose to make the autopatrolled user right optional for administrators in the same way as edit filter is. ( Administrators can assign it to themselves, but it isn't part of the standard toolset.) Jackattack1597 (talk) 00:56, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Any particular reason? – bradv🍁 03:48, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Jackattack1597: Indeed: before proposing a change to an established practice, you should first demonstrate that there are problems with that practice, and then show that such issues that exist are best fixed by applying your proposed change. Secondly, this should really be at WP:VPR, not VPP. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - I'm pretty sure I know what this is about, and this is the wrong solution - there isn't a good reason to unbundle just this one userright, and I don't see a discussion about unbundling similar rights which would be for the same reason. I'm also against unbundling tools from admins only to let admins assign them to themselves; if we're going to unbundle, then admins should ask at WP:PERM just like everyone else and be evaluated according to the community's criteria. Edit filter manager and interface admin are different things: you can do real damage to the project with those, that's primarily why they're not part of the standard admin toolset. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:29, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Believe me, I want to unbundle more rights, but based on Village pump ideas feedback, a proposal to unbundle multiple similar rights wouldn't have gone anywhere, and may have even gotten WP:SNOWed, and I went with this instead because it would be a step in the right direction, and there's a recent example of when it would have been helpful. Mass creating non-notable articles does real damage to the project too, in my opinion; it consumes countless hours of cleanup time from productive editors that could better be spent elsewhere.Jackattack1597 (talk) 14:07, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. The proposal is an overreaction to a single isolated incident that is an extreme outlier. On the whole we don't have evidence of a significant number of admins creating a lot of substandard articles that escape community's attention. Rather than taking away user rights from the admins we should be creating new userrights, that are a part of the full admin toolkit, and making them available to regular users. That's how I'd like to see unbundling proceed. Nsk92 (talk) 11:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Support, I'd like to be able to have my new articles scrutinized like everyone else's. —Kusma (𐍄·𐌺) 12:09, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Administrators can unreview pages they create; an opt-in bot could be written to cover admins who want this by default or are subjected to it by restriction. –xenotalk 13:41, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
In the past I've deliberately submitted articles I create to WP:AFC for that reason. AFC is a stronger review process anyway. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
There are many workarounds. I sometimes use ((stub)) on my stubs, as this will summon a stub sorter who often also notices other things I have overlooked. ((uncat)) is a similarly useful incantation. —Kusma (𐍄·𐌺) 18:00, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose If an admin is unable to create pages in compliance with the most basic of site policy, then they shouldn't be an admin. If they want NPP review of a particular page for some reason, they can manually unpatrol it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose We are here to build an encyclopaedia, not to talk to each other and play with policies and guidelines (including wikilawyering). If a user can't write a decent article, they should not be an admin here in the first place. Content issues are very important and one who violates core content policies should not have the opportunity to climb up the ladder. 4nn1l2 (talk) 12:30, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose The proposer hasn’t made a case for this. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:39, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
We recently had a situation where a long-term admin was discovered to have made thousands of non-notable articles over the years, and it had been brought to the communities attention previously, but nothing happened until this year because he was an admin and the autopatrolled right is part of that toolset. His actions have resulted in a large cleanup effort spanning multiple wikiprojects and taking up countless manhours of cleanup time, and if autopatrolled had been debundled from the start it could have been removed when the issue was brought to the communities attention in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive830#Carlossuarez46_mass-creating_articles, instead of enabling him to create thousands of articles between then and now of questionable notability. Jackattack1597 (talk) 14:26, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Support The real question here is simple, are admins expected to create content or are they expected to administrate? Autopatrolled exists purely for the benefit of the WP:NPP project, and non-admins can already receive this permission so this is already unbundled from adminship, but admins automatically receive this permision when they become admins, so the only current way to un-autopatrol an admin is to desysop them. Admins who don't create articles up to the standards of NPP should have the autopatrolled perm removed instead of having the NPP project request a full desysop because none of the other admin tools (block, delete, protect etc) are used help the NPP project in ways that non-admins can (NPP non-admins have RFPP, CSD, AIV etc when they need admin attention already). Also, it should be plainly obvious that any admin who tries to re-autopatrol themselves against the wishes of the community would be quickly desysopped. Iffy★Chat -- 13:00, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
I would support a proposal to unbundle every userright that can be requested by non-admin editors from the admin toolkit, for the reasons Iffy presents, but that is not this proposal, and doing them piecemeal would be worse than not doing anything. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:46, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
See also my comment below, but I've found that the NPP project mostly only cares about ns:0 pages; not actually all new pages (which are affected by patrolling). — xaosfluxTalk 15:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Xaosflux, for those who aren't as familiar with NPP, could you explain to what ns:0 refers? Sdrqaz (talk) 20:29, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@Sdrqaz: sorry for the jargon! "ns" refers to the different namespaces, "articles" are in an unlabeled namespace, "(main)" which is namespace number "0". This discussion for example is in the Project namespace, which we have labeled "Wikipedia:", which is namespace number 4. I've found that most participants in "new page patrol" only focus on "new articles" not really "new pages"; focusing on articles is very important as it is the most reader-facing component, but it is not all-encompassing of new pages. Hope that helps! — xaosfluxTalk 21:20, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Got it, thanks! Learn something new every day. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: The NPP project mostly only cares about ns:0 pages because Special:NewPagesFeed, by default, only lists pages in mainspace; users need to set the filters on that listing to see another namespace - which presently only seems to offer the User: namespace as an alternative. I'm pretty sure that at one time all namespaces were selectable, as they are at Special:NewPages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:06, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@Redrose64: yea, that's why NPF isn't great for catching things like copyvio's in Draft:, bad new content templates, etc. We have an overlap of curation tools here on enwiki, especially between "patrolling" and "reviewing" of new pages. — xaosfluxTalk 23:23, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose – while I agree it's not administrator's main job to do content creation (they were appointed to administrate the project), it doesn't make any sense to me to remove autopatrol from them. First, "administrating an encyclopedia" pretty much means make it look like an encyclopedia (by using the mops here and there). In order to be able to make something look like an encyclopedia, you naturally need to know how an encyclopedia looks like – in another words, you must be able to create an article that would normally pass an AfD, AfC or NPP. I think that all administrators should either be able to write articles in a good enough form to pass the standard review process, or they shouldn't be an administrator at all. Note that I don't think administrators necessarily need to be able to write good/featured articles – but that's at another end of the quality scale we use --Martin Urbanec (talk) 14:41, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose while I certainly don't expect all admins to write brilliant prose and expertly built articles, I do expect that articles created by admins should survive speedy deletion (which according to WP:NPP is at its core...about deciding whether a new article will be...accept[ed], or initiating...deletion procedures). If admins are creating bad articles a topic ban against article creations could be levied. As far as non-content space creations, the bar to acceptance of these pages is even lower and admin are likely to create all sorts of meta pages that shouldn't need to bother recent changes patrollers. — xaosfluxTalk 15:48, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Dug in to this a little bit more as well, pursuing Special:NewPages shows that at least right now most new pages aren't articles at all; are admins causing problems in creating all of these types of pages? — xaosfluxTalk 18:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Support. I started out writing this comment in opposition. I got as far as "As Xaosflux said just above, some people specialize in writing good prose, some people specialize in mopping. But, to be sure, the ONLY reason this project exists is to generate good content for our readers to consume, and the ONLY reason admins exist is to support the creation of that content. If an admin can't meet even the absurdly low bar of WP:NPP, they have no business being an admin". But, as I studied the flowchart in detail, I changed my mind. Some of the boxes talk about things I would never expect an admin to do (pure vandalism, etc). But, then I thought about my experiences in the software engineering world. In the best shops, even the most experienced senior people don't get to commit code without a second set of eyes looking at it. Some of the checks are (paraphrasing) "Does the topic exist at another title?", "Is the article at the correct title?", "Does the article contain a copyvio?", "Can the article use more/better tags?". Any or all of these would benefit from a second set of eyes looking it over. If you're really writing good stuff, the review should take no time at all. I wouldn't worry about how much workload this will add to the NPP queue; there just aren't that many admins, and most of them aren't producing a ton of new mainspace content. -- RoySmith(talk) 16:55, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith: when you reference even the most experienced senior people don't get to commit code without a second set of eyes - isn't that also an argument for removing the 4,789 other editors flagged as autopatrol? — xaosfluxTalk 17:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Xaosflux, Yes it is. That's not going to make me very popular, is it? -- RoySmith(talk) 18:09, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith: not sure - maybe it will make you someone that came up with a great idea; it does seem like the problem you are raising goes much beyond the sysops though. I'm not sure how this will be helpful outside of ns:0 though; perhaps making autopatrol not work in ns:0 would be better? — xaosfluxTalk 18:12, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Xaosflux, To go back to my statement that the ONLY reason this project exists is to generate good content for our readers to consume, I'm really only talking about ns:0. I'm fine with people creating crappy pages in project space (which I mean in the more general sense of anything other than mainspace) because they don't directly affect what our readers see. To be honest, I'm fairly ignorant of the details of how page patrolling works; I assumed it only applied to mainspace. Is that not the case? -- RoySmith(talk) 18:22, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith:see Special:NewPages to see all the unpatrolled pages. And we do need to ensure that we're not doing things like hosting copyvio's or attack pages in all namespaces or we might not have a project to host articles at all... — xaosfluxTalk 18:28, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith: All new pages may be patrolled, but by default Special:NewPagesFeed and Special:NewPages only list pages in mainspace; users need to set the filters on those listings to see other namespaces. Many users (like yourself) will not be aware of the namespace selection feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:06, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
This chart is impressive but it mostly demonstrates how overly bureaucratic and complex Wikipedia has become. (If Wikipedia:New pages patrol/School exists what does that say about the expectations for a much more advanced right like the RfA?) I would hope we can trust our admins not to insert copyvio in their articles. The kind of checks like "Can the article use more/better tags?" are basically frivolous and encourage tag-bombing new articles. In general the type of the argument you make above is an argument to eliminate the "autopatrolled" userright altogether. In reality many new articles are currently overtagged. I expect that the only useful tag that many autopatrolled users probably neglect to add to their articles in significant numbers is the "stub" tag. But that's probably a problem for bots to handle somehow. Nsk92 (talk) 18:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose, solution looking for a problem. Stifle (talk) 16:21, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose Was going to say exactly what Stifle said. This is a solution in search of a problem. I know there was a case of the autopatrolled tool causing problems in one case dealing with one admin, but this is NOT a widespread problem, hard cases make bad law, etc. --Jayron32 16:25, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose If an admin abuses even one of their tools, they should be desysopped, period. If, say, they are abusing their page mover right, we desysop them and give them account creator, autopatrolled, event coordinator, extended confirmed, file mover... every non-admin user right except page mover. If they are abusing autopatrolled to make 300 non-notable substubs, we desysop them and give them every non-admin user right except autopatrolled. 🐔ChicdatBawk to me! 11:37, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose If we can't trust an admin to regularly make policy compliant pages, we probably can't trust them to be an admin. AdmiralEek (talk) 23:24, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
support getting rid of the autopatrolled bit entirely. All new pages can use a second set of eyes. CapitalSasha ~ talk 01:25, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't believe this is practical, given the small number of new page patrollers. The few overworked volunteers in this area, given a huge influx of new pages to review, would have to resort to marking as patrolled without proper vetting when they see it was made by one of the regulars. — Bilorv (talk) 23:13, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Oppose per Ivanvector and Nsk92. We have proven we can deal with the rare admins not in compliance or abusing the tool. This proposal is not really needed, and not the proposal I would support as it is currently written even if it were needed. Huggums537 (talk) 11:40, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose no good reason for this change. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:46, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
I would probably support, but more information is needed as well as a more complete proposal. Logs of pages created by autopatrolled users and administrators would be useful. Most administrators passed RFA many years ago when the policies and guidelines were different, and it's likely that not all have kept up to date with the changes. It isn't only administrators, there are editors who have been inactive since 2009 who could create a page now that wouldn't have to be patrolled. The reason to separate autopatrolled status is not "300 non-notable substubs"; it's the occasional inadequately sourced article. Peter James (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
@Peter James: for a snapshot take a look at NewPages - for the most part the new pages that are not highlighted in yellow are created by autopatrollers (include admins). — xaosfluxTalk 19:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, it would be pretty simple to add "autopatrol" to the various other flags we remove for inactivity (generally for a year of no activity) - bring it up at Wikipedia talk:Autopatrolled and ping us at WT:PERM if it passes. — xaosfluxTalk 19:41, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
FWIW there are ~578 users that are in 'autoreviewer' that have not made an edit in over 5 years, 1214 that haven't in 1 year. — xaosfluxTalk 19:45, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Comment: There is no proof the community can deal with the rare admins not in compliance or abusing the tool - the very issue is that autopatrol allows avoidance of scrutiny. I've seen literally dozens of instances where the right is abused, or at least barely respected by editors and admins. Before any sensible decision can be made rather than the subjective supports and opposes, it needs to be established just how much the WP:NPR workload is actually relieved by active holders of the autopatrolled right. IMO (lacking sources), since ACPERM was rolled out, I would hazard a pure guess that deprecating it altogether it would not add much burden to New Page Reviewing. Thus, research first, i.e. checking the quality of autopatrolled submissions over a sample period, and the number of autopatrolled new articles to be reviewed daily at NPP. Then start a RFC backed up by data and well founded rationale. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Out of curiosity I've just ran a few Quarries for data. In the last 30 days, 25,810 pages have been created by autopatrolled users in the mainspace. List. Total articles created in the same period were 51,642, so that's 25,832 non-autopatrolled articles that went through NPP.
