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Issues with antiquated guideline for WP:NBAND that essentially cause run of the mill non-notable items to be kept

Latest comment: 25 days ago36 comments19 people in discussion

Specifically, WP:NBAND #5 and #6, which read: 

5.) Has released two or more albums on a major record label or on one of the more important indie labels (i.e., an independent label with a history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable).

6.) Is an ensemble that contains two or more independently notable musicians, or is a musician who has been a reasonably prominent member of two or more independently notable ensembles. This should be adapted appropriately for musical genre; for example, having performed two lead roles at major opera houses. Note that this criterion needs to be interpreted with caution, as there have been instances where this criterion was cited in a circular manner to create a self-fulfilling notability loop (e.g., musicians who were "notable" only for having been in two bands, of which one or both were "notable" only because those musicians had been in them.)

These appear to have been put together by a very small number of editors over a decade ago and hasn't seen much change since then and I feel it's much more lenient than just about anything else. This SNG defines a "label" that has been around for over "a few years" that has a roster of performers as "important". So, any group of people who have released two albums through ANY verifiable label that has exited for more than a few year can end up being kept and this isn't exactly in line with GNG. I believe a discussion needs to be held in order to bring it to GNG expectations of now.

Graywalls (talk) 06:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Especially given how broadly the various criteria have been "interpreted" in deletion discussions, the best way to go about it is just to deprecate the whole thing. Rely on the GNG for band notability, and if that results in a heap of articles on ephemeral outfits, garage bands and local acts vanishing, huzzah. Ravenswing 09:07, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
The SNG isn't workable in the age of digital distribution. It's very easy to create "an independent label with a history of more than a few years". If someone wants to suggest a way to reform the SNG, I am open to solutions. But deprecation is a simple alternative if we can't. The GNG is always a good standard because it guarantees we have quality sources to write an article. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:22, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
I was active in AfD discussions when NBAND was pretty new, and it was useful for dealing with a flood of articles about garage bands and such, but I think our standards in general have tightened up since then, and I agree it is time to review it. There is the possibility, however, that revising NBAND may require as much discussion as revising NSPORT did. Donald Albury 17:49, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
This sounds reasonable. I guess we need some concrete re-write suggestions to base an rfc on. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
It sounds like you're assuming that NBAND is meant to be a substitute for the Wikipedia:General notability guideline. That's true for some WP:Subject-specific notability guidelines but not for all of them.
I guess the underlying question is: Is there actual harm in having a permastub about a band that proves to be borderline in GNG terms? Consider this:

"Alice and Bob are a musical duo in the science fiction genre.[1] They released their first album, Foo, in 2019 and their second, Bar, in 2020. Both albums were released by Record Label.[2] They are primarily known for singing during a minor event.[3]"

I'm asking this because I think that the nature of sources has changed, particularly for pop culture, since NBAND and the GNG were written. We now have subjects that get "attention from the world at large", but which aren't the Right™ kind of sources and, while these Wrong™ sources definitely provide "attention", some of that attention might not provide biographical information (which means we're looking at a short article).
For example, instead of getting attention in the arts section of a daily newspaper, they're getting attention from Anthony Fantano on YouTube. He's an important music critic,[1] but I suspect that our knee-jerk reaction is "Pffft, just some YouTuber, totally unreliable". Consequently, we might rate a band that we theoretically intend to include ("attention from the world at large") as not meeting the GNG (because the whole field relies on the Wrong™ style of sources). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
Keep in mind that like most other notability guidelines, it is a presumed assumption that a topic is notable if it meets these criteria. If you do an exhaustive Before and demonstrate there is no significant coverage beyond the sourcing to satisfy there criteria, the article should still be deleted. None of the SNGs are geared towards preventing this type of challenge. — Masem (t) 19:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
If we had to yield to presumptive notability about some random band because it released two albums with Backyard Trampoline Recordings established few years ago and had to do exhaustive search to disprove notability, we're getting setup for a situation where removal is 10x more challenging than article creation. So.. I see a great value in scrapping NBAND 5, and 6. Graywalls (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Welcome to WP:SNGs. As Masem said, they're supposed to be a rough idea of gauging notability before exhaustively searching for sources. But pretty much all of them have ended up being used as means to keep articles about trivial or run-of-the-mill subjects. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Graywalls listed two criteria but the main discussion seems to be about the 1st (#5). I agree with Graywalls on that. With the evolution of the industry, the label criteria is no longer a useful indicator as it once was and IMO #5 should be removed or modified. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:13, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, both those criteria should be scrapped. JoelleJay (talk) 22:21, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
I've noticed that as well. I think #6 has some value still, while #5 is like saying an author who has published two or more books by a major publishing house is presumed notable. Way too low a bar without requiring some level of reception of those albums/books. (WP:NAUTHOR doesn't have that 2-book criteria, of course, just seems like parallel benchmarks.) Schazjmd (talk) 13:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
On the other hand, in this case, I suspect that an artist that "has released two or more albums on a major record label or on one of the more important indie labels" will in 99% of cases have enough coverage to clear the GNG bar. I'd like to see an example of one that doesn't. Black Kite (talk) 13:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
The definition of important as said in #5 is "history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable". This would mean that a garage band is notable, because they've released two CD-R albums on Rotten Peach Recordings which has been around for 3 1/2 years, has a roster of performers and some of whom have a Wikipedia page on them. Often time "notable" is determined by the presence of a stand alone Wikipedia page. When you look at the page, many band member pages are hopelessly non-notable, but removal takes an AfD. So a simple deletion can become a time consuming multi-step AfD. Graywalls (talk) 19:18, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Here's a current AfD I am participating in where NBAND#5 was invoked to justify a keep. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sons_of_Azrael_(3rd_nomination) Graywalls (talk) 19:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Not opining on that band's notability, but Metal Blade is a famous independent label that has existed for 42 years, has released material by very high-profile bands, and is distributed by Sony - it's not some one-person imprint operating out of their garage. Black Kite (talk) 11:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
I concur regarding that particular example.
Metal Blade is a big label, and not surprisingly notability was quickly demonstrated in the deletion discussion through citing reliable source coverage. And that's how #5 should work - artist is on a significant label, which suggests coverage exists. And then coverage is found.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
It's complicated - on the one hand, music publications are increasingly prioritizing their coverage toward Taylor Swift-level celebrities, so I am almost certain there are artists on major labels that might be examples -- major as in the Big 3. This is especially so for genres like country that publications don't cover as much - there are some big names on the roster of Warner Music Nashville and also some not-so-big names.
The elephant in the room here is that entertainment journalism is in crisis mode right now, publications are operating on skeleton crews, and the range of coverage has narrowed dramatically. I encourage everyone taking part in this discussion to read the article I linked, there are a lot of assumptions being made about the way things work that aren't true. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
  • One suggestion I would add is to make these two criteria apply only to bands before a specific year, that year being where physical releases still dominated over digital sales. I don't know the exact year but I am thinking it's like around 2000 to 2010. There may still be older groups during the time of physical releases that don't yet have articles that would fall into one of these criteria. Masem (t) 20:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
  • As someone who's had WP:DSMUSIC watchlisted for most of their editing history, and who tends towards deletion at that, I actually don't see much of a problem with these criterions. It certainly seems true that the majority of musicians who are signed to a label or a member of multiple bands with two other musicians who meet WP:GNG themselves meet GNG. I do think it is sometimes justified to accept less-than-GNG sourcing in articles where a SNG is met (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John LeCompt for this as it applies to c6 specifically) and more importantly, NMUSIC contains language that allows deleting articles even where it is technically met (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rouzbeh Rafie for an extended argument about that. Mach61 23:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I've understood these criterion to be supplementing GNG, that is, that if a band or individual artist meets one or more of these criterion, they *likely* are notable. However, in the past when I was a younger and less experienced editor, I think I did understand these as being additions or alternatives to GNG. So I think that should be clarified. This has come up on the deletion discussion for Jayson Sherlock. He is a member or former member of several very notable bands, and for that reason I presumed that he would easily have independent coverage about him specifically. However, to my surprise, there's only one interview of him in a reliable source that would provide notability (there's some interviews on personal blogs or minor sites that wouldn't be RS except for him making statements about himself). But at least one editor has used the above criterion to argue that the article should be kept.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
    Just as an aside, interviews do not contribute to GNG unless they include secondary independent SIGCOV (such as a substantial background introduction by the interviewer). JoelleJay (talk) 15:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
That's how I see most SNGs (and the outliers ought to follow their lead). At the very least, we can clarify that NBAND is meant as an indicator for the GNG, and not a substitute. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:04, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
  • As someone who thought the old NSPORTS was wildly overinclusive and needed cleanup... these NBAND guidelines don't seem that bad? If two plainly notable musicians were discovered to have done some obscure team-up in the 1970s, that does indeed seem to be a notable topic and useful to have linked somewhere, even if there isn't tons of info on this collaboration. It's worth mentioning because minor subtopics are often merged to the overarching topic (e.g. songs to the album), but there may not be a clear merge location for this if both parties were equal contributors, and a short separate article is an acceptable compromise. Similarly, the complaint about #5 seems to be about just how "indie" the hypothetical label is, but this seems like a solvable problem. If a band fails GNG, that implies that either their two albums really were from a very obscure indie outfit and thus also fail NBAND, or else that we have some sort of non-English sources issue where we may consider keeping on WP:CSB grounds (i.e. that sources probably do exist to pass GNG, but they're difficult to find, and we can trust they exist because this was a major and notable label releasing the band's work). About the only suggestion I can offer is that the comment in 6 about avoiding circular notability could probably be phrased in the sense of GNG, i.e. that the two notable musicians need to both meet GNG and then this will create a new, safe NBAND notability for their collaboration. SnowFire (talk) 17:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
    The reverse situation, such as is currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jayson Sherlock, is one where you have someone who was/is in multiple notable bands, but doesn't have independent coverage about them as an individual person. -- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Agreed with deprecation; "Rely on the GNG for band notability" is the correct answer. And is the correct answer for many other things about which we have SNGs that attempt to be alternatives to GNG. Perhaps the only justifiable one is WP:NACADEMIC, because special considerations apply in that sphere (academics and other journal-publishing researchers are generally unknown the public and the public-facing media coverage like newspapers but may have major impacts in particular fields and on the world; what determines their influence level is primilar the frequency of citation of their work by other academics). No such special considerations apply with regard to bands or most other categories. We have some SNGs that are helpful because they are written to comply with GNG, to explain predictively what is most likely or unlikely to pass a GNG test at ANI, rather than trying to be an end-run around GNG. If we actually needed an SNG for bands and musicians, then the current SNG for them could be replaced by something like that. However, we don't actually need an SNG for bands and musicians.

    PS: The ideas in the current NBAND SNG are daft. Lots of musical acts have multiple albums (i.e. tracks released at the same time under a grouping title) and lots of indie labels (which may just be some dude in his bedroom) exist with multiple acts, some of them nominally notable [because of NBAND's issues, making this a vicious cycle!], but that doesn't actually make every band on that notional label (nor the label itself) enclopedia-worthy. Some of these are farcically obscure acts [not a denigration – I'm probably buying their stuff]. This is not 1977; you do not need a vinyl pressing plant to be a music label. You just need to figure out how to fill in a web form at Bandcamp and Spotify, and have enough of a clue about how the present music industry works (often just within a narrow subculture) that you can convince some acts (probably your friends in the same scene) that you can help them if they agree to be on your roster. PPS: A side issue is that "albums" isn't a good metric anyway, since several genres are not album-driven at all, and the entire notion of albums is being increasingly questioned in the era of on-demand music.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:59, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd be happy to see #5 and #6 completely eliminated. What does it take to make that happen? What's the next step? Graywalls (talk) 02:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

If you believe this would amount to a major change to the guideline, then you should probably be making a formal WP:PROPOSAL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:52, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, would clarifying that SNG don't override GNG requirements be a major change?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 11:57, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
Yes. And if you want to try that, you should find and read the many previous discussions about that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
See WP:NPLACE, which presumes populated legally recognized places are notable. So, all it takes is prove the legal recognition and presence of people and it's assumed to be notable, unless refuted.
A legally recognized city is presumed, but not guaranteed notable. If it doesn't meet GNG, then the presumed notability can be refuted. It does essentially "override" GNG though a short cut, but is subject to removal by presenting failure to meet GNG.
Such presumption is not present for most things. For example, simply quoting a local paper about a gas station opening up and operating demonstrates existence of that gas station, but there's no presumed notability for businesses.
NBAND 5 and 6 qualifies bands and albums into Wikipedia far easier than they should and they stand as a burden to article deletion due to presumed notability under tenuously defined importance, such as having released two albums through an important indie label Four Legged Octopus, which is "important" because the MailBox Etc based label has been around for five years and has a roster. Graywalls (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Not speaking to this issue directly, but the trend in subject specific guidelines, IMHO, has been to reduce the influence of SNGs relative to GNG, not override. When we started these projects 20 years ago, almost every article was low hanging fruit, almost bound to be found notable eventually. As an example, Military History Wikiproject adopted and modified WP:SOLDIER, a set of specific and non-subjective criteria which if met gave an indication of presumption of reliable sources being found somewhere eventually. This was intended to screen out a lot of "dead veteran I know" articles, not become the floor for inclusion. When it finally came up for discussion it was made clear SOLDIER was just a project thing and wasn't itself an approved SNG. It was quickly decommissioned, but SOLDIER criteria was for many years a frequently mentioned keep argument at AfD. As another example, WP:SPORTSPERSON is another project related shorthand (but consensus-approved SNG), which made it more difficult to create and keep articles about athletes without at least one source with significant coverage, which still seems a low bar indeed. IMHO the original intent of such SNGs was to screen article candidates, but as the pedia grew, we started using SNGs to keep them. Adjusting SNGs to meet the modern usage era seems the practical and accepted path. The medical SNGs are still used as exclusionary, and for the best reasons. BusterD (talk) 15:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
    IMHO the original intent of such SNGs was to screen article candidates, but as the pedia grew, we started using SNGs to keep them. As someone who joined 10 years in, this seems to have been the trend.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 18:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, in my opinion SNGs should be exclusionary criteria, necessary but not sufficient for notability. JoelleJay (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
    Agreed, and this makes a lot more sense to me. I haven’t paid much attention to SNGs till recent years, so it has been my impression that they are applied as supplemental options towards keeps and creates. The only one that I even think of as exclusionary is WP:NEVENT, although that’s got its own difficulties inherent.
    Ideally I’d like to see every AfD “SNG-therefore-keep” voter back their rationale up by saying that they endorse the SNG by its likelihood toward sources existing. — HTGS (talk) 22:34, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

the REGIME test

Latest comment: 22 days ago26 comments15 people in discussion
CLOSED
I am boldly closing this discussion as the proposal has no chance of passing as demonstrated by the responses already provided. ElKevbo (talk) 14:55, 24 November 2024 (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.

  • That any news outlet or source that refers to a government as a "regime" be considered not reliable for facts about that regime, except for attributed statements.
  • That a list be kept and updated, similar to WP:RS/Perennial sources

Skullers (talk) 04:03, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Why do we want to only use sources that haven't noticed that a regime is a regime? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:09, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
This would, for example, rule out using a significant proportion of reliable sources covering contemporary North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba and Iran as well as countless historical governments (e.g. Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Franco's Spain, Gaddafi's Libya, etc). This is clearly hasn't been fully thought through. Thryduulf (talk) 04:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, it might have been thought through if the idea is to exclude sources critical of said regimes, eg Activist takes own life in protest at Iranian regime (BBC). Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 06:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
That would be a gratuitous failure of NPOV. Thryduulf (talk) 11:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
In heated agreement. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 01:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
Bad idea. A biased source does not mean unreliable. See WP:BIASED. However, it is indeed good indicator that a in-text attribution may be needed. Ca talk to me! 15:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I think this does get at something which is a problem in Wikipedia. It just doesn't quite hit the mark. And that is that there is a core assumption in Wikipedia's handling of news media sources that they are largely independent and that a deviation from editorial independence represents a deviation from best practices. However this often leads to Wikipedia simply assuming the biases of the New York Times and other major media outlets. But there has been an accumulation of multitudinous issues - one of the most recent being accounts of Jeff Bezos influencing the Washington Post to withhold an endorsement of Kamala Harris - that demonstrate that the idea of editorial independence is frankly quaint.

This, of course, then creates problems with adjudicating those sources that have previously been demonstrated to be non-independent (see for example WP:XINHUA) as the rationale on Wikipedia for treating Xinhua differently from, let's say, the BBC or Al Jazeera for that matter largely depends upon the assumption of independence of those outlets that are not aligned with enemy states of the US/UK hegemony.