It would probably be quite easy to trial something without pulling the autopatrolled perm of any user (directly). If there were consensus to try disabling autopatrolled for, say, a month, a phab task could be made to temporarily remove the autopatrol permission from groups (Special:ListGroupRights). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:05, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: while you only mentioned ns0, it looks like adjusting your query shows that over 74,000 other "new pages" were created by autopatrolled editors - I can't see any reason to force all those through the new page patrol process? — xaosfluxTalk 16:46, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: my rationale for limiting the query to mainspace was that (iirc) someone said most NPPs ignore non-mainspace creations. No opinion on whether scrapping autopatrolled is a good idea; NPP's organisation and functioning is beyond my expertise, but I figured providing some data (and a possible technical implementation for a temporary trial) might help those who want to think about the idea further. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:53, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
NPP was designed specifically as a New Article review process. In the rebuild of the control panel we asked for 3 years ago, it was decided to include a drop down option to review Articles plus User Pages for the purpose of catching people using their user page as a fake article , spam or 'hosting for non Wiki purposes, and make the other options more granular and to include the AfC list. There is probably no pressing need for every kind of namespace to be reviewed except perhaps redirects from soft deletions that get quietly turned back into articles. It is not known if New Page Reviewers use these options very much. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:26, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
I support this change. Several editors above have suggested "if we can't trust admin to make policy/guideline appropriate pages how can we trust them to be admin?" I think this reflects thinking that admin need to be superlative in all wikipedia domains, or at least a large number of them, in order to be admins. I recognize that this is the thinking of a substantial part of our community, but I think our community would be healthier if it weren't. Let's not put admin on pedestals because I think that creates an unhealthy social fabric not only at RfA but projectwide with admin getting elevated above other editors in ways that are sometimes unearned. Instead I think the core of how we should screen admin is "Can we trust this person to use the tools correctly and can we trust this person to be self-aware of their own competency to know when not to use tools?" For instance, I have the ability to edit all sorts of templates but I would never dream of that because I know it goes beyond the scope of what I can do in a way that will benefit the project. I have, however, made a couple templates (by copying other templates code) that I've been able to use (i.e. Template:NPP Welcome. By making all admin autopatrolled we essentially say "if you don't feel like article creation is a strength don't do it at all". There is no graduated way for them to do this the way I have with templates. I think we should instead trust admin to recognize their own limitations and turn off autopatrol for themselves. Autopatrol is a unique PERM because, in theory, it doesn't directly benefit the person who has it which is all the more reason, I feel, to let an admin opt out of it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:14, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: very notably, I do not expect admins to be superlative at creating new articles just by virtue of being an admin; however I do expect that they would only create new articles that conform with policies and would otherwise survive speedy deletion. Just as you mentioned with templates, if an admin really doubts their ability to make a minimally compliant article they shouldn't - but they should still know how to use the article wizard and put in up for AFC and I can't see a reason we would need to patrol all of their other non-article new pages, do you? — xaosfluxTalk 15:31, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux I too expect that admin will not create articles that should be speedy deleted. However, I would rather error on the side of encouraging someone to make an article (or in the case of AfC accept an article) that is occasionally sent to AfD (and even deleted) than to not make the article at all. I don't equate "new page review" with "find articles for speedy deletion" now that we're in a post-ACPERM world. As for patrolling other kind of new pages, I think that is a trojan horse compared to the impact articles have on our readers (who overwhelmingly never venture outside mainsapce). Best Barkeep49 (talk) 15:43, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
At WP:VPIL#Adminship rights debundling (permalink), I expressed some support for this idea, and I am still not totally against it. I understand the idea that we should expect administrators to understand the bare minimum of how to avoid speedy deletion when creating articles, but on the other hand, new page patrol also provides a good sanity check for notability, which is a nuanced area of Wikipedia's rules that varies by subject area. I can imagine situations where administrators venturing into subject areas they are not used to might want a second pair of eyes to ensure that their article subjects are actually suitable for Wikipedia, so this has utility beyond merely preventing another Neelix or Carlossuarez46 situation. Admittedly, an alternative solution is to simply allow administrators to "un-patrol" their autopatrolled articles, which there appears to be a phab ticket for at phab:T280890. Mz7 (talk) 01:27, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - Proposal is paradoxical. Autopatrolled is a fairly minor permission relative to the admin role. Article space competency is an inherent, central part of adminship, it fundamentally ties in to the most fundamental aspects of the role itself. If an admin cannot be trusted with autopatrolled, they are absolutely miles away from being trustworthy with the admin role to begin with. ~Swarm~{sting} 02:28, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Support: if I had a penny for every time I've seen an extremely experienced Wikipedian write a new article so low-quality that my jaw dropped then I could pay a psychotherapist to talk to me about why I still find it surprising. The RfA process doesn't sufficiently vet whether candidates can write passable articles. Nor should it. This is one of the few rights that is perpendicular to adminship, as it's a solely content-based right. Admins shouldn't automatically have it. I'd like them to go through PERM but at least this would be a step forwards. This isn't "one case". It's one case per article the admin created (tens of thousands). Had we caught it 1000 articles sooner, it would have been 1000 articles less of a problem. — Bilorv (talk) 23:13, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Oppose At intervals, I have sometimes checked the autopatrolled articles at NPP. It's important to do this occasionally, because any of the people with Autopatrolled, admins included , can sometimes write an inappropriate article, and it's good to at least spot-check. The rate of such articles from admins is very low; what is more frequent at NPP is errors by the patrollers, especially those that reveal systematic misunderstandings or habitual over-rapid work, and that is what I have mainly hoped to spot in my checks. And even this I haven't done it for over a year now , because there are many more critical priorities, such as checking the new articles and drafts from new editors that are much more likely to have severe problems. There is a more important potential problem with admins: not that they might write articles poorly, but that they may do their admin functions carelessly or incompetently. This is much harder to spot, and potentially of much greater impact. DGG ( talk ) 04:53, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
RfC - applying the criteria for notability for Wiki bios (journalists, activists, creative professionals, academics, talk show guests, etc)
This isn't an RFC and the linked AFD is approaching a SNOW keep. Nothing good can come of continued discussion here. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:52, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I work with award-winning journalists who don't even exist on Wikipedia, despite their presence at gala functions and one receiving such an award directly from the current President of the time, a certain Barack Obama (and there's photos galore). Yet this person's name doesn't appear anywhere in this encyclopedia. Yet the Wiki editors seem content to foster the kind of anglo-centric recentism which is explicitly stated by the Wiki's creators as being a pitfall of the entire project. Just look at the size of this article, or Paris Hilton's, compared to say, Richard Spencer, The Times current Mid-East correspondent with over 1000 by-lines to his name. Or multi award-winning Sunday Times Middle East correspondent Louise Callaghan who also doesn't exist in the Wikipedia universe. Or, to take any one of countless more obscene examples, the size of Ash Sarkar's article vs that of Sahar Khodayari - the woman who committed self-immolation in protest at women being forbidden to attend football matches, which led to FIFA forcing the Islamic Republic of Iran to change their law. So how about instead of saying "well, it is what it is", we start making a more determined and consistent effort to achieve balance and a worldwide perspective in judging what content is truly encyclopedic? Time is precious, time is money, I write for a living, but arguing "well Wiki is full of articles like this, the threshold for notability doesn't match the stated criteria in the policy documents, but, what can we do?" is irrelevant whataboutery. There's no reason why the football team that Ash Sarkar apparently supports should be deemed appropriate encyclopedic material, while the last four winners of arguably the most esteemed journalism prize in the world (the Albert Londres Prize) don't even have any bios themselves!
I think some people have jumped the gun here, and have not carefully considered Wiki policy. I believe the discussion might benefit from some fresh eyes on the argumentation and competing perceptions of what kind of individuals are suitably notable for Wikipedia bios.
@TomReagan90: Here's the thing, I kind of agree with you in that we have bias issues but you also don't really "get" how things work. Articles on Wikipedia are created by volunteer editors (usually). If an article doesn't exist on someone you think is notable there is nothing stopping you from going ahead and creating it. Your arguments would be compelling if those articles existed and were deleted, but in this case it sounds like those articles were simply never created. The solution for that isn't to complain about "oh there's no article on xyz"; it's to go ahead and create the articles themselves. Just because the article doesn't exist doesn't mean we've implicitly deemed the subject non notable. Go work towards creating that worldwide balance you want so badly. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 20:19, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
This isn't an RfC, what do you prepose? Please don't WP:CANVAS users to your AfD, and if there is an article on someone who you want improved, feel free to do it yourself, but make sure to do so with reliable sources. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs) 20:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Allow unreliable sources to affect the due weight of claims that are otherwise verifiable
Resolved
– Proposal withdrawn by OP. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:39, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Looking at WP:RSP, at appears that all of the major conservative-leaning sources, including The Epoch Times, The Post Millenial, Fox News, The Daily Caller, and Breitbart, have to varying degrees been declared unreliable or even deprecated. Now, having read through some of the RfCs leading to the deprecation of these sources, I have come to believe that the community consensus has not been impartial and fact-based, but that's a topic for another time. This proposal is about addressing the WP:systemic bias that has been produced as a result of these community decisions without retreading past arguments.
Much media bias comes not in the form of disagreement over what the facts are but rather article selection—in other words, disagreement over which facts to cover. Thus, the confluence of past consensus to shun these sources and WP:DUE (in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources) means that otherwise true and verifiable claims from these rejected sources will get less coverage than good WP:editorial discretion would demand. This is a form of systemic bias that is counter to the spirit of WP:NPOV; countering this bias by presenting a more diverse gamut of verifiable facts would not be a form of WP:false balance, since it would not involve the inclusion of disputed or fringe factual claims.
Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Prominence in less reliable or deprecated sources that are published using traditional editorial methods should also be considered in apportioning coverage to factual claims, though not viewpoints or expressions thereof, that are verifiable through other means.
Here, traditional editorial methods refers to newspapers and TV channels that try to do the news, though in a biased or flawed way. Sources like The Epoch Times would count in this category. A clickbait fake news website run out of somebody's basement would not.
Here are a few examples of what this might look like in action:
A liberal politician has a major scandal that is covered extensively by conservative news outlets but is hushed up and receives only a few articles' worth of coverage in mainstream news outlets. In the status quo, this scandal would end up being ignored on the politician's Wikipedia page, no matter how important it may be. Under the amended policy, the coverage by conservative news outlets would be used to provide due weight to facts surrounding the scandal insofar as these facts are WP:Verifiable relative to the mainstream media sources.
A leaked government document or other WP:primary source receives news coverage by deprecated sources. Under the amended policy, the coverage could provide the due weight necessary to justify drawing attention to the parts of the primary source emphasized by the deprecated sources, even if the speculation or analysis by these sources is unreliable and cannot be included. This does not violate verifiability since the primary source would be there to allow the article to be verified.
A deprecated source reports on a fact that is WP:BLUE common knowledge. Under the amended policy, the coverage in the deprecated source could be used to justify giving a bit of extra coverage on said fact.
A government official or person tightly linked to the government of an authoritarian state states a claim or viewpoint that is then syndicated on all the state news media outlets. Under the amended policy, this flurry of coverage would not budge the due weight by a single bit, since the proposed amendment explicitly excludes mere viewpoints and does not allow unverifiable claims to be inserted.
Note how this amendment to the policy would not violate verifiability in any way. It would not allow for the insertion of unreliable propaganda from state media outlets or fringe theories from pseudoscientists. It would simply allow facts that are verifiable via other means to gain the prominence that reasonable editorial judgment would accord them, thereby alleviating the problem of systemic bias caused by the deprecation of conservative-leaning sources. DaysonZhang (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm surprised you managed to write this whole proposal up without saying "lamestream media" even once. Well done. Also, no, just no. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
If you think it's a bad proposal, then say why, or just leave it to wither on the vine. But I don't find this sort of glib, needling comment helpful. Colin M (talk) 17:59, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
The proposal is so obviously bad on its face that it doesn't require being picked apart point-by-point. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:14, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Then, like I said, just leave it alone. Throwing out little jabs like this is unproductive at best, and at worst will provoke more incivility and battlegroundishness in response. Colin M (talk) 22:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Without commenting whatsoever on the other points, the example for #2 seems highly problematic. Coverage of a leaked government document in a deprecated source does not guarantee that said document is authentic, in an untampered form, or properly authenticated. Unless RS verify said document as legitimate, then the document is not self-verifying. And using such a source would have issues with how primary sources should have been used here. Hog FarmTalk 01:00, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
This is a terrible idea. I cannot think of a faster way to ruin all of our credibility.--Jorm (talk) 03:06, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
How? This idea would not impact the verifiability policy in any way—only the due weight policy. If anything, it would improve Wikipedia's credibility by correcting the well-known liberal bias of the mainstream sources considered reliable by community consensus. DaysonZhang (talk) 23:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
DaysonZhang, If you can't see how this will sink our credibility, I think maybe we should talk about your WP:COMPETENCE. I'm not going to spend time arguing with you about it. Jorm (talk) 00:47, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Accusations of incompetence are serious business, since people who are severely incompetent could be banned for disruptive editing. I urge you not to lob insinuations of incompetence at other editors simply for disagreeing with you, especially if you explicitly admit that you are unwilling to provide any logical reasoning to support your views. That's a form of WP:casting aspersions. DaysonZhang (talk) 01:09, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
As for reasons why this might reduce Wikipedia's credibility, I have engaged in discussion with other users who have explained their concerns more clearly. I asked you why it would affect credibility not because I'm not aware of any of the potential concerns—in fact, I touched on a few potential concerns relative to verifiability in my original proposal—but rather because I wanted to turn this into a more productive conversation. I urge you to withdraw your insinuations of incompetence.DaysonZhang (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Sources aren't deprecated without good reason (i.e. willfully publishing hoaxes, publishing and defending news stories which are shown to be fabricated, severe and chronic lack of effective editorial control). You're suggesting that we cite outlets which have no journalistic integrity. That is not about to happen. —A little blue Boriv^_^vJéské Couriano 03:28, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
WP:NPOV: means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. (emphasis mine). While the insistence on WP:Verifiability may introduce anti-American bias, our neutrality policy says that verifiability trumps neutrality. Hawkeye7(discuss) 04:09, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
This is an irrelevant argument: the proposal is about changing the due weight policy, so citing the due weight policy back at me is circular reasoning. DaysonZhang (talk) 23:46, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
As others have said, this is a terribly bad idea. However, I will point out that there is a common theme here that does point to a different possible solution which I spoken to in the past, and that is the need to recognize that UNDUE should strongly favor sourcing farther out from events or incidents around the topic, and put less value on those sources that are published in the immediate wake of the event. To take an example of how this would work, in the first case, if the scandal really is something of import to the person in question, then sourcing down the road will factually cover it even if it from more left-leaning sources. If it is just a hypothetic "we think this is going to ruin this person's career if this proves true" but no evidence has been proven in the short-term, then per this approach to UNDUE, we should simply be ignoring this. This would also apply to the reverse, where a possible scandal of unknown import towards a conservative person is covered by RSes in the short-term -- we should be waiting to see what comes out per this time factor that should be in UNDUE. Same with #2 - the import of a leaked document may not be known for several months until its impacts emerge. A lot of the problems we have with trying to deal with bias in sourcing can be handled if we try to wait out for sources farther in time that are less likely to be biased. --Masem (t) 04:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
If the scandal really is something of import to the person in question, then sourcing down the road will factually cover it even if it from more left-leaning sources. Sure, but only using biased mainstream sources to apportion coverage would lead to coverage that is less in-depth and less prominent than the societal and historical import of the scandal would dictate. DaysonZhang (talk) 00:01, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
It's an interesting idea, but it seems like the problem it's aiming to solve is an upstream one. In your hypothetical, you have RS "hushing up" a significant scandal. But in the face of such malfeasance, the game is basically already over. We rely on RS actually being reliable (and on our community making sound judgements of reliability). I also strongly agree with Masem's point that the passage of time makes it easier to determine contextual significance. Colin M (talk) 17:48, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
No. There's the kernel of an idea here, but both the assumption (not all "right-wing" sources are banned) and the implementation (deprecated means deprecated; if the Epoch Times puts fiction on their front page every day we will not cover it) are both fatally flawed. The correct approach is to note that when assessing reliable secondary sources substantially after an event, one should keep in mind the biases that arose from using primary sources. There's no restriction on using secondary sources that analyze "unreliable sources" in their proper context. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:59, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
No Conservative sources are more than allowed. What is not allowed is conspiracist nutjob sources. Both on the left and on the right. That more conspiracist nutjob sources exist on the right is not Wikipedia's problem, but the right's problem. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:20, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Abso-and-I-cannot-stress-this-enough-fucking-lutely not. If you want to include conservative sources in articles, use ones that don't just make shit up and call it news. There are good ones out there. Use those. Stop trying to get Wikipedia to lower its standards on reliability to include shitty ones. --Jayron32 18:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
I think what editors want to continue to wrongly challenge for use are the sources that may fall outside one standard deviation of the media bias chart from Ad Fontes (which is actually a good way of looking at what we really include for the most part, on both sides - that one-standard-deviation width is about the same point where, on the y-axis, A.F. shifts the source to being more opinion-driven). --Masem (t) 18:50, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
If the sources I'm listing above aren't able to be cited for stuff that Faux News and Breitbart is writing, then maybe that should tell people something... --Jayron32 18:53, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
None of these sources are as conservative as sources like the Epoch Times. Right now we go as far left as Vox but only as far right as the Wall Street Journal. That's going to produce a systemic bias unless the due weight policy is changed. DaysonZhang (talk) 00:05, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
I think existing policy deals well with points 3 and 4. Point 1 is precisely the kind of thing that WP:BLP wants us to avoid - gossip, basically. Point 3 seems like a solution in search of a problem. If a leaked document is authenticated by reliable sources, but not covered by them, then I'm sure we could figure out how to cover it. I find it difficult to come up with a good example. Guettarda (talk) 18:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
We need to have a new additional criteria ripple through wp:V, wp:npov, and to delete any overly broad source categorizations that have been made. The new criteria should be "Objectivity and expertise with respect to the item at hand". "Item at hand" would the text which cited it, or the material under wp:weight discussion. This would leave the ~95% of articles where Wikipedia works unchanged and help fix the ~5% that have become a total mess and have lost Wkikpedia's creditability on those types of articles and plunged them into insolvable debates and problematic articles. There are a few issues baked into the old policies/ guidelines, but more importantly they have become outdated due to the changes that have happened in the media.North8000 (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
North8000, nfw. Then we'll have every jamoke on the planet arguing that Andy Ngo's opinions about Antifa need to be front and center because he's an "expert". Simply no. Jorm (talk) 19:23, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
He would immediately fail the "objectivity" standard. North8000 (talk) 19:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
North8000, No, we'd be arguing for days and days with people who will try to lawyer rules around to allow for it. There will be megabytes of talk page discussion over whether or not "according to Andy Ngo, an expert in Antifa, that they are poopypants" should be included with attribution or as a quote or whatever dumb bullshit that the right wing wants to push. We'll be having a ton of folk say "this doctor is an expert and she says vaccines don't work" and now we've got to relitigate that. This is quite simply a bad idea and we shouldn't do it. Jorm (talk) 19:56, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Well, at this point, I wanted to put out what is IMHO the context-sensitive true reliability of a source, prior to any practical implementation details which would still need to be created. Sorry if I was not clear on that. Your arguments seem to posit what would happen if we just did my 1 sentence without those details. Plus my wording was to add a criteria to be evaluated in combination with the current criteria. But either way they raise some valid concerns. IMO it's good idea to set an end goal of the right answer rather than avoiding it because a system that ends up at the wrong answer is much tidier. For brevity I used "right" /"wrong" as short for one that does / doesn't work on those problematic ~5% of situations.North8000 (talk) 21:18, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia and Wikipedia editors can have a left bias. But this is not the way to achieve a balance. If some topic is controversial enough to get an argument on Wikipedia with a lot of people involved, it is almost certainly notable, and we should be able to get other sources to support its existence. We do not need to include gossip and speculation in articles if it is only included in deprecated sources. 22:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
This is also an irrelevant argument rooted in a misunderstanding of the original proposal. The proposal only applies to cases in which the facts are verifiable through other means, such as by a limited level of coverage in reliable sources. The point is not to sneak in facts that would otherwise fail the verifiability policy, but to make the apportionment of the due weight given to facts that are verifiable more balanced by considering the level of coverage in all traditionally-published sources, including deprecated sources, to gauge the societal importance of facts. In other words, the other sources to support its existence would be there, but would not be sufficient in quantity to justify inclusion on the current policies. DaysonZhang (talk) 23:55, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Very much no, if something can only be found in unreliable sources dont then it should not be in an *ahem* encyclopedia article. If something is worth covering here it will be found in sources that are reliable. Yes, a number of right-leaning sources have been found to be unreliable. That is a result of their publishing, repeatedly, things that are provably, and proven, false. That however is not limited to right-wing sources. Daily Kos is generally avoid in RSP, Democracy Now! is at best attribute, Occupy Democrats is generally unreliable. Yes, there are more right wing sources that have been found to be unreliable. That doesnt mean that those findings show any left-wing bias, it could also mean that more sources on the right have a tendency to make things up. Regardless, unreliable sources should not be relied on for anything, including weight decisions. nableezy - 23:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
This completely misrepresents the proposal, which is about allowing deprecated sources to influence the level of emphasis given to facts that are verifiable through other means (e.g. facts that are given a large amount of coverage in deprecated sources and a small amount of coverage in sources considered reliable). The objection that if something can only be found in unreliable sources dont then it should not be in an *ahem* encyclopedia article is therefore irrelevant.DaysonZhang (talk) 23:41, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
It sounds like you're saying that when reliable sources have mentioned piece-of-information-X and given it brief coverage, but unreliable sources are melting down and screaming about piece-of-information-X all over the internet, Wikipedia should consider those meltdowns in determining how much attention to give piece-of-information-X in the article. Am I misunderstanding the proposal? Schazjmd(talk) 00:06, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
That's a polemical and in my opinion unfair way of describing the proposal, but it is otherwise accurate. Keep in mind that the proposal would only apply to sources employing traditional editorial methods—so some rando's blog wouldn't count towards due weight—and everything would still be subject to other rules relative to NPOV and verifiability. Much of the unverifiable speculation published by these sources would still be excluded. DaysonZhang (talk) 00:22, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
This suggestion reads like a manifesto for POV pushing. There is, quite literally, no possible way for this to be motivated by anything but the desire to POV push for fringe right-wing views. It completely ignores the fundamental principles of this project and would immediately destroy most of our credibility, and rapidly erode whatever credibility survived it's implementation.