My personal opinion is that the use of news sources on an encyclopedia should be far more limited than it presently is as, in my case, it's not that I trust Xinhua (I don't) but that I don't trust any media outlet to produce material appropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. I don't think a "regime" test is going to improve the quality of pages that over-rely on news media. But I would suggest that it's another indication that Wikipedia needs to be far more critical of what news sources we depend on and in what contexts. Simonm223 (talk) 19:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
No, editorial independence is not the reason for a source being considered reliable or not. Many sources are biased, or influenced by specific governments/interest groups, and are still considered reliable for topics other than the groups influencing them (in which case, by definition, they would not be an independent source). A history of disinformation (actually making up stuff, not just reporting it in a biased way) pushes the source towards being considered unreliable.
WP:XINHUA, which you link, demonstrates this clearly, stating There is consensus that Xinhua is generally reliable for factual reporting except in areas where the government of China may have a reason to use it for propaganda or disinformation. In the same way, we shouldn't rely on the Washington Post for topics related to Jeff Bezos. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
The example I gave wasn't one of a story about Jeff Bezos or a topic related to Jeff Bezos unless one contends (which, I will grant there's a case to be made) that anything to do with a US election is ultimately about the interests of the Billionaire class. But, you see, that's my point. Pretty much any media outlet will distort truth, spread disinformation or, at the most basic, bury stories that aren't to the interests of their handlers. And I do want to stress that the stories that are not covered is a key method through which media occludes truth. The only real question is whether the handler is a politbureau or a rich guy. I don't think one of those is better than the other. Simonm223 (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
The fact that a news media is influenced to not publish a story makes it biased, but not unreliable. Having a point of view when reporting (or choosing not to report) stories is what every media does, and is different from outright making up disinformation. And that is the difference between bias and unreliability. It's not about who the handler is, rich guys can also own unreliable news sources. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:16, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I mean we certainly agree about that rich guy. I just think Wikipedia is too fast to treat news sources as reliable out of convenience rather than any real confidence in the quality of information. Simonm223 (talk) 20:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Simonm223. I just can't understand why an encyclopedia should be largely based on news sources rather than peer-reviewed academic articles or books. For a start most of them are primary sources, by any definition other than Wikipedia's. This is dumbing-down at its worst. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:09, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
Exactly, yes. Simonm223 (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree, out article on Donald Trump and Joe Biden for example would do better citing academic sources than news outlets. Ca talk to me! 02:21, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
See the definition (specifically 2(c) and 2(d)). Regime is a synonym for "administration" or "government" (when used to describe, as example, the Biden administration or the Tory government). It makes zero sense whatsoever to block sources who use a synonym for administration just because one person feels it has negative connotations. Wikipedia is not the place to practice redefining words or limiting their use based on their worst definitions or connotations. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 05:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
Prescriptivism is dead. See examples. There is zero percent usage in modern times that isn't derogatory; literally no one says unironically "our regime", "the regimes of our allies", or "regimes we'd like to do business with". Skullers (talk) 08:29, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree in as much as "government" would always be a better term in any use case I can think of.
However, your polemics here have been consistently superficial and unhelpful. It seems almost self-parody to aphorize "prescriptivism is dead" amid seeking to categorically deprecate sources based on the sole criterion of whether they use a particular word, citing what you feel is the only correct definition of said word in practice. Remsense ‥ 论 09:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
The attraction of the word "regime" to headline writers is often that it is simply shorter than "government" or "administration", rather than anything to do with its connotations. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:48, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
Exactly my point. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 23:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
What is the rationale for this proposal? Is there a specific source or incident that prompted it? Gnomingstuff (talk) 01:09, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
While I understand the rationale for this proposal, IMO it goes way too far. I would agree that it's important to keep in mind when a source is using biased language and consider using in-text attribution in these cases, but certainly it's not worth a blanket ban.
Furthermore, it's often the case that when the news media uses negative language about a topic, that's because that negative language is the consensus. For instance, nobody would really question the phrase "the Nazi regime" or even probably "the genocidal Nazi regime" from a reliable source, and for good reason. When everyone agrees on a contentious label that implies that in that specific case the label is not, in fact, contentious. Loki (talk) 01:21, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
  • This proposal is rather absurd. You can’t declare a source unreliable based on a word, especially one that’s frequently used as a harmless rhetorical flourish. What should we ban next? Sources that use swearing? Sources that use subjective adjectives like “best” or “amazing”? Dronebogus (talk) 13:16, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
I say we should also ban all sources that use the word "slam". Equally as absurd, but more likely to actually hit unreliable sources. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
Presumably excluding sports uses? We definitely need sources that report on grand slams. Thryduulf (talk) 14:40, 24 November 2024 (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.

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § RfC: Enacting T5 (unused template subpages)

Latest comment: 21 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § RfC: Enacting T5 (unused template subpages). HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Information on cross-wiki article creation

Latest comment: 19 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion

The Harald Winter article was created by X3ntar as a port from the German Wikipedia article (found here: Harald Winter). The English article consists primarily of poor English translation and promotional content, and when I was looking through the history of the article, all I saw originally were red-linked accounts created a short while before their edits to the article, leading me to begin researching to source a WP:SPI case. After almost an hour of looking into this, I don't think this is canvassing, meatpuppetry, or anything like that. More likely it's a case of German editors wanting to update the English version of the article. However, I couldn't find any policies or essays that gave advice on how to handle cross-wiki contributions or page creations. Is there a common consensus reached prior? Sirocco745 (talk) 04:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't happen very often, so I don't think there are any advice pages. In general, it would be a lovely thing if people who created an article in one language could then do a semi-decent translation into another language.
I'm aware of two multi-editor cases of that. The first is that when a WMF staffer mentioned writing her first article (in English), a handful of staffers who are not native English speakers (but who are experienced Wikipedians) translated that into their native language as a way of encouraging her to keep editing as a volunteer. This probably happened about a decade ago, and it was very sweet.
The other was a sustained self-promotion effort by a handful of artists, including hoax photos. See d:Q131244 for what's left of their efforts. We deleted the English article. The reason this sticks in my mind is that they repeatedly faked photos – see c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ferlinghetti meets Immagine&Poesia representatives.jpg for one example – of various people and the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Every few months, one of the same two photos of Ferlinghetti in a public place would appear, with a different person photoshopped into the scene next to him, and it would get added to an article with a caption saying something like "Ferlinghetti met with so-and-so" (a different name each time). The result is that every remaining mention of that group seems suspicious to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for responding. I'm going to think about what can be done to assist editors in future scenarios and draft some thoughts for an essay in my sandbox later. I don't believe that creating a policy proposal is worth it right now, since as you've observed, cross-wiki article copy-pasting isn't a major concern due to its relative uncommonness. I'm considering writing up an essay on the subject instead, maybe also creating a template later on to go at the top of an article that says something along the lines of "This article was cross-posted from the "XYZ Wikipedia" and is currently undergoing translation, discussion, and improvement." Sirocco745 (talk) 02:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Titles of articles about false theories or accusations

Latest comment: 19 days ago15 comments7 people in discussion

This seems to be a little bit inconsistent. Some have "conspiracy theory" in the title, clearly stating they are false (I don't think there's any possible way any even remotely possible theory or accusation would have the words "conspiracy theory" in it). Some go even further outright stating "myth" (not unwarranted if it is clearly false).

However: These do not, despite the article clearly stating the theory or accusation is incorrect:

Is there some kind of policy regarding whether to include "conspiracy theory", "myth", etc in article titles about false theories or accusations? </MarkiPoli> <talk /><cont /> 12:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Generally, all articles should be titled neutrally and in line with their common name, where they have one. If the significant majority of reliable sources do not describe something as a conspiracy theory or myth (even if they are false) then our article titles should not. In most cases where "myth" and "conspiracy" appear in the article titles they are descriptive as there is no single common name for the topic(s) covered. Consistency is part of the article titles policy but it is only one criterion and generally not regarded as the most important. Thryduulf (talk) 12:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
I see two situations here: one where the article title wouldn’t work without the addition of “conspiracy theory” (i.e “International Jewish” is a non sequitur fragment); and one where the title would work (“999 phone charging” makes sense on its own). We don’t need to state something is a myth in the title if the article explains it’s a myth; there’s enough RFK Jr. types whining at Talk:Turbo cancer to prove that much. Dronebogus (talk) 13:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
Agree with Thryduulf. We should use titles that are considered the common name for the topic and that fall with the article title policy, and then after that any necessarily disambiguation steps to differentiate from other topics. And as long as the lede sentence or lede itself (as in the case of Vaccines and autism) is clear what is legitimate science or fact and what is a conspiracy theory, pseudoscience, or disproven, then its not as important for the title to reflect that as well. Masem (t) 13:31, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
Indeed there are some editors on the sceptic side who seem to feel that it is necessary to explicitly and stridently describe something as pseudoscientific at every possible opportunity. We don't need to bash our readers over the head with it, indeed doing so can be contrary to NPOV (e.g. when reliable sources disagree and/or take a more nuanced approach). Thryduulf (talk) 14:39, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
I think that what leads to adding "conspiracy theory", "myth", etc. generally boils down to whether the topic is one that perennially annoys the regular page watchers at WP:FRINGE/N. So, for instance, Fan Death isn't caused "the Fan Death Myth" largely because there's not a large proportion of editors rushing to the Fan Death article to say "this is a real serious problem guys". Simonm223 (talk) 14:48, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
I think that’s a genuine problem that we should probably address— some anti-fringe editors are among the most aggressive contributors I’ve encountered, probably because too many “skeptics” are also culture warriors who need to right great wrongs by doing everything short of calling something “stupid” and its adherents “idiots”, which of course actually damages our credibility. Dronebogus (talk) 15:09, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm all for preventing the spread of quack medicine and Ufology silliness on the encyclopedia but, generally, the fringe noticeboard is poorly equipped to address assessments of what research is fringe outside of medicine, history and archaeology. I think some of these anomalous titling conventions kind of point toward that specificity of scope. Simonm223 (talk) 15:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
FRINGE should really only apply to topics where objective research have thoroughly debunked the notion, and not to areas where questions remain open or where debunking may never be possible at which point Undue becomes the answer. For example, whike most science rejects the COVID lab theory, it's still near difficult to devisicely conclude that the lab theory is not posdible, so we should avoid calling it fringe but clearly note the weight of experts that have dismissed it. — Masem (t) 16:54, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
Hmm, there is a difference between "theories that are scientific, plausible and supported only an extreme minority of sources but have not been/are unlikely to be conclusively disproven", "theories that are scientific, were previously mainstream but no longer are, but are still supported by an extreme minority of sources as they have not been conclusively disproven". "theories that are scientific but implausible to the extent that mainstream sources do not feel the need to conclusively disprove them.", "theories which are scientific and have been conclusively disproven, but still have some supporters", "theories which are pseudoscientific" and "theories which are neither scientific nor pseudoscientific". I've seen FRINGE used to describe all of these cases, which is unhelpful. Thryduulf (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
I think part of the issue is: there is a Kennedy assassination, but this article is about the conspiracy theories; there is grooming but this article is about about a conspiracy theory; there is phone charging but this article is about a myth; there are international Jewish organizations but this article is not about that, etc. So, the article title is limited to (and limits) the scope of the article. And other times, 'myth' or 'conspiracy theor[ies]' is in a common name for the subject. Also note, you really can't tell why an article is called 'this' instead of 'that', unless it has actually been discussed. Article title decisions are made in a decentralized manner, and may never be revisited. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
Alan raises a good point… when there actually are theories that postulate a conspiracy, then it is not POV to call them “conspiracy theories”. That is a neutral descriptive title, not a pejorative one. Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
I am not sure if that's true, that those that subscribe to a theory that is based on conspiracy would necessary call it a conspiracy theory themselves. Eg those that claim there is a deep state aren't usually calling that a conspiracy theory, but a theory about conspiracies, if that makes sense. Masem (t) 15:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
And according to that article "deep state" is a pejorative. Regardless, just because you have Illuminati does not mean you can't have New World Order conspiracy theory. The Illuminati of Bavaria, can well be a different matter than the Illuminati of the 1960s novel.[2] Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:31, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I would like to add that, while I would like standardized article titles and would also like if some anti-FRINGE editors dropped the “angry atheist” stereotype, I think this is an exceedingly trivial issue that does not need to be “solved”. Dronebogus (talk) 16:03, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Global welcoming policy

Latest comment: 19 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a proposed global policy at meta:Requests for comment/Welcoming policy: "A wiki is only allowed to post welcome messages to users if their account was originally created at the wiki, or the user has at least one non-imported edit there." Comments belong there and not here. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:48, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Date redirects to portals?