So not just No nor even Hell No, but Take a wikibreak, think about what you've done, and never ever ask make such a proposal again.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 00:28, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the confirmation, DaysonZhang; I wanted to be sure I was clear on the proposal before forming an opinion. No support for proposed change to WP:DUE. Too many sources that are considered wp-unreliable, even those with traditional editorial methods, are willing to foment manufactured outrage. If we can't trust their reliability with basic facts, we certainly should not give weight to their judgement on what's newsworthy or important. Schazjmd(talk) 00:44, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
This proposal is withdrawn, per WP:SNOW. There is significant community consensus against the idea. While some responses to the idea have been hostile, low-content, and unproductive, other responses were tied to legitimate concerns. DaysonZhang (talk) 19:14, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
User profiles, wikidata and allow to have links to other profile languages
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Can we officially allow (vote) a user to create a wikidata page only for the purpose of linking to profiles in different languages? Current it is not officially strictly allowed. [Source & Discussion] ✍️ Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 21:23, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
You lost me at "profiles." Wikipedia explcitly is not social media. I'm assuming you are referring to user pages. If that's not it, please clarify. (You can, however, create a global user page that will display the same on every WMF wiki where you do not have a local userpage. Yours would be here. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:43, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Interwiki linking user pages by Wikdata is something you'll have to get approved there, not here. But it's already possible to create interwikilinks that appear in the sidebar by inserting e.g. [[sk:USER:Dušan Kreheľ]] on your user page. The meta user page introduced above is also an option. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:50, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Wide-Ranging Content Disputes
I am not exactly sure where I should be asking this question, but it is sort of a policy question. I am not asking it at Idea Lab or Village Pump - Proposals because I don't have an idea or a proposal.
The general question is how we should do dispute resolution for content disputes beyond the basic charter of Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. DRN is said to be for simple article content disputes that can be resolved in two to three weeks. At the time that DRN was established, there was also a Mediation Committee, which handled more complex disputes, which had formal procedures, formal entry requirements, including the agreement of all parties, and a list of mediators. The entry requirements included having tried previous forms of dispute resolution, including at least article talk page discussion, and sometimes DRN, and sometimes RFC. DRN was not intended to handle cases that either would take longer than two to three weeks or spanned multiple articles.
In 2017 and 2018, there were two offsetting issues with the Mediation Committee. It didn't accept any cases, and it wasn't clear if it had any mediators. In late 2018, an RFC was started to disband the Mediation Committee. The proponent of disbanding was User:Beeblebrox. The editors who argued most strongly in favor of retaining the Mediation Committee were User:TransporterMan and me. The RFC carried, and the Mediation Committee was marked as historical. So we no longer have a procedure that is designed to handle complex content disputes, meaning either disputes that will take months to resolve, or disputes spanning multiple articles. Some of the editors who called for disbanding the Mediation Committee said that DRN should be strengthened or improved. I haven't been aware of any improvements to DRN, which still resolves some disputes, and doesn't resolve some disputes.
So my general question is whether anyone has any actual ideas for how we should handle complex article content disputes, either taking months to resolve, or involving multiple articles.
Why I am asking right now is that I have been dealing with an article dispute at DRN in which the parties have said that they want to expand the scope of the content resolution to multiple articles. The content dispute has already lasted for three weeks and is not approaching conclusion yet. But the parties say that they want to expand the case to include multiple articles. So has anyone been thinking in the last two-and-one-half years about how to handle complex content disputes?
I am not at this time saying what the substance of the content dispute is, but it may not be difficult to figure out, and, if you understand what the statements about statements about what may has been reported, you will sort of understand the complexity.
Robert McClenon (talk) 05:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
I think I partially agree with you on the lack of robust dispute resolution currently at Wikipedia. We don't have any sort of mediation processes, we have DRN and RFCs and WP:3O, but we don't have any agreed-upon process for bringing together the sides of an intractable dispute and reaching some sort of reasonable compromise or consensus. My understanding of the problem with the Mediation Committee in 2018 was not that Wikipedia shouldn't have a Mediation Committee, it was that Wikipedia didn't have a Mediation Committee, in the sense that there was not a sufficient amount of people willing to do the hard work of mediating disputes of this nature. If the people necessary to do the work don't exist, there's no point in maintaining that they do. I think I could get behind such a thing if we had both a group of dedicated editors who wanted to participate in it, a method of promoting new volunteers to work in the field if to assure continuing effectiveness of the process, and a means of assuring ongoing community backing for the process. It's doable in theory, but whether we have the necessary human infrastructure to pull it off, I'm not sure. --Jayron32 14:29, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon:, I understand and agree with your concerns, here. I'm currently involved in a dispute that is the year-old culmination of a dispute that's as old as WP, and despite the fact that there has been an overwhelming consensus for some time, it's nonetheless remained a dumpster fire, because there's nothing but RfC results that can be pointed to as a answer (to which the detractors inevitably shout that "consensus is subject to change!"), and no way of structuring a moratorium on continuing the dispute (in the form of a consensus to not humor objections to the result unless they meet certain criteria). Arbcom has been discussed at length, but that's untenable as it would, at least in the eyes of many editors, essentially require Arbcom to rule on a content dispute.
@Jayron32: and Robert: For what it's worth, I would volunteer to help mediate disputes if we can get a new mediation committee going. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 14:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia theory (or a movie line): 'If you build it, they will come' A corollary, 'if you tear it down, there is nowhere to go.' We won't have mediation, as long as we don't have any mediation projects and Wikipedia projects are always individual user driven (aside, I thought the 'Mediation Cabal' -- which was different from, and complimentary to MedCom was great back in the day). Thus, when a project is shut down, it's the people who would be interested in the project area who are shut down. At any rate, structuring up from the current DR board makes sense for a next step, for something that is a bit more structured. And I think the place to get ideas for structure is to look at both the cabal and mediation files (the actual cases). Perhaps the sweet-spot at the moment is a bit more structure than DR and a bit less structure than the old MedCom. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
The more I think about this the more vested I get. In fact, I'm volunteering at DRN now to get started. I believe that this is something with great potential to improve this project. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 16:08, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't have an answer for you, but I certainly hope the goal here is not resurrecting MedCom. The RFC didn't really get into the deeper issues with the entire way it was operated, which were badly, painfully, out of step with the way the rest of this project is run, because the fact that it didn't actually do anything for years on end was enough of a reason to shut it down. I don't know why it is even brought up except to suggest that it would have or could have been helpful when the overwhelming evidence showed clearly that it was not. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, sort of, for the comments. User:Jayron32 and User:Beeblebrox appear to be saying different things about MedCom. Jayron is saying that the problem in 2018 was that we didn't have a Mediation Committee. Beeblebrox seems to be saying that the problem was that we shouldn't have had a Mediation Committee, and is saying that we shouldn't reconstruct the Mediation Committee. This seems to leave us where we usually are when any question is asked about dispute resolution for cases that are not considered simple. It is always agreed that something should be done. Whenever someone asks questions about details of what is being considered, it always turns out that no one is entirely sure.
So maybe User:Beeblebrox can say what are the aspects of MedCom that they do not want to reconstruct, and that they thought were problematic, so as maybe to think of something else?
One of the criticisms of the Mediation Cabal was that it didn't have any teeth, but that seems a little silly, because the Mediation Committee didn’t have any teeth, and DRN doesn't have any teeth. The Editorial Board has teeth where the rest of that idea is, which isn't here.
Just to clarify, I am asking about content disputes, not conduct disputes.
So, we are talking about bringing back MedCom? Ok, here's where I'd start in identifying the main issues I expect the community would have with that:
The close of the RFC indicated a strong consensus to disband it. I've seen no indication that that has changed.
The entire process at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy#Membership and appointment. Only those already in the group have any say on who is in it, and all such business is conducted off-wiki in total secrecy. Can you imagine if ArbCom simply elected itself, indefinitely and in secret?
In the last two years it was even open, one user did nearly all the work, a chairman who's term had expired, but interest was so low that there had been no call for an election. That is not a committee, it is one person making all the decisions themselves. For all practical purposes MedCom actually ended well before the RFC.
The overall success rate over the last five years of MedCom seems to be around 1-2% of the total number of cases filed, while the overall success rate for the last two years it was active is 0% by any measure.
The only way to make MedCom truly effective would be to make it's decisions binding instead of being an entirely voluntary process. We can't possibly do that with a self-selecting group of 1-4 people. They would effectively have editorial oversight over the entire project.
That's where I'd start with any proposal for a severely reformed recreation of this obsolete process. Pretty much every one of these points is a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:36, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
About MedCom
No, User:Beeblebrox. I was not asking about restarting MedCom. I said that I wanted to know what aspects of MedCom he considered to be problematic, so that we can think of something else. But I thank him for answering my question, and will address the points.
1. The fact that there was a strong consensus to disband it is not a reason in itself, but the result of other reasons. Beeblebrox has listed some of them.
2. The MedCom was a self-perpetuating committee. That was a problem, and should have been remedied. I do not recall that being brought up in the RFC discussion, but it was a problem.
3. One member, User:TransporterMan, was doing nearly all the work, because their committee had expired or drifted away. That was a problem, and it was recognized that the MedCom needed new people.
4. The overall success rate was very low, between 0% and 2%. That may or may not indicate anything, because it doesn't distinguish between cases declined and cases that failed. Many cases were filed with MedCom that were stupid, were conduct disputes, or were otherwise not appropriate. It was (and should have been) easy to file, and few cases should have been accepted.
5. Beeblebrox says that the only way to make MedCom truly effective would be to make its decisions binding. I disagree. MedCab was considered effective, and it was voluntary and non-binding. DRN is voluntary and non-binding, and sometimes resolves disputes. Does this really mean that voluntary processes should be deprecated?
Thank you for explaining what the issues were. I was not asking about reconstructing MedCom, but about why it was considered problematic.
We don't have a process that is identified as suitable for dealing with content disputes that are not simple. Every time that dispute resolution of complex content disputes is mentioned, there is agreement that such a process would be a good idea, and it is left at that.
Robert McClenon (talk) 04:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
The self-perpetuating part did come up as an aside in the RFC, but I did purposefully not mention in it in the proposal to close it because I considered the almost total inactivity,lack of active volunteers, and failure to actually resolve any disputes for years on end more than enough of a reason to just close it, as opposed to reforming its internal processes. To be clear, I'm not opposed to the basic idea that there may be some better way to resolve content disputes, I just don't think it should be modeled on MedCom since it failed and had significant internal issues. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:03, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
MedCom seemed like a bad institution from the stuff xeno linked in the UCOC consultation. Also some comments from me here. There's no serious differentiator between two non-binding mediation processes (some kind of MedCom vs DRN). Either you have something electable, transparent, and binding; or staffed with professional mediators paid by the WMF. Both would be meaningful differentiators. Otherwise just improve DRN. But there should be a way to resolve intractable content disputes without waiting for them to turn into conduct ones. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:26, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Not About MedCom
I will repeat myself, and will say that I am not proposing restarting MedCom. I will say again that we need some process for handling content disputes that do not fall within the current stated scope of DRN, which is simple disputes that can be settled in two to three weeks. I will first try to list some of the ideas that have been mentioned in passing. User:ProcrastinatingReader says that you can either have something elected, transparent, and binding, or professional mediators provided by the WMF, or just improve DRN. That is a useful set of ideas.
First, I will propose one idea to improve DRN. That is simply to tweak its stated scope to drop the restriction to simple content disputes that can be settled in two to three weeks. We already do handle disputes that take longer to settle. I sometimes have disputes in which it takes me a week to get the parties to be concise and specific. The limitation to small content disputes may originally been to distinguish DRN from either MedCom or Mediation Cabal, which handled longer and more complex disputes. I know that occasionally a DRN volunteer would refer a dispute to MedCom. Now that there no longer is a MedCom, DRN should drop the limitation. In practice, it sometimes does, but the limitation may discourage disputants from starting at DRN.
I welcome other ideas to improve DRN. I was about to say that I welcome any other ideas to improve DRN, but there is a two-part idea that I will discuss below, although I am not sure that I welcome it, and that is making DRN either mandatory or binding.
Several years ago User:Jimbo Wales mentioned that the WMF could hire professional mediators. The idea has been mentioned again from time to time. I thought it seemed like a good idea at least as an experiment, until Framgate. I am no longer sure that the WMF can be trusted to reduce conflicts that need reducing, and am concerned that it and its people might act arbitrarily. Professional mediators do not act arbitrarily, but I am not sure that I trust the WMF to know real professional mediators. However, if the idea of professional mediation is mentioned again, it should be discussed, preferably in depth.
ProcrastinatingReader mentions something elected, transparent, and binding. I think that we agree that any mediation mechanism should be transparent, and that MedCom was opaque. Election of volunteers by volunteers would be an alternative to the current system which simply requests volunteers. I am not sure what benefit election would have.
It is said that DRN has no teeth. That statement is true but unhelpful, unless it is accompanied by an explanation of what sort of teeth are proposed. More specifically, DRN is voluntary and non-binding. Participation in DRN, and in most other dispute resolution processes, is voluntary. There is no penalty for failure to agree to DRN. DRN is also non-binding unless it results in an RFC. RFC is the only dispute resolution process that is binding on the community (because it is the process that the community takes part in). I don't like the idea of making mediation binding except by RFC.
Those are my thoughts on either DRN or something else that isn't opaque or self-perpetuating.
Robert McClenon (talk) 04:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
I think one thing that would help DRN is more volunteers. Not only for the sake of legitimacy, if there's to be binding solutions, but because different approaches of different people might help. We do have a few editors who I think would make great mediators in the editor base. For example, EdChem seemed impressive in the periodic table disputes. Another interesting example was CaptainEek's mediation here. I'd be interested to hear how they characterise those experiences. Though I appreciate mediation takes a lot of time, as its success is entirely in whether you manage to bridge the gap between parties who might be poles apart, compared to venues that can rule without consent of participating editors (eg any conduct venue like ANI). A lot of editors might ask themselves if it's worth that time helping people settle a dispute over a couple sentences, verses being able to write a whole article in the same time.
There's also the "there's no problem here" argument. Wikipedia is one of the best broad encyclopaedic resources, and has reliable content on many disputed topics under the current models, so the processes must be working in the long run. I think also a lot of disputes just 'don't matter' in the bigger picture, and so 'the right/wrong version' doesn't matter either. The consensus model has some fundamental drawbacks in general, and I think this is just one of them. That's not to say we can't do better, but my feeling is the possibility of being able to do better tends not to motivate change around here ("if it ain't broken", "don't fuck with the formula", etc).
Based on my experiences here, in most topics I don't know whether I'd propose mediation compared to just soliciting more input, unless the topic was so boring to others that more input was impossible. IME the latter is more binding and much faster, and has a much greater success rate. In a way, you could say this approach is antithetical towards the non-Wikipedia definition of collaboration. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:54, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
As a DRN volunteer, I have some thoughts.....take them for what they are worth.
1st- Volunteering at the DRN is a stressful, thankless, difficult and time consuming role. I have had to learn more in depth data about arcane topics than I ever wanted to. But- its been very interesting for sure. I've noticed our disputes almost all fall into one of these categories:
1. Is this source reliable /more reliable / acceptable / ignorable?
2. We need to give more/less attention to this detail I like/hate
3. Nationalistic disputes
4. Grammar / Writing disputes
Rarely do we get cases that don't fall into those categories. We also get a lot of cases that shouldn't be coming to us- but those are pretty easy to close and send onward. But I would say probably 1/3 of the time Robert and I spend on the DRN involves closing disputes, or trying to get everyone to agree to participate, 1/2 is spent trying to get them to cut their argument to its core (IE- be concise), and that leaves about 15% of our time working on actual disputes- and these can last weeks, if not months. And then- when they are resolved, we just walk away and any residual issues are either resolved, or come back as their own issue shortly after. Many of our cases end up on the ANI for one reason or another- and more than once, the volunteers get pulled in and accused of various wrongdoings as well on the ANI. All of this analysis to explain ... I see the need for process improvement, but I'm not sure what that improvement should be. I would love to have editors take a "How to solve conflict" class. Or perhaps "How to debate without using insults and assuming your opponent is an idiot" but that is unlikely to happen. I wish people would also recognize their own bias in the language they prefer.... but thats unlikely as well. More volunteers would be amazing. We do have some that do a lot of the "clerking" so to speak- closing or re-directing unnecessary cases. But Robert does the lion's share of work, and I do what I can when I'm not slammed at my real world job. There are some other excellent volunteers as well- but we are short staffed, and thats problematic. Nightenbelle (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, Thanks for pinging me on this one. That was an interesting experiment I led, which was basically DRN Lite. I have sometimes considered volunteering at DRN, but something has always stopped me. Not sure what, perhaps the seeming complexity, or the time involved. With my DRN Lite mediation, I found that it took a significant amount of time, and that I found myself dreading replying. Now, usually I would have just put together an RfC. But with this issue, the participants were, well, kinda bad at communicating what it was they wanted, and there were several different viewpoints. In some ways, the mediation was so that I could try to understand the locus of the dispute, and therefore be better at proposing a solution.
My analysis of our current dispute resolution processes is that for the most part, they work. The most frequent reason they fail is that the participants are stubborn or won't play by the rules. This is a problem greater than Wikipedia; teaching cooperation is the sort of thing our society needs more of and hasn't been great at in recent years. In some ways, Wikipedia has been self selecting. Those who are good at cooperating and having rational conversations tend to stick around, and those who don't get sent out the airlock sooner or later. I think that's a good thing: we are built on collegiality and consensus building, and if you aren't good at that, you won't fit in here. That is why we most frequently have disputes among new users, and those disputes most often lead to bad outcomes. Not that experienced users can't have long and intractable disputes, but I think that is fairly rare. If it does happen, usually it leads to an Arb case because the issue is fundamentally deeper. Otherwise, our experienced users solve many, many disputes everyday.
So the underlying question is: how can we lessen the dispute casualty rate among new editors. Short of making every editor (or person in the world for that matter) take a course on dispute resolution and how to be nice, I don't see an obvious silver bullet. I think making dispute resolution more binding will lead to more problems, not less. Resurrecting MedCom, or something similar, will increase our bureaucratic overhead greatly for little gain. I think we as experienced editors could probably do a better job teaching new editors how to work with others, I'm going to mull how I could do a better job there myself. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 18:47, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Huh? You are not going to teach anyone anything, they are going to partcipate in a process, what they learn or not is up to them. We have projects, projects (from Mihist to FAQ, to FAR to DYK, to DR to MOS to etc.) select and have rules. (Mediators in real life and on the pedia select and have rules). It's certainly not a matter of this place being filled with rational-cooperratives, which sounds like magical nonsense. Academic disgreements about how to express information happen, and they benefit from refereeing. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:23, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Alanscottwalker, Well we certainly have a lot of refereeing. I would argue that much of that refereeing has been done by admins over the years who step in and kick out trouble makers, or or ask for calm or otherwise try to propose useful solutions. Trying to mediate and propose useful solutions is something anyone with any experience level can do for that matter, and it happens a great deal. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Admins, if they come in as admins are often the worst at refereeing, perhaps because they imagine some fanciful world of only dark/light, where everyone is divided into troublemaker bucket or not (a case of, to a hammer everything looks like a nail, perhaps). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:40, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
I do think having more binding content dispute resolution mechanisms will help forestall conduct issues (though the specific implementation details can affect things). One method that has been used in the past is enacting a moratorium period for revisiting a decision (I wrote up a proposal based on this where I called it a revisit respite; in my proposal, the closer would have to agree with any revisit before the respite period is over). When editors know that a decision can't be revisited constantly (unless a significant new factor is introduced), they have an incentive to reach a compromise that addresses at least some of their concerns. Today, editors don't have an incentive to work within the context of a decision with which they disagree: as long as there are a few vocal dissenting editors, they know they can wait to revisit the issue in the intermediate future. isaacl (talk) 20:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Isaacl, Well, there is a way to make the results of a mediation, as "binding", as is possible, but that involves before the end of the mediation constructing a well researched and well constructed actionable RfC, (see eg. Muhammed Images, which has lasted for nine years, now.) If the RfC fails to reach a consensus, then that is a set back, but perhaps a further compromise can arise out of it. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:15, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
To the extent that DRN volunteers (I was going to say mediators but that seems fraught) are on board with an expansion of the DRN scope I think it should be done. I think spreading the scope too much could make it hard to get the right people to agree to participate so that's a note of caution I would throw out there. I could also be sold that we could use other forms of DR - some of the ideas at User:Isaacl/Community/Content dispute resolution toolbox have struck me as useful. Big picture, what I would like to see foundation resources go to, and there's some hint of this in the 2030 strategic plan so maybe it'll happen, is to fund training for volunteers. So we wouldn't get professional mediators but we would get volunteers who have been formally trained (and perhaps even mentored) by professionals. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:14, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Anyone who, like me, has spent time working at DRN, MedCom, and/or MedCab knows this: It is incredibly hard, tedious work that, as a form of mediation (in all three venues), only "works" in the sense of even being able to be conducted a fraction of the time and only "works" in the sense of actually resolving a dispute once in a blue moon. I'm not here to rehearse old wounds, but if you look at the actual success rate at DRN, comparing successful outcomes against all cases filed (including those summarily closed), its success rate is only marginally better than was MedCom's (and part of MedCom's even lower success rate was that it only got the cases that lower forms of DR, most usually DRN, had already failed at resolving). Most volunteers at DRN, at least those who sign up on the volunteer list, are joiners who never take a case. Those who do take a case often don't last beyond that one case (and often not even all the way through it) and there's rarely more than one or two individuals who regularly take and mediate cases at any given time - and without whom DRN would collapse (as it has, in fact, been on the knife's edge of doing more than once). That's been its history since it was founded.
Mediation work is simply too hard, and requires too much knowledge about policy, procedure, and "what's usual", along with the long-suffering patience of Job, profound cat-herding skills, and strong carrot-and-stick disciplinary skills, to attract a large cadre of people to do it. (There's also this: DR is a haven for people who have better bureaucratic/administrative skills than editing skills. Those who can pass a RFA do so after collecting the "DR hat" and, virtually always, go on to other administrative pursuits and leave DR behind. Those of us who cannot pass a RFA for one reason or another - and I use the word "us" intentionally since I am one - just keep doing DR until we burn out.)
Here's my two cents: No form of DR which is mediation-like and which needs all parties to voluntarily participate in order to have even a ghost of a chance for a successful resolution will ever be more than what DR is now. It may take different forms such as DRN, MedCom, and MedCab, but you'll never have a large, active volunteer group or more than a small number of successful outcomes. (That's the reason that I now consider Third Opinion and, to a much lesser extent, RFC to be the most successful forms of DR at WP. Neither of them requires participation to "work" or be successful. With 3O, opinions are offered and the parties take them or leave them, but it's been my experience that they settle the dispute more often than not but that's largely because only two editors are involved and, more often than not, one or the other of them, or both, is a newcomer. In RFC, which often fails to achieve enough participation from third-party editors and often fails to achieve consensus even then, a party either has to participate or be ignored, so they usually participate, like it or not.) The long and short of it is that I think that this is an endless discussion so long as some form of binding content arbitration with required participation cannot be adopted. And that's been proposed, and rejected, by the community many, many times. Doing anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Flying Dutchman. Removing the short-case requirement at DRN could do the trick, but I'm concerned that it might make DRN even less appealing for new volunteers than it is now and might risk its collapse. A better choice might be to reopen MedCab, retain the short-case nature of DRN, but make DRN be more open to kicking complex cases to MedCab right away without beating on them at DRN first. But then the volunteer issue raises its head: Getting volunteers for MedCab just thins the volunteer pool for DRN even further. In any event, I consider myself quasi-semi-sorta-kinda-halfway retired from WP at this point and only do the occasional bit of DR maintenance work and give the rare Third Opinion, so what do I know? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
We have basically already lifted the short dispute requirement. Cases we deal with now can take two weeks to months. Thats not short. And thats with active, daily posting. We just haven't officially changed the rules. We can't really broaden our scope because- there are maaaaaybe 4 active volunteers. I haven't seen anyone else take a case in months. I take a week or two off here and there- poor Robert doesn't. He's the backbone of the DRN- and the person who keeps it running when everyone else needs a break. So- if there would be a way to recruit more help- great lets do more! But if its just- expand the scope but keep the current team. Please don't. What we need, IMO, is a better process- not more too process. Nightenbelle (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Change to “Settled” Terminology
The page for many cities and regions around the globe contains the descriptor “Settled” followed by the year in which colonization began in that area. Clearly, this descriptor is misleading, as most of these areas had long been settled by indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of Europeans or other colonizers. I suggest that Wikimedia and Wikipedia take steps to address this by changing their terminology to something that accurately describes what occurred, such as “Year of European Colonization” or “Colonization Began In…”. or otherwise altering the terminology to indicate the true time of first human settlement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sundown96 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
This sounds like a reasonable request to make, although it does depend on context. Regarding specifics of implementation, should we make some sort of change to ((infobox settlement))? Or would this be an MOS issue? Sundown96, it'd be good to have examples of places you've encountered this. ((u|Sdkb))talk 01:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
The terminology is present on many (but not all) cities/settled areas around the world, but seems to be more common in the US. For example, the pages for Chicago, Manhattan, Miami, and Accra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sundown96 (talk • contribs) 05:49, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Don't know how it was done technically, but something like what we have for Jerusalem may be more appropriate here. 147.161.13.153 (talk) 09:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Its going to need a case-by-case evaluation, because while certainly many areas would have been populated by indigenous peoples at the time of colonization, they would not necessarily been 'settled'. The nomadic nature of many indigenous people means that 'settled' is certainly an incorrect word to apply to them. Generally its the technical term for the first perm settlement in an area. Certainly for many current cities that were situated on tribal land, they would indeed have been the first settlement there. Despite people having lived in the area for thousands of years previously. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:43, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't think its a good idea to pass some sort of blanket recommendation/ban. Its a case by case matter. Some places really were settled, others colonized. And as is, many such articles already mention that the areas were first inhabited by indigenous groups before colonizer groups arrived. Above all, this is a semantics dispute that I don't think has any good or easy solution, and I thus think the status quo should be kept. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
CaptainEek, when it comes to addressing issues of systemic bias, I'm disinclined to go with the "keep the status quo" approach, as the status quo is reflective of our past bias, so keeping it just perpetuates that bias. But more generally, I agree with you that the context of individual cases is important. The most we might be able to say for now is that this is something we should keep in mind when choosing our language, and if someone gets in a dispute over trying to force "settled" into an article about a place that had clearly been settled by a non-nomadic indigenous population previously, they'll hopefully find this discussion and be able to point to it as precedent. ((u|Sdkb))talk 05:51, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
You make a good point sdkb, it is important for us to be cognizant of our language, and to be correct in our use of it. I certainly don't oppose efforts to make better distinction of settled/colonized. I just don't think we should make some blanket proclamation on usage :) CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:15, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
I would oppose such a blanket policy. As others mentioned, some of these cities weren't settlements by anyone prior to the city in question. Also, how would this be applies to say towns/cities in places like the UK which were originally established by the Romans? If there really was no already settled at the location prior to the founding of the settlement then this really is the correct term. Springee (talk) 13:29, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Several issues: 1) is the claim, "settle" is ambiguous? That can be handled several ways by clarifying text but it would seem the first thing to do is look to standard dictionaries and RS. 2) It may well be true that 'history is written by . . .', especially for societies without writing, or lost writing, but there does not seem much the pedia can do about that. 3) it may vary by location. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:26, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
So, I think I respect the spirit of what the OP is saying, however, there is a lot of nuance to how this sort of thing is implemented, and while in some cases, the word "settled" may be inappropriate, in other cases, it does make sense. Consider the following differences:
The Southern part of Britain was settled by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century AD.
The city of London was settled by the Romans as Londinium around 50 AD.
Statement 1 is incorrect; the southern part of Britain was colonized by the Anglo-Saxons. There were already people settled in southern Britain at that time, the various Celtic peoples and Roman peoples (each of whom, it should be noted, also colonized the land from prior settlers. Every group of colonizers becomes the settled group that the next group of colonizers displaces).
Statement 2 is correct; while there were likely people living along the Thames river valley for thousands of years, the entity known as London (which is to say, the city of London) did not exist until the Romans settled it. Whatever had existed there before was essentially unrelated to the later settlement of Londinium, whose name slowly changed to London over time. The fact that non-Roman people lived in the area beforehand doesn't mean that the city as an entity existed earlier than that.
Just a reminder that, while we do want to be correct, we don't want to overcorrect. People lived on the island of Manhattan prior to European colonization. The city of New York, however, did not exist at that time, and is a creation of the Europeans. To imply that New York was settled before the Europeans arrived is anachronistic. The land that would later become New York was, but that's a sometimes missed distinction. --Jayron32 14:37, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Would an article that is existing phenomenon get deleted if I won't be able to find proper sources to it, even if Wikipedia community would find it important?
Hi everyone. I'v been plannin for quite some time to make an article that would be called "Secondary uses of items", or maybe "Unofficial purposes of items", or possibly even "Contrived employment of items", but I haven't started the project in fear that it would simply get deleted. The article would be about items that have two or more existing uses for them, of which the second one, third one and so on is invented by people/communities, and not inteded by original designer of the item. For example, sunglasses would have 3 purposes. #1 intended purpose (blocking Sun's UV rays / preventing bright sunlight), #2 use by blind people and #3 use by poker players. The fear of deletion comes from the fact that finding references to this kind of article is really hard, even though it is real and existing phenomenon. I guess it could be that I'm simply not using the right search terms for the search engines I use. Should I still start this project and hope that someone will find sources for it or should I completely abandon this project? --Pek~enwiki (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
A better term might be "Unintended use"; here's a source that's not great, but along the lines of what you're talking about. BD2412T 06:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea, and BD2412's search term seems to be helpful, finding, for example, this and this. A note of caution, however. Wikipedia's new page patrollers tend to follow instructions to the letter rather than think much about what they are doing, so it can be difficult to get articles about general concepts, rather than subjects which have fixed names so are easy to search on Google, past them. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:52, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
I'd suggest starting with a draft at Draft:Unintended use, and work it up there. If a better title becomes apparent it can always be changed. BD2412T 20:05, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
I didn't even know there was a draft option. How amazing! I will definitely feel more confident trying this article project in draft first. Thank you immensely! --Pek~enwiki (talk) 14:15, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Pek~enwiki, Another possibility is to start it in your userspace, i.e. in your sandbox. Draft space is good because it's explicitly for things that aren't done yet, so there's very little pressure to get it right on any kind of schedule, although if you don't work on something for long enough (i.e. 6 months), it may get deleted anyway. User space is even more forgiving, with essentially no time limit. I generally start thing in my userspace. Most of my ideas never go anywhere, but nobody cares because they're in userspace. Sometimes an idea will kick around in my userspace for years before I get around to finishing it. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:27, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Interesting idea. If you can find any RS that talk about the topic directly, I think it'd be a slam dunk. If it's only sourced to RS discussions of specific individual cases of "unintended use", then bringing them together might be in the neighbourhood of original research. Colin M (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't really see the need for this proposed article or the existing article Teratix mentioned. Is there really anything more to this than "sometimes people use items in ways not originally intended"? That's not a topic, that's a definition. --Khajidha (talk) 16:03, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
I think both topics are societally important, and there is a distinction between them. Repurposing seems to be more about taking discarded things and creating a new use for them, i.e., "I found this old office desk at the junkyard, I'm going to clean it up and make it into a cooking island in my kitchen"; the phenomenon being described here is more like, "we manufactured these individual paper makeup removers, but everyone is using them to blow their nose, so we are going to rebrand them for that purpose". BD2412T 16:14, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
But is there really anything else to say about either topic? Not the individual examples, but the entire topic. It's still just "sometimes people use items in ways not originally intended." --Khajidha (talk) 16:45, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Of course there is more to say about both topics. Just about anything could be described in the way you do, but, luckily, some people have a bit more ambition and write more based on the available sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
CSD G5 policy
There seems to be some genuine disagreement among editors and admins on whether or not an editor can "take responsibility" of the work of a blocked sockpuppet. This would not be proxying because these are not actions taken at the direction of a blocked editor, these are articles that were started by an editor who was later discovered to be a sockpuppet but a different editor wants a CSD G5 deleted article restored or a CSD G5 tag removed under the condition that this second editor was taking responsibility for the edits. This matter has come up twice in the past two weeks with sockpuppet editors who made contributions that were valued by other editors working in the same subject area.