Latest comment: 15 days ago40 comments15 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

16 August 2006 points to the current events portal as a result of this discussion. However, date redirects will continue to come up at RfD, some some wider community discussion and input is helpful on whether or not the current events portal is an appropriate target for mainspace redirects. See also: this ongoing discussion for some context.

Related questions to consider: are portals "part of the encyclopedia"? Thanks, Cremastra (u — c) 00:55, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  • The second question is easy: Yes, portals are part of the encyclopaedia. As to the first question, portals are reader-facing content and so I see no reason why they wouldn't be appropriate targets for mainspace redirects, given that uncontroversially target mainspace redirects to reader-facing templates and categories when they are the best target. Whether the port is the best target for a given date will depend on the specific date but in general the portal should always be an option to consider. Thryduulf (talk) 01:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
    I agree with this. The portal is definitely not always the best option and it has its limitations, but, as I wrote at WP:RDATE it should be considered and assessed along with mainspace articles. Cremastra (u — c) 01:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
Pinging: Utopes, who I've discussed this with.
Notified: WT:RFD, WT:PORT, WT:CURRENTEVENTS, WT:WPRED. Cremastra (u — c) 01:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
If a namespace doesn't have the same standards as mainspace, then the reader shouldn't be redirected there while possibly not realizing they are now outside of mainspace. Yes, there is more content at Portal:Current events/August 2006 than at 2006#August, but the reader is now facing a decades-old page with no quality control, where links to Breitbart are misleadingly labeled as (AP). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:50, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Portal does have the same standards as mainspace. That a portal is not up to those standards is no different to an article being in bad shape - fix it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:54, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
So I can use the speedy A-criteria for portal pages? Fram (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
No, because they are not articles. Two things can be held to the same standard without being the same thing. Criterion P1 previously allowed that (indirectly) but it was repealed in 2023 due to lack of use. Thryduulf (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Then they aren't held to the same standards... More in general, no, they obviously aren't held to the same standards, e.g. a portal page doesn't have to be a notable topic but may be purely decorative or (as is the case with the date pages) be a list of mainly non-notable things, failing WP:NOTNEWS and WP:LISTN. That some standards are the same (BLP, copyvio, ...) can also be said for e.g. user talk pages, and we don't redirect to these pages either. Fram (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
We don't redirect to user talk pages because they aren't reader-facing, so that's irrelevant. We don't hold reader-facing templates and categories to article content policies (because they aren't articles) but we do redirect to them. Don't conflate quality standards with inclusion policies, they are not the same thing. Thryduulf (talk) 21:15, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I wasn´t aware that the standards we were talking about were solely quality standards, whatever these may be, and not content standards, sourcing standards, ... I´m sadly not amazed that you consider these irrelevant when deciding what to present to our readers. Fram (talk) 21:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
In theory, I think portals should be held to the same CSD criteria as articles. But of course the A criteria actually only apply to articles. Cremastra (u — c) 22:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
  • There's a lot of random junk in portalspace, but yes, it is part of the encyclopedia. Just like categories and templates, portals are reader-facing content. C F A 💬
  • I didn't really have super strong opinions on portals until seeing this one link to Breitbart, twice, in a misleading way. This is not okay. I agree with Fram that clearly Portals are not being held up to the same standards as regular articles and it might be a bad idea to redirect readers to them. Toadspike [Talk] 23:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I saw this on CENT, and I am confused by the question. Portal:Current events/2006 August 16 is very different from something like Portal:Belgium, and it doesn't make sense to pretend they are the same to establish policy. And what does "part of the encyclopedia" even mean? "Interpreting a confusing phrase" is a terrible way to decide redirect targets.
    For the specific question of "Should dates redirect to the Current Events portal rather than to a page like August 2006 ... I don't know. I don't see a compelling reason why they can't, nor a compelling reason why they should. Walsh90210 (talk) 15:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
    Hey, that's a nice Portal! Thank you for restoring my faith in portals. Clicking on "Random Portal" took me to Portal:Trees, which is also pretty nice. My opinion is now that yes, portals can be good, but it seems to me that we currently have no Ps and Gs to apply to their content or measure their quality, no consensus about how to direct readers to them, and a very checkered and controversial history of deletion. I really dunno what to do about them. Toadspike [Talk] 16:49, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
    Of course that's a nice portal, look who created it :-D Fram (talk) 17:51, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
  • No, we should not redirect dates to the current events portal subpages. It's a cross-namespace redirect that takes readers from somewhere they expect to be (an encyclopedia article on the topic "16 August 2006") to somewhere they don't expect to be (a navigational aid(?) that highlights some things that happened that day). I'm not 100% sure what the current events portal subpages are for, but they're not meant to stand in as pseudo-articles in places we lack real articles. Ajpolino (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
    Cross-namespace redirects in and of themselves are not a problem. They only cause issues when they take someone expecting reader-facing content to "backroom" content (e.g. project space). Both article and portals are reader-facing content, so this is not an issue. Thryduulf (talk) 22:17, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
    Is there another case where we link a reader from an article to a non-article without clearly denoting it? E.g. I have no problem with the {{Portal}} template folks often use in the See also section. Ajpolino (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
    There are lots of redirects to templates and categories. Many navigation templates link to other navigation templates. Thryduulf (talk) 08:12, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
    Any examples of these lots of mainspace pages which are redirects to templates? 08:42, 9 November 2024 (UTC) Fram (talk) 08:42, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
    List of elections in Texas, List of Kentucky county seats, Cite web. Thryduulf (talk) 00:13, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks. Okay, Citeweb is a bad example, not something readers look for but something editors look for. The other 2 are among the 6 existing reader facing redirects to templates (from Category:Redirects to template namespace, the only ones which are from mainspace and not editor-related like the cite templates). Not quite the "lots" you seemed to be suggesting throughout this discussion, but extremely rare outliers which should probably all be RfD'ed. Fram (talk) 11:42, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
    Now only 2 remaining, converted the other 4 in articles or other redirects. Fram (talk) 11:52, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes, the current events portals are valid redirect targets for dates and preferred in this case of the best article redirect for a specific date being the month section of an article on an entire year. I agree with Fram that portals are not held to the same standards as articles, but I disagree with Ajpolino's stance that a cross-namespace redirect is so disruptive that they are prohibited in all cases, given that WP:Portal says "portals are meant primarily for readers." ViridianPenguin 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:46, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Commenting strictly on the "are portals part of the encyclopedia" question, yes it is. Unfortunately there was one extremely loud, disruptive voice who kept making portals less useful and suffocating any discussions that would make it more beneficial to readers. Plenty of willing portal contributors, including myself, left this space and readers are still reaping the seeds of what that disruptive user planted even after they have been ArbCom banned over a year ago. So it may given some people an illusion that portals aren't doing much towards the encyclopedic goal, because the current status is handicapped by its history. I'm reserving my views on the redirect part of the discussion. OhanaUnitedTalk page 07:29, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Not, portals are not held to the standards of articles, and if something for whatever reason shouldn't be or can't be an enwiki article, this shouldn't be circumvented by having it in portalspace. Either these date pages are acceptable, and then they should be in mainspace. Or they are not what we want as articles, and then we shouldn't present them to our readers anyway. Fram (talk) 11:42, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
    These current events pages differ from articles in many respects, but the referencing standards are similar. Whether they happen to be prefixed by "Portal:" or not is not reflective of their quality. J947 ‡ edits 23:18, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes, because the purpose of Portal:Current events/2022 August 21 is to provide encyclopaedic information on 21 August 2022 and this purpose has been by-and-large successful. J947 ‡ edits 23:18, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
  • The current events portal example listed seems encyclopedic enough, in that apart from some formatting differences it might as well be a list article, but I've seen other portals that have editor-facing content that is more dubiously appropriate for mainspace. Consider, for example, Portal:Schools § Wikiprojects (capitalization [sic]) and Portal:Schools § Things you can do, and the similar modules at many other portals. Sdkb talk 18:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes per J947, especially given that the current event portals function like an encyclopedic list for the given date. -- Tavix (talk) 16:46, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes, speaking as a recognized portalista, portals have not yet been excised from the pedia. In this case, User:J947 makes the essential point. I'm not convinced that even incomplete, out-of-date portals are any less encyclopedic than the 2 million or so Wikipedia articles nobody bothered to edit last year. BusterD (talk) 14:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Portals are not part of the encylopedia as we understand encyclopedias: sources of information. They serve as navigation within an encylopedia. We would not see a Portal as the final delivery of information, any more than we would see a contents page, index, blurb, or advert as the final information page. These are all ancillary. People mostly land on a Wikipedia article page without a Portal. I have used Wikipedia for nearly twenty years without ever needing a Portal to direct me to where I want to go, and I would assume this is true for the majority of people. Redirects are designed as a signpost, and we frown upon a signpost simply pointing to another signpost. People would generally only arrive at a Portal if directed there from a link that should more helpfully point to the appropriate article. The Belgium Portal is mentioned above as a good Portal. If we go to the Belgium article and scroll down, there is a link to the Belgium Portal. But the Portal mainly provides us with a digest of the Belgium article, including a link back to the Belgium article, which itself contains more links to Belgium related articles than the Belgium Portal. Huh? Seriously? Why are we taking readers away from a sublime source, rich with information and links, to an inferior source? There is nothing on the Belgium Portal that is not available on the Belgium article page - including links to news. But there is much on the Belgian article page that is not on the Belgium Portal page. My suggestion is that ALL links to portals such as the Belgium Portal should instead go to the main article page. Why are we redirecting people to a redirect page when we can send them to the main article on the topic? Portals are a waste of our time and resources, and are a misdirect for readers. SilkTork (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
    @SilkTork Are you also specifically opposed to redirecting to the current events portal, which is more "encyclopedic" than "navigational"? Cremastra ‹ u — c › 22:44, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not exactly comfortable with 2006#August as a target as that itself is a signpost, but I see little value in us having two such signposts - that simply duplicates and confuses things. Either we have 2006#August or we have Portal:Current events/2006 August 16, and I'd much prefer we simply get rid of Portals, so I would obviously opt for 2006#August. SilkTork (talk) 23:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
    The CE portal has more information for the reader, so I prefer it (see my arguments at WP:RDATE.) Cremastra ‹ u — c › 23:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
    @SilkTork Your argument breaks down as soon as you realise that disambiguation pages and set indexes exist and that redirects to those pages are extremely common and uncontroversial. We also redirect people to outlines, broad concept articles and overviews. What is the "main article page" for a date? In all but a few exceptional cases there isn't a single article but multiple, and so just as if they had searched Mercury, Bitter ash or Stuffed flatbread we present them with a menu of content that is relevant to their search term and let them choose what it is they want to read about. Thryduulf (talk) 22:46, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
    See my answer above. I don't see the point in duplicating signposts. We have Belgium, so we don't need Portal:Belgium; and we have 2006#August so we don't need Portal:Current events/2006 August 16. Signposts are not part of the encyclopedia, but they are navigational aids which lead us to further information. However, we have built into every article multiple signposts to further information. We don't need to have duplicate signposts outside of mainspace to which people are directed away from mainspace to consult. It is a waste of our time and resources, and a misdirection for readers. Internal links are an elegant way of signposting to further information. Navigational templates are a little clunky, but are useful. Portals take readers away from the encyclopedia, and are a pointless timesink for both editors and readers. SilkTork (talk) 23:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
    Portals are just as much part of the encyclopaedia as set indexes and navigational templates. Portal:Belgium and Belgium fulfil very different roles in the encyclopaedia, neither is a duplicate of the other. Thryduulf (talk) 23:10, 23 November 2024 (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.