I have seen different responses to these requests at WP:REFUND by different admins and different attitudes among admins and editors towards this subject. On one end, some want every article a sockpuppet has created deleted from the project (even when other editors have contributed to the article) and on the other end are those who believe another editor can accept responsibility and the work can be restored or retained. Typically, I'd post this question on WT:CSD but since it involves a wider range of admins and editors than those who comment on that talk page, I thought I'd raise the question here and see if there was the feeling that it would be worth setting up an RFC or having a fuller discussion. LizRead!Talk! 04:22, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Liz, I've always assumed that it is acceptable to take ownership of a sock edit if one chooses to do so. If this is something that is not clear I think a RfC here would make sense. Springee (talk) 04:28, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
There is no better way to disrupt the community than to promote work by a banned user. Actually, one better way is to make a fuss about the removal of a banned user's edits. There will be isolated cases where taking ownership is reasonable, but it should be done with care that the result is a benefit to the encyclopedia. At any rate, there will never be agreement on the issue because some editors believe more is good while others believe there is no deadline and worthwhile material will find its way into the encyclopedia without unnecessary drama. Johnuniq (talk) 05:14, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
We should not care who wrote any piece of text on Wikipedia in the same way we should not care why they wrote it. All we should care about is whether it improves the encyclopaedia for our readers (see Wikipedia:Comment on content, not on the contributor for example). If a page is a well-written article or template or whatever then keeping it means our readers are better served than they are by a redlink. I don't think this is promoting banned users, but even if it is then so what? Wikipedia gets the benefits, what does it matter if someone else does too it's not a zero-sum game. Thryduulf (talk) 22:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
If we're accepting the edits of banned users when they are good edits and not when they're bad edits, then we are treating them like every other user, as that's our general standards Eliminating the idea of banned users like that would put a real crimp in our ability to maintain Wikipedia. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:35, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Banned users are banned to prevent disruption, though. They're not banned for any other reason - or if they are, they shouldn't be. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Johnuniq, I totally understand your concerns. I've been targeted by a particular blocked user and I was frustrated when their edits were reinstated by another editor who felt the sock/blocked editor made a good edit. However, I feel like this is a gene and bottle issue. Take the extreme case, a blocked editor corrects a spelling problem. Someone might blanket revert all of the sock edits per EVADE but we would hope the spelling error would then be corrected by a new editor who would then take ownership of it. If the sock adds, new, good content then any editor is free to revert per EVADE even if under normal circumstances the edit would be seen as an improvement. However, once the edit/new source/etc is out there how can we object to an editor in good standing liking the idea and reinserting it as, in effect, their own? The only thing I could think that we could do is say, "you can't use the UNDO feature to restore the bad edit". That seams like an impractical rule. Again, I'm coming with the perspective of someone who had to deal with an aggressive sock for a while. Springee (talk) 13:40, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, an RFC. We should confirm what current consensus is on this subject. Levivichharass/hound 23:59, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
This has been thrashed out before. Previous mega-disruption led to an Arbcom motion (January 2016) prohibiting restoration of edits by banned editors relating to WP:ARBR&I. There will never be a consensus on the issue because the two sides don't understand the other's point of view. It's purism (who cares who wrote it?) versus those concerned about the effects of facilitating banned users. The Arbcom motion was necessary because certain contributors systematically exploit weaknesses meaning they restore virtually every edit by a banned user because they can. There is no possibility of a rule that fits all cases. Johnuniq (talk) 01:18, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah but what percentage of editors who are editing today were editing five years ago? Opinions may be different now. Levivichharass/hound 04:22, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
I have seen the argument that if a non-banned editor determines that the content of an article is appropriate then the article can be kept, while G5 is primarily for relieving non-banned editors of the burden of determining whether such articles can be deleted. In other words, G5 may be used but is not required to be used when it applies. The owner of all ✌️ 18:56, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Let's get down to brass tacks here. One of the proximate causes of this thread appears to be my contesting of speedy deletion of pages created by User:Kashmorwiki. In most circumstances I would agree that a blocked/banned editor should have any creations deleted, but for these particular articles which were written completely neutrally and clearly passed WP:NPOL I made an exception. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:01, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
RfC: add (preferred gender) pronoun parameter for Infobox person?
There is a clear consensus against this proposal. It is pointed out in the discussion that this has been discussed several times recently, and seemingly remains generally unpopular for a variety of reasons that do not necessarily overlap. As a general feeling, the cases where this genuinely helps beyond what a simple mention in the text would is potentially outweighed by a rather larger number of articles where its existence would lead to dispute. Given this is another non-formal RfC discussion following two other fairly recent ones, it feels appropriate to close this under WP:SNOW to avoid wasting more time. ~ mazcatalk 20:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Background. The PGP page states that they "have come into use as a way of promoting equity and inclusion for transgender and genderqueer people." There have been cases in the past where a notable person has come out as transgender and/or genderqueer, which is accompanied by, either implicitly or explicitly, a request (and perhaps an expectation) for the public to refer to them using one or more sets of pronouns that accord with their gender identity. Some examples of such an occurrence include, in no particular order, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Courtney Stodden, Caitlyn Jenner, and Elliot Page. In each case, this necessitated an overhaul of the pronouns used in the article on that person. Presumably, this would've also affected articles that mentions said person, but that won't have anything to do with an Infobox per se, although this is not relevant to my proposal. I'm not sure if it's possible to accurately estimate the number of times this has happened in the history of English Wikipedia, which would, in my opinion, partially determine the necessity for this proposed new parameter.
Rationale. In most cases, after the overhaul of the person's own article has been completed, a reader would not have trouble deducting from the opening paragraph, if that, what the person's preferred pronouns would be. One example would be the above-mentioned Elliot Page article --- the fact that Elliot uses he/him/his pronouns is as clear in this article as the same would be for any other article on a person. In these cases, a pronoun parameter would not be strictly necessary. However, this may not be the case in a few situations.
If a person prefers the pronoun set they/them/theirs, as is the case for Courtney Stodden, a reader who is not necessarily familiar with the singular they pronoun (as well as those whose dialects don't allow for such usage) may be confused as to the antecedent of these pronouns. For example, the second sentence of the article starts thusly: "After competing in beauty pageants in their home state of Washington and releasing their own original music, then 16-year-old Stodden came to international attention [...]". A reader expecting a plural antecedent for the occurrences of the word "their" would not be able to parse this sentence as intended.
If a person has multiple preferred pronoun sets, it would be difficult to convey that information implicitly. For the sake of consistency, the article likely would (if not should) use the same pronoun set throughout, leaving other preferred pronouns to be conveyed in a rather disjointed fashion, in perhaps the Personal life section.
Other possible situations may exist, that I haven't thought of...
An additional argument on the basis of the philosophy and sociology of personhood, rather on practicality or precedent, would be: a person's preferred personal pronoun(s) should be considered an integral part of their identity as a person, and therefore deserves to be included in their Infobox.
This has been discussed at least twice in the past month or so, and both times the consensus has been that pronouns are almost never explicitly reported in reliable sources and so there is almost never going to be any source we can use to verify this. What we should do though is use a person's preferred pronouns (where known) in our article, and (where not known) use the pronouns the majority of recent reliable sources use for the person. Thryduulf (talk) 10:06, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
My impression is that a fairly high fraction of people who have Twitter accounts report their preferred pronoun. I think that is an RS for this specific purpose. — Charles Stewart(talk) 10:45, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
It is already possible to provide this information on Wikidata: preferred pronoun is Property P6553, and this can be seen in use on the entry for Caitlyn Jenner. — Charles Stewart(talk) 10:52, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
We don't even list the gender in the infobox, why would we then list the preferred pronoun? For the few cases where this is truly necessary, it would be better to add it in the running text, something like "X is a "gender" and prefers the pronouns A/B (source)", or perhaps better still as a hidden message to inform editors. But in most cases, this is just clutter. Fram (talk) 11:10, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
This seems like something rife for abuse with no payoff. RS rarely mention this; and even if they did, not everything has to be in an infobox. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs) 11:19, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
OpposeWikipedia is not for social advocacy. As much as some people might like it to be, and have arguably succeeded in other ways, we're not here to be an advocate for social change like "normalizing" pronouns. We're here to describe on the world as it is, in as neutral a manner as we can. Our most appropriate social advocacy lies in doing exactly that: writing about the world as it is, without ignoring notable encyclopedic topics that have historically been ignored. But trivia like pronouns or blood types generally aren't notable or relevant from an encyclopedic perspective.I do not find either of the other arguments made in the proposal compelling. Singular they is a longstanding feature of English, and we're not the Simple English Wikipedia here. As for difficulty in following changes conveyed implicitly, IMO it would be better to handle changes in public gender presentation in the same way we handle name changes in articles like Cat Stevens and Hillary Clinton rather than trying to pretend it never happened. Anomie⚔ 11:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Oppose Anything apart from the simple he or she would need explanation in the text. So that is the best place to do that, if there are reliable sources to base it on. Is it up to the writer what pronouns to use, not for others to impose restrictions. Use of "they" would also need explanation to distinguish for poor quality writing. One extra difficult that I see is that someone may change their preference many times over a time period. We cannot be expected to keep updating an infobox. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - when it's due weight, we include it in the "personal life" section or similar - but it's not relevant for most biographies. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Support as an optional parameter in the infobox. Most infoboxes have many optional parameters, some of which are rarely used. I would hate to see it start appearing in every BLP article, and hate even more to see it start appearing on articles for historical figures, but for people where this is relevant and source able, it should be an option. Perhaps the template should include hidden text discouraging its use where it is not relevant, but I would like to have the option. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:26, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Neutral there are certainly some biographies where this parameter would improve the infobox. It would also lead to countless unnecessary talk-page debates and end up on many pages where its only purpose is to confuse the reader and/or promote a political agenda. I can't support this without some way to prevent it causing disruption, but it is a good enough idea I also can't outright oppose it. (I feel similarly about "Religion", and that is gone from non-clergy infoboxes for a similar reason) User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:52, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Comment@Mifield: this is not an "RfC", and consequentially doesn't carry the weight of one. In order to start one you need to follow the instructions at WP:RFC. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:00, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
As Xaosflux notes, we already had a discussion very recently, and this is reaching SNOW oppose territory. I don't think it's worth making this a valid RFC. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Then let's SNOW close it rather than leave it open. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:07, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
User talk page access
Nothing to be done here as a policy proposal. If there is a page that needs review it may be listed at WP:RFPP. — xaosfluxTalk 17:25, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I noticed that a user has a talk page which is semi protected so that unregistered and new editors may not edit it. Surely this is a violation of talk page policy? Or is Wikipedia eventually going to prevent unregistered editing? The owner of all ✌️ 18:49, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
That practice seems supported by Wikipedia:Protection policy § User talk pages, especially where editors are under attack by vandals with an axe to grind. Although I wouldn't support long-term protection, policy does allow for a less prominent subpage for non-autoconfirmed editors, so I wouldn't it's a plot to stop anonymous editing completely; that may come with the implementation of IP masking. Sdrqaz (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Shiraj Media advertising paid editing
This has nothing to do with a policy proposal, per below conflicts of interests may be reported at WP:COIN. — xaosfluxTalk 18:44, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Shiraj Media is apparently offering a paid editing service: [5] I felt that other editors should know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3family6 (talk • contribs) 00:45, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
"It will provide perfect service to post your article on Wikipedia. It can be understood that you put your efforts to write a perfect article." Sounds enticing. [just kidding] – Sdrqaz (talk) 00:52, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
If there is any evidence of this entity actually making edits to Wikipedia, the place to report that would be WP:COIN. Cheers! BD2412T 20:13, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Snow Closures by Non-Administrators
This is an afterthought from a Deletion Review that was in response to a non-administrativesnowball close as Keep of an AFD nomination. In my opinion, the original nomination had been silly, and there were 3 Keep !votes and no Delete !votes in the first 12 hours, at which point a non-administrator closed the AFD. The original nominator then made a non-silly appeal to DRV, and the AFD has been Relisted. My question is: Would it be useful to have language stating that non-administrators should not do a snow close? I think that if a deletion discussion (or almost anything else) should clearly be closed early, then there isn't a need for a non-administrator to close it. Comments?
Robert McClenon (talk) 04:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
No, in general, administrator status only grants the ability to use tools. Non admins should not be disallowed or discouraged from doing anything that does not need those tools. For practical purposes, if closing a discussion would require the use of tools (i.e., closing a discussion with a result to delete), then non-admins should not close those discussions, but otherwise WP:NOBIGDEAL applies Administrators were not intended to develop into a special subgroup. Rather, administrators should be a part of the community like other editors. Anyone can perform most maintenance and administration tasks on Wikipedia without the specific technical functions granted to administrators. Closing silly discussions that should not have been started in the first place does not require any use of the admin toolset (deleting, blocking, protecting, etc.) and as such, non-admins in good standing can do so at any time, and without special need to justify themselves. --Jayron32 14:16, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I'd argue the opposite of this - we should be encouraging non-admins to close clear SNOW cases, but they do need to realise that three keep !votes does not make a consensus. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs) 14:37, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Discussions started facetiously, in bad faith, or to prove a point should not be subject to waiting for consensus. As the OP notes, any random person in good faith should be able to close a "silly nomination". You don't need to be an admin to do that. Consensus doesn't really enter into the thinking when the person who started the discussion is obviously goofing around. --Jayron32 15:37, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
WP:SNOW is a product of WP:NOTBURO and WP:IAR. It would be ironically but needlessly bureaucratic to make rules about something that by definition exists to avoid needless bureaucracy. If any editor - admin or not - closes a discussion early without SNOWy weather in sight, ((trout))ing is the correct course of action. Regards SoWhy 14:40, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm completely on board with both SoWhy and Jayron here, especially the part about the admin bit only serving to grant access to the tools. It's not just a "technically true" statement, it's the whole idea behind the comparison of becoming an admin and being handed a mop.
A WP:SNOW close is a snow close, regardless of who performs it. With that being said, I have doubts as to whether 3 !votes in 12 hours would justify a SNOW close. Was it for a featured article with dozens of high quality sources? In that case, no !votes should be needed, because anyone but the nominator (presumably) can predict with unerring accuracy which way it will end. Was it a stub on some obscure subject? Well, I don't think you could reasonably declare a SNOW close appropriate after less than 3-4 days, unless there were a dozen or so !votes to inform you. Without knowing the particulars of the incident you're referring to, I can't give an opinion on that.
But as a general principle, a SNOW close is supposed to be uncontroversial. So, by that logic, the rights of the user that closes it are completely immaterial. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 15:55, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
WP:SNOW closures are not really assessed based on voting for the most part. If the votes actually matter, then WP:SNOW should usually never be invoked. Why? Because if a matter is worth voting on, then it can't be a WP:SNOW closure. The only reason to invoke WP:SNOW is because the matter isn't worth even voting on. What kinds of things would that be? Well, one obvious case is an unserious nomination. If a nomination is not started in good faith, then per WP:SNOW, someone can close it without any votes at all, and the fact that there were some votes (which were against the nomination anyways!) shouldn't even matter here. The nomination was in bad faith, and it should just be closed so as to not waste anyone's time. --Jayron32 16:01, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with this, and wasn't trying to suggest otherwise. When I referenced the dozen !votes, I was imagining a situation in which other considerations are not clear, but a broad community consensus becomes very quickly obvious.
Hypoethetical: I write a stub article on obscure physics phenomenon Z. It's not covered in any pop-science works except by passing mention, but there's good sourcing from scientific publications. It gets AfDed with the reason given that not every single aspect of physics needs to be documented in an encyclopedia.
In that case, should a dozen Wikipedians who work on physics articles show up to !vote to keep it with shock and awe that anyone would consider nomming it, then that would be an obvious SNOW close case that rested solely on the !votes.
I've seen noms play out pretty much exactly like that, though that might have a lot to do with my topics of interest, and otherwise be a rarity. As for Robert's example; Without knowing more about the situation, I don't know that it wasn't something that could actually hinge on the !votes. I understand that Robert considered the nom silly, but that might mean that it seemed silly only to someone of Robert's education, knowledge and experience, and might not seem silly to others. A reasonable closer might actually need some !votes to explain how SNOWy the situation really is, to them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 16:17, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Totally agree with all of that. One thing that hasn't been said is that WP:SNOW closures are generally invalidated after the fact if someone has a good-faith reason to keep the discussion going, for example if they had a valid dissenting viewpoint, or if they disagreed that the OP was acting in bad faith. In those cases, the WP:SNOW close should be reverted, and the discussion allowed to continue. This, however, is all academic in the face of the Robert's main question here about NACs of discussions, since these considerations apply equally to admins and to non-admins. --Jayron32 16:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Agreed about invalidating apparent SNOW closes, though I don't think we're entirely off topic (sort of). We're discussing the considerations that go into making a SNOW close, and despite the fact that we've covered a great deal of the topic, we've yet to stumble across anything that would even hint that the admin bit would somehow make such a close better. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 16:52, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: NO, there should be no any rules regulating that. I think general rules should apply (WP:CLOSE etc). Uninvolved party may close WP:AFD in obvious cases. We shouldn't restrict such a right to admins only. No need to burden them with unnecessary duties. Let's community decide. AXONOV(talk)⚑ 16:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Comment I work mostly on pseudoscience and conspiracy theory related articles. One very common tactic taken by experienced editors in that topic is closing discussions in which an IP or SPA account suggests we should violate WP:NPOV, insert their WP:OR or insert claims from WP:FRINGE sources in a credulous way. The majority of editors who do this are not admins, and the vast (vast) majority of such closes are explicitly upheld as proper, even if the closer had previously responded within the discussion, should the IP/SPA deign to complain at AN or ANI about it.
Such closes are pretty much by definition, SNOW closes. Because there's no chance in hell we are going to violate our policies to promote a conspiracy theory or some pseudoscience.
So my point is that we actually already have a long-standing precedent for permitting, and even encouraging, non-admin SNOW closes. I understand that AfD is a different beast, but I think this nonetheless bears some consideration. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 17:03, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
In short, no. We don't need rules on who can do SNOW closures; if they are obvious and non-controversial it really doesn't matter who does it. In the specific example given, three votes in 12 hours is not enough for a SNOW closure of an AfD, but there is a possibility that a Speedy Keep close would be appropriate. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:16, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Here is another takeaway from a different Deletion Review. Deletion Review reason 3 says that deletion review may be used "if significant new information has come to light since a deletion that would justify recreating the deleted page". From time to time an editor, usually an inexperienced editor, makes a request to submit a draft because something has happened since the deletion, usually that the living person who is the subject of the draft has received new significant coverage. The filing editor is sometimes bitten, contrary to policy, for thinking that is a use for Deletion Review, when that is not what Deletion Review is for. Evidently editors are supposed to know that Deletion Review is for appeals from errors by closers, and not for changes in circumstances. That is, clause 3 should not be relied on, because in that case either a draft can be submitted, or a new article created in article space. So my question is:
1. Should point 3 be either deleted or reworded?
2. Should the scope of Deletion Review instead actually consider point 3 cases?
3. Is there a reason why the current disconnect is optimal after all?
Well, I think 1 is what is closest to current practice, and that DRV should not be necessary for point 3 cases, but there may be a reason why that is there.
I think that reason 3 should be removed for the reasons noted above. In general, there should be no prejudice against creating a new article in good faith when an article under that title was deleted in the past. Situations change, and one should not need special permission to start a new article under the same title of a previously deleted one for any reason. WP:REFUND is allowed and can be enacted by a single admin at any time in good faith, and even beyond that there are deletions which have been done for reasons unrelated to notability, there are deletions of a subject with the same name for which an entity of a different name may be entirely notable, etc. etc. DRV should not be recommended for these purposes. DRV should only be used for when the closing admin has closed a deletion discussion and enacted its results incorrectly. --Jayron32 14:11, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I have published an RFC to delete clause 3 from Deletion Review. The RFC is at the Deletion Review talk page and has been added to Centralized Discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Relax requirements for the Content Translation Tool
I am an editor on multiple other Wikipedias, and the Content Translator is not limited there. I think I made a Vietnamese translation of Babar and the Adventures of Badou with the tool. I don't need a set number of edits to do that there. Can we make it so that 100 edits lets you access the tool? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Namethatisnotinuse (talk • contribs) 22:09, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
As far as this policy suggestion goes, we already have a work around as noted above, but prior discussions did not have consensus to actually advertise them. I'm in favor of adding some directions to guide prospective translators to their sandbox or draft space. I'm not really in favor of changing the threshold, as the ECP level seems to have striken a good balance already. — xaosfluxTalk 15:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
So apparently as CX has had more development, the devs have already inserted hints about this (e.g. MediaWiki:Cx-tools-linter-cannot-publish-message) - but our local help is silent about this, and silent about how to go about doing this. Makes for a bad UX one way or the other. Any objections to at least updating the local help page with some directions on this? — xaosfluxTalk 16:41, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
My understanding of the current situation was that we allowed that backdoor to exist because if a translator found it and utilized it, they had probably also found, read, and understood the community's history with the tool, and in particular the issues with unedited machine translations. Finding that backdoor also probably implied reasonable English-language competency. We didn't want to advertise it because that would defeat the purpose of making sure people who used the backdoor were aware of the context around the tool. By default, I'd oppose any change to the status quo, but if someone went through the data and showed the abuse of the CXT is low, opening up more access to the tool is sensible. Tazerdadog (talk) 21:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Why doesn't Wikipedia require editors to be 13 or older?
Most websites with user interaction require the users to be 13 or older. I think that having a minimum age would somewhat reduce the amount of vandalism on the website. How come Wikipedia doesn't have a minimum age? Félix An (talk) 14:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
I suppose you could ask people to state that they are 13 or older, such statements might not be true tho.Selfstudier (talk) 14:42, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
This is impossible to enforce. One can add such a clause to the terms of use, but vandals do nt care about terms of use anyway.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
"Most websites ..."[citation needed] Most vandals don't log in anyway. And readers can use accounts for other things than editing. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Websites do that because the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act limits what personal data can be collected from those under 13. Wikipedia is not in the habit of collecting information, so it doesn't have that particular age concern. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Not only does WP not actively collect the kind of user information that such laws and regulations are concerned about, we actually advise young Wikipedians to not reveal their age or other private information. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:06, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Nobody should be pre-judged to be a vandal simply because of their age. And most vandalism by under 13s would not be very subtle, so would be easily spotted and reverted. It's the subtle, more hidden, vandalism that we need to worry about most, and most of that comes from older editors. If we are to ban people from editing because they might be a vandal we will have to ban everyone (even me, aged 63) from editing. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:50, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Agree Exactly, and I see this prejudice in a lot of the comments here, who seem to assume under-13 edits are somehow most or on average detrimental to Wikipedia. If you think you can get under-13s banned from Wikipedia when you cite neither theory nor evidence to support your apparent assumptions, then please seriously question your adult superiority. ⠀Trimton⠀ 01:00, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
As noted above, we don't really have a mechanism for enforcing an age verification requirement for WP editors on the scale suggested by the OP. We do have the WP:CIR guideline which in practice does weed out most very young editors. Personally I believe it would make sense to have a minimal age requirement for the admins, if only for legal reasons. Nsk92 (talk) 16:14, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
@Nsk92: there is such a requirement for Checkusers, Oversighters, and ArbCom members. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
@Félix An: why should it? A minimum age wouldn't reduce vandalism in the slightest, from what I can tell (I'm sure wanna-be 12-year-old vandals would just lie). Elli (talk | contribs) 21:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
The reason many websites have a requirement for the minimum age (13) is because of COPPA, which does not apply to Wikipedia as we do not collect, use, or disclose a user's age. Izno (talk) 23:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
For what it's worth (and this is peripheral), I believe that in the early days of Wikipedia there were administrators that were even younger than 13 and I can think of an incumbent who was 13 when they passed RfA. Questions of age of course come up in RfAs, with many voters unwilling to vote for minors. There's also the case of on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:10, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Ah, that's an interesting bit of history, Graham (with a bit of commentary regarding Malleus sprinkled in). Are you aware of any successful RfAs for minors in the "modern" era? I'm reminded of this 2015 RfA, which I had stumbled on a week or so ago, where about half of the opposes were about age (and the candidate was older than many of the more extreme examples too). Sdrqaz (talk) 12:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
@Sdrqaz: Nope, I don't know of any. Graham87 13:40, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
I can't think of a recent succesful RFA by someone believed to be a minor, it would not surprise me if our youngest current admin is older than a teenager. There are two things that have made the community less open to adolescents in the last decade or so, the expectation to use inline citation, and a mobile platform that makes Wikipedia apig to edit on smartphones or tablets. This doesn't just give us a serious ethnicity skew, but we underrepseent the smartphone generation. ϢereSpielChequers 08:34, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@WereSpielChequers: The smartphone generation of dedicated editors doesn't exist. While exceptions exist, smartphones are used by consumers of media and beyond photos and video not so much by creators. Wikipedia is a pig to edit on smartphones or tablets because those devices lack a physical keyboard. Nobody writes a book on a smartphone. They may fix a typo here and there, add a category or even a reference, but are much less likely to add a whole section. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:23, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Writing on mobile isn't so bad: I've found that glide typing speeds it up and when you're used to typing on mobile, touch-typing is actually possible. The point about consumers of media seems about right, though. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:31, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@Sdrqaz: I suppose you could get used to anything, but even on a netbook keyboard I would probably still beat you on both speed and accuracy. The problem isn't just the keyboard either: the screen on a tablet or large phone would be almost adequate, and for the consumption of media it essentially is, but when you start typing the keyboard takes up a large portion if not all of that screen. It may not be impossible to write text on a mobile device if you are trained in that, but anyone who really wants to write more than a short social media comment or fix a typo on WP is likely to ditch their mobile device for something with a physical keyboard. So to circle back, Wikipedia doesn't underrepresent the smartphone generation, smartphone users underrepresent Wikipedia. Which just makes sense. Fiat Pandas are fine everyday cars but underrepresented in stock car racing and that's unlikely to surprise anyone. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 22:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I have a Fiat Panda, and I have a smartphone. I'd rather edit Wikipedia with the Panda than with Wikipedia's mobile interface. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
WereSpielChequers, that's interesting. I was thinking about it more in the sense of shifting RfA standards rather than a lack of representation. Personally, as a frequent "pure" mobile editor (using the mobile website, not the desktop site on a mobile à la Cullen), the interface is adequate (faint praise perhaps). You can't use Twinkle or RefToolbar without the Cullen method and it's difficult to have two windows open at once for better writing, but it's not as terrible as others say (the app on the other hand, is a different story). Inline citations can be done by having Template:Cite web open in another tab and copying the skeleton over or typing out the parameters manually once you've remembered it.I would've thought that all things being equal (if we disregard the changing standards at RfA), the admin corps would have younger inductees than a decade ago because younger editors wouldn't have to wait their turn at the family computer and could just edit any time, any place.Chequers, were the successful candidacies of minors because voters didn't care about their age or didn't know? Or maybe those who knew didn't publicise it so the rest of the voters didn't know? Sdrqaz (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I have looked back on two RFAs from ladies who I'm pretty sure were young when they passed their RFA. One in 2010 was a close call in numbers, in hindsight my own oppose there was over harsh and I've since only opposed for faulty deletion tagging where I've found multiple mistakes. One of the opposes in that one was explicitly because she was a schoolkid, but no subsequent opposes mentioned that or the maturity word, and quite a few opposes were of the "you're almost there come back in a few months" type, which I doubt were ageist. In 2007 I found one where there was a neutral vote "I cannot bring myself to support someone so young" but the RFA passed 90 to 1. Which fits my memory that the community didn't used to see it as a problem to have very young admins. I can remember a couple of narrowly unsuccessful ones in 2009, one of which had several editors cite "maturity concerns", but in both cases there were recent mistakes. So I'd say the community used to knowingly appoint teenage admins. I have vague memories of a more recent RFA where expectation had become more common that admins should be legally adult. ϢereSpielChequers 20:50, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Interesting stuff, WereSpielChequers, thank you. I think I am aware of which 2007 RfA you're referring to; she unusually had a reconfirmation shortly after. Looking at a 13-year-old candidate in another, they sailed through with 98% support without anyone bringing up age, so I'm not sure if anyone else was aware of their age at the time. Maybe the one you're thinking about that was more recent was this 2015 one? It seems around half of the opposes were based on age. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Almost certainly it was, at 15 he was older than at least one of the uncontentious ones from a few years earlier and most of the age opposes were on the principle of his age - there was also a huge amount of kickback in the support column from people who rejected the ageism in the oppose column. I'm pretty sure something changed insde or outside the community in the intervening years to shift Eric Corbett's view from an outlier to a large enough minority to probably derail an RFA. The only thing I can think of that might account for the shift is the Catholic sex abuse scandal and the role of admins in keeping certain things off the pedia and having access to deleted edits. I will leave it to some future researcher to work out whether a group of editors changed their views on young candidates or if this was the RFA electorate changing. Or indeed that by 2015 the community no longer had many teenagers or at least teenage admins. But clearly things did change, and I doubt they have changed back. I think the RFA crowd has long been capable of spotting very young candidates. ϢereSpielChequers 07:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I recently came across a BLP article that was being actively vandalized by an IP who was repeatedly re-adding an obscene pornographic image to the article to the infobox instead of the photo of the subject. As I was reverting the IP, I saw that the IP got blocked, and then I received a nasty e-mail through my Wikipedia e-mail with a threat of violence. Shortly after I saw that the blocking admin revoked the IP's talk page and e-mail access (I assume the admin received a similar message). I am pretty sure that the responding admin in that case was an adult, but in general I think we should not be putting minors (e.g. 15-year-olds who happen to be admins) in the position of having to address these kinds of situations. Nsk92 (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
A minimum age wouldn't really reduce vandalism because of the ability to edit anonymously. If it required users to click a button stating that they are 13 or older, the anyone could just click the button, regardless of whether or not they are 13. Also, the problem with this is that laws are different in different places. For example, one place might have a law stating the minimum age to have a forum account is 13 while another place might state is 18. Wikipedia is accessible to people from all over the world. So if we just set it to 13, it would cause problems for users who edit from places where the minimum age is below 13.
A lot of the explanations appear incomplete, and I am not sure either... I have heard that COPPA does not apply the same for not-for-profits like WMF, but I could be wrong. If Wikipedia was a for-profit endeavor, then yes, COPPA would apply. COPPA applies to any company collecting data from minors under 13 over the Internet without parental consent. That is why sites like wikiHow and Fandom enforce COPPA. Aasim (talk) 06:13, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
@Nsk92: That's an interesting argument – quite a lot of the opposition to teen admins is based on perceived immaturity/impaired judgement rather than as a child protection measure. Regarding just email, you could disable the ability of brand-new editors to email you, but of course hostility is also on-wiki. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
I think I remember one editor who made good edits to dinosaur articles was less than 13 when they started, so I'm not sure why we need to exclude them on that basis. FunkMonk (talk) 14:00, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
So, you admit to having made your first edit pre-conception. Please may I borrow your time machine? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Excluding those adolescents who obey rules such as don't edt until you are 13 won't lose us any vandals. It might lose us some goodfaith editors, and it might even attract some vandalism from adolescents who want to show that they can hit the edit button even though they shouldn't. So I don't see any benefit from this proposal, and there is a small disbenefit. ϢereSpielChequers 08:40, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Agree . If this were feasible to enforce, it'd be worth discussing. It's not, so it isn't. ((u|Sdkb))talk 18:21, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
In the US, COPPA applies to all personal data, even if voluntarily posted (contact info on a userpage for instance), if the operator is aware that the user is under 13. Nonprofits, however, are exempt. We follow best practices by oversighting such personal info when we come across it. –dlthewave☎ 20:23, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Also, apropos of young admins, I can think of an arbitrator way back when who was 14, or possibly 15. A good arb, too. Bishonen | tålk 12:24, 23 April 2021 (UTC). Trimmed, BEANS reasons. Primefac (talk) 12:56, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
In Europe, wouldn't Article 8 of the GDPR apply? Personal data is processed (IPs, email addresses). But I guess the WMF has figured this out with their lawyers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:37, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
11 and 12 year olds should not be reading the Wikipedia. And it'd be hard to edit it without reading it. The reason being that Wikipedia is explicitly and foundationally an an adult publication ("adult" in the sense of "XXX" rather than "complicated"), because WP:NOTCENSORED is a core policy. I always figured that other sites have an "I'm 13" checkbox partly for legal liability reasons (so they can say in court "But your honor she said she was 13" or the equivalent). Pretty sure that Wikipedia, like Facebook and Twitter, isn't responsible for the content posted on it. If we were we'd be buried under lawsuits you'd think. (The individual writers are liable I think, but hard to find and probably poor anyway). So we don't need the age checkbox kabuki. Herostratus (talk) 13:15, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Umm, yes they should - at least in my part of the world. Do you put a gate in your libraries to prevent tweenagers from accessing the reference section? — xaosfluxTalk 17:28, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, If we were to follow Herostratus's logic then under 13s would not be allowed to use the Internet at all, because the Internet is not censored. Not being censored does not make any publication pornographic. I am now a grandparent, and my children were in the first generation to be brought up with the Internet when it was really in its "wild west" phase, but I brought them up pretty normally to be allowed to use what was available and they have turned out OK. I thought about replying to this comment when it first appeared but then thought it was so ridiculous as not to merit a reply, but now it has had a reply I need to add my two cents. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:48, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
All righty-roo User:Phil Bridger. If you allowed 11-12 year old kids to go in their rooms, shut the door, and go where they will on the internet, that's not something to brag about for goodness sake. Altho there weren't so many Nazis and Qanons and 4chans then, so I don't know about wild west. You got lucky (as far as you know), and good for you, but what has that to do with anything. Hoping for luck is not a good policy for most things.