Propose to create page of block discussion in noticeboards

Latest comment: 14 days ago14 comments5 people in discussion

Hello users, I propose having a page within noticeboards in the "general" section called "Block discussion" with a list of active discussions (which could be a review request, an unblock request or a discussion on whether to block the user) (to separate from administrators ' noticeboard, to clarify further, and that within the DB there are 5 topics, 1. Evidence (evidence that the user can provide as a reason for blocking, will be ignored in the review request), 2. Defense (defense of the blocked or accused against blocking or defending its review), 3. Comments (comments from anyone who is registered and at least 10 edits whether they agree, disagree or neutrality with blocking, a filter or unblocking), 4. Administrators' evaluation (where administrators agree or disagree with blocking, unblocking or filtering, this means that the conclusion depends on the administrators' assessment), 5. Conclusion (Conclusion of the discussion if the blocking, filtering or unblocking was approved).

NOTE: And there must be verification in the discussion to prevent someone from manipulating BD through sockpuppetry. JPPEDRA2 why not? 18:54, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

This means I'm proposing to separate "Wikipedia:Block Discussion" from "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard" to be clearer JPPEDRA2 why not? 18:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
I understand the desire to split things off of AN/ANI, but this split poses several problems in practice. Quite frequently the proposal for a CBAN only arises after discussion has been ongoing for some time, and while it could be split off at that point it creates an extra bureaucratic step for questionable benefit. The other issue is that neither CBAN impositions nor their appeals are all that common, and separate noticeboards only tend to work well for things that have a fairly high frequency threshold. Arguably, if we had to do it over again AN wouldn't be the catchall, but at this point changing that is more trouble than its worth.
Granted, CBAN and appeal procedures could be tightened up separately without splitting anything off, but there's a longstanding preference for unstructured and somewhat messy discussions, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
@184.152.68.190 Ok, i'm understand, so can i'm cancel this proposal because that will be more complex? JPPEDRA2 why not? 17:57, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
@JPPEDRA2: Yes, you can just close it as withdrawn, if you so chose. But don't let me discourage you if you want to leave this open for input from others; every so often perrenial proposals do get implemented, including rather recently, though its usually better to get input at WP:VPI first.
As a side note unregistered users cannot yet be pinged, though apparently that is coming sometime in the not to distant future. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 18:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Ok, so I won't cancel now, I will let others discuss it, if it is rejected, put it in those VPI or perrenial proposals that you mentioned, thanks non-registrered user. JPPEDRA2 why not? 19:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why, but I was invited here by a notice on my talk page. My initial impression is that this is a solution in search of a problem - largely per the IP editor's first comment. Very few AN(I) threads start off as a proposal for a ban, and divorcing such a proposal from the preceding discussion seems suboptimal, especially ban proposals often run concurrently with proposals for lesser restrictions. Appeals of bans being moved to a new page is an easier sell from a purely practical perspective but it would be a relatively little-used, for example there are none currently being discussed at either AN or ANI, and it would be less watched than either page (which is not a good thing for a community block appeal). Thryduulf (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
  • @JPPEDRA2: I see that you have very few mainspace edits and you haven't participated in any AN discussions. I recommend working on some easy mainspace edits at WP:TASKS instead of proposing massive changes to areas of the encyclopedia that you don't edit in. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
    @Voorts Ok dear voorts, thanks for recommendation. JPPEDRA2 why not? 22:24, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  • While I do agree that there are problems with AN/I I don't think those problems are that blocks are discussed there. Rather, as constructed I find it is generally bad at efficiently discussing and resolving urgent issues. I think we should have improved processes in place for promptly identifying and closing spurious cases so that they don't become drawn-out time sinks that often result in either nothing happening but an argument or, occasionally, a boomerang. I respect the WP:BOLD spirit of this proposal but I think it's unlikely to cure what ails AN:I. Simonm223 (talk) 01:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Blind 1RR/3RR

Latest comment: 14 days ago21 comments8 people in discussion

Blind enforcement of 1RR/3RR does not serve the project. The question should not be whether one violated the rule, but whether they violated the rule in a way that does not benefit the article. If there is no objection to the violation, we can reasonably assume that they are benefiting the article, or at least causing no harm. The decision should be left in the hands of other editors. Could this be used as a weapon? Would there be editors who claim harm where none exists? Certainly, but that's preferable to what we have now.

The problem, no doubt familiar to editors reading this, is that there are often not enough "good" editors around to protect an article from "bad" editors (malicious or merely inexperienced) while staying within 1RR/3RR. There is no restriction on the number of BOLD edits by a given editor, or on the number of editors performing BOLD edits. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:09, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

1RR in contentious areas should be fully maintained, with no exceptions. Otherwise, edit wars will quickly develop. GoodDay (talk) 00:11, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
agreed. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:21, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
If someone is repeatedly reverting reverts, then there is objection to the violation by definition. That's what edit warring is. If someone is making the same BOLD edit that needs to be reverted multiple times, then they are also edit warring. There are already exceptions with these rules for patent nonsense or obvious vandalism. If there's routine disruption, then it only makes the problem worse to revert over and over instead of taking it to WP:RFPP. If you feel the need to make more than one or two reverts in a content dispute, then it's time to either consider other options or step away from the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:31, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
It's not about edit warring or re-reverts; the problem exists without a single re-revert. Editor A does ten BOLD edits, five of which are detrimental to the article because they are too inexperienced (this stuff takes years to master, so that's far from uncommon). Editors B, C, D, and E contribute an additional twenty detrimental edits (along with any number of good ones, that number being irrelevant for our purposes here). Meanwhile, competent editors F, G, and H are limited to a total of nine reverts, leaving 21 detrimental edits in the article. I say F, G, and H should be allowed to revert until someone claims they are doing harm. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:04, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Where are you seeing thirty detrimental edits to an article in every day? Why isn't this article protected? Why aren't editors F, G, and H starting a discussion? Why are they reverting Editor A's edits individually instead of rolling them back? Why is it so urgent that these edits need to be reverted right this moment? Even on the off chance that they encounter such an article that exists, F, G, and H would not need to engage in tag-team reverting (which is still edit warring) if they knew what they were doing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:07, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
You are welcome to reduce the numbers as you please; the problem exists regardless. The article is protected, even with ECP, and there is no shortage of registered editors who have 30 days and 500 edits and still have years to go before they are editing with any reasonable level of competence. Some never reach that point. Why aren't editors F, G, and H starting a discussion? Seriously? Why are they reverting Editor A's edits individually instead of rolling them back? Because (1) they may not have the rollback right, and the rollback right should not be required to function as an editor, (2) they would be rolling back five good edits, and (3) it's impossible if Editor A's edits are interleaved with those of any other editor(s). Why is it so urgent that these edits need to be reverted right this moment? Because (particularly in large and very active articles) the bad edits can easily be missed if not caught immediately. Then they stay in the article for some unknown amount of time until noticed by a competent editor and corrected with a BOLD edit. Could be months or even years. Is that good for the article? ―Mandruss ☎ 02:27, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
they may not have the rollback right: Not the main point of this thread, but Wikipedia:Twinkle has its verison of rollback, available for any registered user.—Bagumba (talk) 04:57, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Could you give an example or two where this has caused a problem? And I note that you have answered the two most important questions inadequately: if an article is subject to edit-warring it should be fully protected, and you dismissed "Why aren't editors F, G, and H starting a discussion?" with "Seriously?". Yes, of course it's a serious question. Starting a discussion is the best way of defusing an edit war. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:20, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
"Seriously?", while counter to the WP:DR policy, might be an honest response. I often get page protection or block requests, where my first response is often "where's the discussion?" —Bagumba (talk) 10:02, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Unless Mandruss is extremely lazy, for which I have no evidence, I don't see how that response can be honest. It only takes a few seconds to start a discussion, no longer than it took to start this one, and the person who starts it wins some extra points. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:08, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
extremely lazy, for which I have no evidence Thank you! I have my share of faults and shortcomings, but I don't think extreme laziness is one of them. So there should be new discussions for each of the bad edits (separately for the sake of efficiency and organization), and the bad edits should remain in the article until enough editors have the time, interest, and attention span to form consensuses against them while attending to other important matters. This, at an ATP where we're struggling to keep the ToC at a manageable size even without such discussions. I don't know what articles you're editing, but I want to work there. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:51, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
Did you seriously just point to Donald Trump as your example and then say you don't know what articles aren't like that Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:01, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
I gather the Donald Trump article is a rare anomaly where bad content is something we have to live with because the current rules are incapable of preventing it. After all, it's just one article. I would oppose that reasoning. I'd say article quality is at least as important there as anywhere else. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:33, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
So there should be new discussions for each of the bad edits ...: Yes, or what is an alternative? Your suggestion to favor "good" edits over "bad" is problematic when everyone says their's are the "good" ones. Polarizing topics can be difficult for patrolling admins to WP:AGF determine "good" v. "bad" edits if they are not subject matter experts.—Bagumba (talk) 05:43, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
Remember that consecutive edits by a single editor are treated as a single revert for WP:3RR purposes. So, in your case, editor H can go back and revert the various bad edits and, even if they mechanically break it out into multiple edits, they still have done one revert... Until someone goes back and re-reverts. Simonm223 (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
If "do not repeat edits without consensus" were the rule (rather than "do not revert"), it would take care of this problem. Levivich (talk) 03:42, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Who said anything about repeated edits? Am I missing something? I'm tired at the moment, so that's a possibility. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:04, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
What do you mean, who said? I said something about repeated edits :-) If the rule were "do not repeat edits without consensus" 1x or 3x in 24 hours, instead of "do not revert" 1x or 3x in 24 hours (which leads to the whole "what exactly counts as a revert?" issue), the problem you are describing would not happen. The 'bad' editor can make 10 bad edits, and the 'good' editor can revert all 10 edits without violating do-not-repeat-3RR, and the 'bad' editor would be able to repeat 3 of those 10 edits without crossing do-not-repeat-3RR, and the 'good' editor can revert all 3 of those without crossing do-not-repeat-3RR, et voila: equilibrium. The problem is we focus on "revert" instead of "repeat." To tamp down on edit warring, we should prohibit people from repeating their edits, not from "reverting" (whatever that means, exactly) edits. Levivich (talk) 04:50, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Well I'll have to come back after a sleep and try to comprehend that. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Blind enforcement of 1RR/3RR does not serve the project: Are you referring to page protection or blocks? On contentious topics or any subject? —Bagumba (talk) 05:11, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

What determines "global consensus"?

Latest comment: 14 days ago77 comments13 people in discussion

This ArbCom resolution established that "Where there is a global consensus to edit in a certain way, it should be respected and cannot be overruled by a local consensus."

I would like to ask what is the standard for defining that there is global consensus. If the top 100 articles in a certain category all are written in a certain way, is this considered sufficient for global consensus?

If a 100 articles are not enough, what is the threshold? Is it proportional to the number articles in that category?

Should then this warrant that all articles in that category be written in that way (unless very clearly harmful to the specific article)?