Soooo..... Bukkake is three clicks away from Anime (->Japanese language->List of English words of Japanese origin->Bukkake). Anime is of interest to young people. It is! And there's a picture -- worth a thousand words, remember. Take a look. Take a look. 11 and 12 and 13 year old girls are very interested in the answer to questions revolving around "what will it mean to be a woman?" Stuff like this tells them: "meat". Believe me, it's intentional too -- I've worked with this article and similar. There are people out there who are not very nice and who don't like women very much, and sometimes they come here. At least, after some work, we were able to get in a mention in that this is a trope of pornography rather than something that grownups do in notable numbers, and also that it wasn't a punishment actually used in Japanese history. Hard to do because some people believe that what they see in porn is real. They need to.
But I mean the picture. Pictures tell a thousand words and bypass the language-processing filter. And you've got Gokkun, which apparently the information that it's primarily a pornography trope and (mostly) not real has been removed -- keeping up with stuff and dealing with these people is exhausting after all. Again, the picture. What does the picture say to a 12 year old girl? "Maybe your first boy will bring you flowers, but this is where it's leading; maybe you'll go to 'college' and have a 'career', but don't forget: women are cum buckets and always will be". Facial (sexual act). Felching. It's not helpful for children who are having their sexual awakening to be shown this. It just isn't. You may be ignorant of child development or don't care, and couldn't care less about these kids -- again, not something to be proud of IMO -- but not all of us are like that.
Seeing this stuff isn't going to destroy a kid, mostly. The kids will basically be OK. Kids are resilient and can usually be basically OK when stuff like this happens to them -- pr being bullied, growing up poor, growing up in an unhappy house, etc. But stuff like that doesn't help. OK? It just doesn't.
I was brought up to believe that we have a responsibility to other people, and particularly to the vulnerable. And children are vulnerable. They are. This is why we don't send them to work in the mines when they are 12, either, and why we are expected to curate their growing time in good directions. Freedom to go explore down the creek til dark is good freedom. Freedom to look at pictures about Snowballing (sexual practice) isn't. Other people think differently I guess.
I get that a lot of people maybe wouldn't believe a word I've said. They can't. It's OK. We do what we can with what we have. I know that people need to fit into their self image, whether its "I'm so liberal, yee" or "I'm so conservative, screw the kids" or whatever that person is about. Everybody needs to be the hero of their own story, and "I'm a supporter of pornographers ('One who is involved in the... dissemination of pornography' --Wiktionary, the free dictionary), and where kids hang out to boot" doesn't sound that that heroic when you put it that way. Does it.
Anyway... the point of the Wikipedia is to be a net asset to humanity. It's not just a hobby. It doesn't exist outside the human moral world -- nothing does, sorry. For kids, the best way the Wikipedia can be an asset is by not enticing or engaging them. The best way to talk to kids about the Wikipedia is simply to say "Stay away from the Wikipedia. Too many people there are WP:NOTVERYNICE and they do not have your interests at heart. Stay away from such people." Herostratus (talk) 20:01, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
Right from the very first sentence (where did I say that I allowed my children to go to their rooms and lock the door?) that post just consists of completely off-topic complete bollocks. I'm just glad that you are not my parent. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:18, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
As I recall, 13 is the minimum age for bureaucrats. —Kusma (t·c) 18:25, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Our youngest crat was 13 and didn't break anything. Of course that was back in 2004... —Kusma (t·c) 20:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Many here implicitly assume that the edits of under-13s harm Wikipedia overall, that kids are some constant force of vandalism. Are they? 1) Where is the evidence? There cannot be any evidence, since, as you read in previous responses, Wikipedia does not know the age of its editors. How can you then be so sure that any form of vandalism comes from kids? 2) Where is the theory? Immaturity has no age, incapability has no age, illiteracy has no age. Most under-13s are in school, meaning they literally study all day - how do you think they cannot add value to an encyclopedia? Kids grow up with technology - why would they ever make formatting mistakes or break a <ref>? Please consider how an editor under 13 must feel, reading that the majority of contributors here associate them with vandalism, and might even ban them, the moment it becomes technically possible. ⠀Trimton⠀ 00:48, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
Impartial Expert Editor
Maybe this is the wrong place in which to be asking this question. However, at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, there is a dispute where one of the editors says that they need an impartial expert editor to supervise the rewriting of a group of articles. Wikipedia does not have any designations of expert editors or master editors. (Some new editors may think that the various service ribbons on user pages have more meaning than they do. The editors who display the service ribbons know that the awards are either humorous or humourous, depending on continent.) There isn't a pool of impartial expert editors who can be called on when requested. My thinking is that improving any group of articles is sort of what WikiProjects are for. Is there any additional advice that I should give to an editor who says that a whole group of articles need to be substantially rewritten?
Robert McClenon (talk) 04:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Isn't this where setting out the issues on the article talk page and then requesting comments using the feedback request service can provide the benefit of impartial input from experienced editors who have signed up to that service? They may not bring topic expertise as such but can advise on whether there is indeed a problem and what might be next steps. AllyD (talk) 06:26, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
User:AllyD - Yes, but.... I don't think that is exactly what the editor in question wants. The editor in question wants to recruit an impartial expert editor to oversee a long project of rewriting a group of articles. As I understand the Feedback Request Service, it is invoked via the Request for Comments mechanism, and so can be used in either of two ways. The first is to ask a specific question and obtain a binding consensus, for which other editors will have been invited via FRS. The second is to ask an open-ended question, which will obtain comments (just as RFC stands for). I think that what is being asked for is something more. Thank you for your comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:01, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: I'd go with your initial hunch: WikiProjects. If the most relevant WikiProject is dormant, try its parent project or something closely related. WikiProjects get a lot of criticism but this sounds like a perfect task for them. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:33, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. I think that the editor who requested an impartial expert editor has the idea that there are ranks or grades of expertise among Wikipedia editors which may be indicated by their service ribbons on their user pages. We know that some editors display various sorts of service ribbons on their user pages. It has always been my understanding that those service ribbons are humorous and should not be taken seriously. I think that I have seen at least one case of an editor who thinks that there is a semi-official pool of such editors to be called on. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:03, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
Need clarity around the role of AfD closers
It's not uncommon for admins closing discussions at WP:AfD to offer their own opinion on the notability of a subject, i.e. whether WP:GNG and/or some WP:SNG is met. These will often get brought to WP:DRV for review. There's one such case at DRV now, and while that case was indeed what led me to start this thread, I want to focus on the more general issue, not just that one case or that one admin.
For as long as I've been involved in AfD (which is a long time), the rule has been that closers are supposed to distill the discussion, not inject their own opinions about notability. Unfortunately, I can't find any policy statement which comes right out and says that. WP:CLOSE#Policy comes close, calling out specific exceptions for WP:V, WP:OR, WP:CP, and WP:NPOV, but doesn't explicitly say those are the only exceptions. In any case, it's a WP:INFOPAGE, so doesn't rank as policy. Likewise, WP:Supervote, while widely cited in DRV discussions, is just an essay.
So, what I'm looking for is a more official statement that AfD closers must rely on the input of the discussants regarding notability. If there's not an actual policy page where it makes sense to add that, then at least a consensus close to this thread and updating WP:CLOSE#Policy to explicitly disallow closers to apply their own notability judgements would be good enough. -- RoySmith(talk) 16:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for raising this issue. WP:DGFA might be a place to put it also. But I think the issue you're raising is broader than deletion discussions. We have almost no policies or guidelines about closing statements, and what is and is not appropriate to include in them. It's not really spelled out in WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CLOSE, WP:RFCEND, DGFA, WP:XFD, WP:DELPOL... how to write a closing statement doesn't appear to be anywhere in our alphabet soup. I would imagine the rules or at least principles for closing statements should be the same for XfDs as for RFCs and other discussions. We should write something, as it will help all sorts of closure reviews. Levivichharass/hound 16:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks RoySmith for raising this; I agree that the principle of not supervoting definitely enjoys community support and ought to be codified somewhere, along with other information about closes per Levivich. Info about non-admin closes could be moved there, too. ((u|Sdkb))talk 16:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I think most practices around closes are informal, split over various individual consensus', and some good advice in Wikipedia:Advice on closing discussions. It's generally recognised that it's not the job of closers to supervote; very few closes are, and I don't think anyone has ever made the WP:JUSTANESSAY argument when their supervote is challenged, so I don't see why a policy is necessary (and don't think it's a good idea). Decisions are made by WP:CONSENSUS and I suppose the role of closers is just someone uninvolved who summarises what the consensus in a discussion was. I guess a note in Wikipedia:Consensus could be added to this effect? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:34, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I would support this. SportingFlyerT·C 17:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
My sense has always been that arguments presented in a closing statements should never include (other than perhaps as background information and only if they don't affect the close) any argument that was not presented by participants/!voters. Unless they are overriding policy, such as when folks want to keep a clear copyvio. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:45, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators § Rough consensus, which is linked to from Wikipedia:Closing discussions § Consensus, discusses examining strength of argument and any relevant policies. Arguments that are made in bad faith, contradict policy, are based on unsubstantiated personal opinion, or are illogical are given as examples of arguments that may be discounted. I'm not sure any new official guidance on determining consensus is required on this aspect, but perhaps Wikipedia:Advice on closing discussions should be more broadly advertised to prospective closers. The "Additional considerations" section covers not discussing arguments that weren't raised in discussion, and not reaching an outcome that no one discussed, for example. isaacl (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure the responses have adequately discussed exactly what RoySmith proposes - there have been a couple DRVs of late where the closer has appeared to agree with the side that "wins" the discussion, especially where the closer looks at the sources and makes their own determination of whether something is notable. This isn't about raising arguments that weren't raised in discussions, it's about whether closers should be looking at sources to assess the notability of the article they're closing. SportingFlyerT·C 10:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps better direction is in order about what the closer should look for, but it seems almost impossible for a closer to close a dispute about claims based on the sources presented and whether they reasonably support one side or the other, or both sides to some extent, without looking at the sources. (eg.: 'Primary source!' 'No, it's not!' Look at source, who makes the cogent claim, or is there a reasonable disagreement?). Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, in such cases one would often end up with a "Both sides are advancing legitimate arguments about whether the sources satisfy WP:SIGCOV and none of them is clearly more compelling than the other, so no consensus it is". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The closing statement in a deletion discussion is very much a performative utterance and there are expectations that we don't pollute the performance of closing (which enacts consensus in addition to, hopefully, summarizing the strength of arguments) with the arguments it's supposed to be considering. In most of the cases I've seen where people take issue with a closer expressing an opinion, it was a matter of framing rather than an actual supervote. If someone changes "it doesn't meet GNG" to "consensus it that it doesn't meet GNG" or "arguments that it doesn't meet GNG were strongest" that changes it back from a supervote to a summary. My concern about adding more exact and/or prescriptive language into instructions for closers is that it's already hard enough to close discussions based on strength of argument vs. numbers. People already get accused of supervoting just for closing against the numbers all the time. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
That's a good point about not wanting to make it harder to close against the numbers. ((u|Sdkb))talk 10:42, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
I largely agree with what Jo-Jo, Alan, and Rhododendrites said. Closers should read the sources to make sure the claims are accurate but shouldn't stray beyond what participants said about the sources (unless some major policy like WP:BLP is being ignored). AfDs are unusual in that they are often a binary outcome---delete or !delete---while other discussions are far more open ended. Because of this, summarizing the debate and major view points can look like a supervote, but if the close focuses on how participants applied the policies under discussion (numbers can sometimes be helpful here) I think most misunderstandings can be avoided. I don't close many AfDs, but this is how I approach requested moves which have a similar binary outcome. — Wug·a·po·des 23:51, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
I have to disagree on reading the sources, that's really the participants' task, not the closer's. Also, the lines would get blurred between what's the closer's own preference and what the consensus is if closers went this far. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
As noted, there's certainly lots of cases where it's more the closer has just failed to add "consensus of discussions states that" before "GNG is not met" (etc). Sure, if they raise an argument (other than copyvio etc) that isn't mentioned at all then that's a bit problematic, but again I've not seen issues at DRV on those cases - usually its fairly obvious if its a superclose. In terms of "should they be checking sources to see if reasoning on those grounds is justified" I have to answer no - that would just be a different form of a supervote. If !voters think other !voters' arguments that sigcov et al are/are not met are invalid, they are responsible for disputing that and making that determination, not the closers. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
So if an AFD gets flooded with socks saying that source A says XYZ, and it in fact says no such thing, a closer should close in favor of the provably false assertion to avoid supervoting? That's an absurd conclusion that I strongly disagree with recommending. Just to put some meat to this hypothetical, say 7 editors claim that The Example Daily article covers subject Anex Ample and is written by an independent journalist. One lone editor says "actually, the author bio at the bottom says the author is an employee of Anex Ample and was paid by them to write this article", and one of the original seven comes back to say "no it doesn't". Under the "don't look at the sources" theory, I should close with the 7 editors even if the source does say it was paid for by Anex Ample. This cannot possibly be the correct outcome, partly because it incentivizes lying. No consensus is usually a default keep, so if you want an article kept, just lie about the sources and fillibuster the discussion---the closer can't check and the participants won't have enough time to refute them all (see Gish gallop). Making sure that participants are engaging in good faith dispute and accurately characterizing external material is basic due diligence; not doing so makes it impossible to comply with Wikipedia:Closing discussions#not counting heads as a closer would not be able to figure out which claims are false let alone discount them. Imagine if judges in a court room could only hear testimony but never see the evidentiary documents discussed in that testimony because it might compromise their objectivity. If that's the fear then the solution is not enforced ignorance but to forbid that person from being a judge (the whole point of recusals). Verifying assertions and drawing your own conclusions from a source are two very different things, and if a closer cannot distinguish between the two, they should not be closing discussions. If I cannot trust a closer to objectively verify the assertions made about external material, why I should I trust them to objectively evaluate the discussion at all? We should not confuse ignorance with objectivity, let alone recommend it. — Wug·a·po·des 03:54, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
Agree with this, generally. I don't think reading the sources is always necessary, but where the question of which argument is indeed stronger comes down to what the sources actually say, the closer shouldn't refrain from looking at the sources for fear of being labeled a supervoter. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 05:17, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
There is too much supervoting on RfCs and with WP:NACs too, but maybe for another time. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:05, 31 May 2021 (UTC).
Original research heraldry for fictional universes
Is there some more specific policy for this? I removed some: Special:Diff/1026260344 and Special:Diff/1026072768. These images are artist impressions based on text descriptions. I'm afraid there may be a lot more out there. According to OTRS the image on the right is a creation of User:TTThom. It's used on Heraldry of Middle-earth, I'd remove it but removing all the OR will leave the article gutted and I'm not in the mood for an edit war. Is there some misunderstanding about WP:OR that causes these to be added without getting reverted in a decade? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:02, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
It's one thing to make up heraldry for real-world royalty/houses based on language but I would tend to agree that doing this for the same for fictional ones are far less appropriate. Unlike real heraldry which follows a specific language format that allows for license-less recreations without engaging in OR, fictional ones rarely are given in the same verbiage and thus fan-made art, while maybe not being strictly a copyright violation or failing fair use, is likely original research. --Masem (t) 13:25, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
If the depiction actually matches the description in the primary sources (which should always be the author themself or someone explicitly authorized by the author), and the depiction is both sourced to said description and presented as an artistic depiction with clear labelling of such (not just in the caption, but with, for example, a section hat), and is not used in the primary infobox of a page, then I would find such images appropriate and useful. Anything short of that warrants either removal, or improvement to the standards I described.