Milo8505 (talk) 10:41, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

WP:CONLEVEL was already a policy, independent of that resolution. It was just being cited as a principle used in deciding that case. —Bagumba (talk) 16:03, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
I believe that "global consensus" refers to policies and guidelines in particular, and to generally accepted practices across the whole of the English Wikipedia. A consensus that applies to just 100 articles out of the almost 7 million article in the English Wikipedia is a local consensus. Donald Albury 16:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
Milo8505, you asked this question in a way that can't be answered. Consensus does not depend on categories, and Wikipedia does not deal in abstract quantities but in concrete articles. Is this about whether to have an infobox on Gustav Mahler? If so then please say so, to provide some context to your question. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
@Phil Bridger Yes, it is about that topic. I believe that there is sufficient global consensus about the inclusion of infoboxes on biographies. I am well aware that the official policy is "no policy defined", but I see a clear trend, by looking at the most read articles, that all biographies - of musicians and non musicians alike - have an infobox, except a select few classical music composers.
I do not currently have the whole information regarding exactly how many of all biographies have an infobox, and that is why I was asking what is usually considered consensus.
However, given that I'm very aware that a hundred articles out of seven million is not precisely consensus, I will attempt, when I have the time, to go through every single biography to determine an exact percentage.
Milo8505 (talk) 18:56, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
If you want to spend your time doing that then I can't stop you, but I warn you that you will be wasting your time. That is not how consensus is measured. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
Obviously I will not count by hand, I have some idea of how to use an automated tool to do that.
But then, how is consensus measured?
I'm under the impression that there is a group of very determined and very vocal editors that fiercely oppose infoboxes on classical composers' articles (which leads to most of them having discussions about infoboxes, citing each other as examples of articles without infobox), separate from the majority of biographies, which have an infobox.
I see no better way of proving (or maybe disproving) my point than this, because my earlier points of infoboxes being a great thing for Gustav Mahler's article, and the fact that numerous non-classical musicians have infoboxes, and lengthy ones at that, seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Milo8505 (talk) 20:01, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
And I would like to state, for the record, that I'm not doing this out of spite, or out of a personal interest (I'm actually losing my time by arguing about this), but because I truly, wholeheartedly believe that an infobox on each and every biography, and in general, on every article where there could be one (this excludes abstract topics such as existencialism) would make Wikipedia a truly better place.
Milo8505 (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
I would have to search the archives, but we actually held an RFC (one of the ways in which we determine GLOBAL consensus) that was focused on whether to mandate infoboxes on articles about composers… which determined that there were valid reasons not to require them (I suppose you could say that global consensus was to defer to local consensus on this specific issue). Remember WP:Other Stuff Exists is not an accepted argument here at WP. And that “standard practice” often has exceptions. Blueboar (talk) 22:06, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
I understand, but that is not my sole argument. I have provided other arguments in favor, which you can read at the aforementioned talk page which basically boil down to:
in my opinion,
  1. Infoboxes make standardized information more easily accessible, and
  2. They do not harm the rest of the article, as they do not displace the lead paragraph.
However, in the linked talk page, I see that opponents of infoboxes rely somewhat on the loosely established precedent/consensus that composers shouldn't have infoboxes.
That is why I wanted to bring forth a new argument, using the, as I see it, very established consensus for infoboxes in biographies, and what I want to know here is whether this consensus can be proven to exist (or what is it required for this consensus to exist). Milo8505 (talk) 07:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Info boxes can be accessibility issue for many readers and display what can only be described as clutter and unnecessary Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Infobox file spam. That said there's clearly a community consensus I believe overall. Moxy🍁 22:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
This whole thing about "global" and "local" consensus seems to confuse everyone, and consequently folks make up whatever seems plausible to them. Let me give you a potted history and the usual claims, and perhaps that will help you understand the principle.
'Way back in the day, infoboxes didn't exist. AIUI the first widely used infobox template was {{taxobox}} in 2004, and the general concept appeared soon after. However, through the end of 2007, Template:Infobox didn't look like what we're used to. Originally, an 'infobox template' was literally a wikitext table that you could copy and fill in however you wanted.[1]
While infoboxes were being developed, the editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers decided that infoboxes were a bad idea specifically for articles about classical composers, so after a series of disputes and discussions, in April 2007 they wrote a note that said, basically, "BTW, the sitewide rules don't apply to the articles we WP:OWN."[2]
The conflict between this group and the rest of the community eventually resulted in the 2010 Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infoboxes RfC. The result of this years-long dispute is memorialized in the example given in what is now the Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels of consensus section of the policy: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope."
Or, to be rather more pointy-headed about it: WikiProject Composers doesn't get to decide that "their" articles are exempt from MOS:INFOBOXUSE.
What was then a statement about the "Purpose of consensus" or, before then, one of several "Exceptions" to forming a consensus on a talk page has since been renamed ==Levels of consensus==. Also, ArbCom (and consequently part of the community) has started talking about "global" consensus. I think that has confused people about the point.
"Levels" of consensus could mean the strength of the consensus ("This is just a weak consensus, so..."). It could mean something about the process used ("My CENT-listed RFC trumps your Village pump post"). It could mean whether the consensus applies to the whole site ("We formed a consensus at Talk:Article about the first sentence of Article, so now I need to make 500 other articles match this one"). And it could tell us something about how likely it is that the decision matches the overall view of the community.
It's supposed to be that last one. We don't want a handful of people getting together on some page and saying "Let's reject this rule. This article needs to be censored. Copyvio restrictions are inconvenient. Bold-face text helps people see the important points. And we know this POV is correct, so it should dominate." We want quite the opposite: "The community says that this is usually the best thing, so let's do this."
AFAICT, the overall view of The Community™ is that we think that there should not be any Official™ Rule saying that any subset of articles should have an infobox. We're probably doing this mostly for social reasons, rather than article reasons. For example, every single article about a US President, or atomic elements, or any number of other subjects, has an infobox – but we refuse to write any rule saying they should, or even that they usually should, even though we know the popularity is ever-increasing. For example, at the moment, Georgina Sutton is the only biography linked on the Main Page that doesn't have an infobox.
I suspect that the closest we will come to such a rule during the next few years is a note about how popular they are. It should be possible to see how many articles (overall, or in particular subsets) already use infoboxes, and to add that information to MOS:INFOBOXUSE. For now, we could add a statement that "most" articles have an infobox.
  1. ^ Being able to do this in wikitext was was considered an improvement, because originally, you had to code tables in raw HTML.
  2. ^ This was not as unreasonable back then as it sounds now. WikiProjects were a significant source of subject-specific advice back then, and the rule-making systems were quite informal. WP:PROPOSAL didn't exist until late 2008. Before then, most guidelines and even policies acquired their labels merely because someone decided to slap the tag on it, and if nobody objected, then that was the consensus for what to call it.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your detailed response.
From what you have said, given that WikiProject composers have to follow MOS:INFOBOXUSE, there should be a discussion on each and every composer's talk page to determine whether an infobox is warranted.
I see this as a bit of a, difficult and fruitless endeavor, as the arguments presented, for either case, are always the same, and they all usually result in stalemates (like the one about Mahler).
What I propose is to change the policy, to, at least, recommend infoboxes on certain categories, given that, as you said, they are very popular. Or at the very least, as you suggest, acknowledge the fact that they are very popular.
When I have time to gather more data on the use of infoboxes, I will propose a new RfC to try to commit this change to the policy.
I am very well aware that my chances of success are slim, but, I'll do what I can do.
Milo8505 (talk) 08:00, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, if "they all usually result in stalemates", then that represents a change, because the last complaint I saw about this subject said that the RFCs on whether to add an infobox almost always resulted in an infobox being added. Perhaps it varies by subject, however.
Acknowledging that they're popular shouldn't require a proposal for a change. It should only require getting some decent numbers. Check the archives of WP:RAQ; they probably can't query it directly, but if there's been a request, you'll see what could be done. It might also be possible to create a hidden category for "All articles with infoboxes", automagically transcluded, to get a count on the number of infoboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
First of all, thank you again very much for your continued interest.
The discussions around infoboxes (not RfCs, discussions on talk pages) as far as I have seen usually go something like:
- I propose adding an infobox
+ We have talked a lot about that and there are good reasonstm for which it should not be added
- But I also have good reasonstm for which it should be added.
(no comments for 4 years, then it begins again).
I thought a bit about counting links, and I realized maybe getting this data is easier than I thought, see:
For counting the number of transclusions to a given page, this tool is very useful, and says that there are around 3.2 million infoboxes in total, and 460 thousand infoboxes about people. (on the (Article) namespace).
Looking in the Talk namespace, there are around two million links to Template:Wikiproject Biography.
This seems to suggest that only around a quarter of all biographies have an infobox? Maybe I was wrong all along in my observation that infoboxes are very popular.
I am however not too sure that the two million links to Template:Wikiproject Biography on the Talk namespace actually corresponds to two million unique biographies.
Maybe another way of getting this data would be better, I'll have to look at it on some other occasion that I have more time.
Milo8505 (talk) 11:28, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I looked at the first 10 articles in Category:Core biography articles, and 100% had infoboxes. However, those ten articles used seven different infoboxes:
Category:People and person infobox templates lists dozens. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
Yes! Yes!
That's my point. Most[citation needed] good biographies have an infobox - except those of classical composers.
I will look at the category you mentioned and try to count from there.
Thank you very much! Milo8505 (talk) 16:46, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
The problem is, there still exist editors who strongly dislike infoboxes on most biographies -- me for one. When one writes every word of an article and then someone, who has not otherwise contributed, comes and adds an infobox it can be ... annoying. The basic use tends to highlight bits of trivial information (birth & death dates/places, nationality, spouse, children) that are not usually key to the person's notability. Even more contentious can be trying to define what a person's key contributions are, in a half-sentence. For some this is easy, and an infobox might be a good way of presenting the data, for others (including many classical composers) not so much. It can be hard enough to write a lead that presents this in a balanced fashion in a paragraph or three.
Are all good biographies written by groups? I'm not sure; probably the best are, but there are many many biographies of minor figures where 99.9% of the text was contributed by a single author, some of which are fairly well developed. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm thankful for your contributions, but I'm sorry that you don't WP:OWN any article, and you can't dismiss someone else improving the article you wrote because you wrote it and you don't personally agree with the contributions made.
That said, it may be difficult to summarize why someone is important in a phrase, but it's not impossible, and, IMO actually something that should be done, as it makes the article easier (and faster) to scan. Milo8505 (talk) 09:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
What I am obviously failing to convey is that some editors write articles, far fewer than those who contribute in other ways, and some of those dislike the "improving" addition of an infobox by another editor who makes no other edits, improving or otherwise. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Why is that relevant? Nobody owns an article, regardless of in which why they contribute to Wikipedia. Just because some editors dislike something does not give them a veto over things that the majority of other editors believe does improve the article. Obviously an infobox with incorrect information is not an improvement but that doesn't mean an infobox with correct information is not an improvement. In exactly the same way as a paragraph with incorrect information about an aspect of the article subject is a bad addition, this does not mean that a paragraph with correct information about that same aspect is bad. Thryduulf (talk) 11:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
It seems to me a great deal more like reference format and English variant. It could easily be argued that we should have standardised on US spelling and picked a mode of referencing, but we never did because it would alienate too much of the workforce. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
It's not even close to being like ENGVAR or reference formatting. Those are stylistic decisions where there are multiple equally valid choices that don't impact content. Infoboxes are a content decision where one choice directly benefits the readership and one choice placates the dislikes of a minority of editors. Thryduulf (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Load up the Good Faith, Thryduulf :D another phrasing, less pejorative or sweeping, might be Infoboxes are a content decision where either choice directly affects the readers' preconceptions of the topic. Tight faded male arse. Decadence and anarchy. A certain style. Smile. 16:47, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