Note that I would not apply this standard to images on commons, where I think that the only standards which needs be met is a clear description of what it is and a clear statement that it's an artistic depiction. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 13:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, even with a limited knowledge of heraldry, there are in fact very few heraldic colours - only one kind of yellow (gules), only one kind of green (vert), and so on, so there is little to get wrong if, as the editor above has rightly stated, the original description is clear and unambiguous. I'm sure any specialist in heraldry will be able to confirm that they can readily reconstruct any badge or flag or coat of arms from its description, so if there's a lion rampant on a vert field or whatever they can draw it exactly to the satisfaction of other heraldry specialists. As long as it's made clear that this is an artist's impression or a heraldic reconstruction or some such phrase, there is no problem here. I don't agree with Masem, therefore, that there's any particular issue about heraldry in fiction; if a book's author has given a heraldic description, then that account can be taken as a specification of a heraldic badge without any suggestion of editorial invention. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:03, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Chiswick Chap, there are in fact very few heraldic colours - only one kind of yellow (gules), only one kind of green (vert), and so on, so there is little to get wrong if, as the editor above has rightly stated, the original description is clear and unambiguous. Not that it's an important point, but I'd like to note that just because we have a limited palette of colors in real life heradly, that does not suggest that fictional heradly would use the same palette, or even have limits at all.
But, you should not read that as disagreement with your overall point that heraldry is constrained to certain norms, and depictions that fit within those norms are very likely to be nearly identical to each other. Furthermore, I do, actually, think it quite likely that Tolkien, at least, would have limited himself to real-world heraldric standards, due to the depiction of Middle-earth as pre-paleolithic Europe. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 14:16, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
If these are all coming from language that is based on real world heraldry (and we're talking what appears to be mostly ME and Wheel of Time, which I would think are works that would follow that) then I can see the argument there's no issue with these. What we want to avoid is crossing a line to full fledged fan art on WP for fictional universes (eg a fan's interpretation of Battle of Helm's Deep would be inappropriate despite how descriptive the book + associated works give it). --Masem (t) 15:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Masem, This tracks exactly with my view. I outlined what my standards would be for making it explicitly clear, above. I'm a little waffley on the issue of fantasy worlds like Westeros, which is less historically tied-in to the real world, but generally speaking, I'd say a firm "no" to depicting anything that there's already an official or semi-official depiction of, like the battle you mentioned. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 17:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm also thinking cases where, for example, the original cover art is a clear influence on the work that fan art may become derivative of that creates a question. This example gets away from the heraldy aspect but like a fan's version of Harry Potter (short of cosplay) would likely be problematic given the "official" presentation on the original cover as well as the US printing as well in the films. Heraldry, as established for even real world cases, is different and why we can use user-created COArms and flags even though there may be existing preferred versions out there, but anything short of this is going to fall more into derivative works that can be at issue. --Masem (t) 19:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Now, if there's a good reason why we would want to show fan art, then it's up for discussion. As a hypothetical, I imagine a work of fiction which became known primarily for the fan-art it inspired. In that case, a couple examples might be okay. And cosplay might be useful to help demonstrate the prominence of a work in pop culture.
But there's no way, to steal your example, that we'd use one of my childhood paintings as the top image at Battle of Helm's Deep, or one of my depictions of Stryker no matter how fond or proud of it I was, no matter what kind of "artistic depiction" templates we slap on it, because if we need an example, we can grab a still from the film under fair use.
Nitpick: gules = red, or = yellow. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:20, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't really have a problem with illustrating the statement "the flag of the fictional domain of Kusmaland is a red pterodactylus on a green background" with a user-created image of a red pterodactylus on a green background. Actually, I think this should be encouraged. It just needs to be made absolutely clear what is being shown, and no claim of "official" status of this artist's impression should be made without it appearing in other sources. Something like the flag gallery in The World of the Wheel is not appropriate without explicit sourcing. —Kusma (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
POV with admitted lack of knowledge on the matter ?
Hello, I witnessed a WP:TAGTEAMed administrator both warning an user of possible block and acknowledging he/she did not reviewed the relevant conflict/edits/discussion. Is there a WP:RULES that administrator or user cannot take consequential actions if they have no knowledge of the said matter ? I would like to know such rule to cite it. Yug(talk) 11:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Better to ask this at WP:AN, but you should maybe link the relevant discussion so people can understand the context and advise accordingly, and also judge whether your summary is a fair representation of the events. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:28, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
My idea was to cite that WP:Rule if it exist when I will message WP:AN. I already bumped into the concept of "flyover" editors/administrators for users who jump in, drop an opinion without understanding of the situation, then leave, but I can't find the page if any. Yug(talk) 12:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I don’t think there is any “rule” (for or against). A lot depends on WHY the admins in question “jumped in”. Blueboar (talk) 12:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
The closest that I can think of is WP: ADMINACCT, where admins are supposed to be able to explain and justify their actions as admins. --Kyohyi (talk) 13:07, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Notice of RfC on how usernames should be displayed in custom signatures
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The following scenario is frustratingly common: An editor changes the longstanding status quo with an edit. You revert the edit and encourage them to discuss on the talk page. They then revert that revert. There should be repercussions for this disregard of civil discussion through the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. I propose that the following becomes policy:
If a user's edit that changes the status quo is reverted, a revert of that revert will result in a talk page warning. A second revert of such a revert begets a 24 hour block.
This would not apply to an edit originally removing some gross violation of Wikipedia policy, such as a BLP vio. And, 3RR would still stand, as the 3 reverts do not necessarily have to be over the exact same issue. ~ HAL333 18:36, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Support as nom It would encourage discussion and help stifle edit warring before it heats up. ~ HAL333 18:46, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Comment – let's clarify this because the wording is a bit confusing. User1 makes a WP:BOLD edit, User2 reverts to WP:STATUSQUO and encourages talk page discussion. User1 reinstates the edit, gets a talk page warning. User2 reverts it again to the STATUSQUO. User1 again reinstates the edit, gets blocked. Is that what you're proposing, HAL333? —El Millo (talk) 18:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Facu-el Millo, Yes. Sorry for any confusion. ~ HAL333 19:04, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Support, no contested edit should be allowed to remain before the issue is settled just because of the editor's persistence. —El Millo (talk) 23:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Strike my support based on other comments below. I second Number57's opinion: The issue for me is more with 3RR giving an advantage to the editor going against the status quo. IMO this should be amended to allow an editor one free revert to restore the status quo. —El Millo (talk) 17:22, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. People aren't born with knowledge of how Wikipedia works. A warning for making the same edit twice? And a block on the second offense. Maybe they thought their edit didn't save. Or maybe they're really right and the "status quo" is wrong, but they don't yet know about WP:CITE, WP:V, WP:BRD, WP:OMGWTFBBQ, etc. Or they didn't see the warning. Or the first person to revert them was carelessly pushing buttons. Or they're an busy or elderly expert in their field, and just don't have the time or patience to learn our petty little rules. Or they're a kid, trying their best. A block on the second offense would be spectacularly heavy-handed. Give people time to learn how this place works. And, I'd like to see "status quo" defined in a way where all the tricky edge cases don't just work out to "version preferred by the editor with the higher edit count" in practice. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:53, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow Valid point - we shouldn't bite the newcomers. How about three such warning templates for IP, new, and autoconfirmed editors and only one for those who are extended confirmed? ~ HAL333 04:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I really don't think it's possible to write a message that is both non-bitey and makes it clear the editor will be blocked on the very next edit. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:21, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Comment I think we would have to clearly define at what point something becomes WP:STATUSQUO. Is it WP:STATUSQUO after being in the article a day, a week, a month, a year, etc? Regards Spy-cicle💥 Talk? 01:02, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
How about 15 days or anything present in an article after going through a GAN or FAC? It wouldn't be fair to give February and July equal treatment. ~ HAL333 04:13, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
15 days seems okay though I feel we may have to adjust on context (i.e. low traffic article has a higher wait time for status quo). Probably on FAC maybe on GAN, but I suppose we would also have to adjust WP:ONUS. It can be tricky to formulate the best way to propose it but I do certainly understand the frustration. I remember rewriting an article, I submitted to GAN, it got completely rewritten by another editor, I reverted it back to the status quo, back and forth and then another editor reverted it back to the new version forcing it off the status quo, then a different editor failed my GAN due to edit warring. Easier just to work on lower traffic articles... Spy-cicle💥 Talk? 07:02, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
[ec] Comment, There is nothing special about status quo per se. Do not mistake it for consensus as a result of reasoned discussion and evidence. A lot of status quo is the consequence of no-one getting round to making an improvement yet. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 04:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose as currently expressed. Too vague, with loopholes for misuse. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 04:25, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. This needs to be added to WP:PERENNIAL. Making WP:BRD a guideline or policy instead of an essay has been proposed many times, and failed every time. If someone insists on engaging in editwarring, use WP:ANEW if it breaches WP:3RR. If it's more a long-term pattern of evading 3RR but editwarring a lot anyway, try WP:ANI as more likely to produce a restraint. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 10:14, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose BRD is worth trying to follow but it isn't always possible or even desirable. There are enough ways to deal with this situation already.Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. There are many situations where such a bright-line rule would lead to perverse outcomes, such as when a spelling mistake is corrected that nobody has noticed for years. Are we really saying that someone who reinstates a reverted correction should be warned and then blocked, even if the correction is obviously correct? As so often, this is an area where human judgement is needed rather than adherence to strict rules. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:33, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I completely agree with the issue presented, but I can't agree with this implementation given concerns raised by Phil Bridger, among others. I agree we should use common sense more when it comes to edit warring. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:42, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Support in principle but oppose as currently written. "Do not repeat an edit without consensus" is what our rule should be (it would be an effective sitewide 1RR, which I would support, and is basically what is being proposed, but I quibble on the propose wording). Levivich 14:48, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
As I understand it, WP:1RR allows the original editor to make one revert, whereas this proposal is explicitly prohibiting this. It's really making the bold, revert, discuss cycle mandatory. isaacl (talk) 20:13, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose There are several situations where a revert of a revert is perfectly acceptable – for instance, the outcome of a discussion being implemented and the original reverter being unaware of this outcome, or reverting a knee-jerk blind revert that was not done in good faith. The issue for me is more with 3RR giving an advantage to the editor going against the status quo. IMO this should be amended to allow an editor one free revert to restore the status quo. Number57 15:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I totally agree with you on 3RR. ~ HAL333 16:33, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose and personally I like how 3RR advantages an editor going against the status quo. It forces people making a revert to find at least once other person to agree with them which proves consensus. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 19:47, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that conflicts with WP:CONSENSUS. Per NOCON (part of consensus) the change shouldn't be made unless there is a consensus to change it. Often edit wars occur because editors trying to make a change haven't shown consensus but they have enough reverts on their side to be the last revert standing. So long as CONSENSUS is policy our behavioral rules should push in that direction. Springee (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
As much as I think the bold, revert, discuss cycle is a good approach whose level of community support makes it close to a policy, I feel making it mandatory might be too inflexible for all situations. I think it could also exacerbate article ownership issues, by making it easy to turn every update into a protracted discussion. isaacl (talk) 20:24, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose as stated but... I strongly support the concern here. Far to often I've see a poor quality edit added to a page, it gets reverted (back to status quo) then the person who added it or even another editor restores the disputed content. A flaw of 1RR or 3RR is any time both editors use up their "edit limit" the result is the change stays vs is reverted. I would rather see something included in the 1RR rules that say, 1RR, mandatory BRD if a new edit is challenged. This would allow an editor to make several new edits to a page, even if one of those edits is reverted, without hitting the 1RR limit. However, if any edit is challenged they cannot restore it without talk page consensus first. Number 57's "one free revert" might work as well but reducing the number of reverts is probably better than increasing the number. Either way, it is a problem that the current system inadvertently favors a change vs status quo. Springee (talk) 21:24, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
An alternative might be to turn 3RR into a three edit rule – i.e. an editor cannot make the same edit more than three times within a 24 hour period. This would take away the advantage the editor going against the status quo has. Number57
Comment from nominator Well this looks like a WP:SNOWCLOSE. But as suggested by multiple editors above, I'll propose a (more thought-out) change to 3RR in a few days. Cheers. ~ HAL333 21:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Wikiquote
Hello, my question is about the link to Wikiquote found at the bottom of some WP articles. In my opinion, the quotations inserted in WQ are often an important complement to the WP page, for example when WP talks about the thought of an author and WQ illustrates it with the author's own words. However, the link to WQ is located at the bottom of the WP page with other external links and I am sure that it goes unnoticed by the vast majority of readers who might be interested in such quotes. To remedy this lack of visibility, is one allowed to insert the link to WQ in one of the sections dealing with the author's thoughts? In the French WP it is tolerated. Regards,--Hamza Alaoui (talk) 14:53, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
In general, I think bottom of article is reasonable, since WQ is WP:USERG and shouldn't be given more "attention" than external links. I may be pessimistic, but I find it probable that a WQ entry could have serious cherry-picking problems from some sort of POV. I've never edited WQ, so I don't know how "good" it is. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:13, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Hamza Alaoui, it is almost impossible to find the link to Wikiquote in the articles. Can't something be done to improve this? --Mhorg (talk) 11:29, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Am I canvassing?
Hi, a user just made this comment.[6] Am I doing something wrong? I don't think I'm canvassing... I am exposing in this discussion[7] with a user encountered in an AE request, all the events that I consider unfair about another user. If so, I'll stop now. Thank you.--Mhorg (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
There's a thread at WP:VPW#IP Masking Update which has morphed into an (informal) discussion of banning all IP editing. Posting this just to bring it to the attention of a wider audience. -- RoySmith(talk) 13:17, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Question of What Noticeboard
This is sort of a meta-inquiry about a case request at DRN. The question is whether a social-media self-sourced statement should be used with regard to the gender of the subject of a biography of a living person. (If this is the wrong forum to ask this question, I can ask it somewhere else.) The question that I have is whether DRN or BLPN is a better noticeboard. The disadvantage to DRN is that the primary purpose of DRN is to resolve content disputes by compromise or moderated discussion, or, that failing, to resolve them by RFC. This is not really a matter if disagreement between editors, but of how to apply a policy which serves to balance the interests of two sets of non-editors, the subject and the readers. The disadvantage to the BLP noticeboard is that it says that it is primarily for cases about possibly defamatory material, which of course should be removed (and possibly redacted). My first and second thoughts are that BLPN is the right place anyway, because the regular editors may be thoroughly familiar with BLP policy, but I am asking for any third thoughts.
Robert McClenon (talk) 15:15, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
BLP is a good noticeboard to post questions and RfCs that are about interpreting our BLP policy. Lots of noticeboards have instructions that should usually be followed, but can be safely ignored while still getting a response when the question is highly pertinent to the subject of the noticeboard. For example, the RfCs about the general reliability of a source which frequently appear at WP:RSN weren't expressly permitted by the instructions until a February, 2020 RfC changed them, yet several such discussions took place there previously. There have also been discussions about sourcing in general, certain types of sources, etc. As long as the discussion is directly relevant to the topic, the noticeboards are a good place to get input on a question. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 15:41, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't think too much should be made of where the issue is discussed, as long as it is announced at the different relevant boards and it is discussed rather than edit-warred over. We have many possible places for discussion, and I have noticed (and have probably been guilty of this myself) that experienced editors tend to admonish new editors for raising discussions at the "wrong" place, even when it is often far from clear where the "right" place is. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:38, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
--TheSandDoctor Talk 08:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Contrast this appalling robot colourization of the podium with an actual colour photograph of the podium in the State Library and Archives of Florida.
original image
Lucille Ball was a redhead, famously.
orginal image
The movie posters for Born to the West (such as the one in our article and this example from the Italian release) are colourizations, too, but a human exercising skill would at least have agreed with them that Wayne's shirt is red.
original image
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Resolved
01:13, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Regards SoWhy 14:40, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Agree Exactly, and I see this prejudice in a lot of the comments here, who seem to assume under-13 edits are somehow most or on average detrimental to Wikipedia. If you think you can get under-13s banned from Wikipedia when you cite neither theory nor evidence to support your apparent assumptions, then please seriously question your adult superiority. ⠀Trimton⠀ 01:00, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
. The proposal has been withdrawn by HAL333. (non-admin closure) Sdrqaz (talk) 10:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Comment: This seems like it should be brought up at WP:ANI, instead of here. 2601:1C0:4401:24A0:6463:127E:E490:C360 (talk) 16:30, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
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