It may or may not be less pejorative or sweeping, but it is also less accurate. Thryduulf (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
We obviously genuinely disagree on the topic. But I just don't see how the usual formulation benefits readers for bios about writers, composers or the like, especially where it is difficult to encapsulate their contributions in a half sentence or single notable work. I note that biographical sources such as Oxford Dictionary of National Biography or newspaper obituaries do not generally include infoboxes, in fact I can't think of where I've seen one on a biographical article of this type outside Wikipedia. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Infoboxes are not limited to a single notable work. There is no need to condense a person's life to a single notable work in an infobox. Milo8505 (talk) 06:34, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
But unless you list all their works there is a problem of original research. You need to provide appropriate sources that the works you have selected are appropriate to represent the subject. This is often very hard in practice, and even harder to demonstrate in an infobox (according to critics A,B,C but ignoring the non-mainstream views of D,E, and only partially incorporating the views of F–Z, the following are the major works...). Espresso Addict (talk) 07:28, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, no. There are statistics for something. Notable means worthy of note, distinguished, prominent as per Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Notable works are not a collection appropriate to represent the subject as a whole, but rather those worthy of note, distinguished, prominent, in other words, popular or important (for the field in question).
But the main point being, once again, that this problem is NOT a problem with the infobox itself. Citing the lead paragraph for the Mahler article:
As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century
and
Mahler's œuvre is relatively limited; for much of his life composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Aside from early works such as a movement from a piano quartet composed when he was a student in Vienna, Mahler's works are generally designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. These works were frequently controversial when first performed, and several were slow to receive critical and popular approval; exceptions included his Second Symphony, and the triumphant premiere of his Eighth Symphony in 1910. Some of Mahler's immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School, notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Society was established in 1955 to honour the composer's life and achievements.
According to whom? By what research? What if I do not think that is the case?
You would rightfully say that my answers are on the references section, and that I should be WP:BOLD in changing it if I'm convinced that it could be better.
And, most importantly, from your comment on the Talk page, I see that the article actually selects three works as prominent, and, you challenge that (IMO rightfully). Then it turns out that the problem of selecting what is important is not one of infoboxes but one central to writing biographies.
For the last time: infoboxes are ONLY a collection of information already on the article. Milo8505 (talk) 17:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
That's less true than one might think. Both {{taxobox}} and {{drugbox}} have a high likelihood of containing information than isn't repeated in the article.
But for infoboxes describing people, I would generally expect that statement to be true or to be meant to be true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:06, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Those are very specific examples, although you are right that they do not conform to what I said. Anyhow the point still stands for biographies. Milo8505 (talk) 09:31, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I believe the usual solution in such cases is to link to the List of compositions by Gustav Mahler. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:07, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
True, but I believe that there are good reasons some works can be highlighted. Anyhow, this is also a consideration when writing the lead, not only the infobox. Milo8505 (talk) 09:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't think that "OWN" is a useful model here. Consider this story:
Someone saw a neglected area in his neighborhood, and he thought he'd help people by quietly picking up the trash. People mostly didn't notice, and nobody objected, so whenever he was walking out that way, he brought a trash bag with him and picked up some of the discarded litter. He carried on for a while just for the satisfaction of seeing it get better.
Then The Committee showed up.
They told him: "It's very nice that you decided to clean this up. However, you should wear gloves for your own safety."
"Okay," he thought. "There's probably something in their advice." So he started wearing gloves, and he did think that it made it a little easier to sort the recycling from the garbage.
The Committee came back another time: "Thank you for your past work. We notice that a bit of the grass here grows out onto the sidewalk. We're not saying you have to do this, because this spot isn't yours, but it would be nice if someone got a lawn edger and made that even neater."
The volunteer thought that since nobody had bothered to pick up the trash, it was unlikely that anyone else would trim the grass. Besides, he had a lawn edging tool, so the next time he dropped by, he brought a trash bag, his gloves, and his lawn edger. The little spot was looking pretty neat, if a bit plain.
Soon, the Committee came back again: "Thank you for your past work. We just wanted to let you know that our standards say that it's not enough to clean up a mess. Every area should also have some plants. So it would be very nice if you planted some trees or bushes or something in this spot, even though it's not yours."
"Can you at least buy the plants?" he asked.
"No," said The Committee. "Thank you for your past work, but you'll have to grow them or buy them yourself, or maybe you could find someone who would give them to you."
The volunteer thought that the little spot would benefit from some cheery little flowers, and he decided to do it. He planted a few yellow flowers along the edge.
The next day The Committee showed up. "What? Yellow flowers? Thank you for your past work, but we have received complaints. One of the neighbors (who happens to be part of The Committee) just filed a confidential complaint that there are now garishly colored flowers in this little spot. Those have to be removed. You don't own this place, you know, even though you're the only one who did anything to take care of it, except for the neighbor's important work complaining, and of course our even more important work ordering you around."
@Milo8505 (and others), my question is: Do you expect the volunteer to keep maintaining that little spot? Or do you expect him to quit?
It is true that the author/maintainer of an article does not WP:OWN it. But it is also true that the editor is a WP:VOLUNTEER, and if you make volunteering be sufficiently un-fun – say, by trampling the yellow flowers he planted, or by demanding an infobox at the top of an article – then it would only be logical, rational, and predictable for that editor to quit contributing. And then who is going to write the new articles? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:29, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
What you are proposing is no different to ownership - giving an article writer control over what is and is not allowed on "their" article just because they don't like something that the consensus of the community says is important and beneficial to readers. Thryduulf (talk) 11:10, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
No. What I'm proposing is that we remember that there are consequences for every decision we make, and choose the consequences we want to live with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:09, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
And your proposed method of avoiding consequences you don't like is to give article writers ownership of "their" articles. The consequences of that need to be justified, and I don't think they can be. Thryduulf (talk) 13:21, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I would actually say that suppressing infoboxes is more akin to removing flowers than creating them...
I'm not asking of anyone to do anything they don't want to. They are actually asking me (and others) not to do something a good number of people[citation needed] consider good. Milo8505 (talk) 17:31, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
The problem is that what one person considers a beautiful flower, another person may consider a weed that needs pruning. Flowers are nice, but so is a manicured lawn. What we need to determine is WHETHER (in this particular lawn) we are planting flowers or pulling weeds. Blueboar (talk) 17:44, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
And for the wider distinction between WP:OWN and WP:VOLUNTEER. Nobody is forcing nobody else to do anything they don't like. Editors are free to restrain from editing whatever they feel like without any reason. What they are not free to do is to say that their substantial contributions to one article give them a more prominent opinion than everybody else on subjects related to that article. Milo8505 (talk) 17:41, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
The type of editor who quits the project over an infobox probably isn't someone suited to improving the project or working with others. I've worked on articles and a new editor may add something I don't like, but if they find consensus I accept the will of the community. That's how this place is supposed to work. Nemov (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
@Nemov, would you say that about me? I once objected to a template being renamed to something that was less convenient for me. It got renamed anyway, because other editors thought the new name would make their own work more convenient.
We do have to "accept the will of the community", but we do not have to continue volunteering under circumstances that aren't working for us, so I stopped doing that work. They got their advantages; we got another backlog for several years. (Eventually another editor decided to do that work.)
Am I someone you would describe as not "suited to improving the project or working with others"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:16, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I really really really do not think that the spirit of How will this action make every other editor feel? is very useful to Wikipedia.
Although well-intentioned, it's imposible to think about every possible edge case, and sometimes it's imposible to find something that everyone will agree to, so if we stop to ask that question before every change, we will, in the end, get nothing at all done. Milo8505 (talk) 09:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
It is impossible to think about every possible edge case.
However, we're not talking about Unknown unknowns in this case. We're talking about known consequences. We either choose them and own them, or we avoid them. Take your pick – but don't pretend that a choice has no downsides after you've been told what one of the downsides is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Let's all take a deep breath, and not compare editing Wikipedia to waging deadly wars.
In any case, I believe that three things stand:
  1. Nobody WP:OWNs articles.
  2. WP:VOLUNTEERs are free to do whatever they want.
  3. If making a change, after consensus reached by discussion, hurts someone's feelings, I'm sorry but they are not the leader of this place.
Furthermore, can't a compromise be reached? Can't infoboxes be hidden via user JS? Milo8505 (talk) 07:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
You're thinking about this at the wrong level, with your focus on "hurting someone's feelings".
This is more of a key employee situation, so let's tell the story a different way:
Your business depends heavily on a small number of highly valuable employees. Without these few, your business will probably fail, because you will have no products to sell. You are the manager, and you think about how you will improve the business's profitability. You come up with an idea and share it with your staff.
Most of the staff thinks it's a good idea, but some of your key employees tell you that it's intolerable, and if you implement it, they will quit.
Should you say:
  • "Well, I'm sorry if your little feelings got hurt, but frankly you don't own this business. Don't let the door hit your backside on your way out", or
  • "Um, I don't want you to quit. It's not good for any of us if you quit. Let me see if we can come up with something that meets my legitimate goals and also keeps you working here."
Your #3 sounds like that first one. I don't recommend it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not depend on "a small number of highly valuable employees". Our goal is always to best serve our readers, and we do that by including the information in our articles that they want and expect to be there. We do not do that by pandering to the dislikes of editors, especially not a small minority of editors. No matter how you try and spin it, ownership of articles is not justifiable. Thryduulf (talk) 22:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
No one has suggested otherwise. I have absolutely no clue where you are substantiating this accusation of WhatamIdoing arguing for article ownership. Stating that outside editors with no connection to the article in interest other than to come and enforce their pet issues unrelated to any substantive content in the article is not “article ownership” anymore than having WikiProjects that have certain editors contributing more than others not part of the Project is “ownership.” Barbarbarty (talk) 23:56, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
WP:OWN isn't complicated. No one, no matter what, has the right to act as though they are the owner of a particular article (or any part of it). You're creating a group of "outside editors." We are all editors here. One editor's "pet issue" is another editors improvement. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. Nemov (talk) 00:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Again, no one has suggested otherwise. I am simply stating a fact that when certain editors try to present something as an “improvement” and it is roundly rejected by other editors who routinely edit the article, it is not a case of someone asserting “ownership.” Hiding behind accusations of others asserting “ownership” to obfuscate the fact that some editor’s changes are counterproductive or not accepted is not the same as finding a violation of WP:OWN. Barbarbarty (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I honestly don't understand your reply to my comment. Nemov (talk) 02:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Honestly I fail to see how I could have made myself clearer. You are accusing me of “creating a group of outside editors.” I have suggested nothing of the sort. I was merely saying that when certain groups of editors have more expertise on certain subjects, and therefore edit articles related to those subjects more than other users, that is simply how many articles have been crafted and developed. It’s not “ownership” to state that fact, nor is it elevating any group of editors above any other group. If someone who does not edit a certain article frequently adds an edit to an article and it is reverted, just because it is reverted by another user who is more active on the article does not automatically implicate WP:OWN. Barbarbarty (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
when certain groups of editors have more expertise on certain subjects, and therefore edit articles related to those subjects more than other users, that is simply how many articles have been crafted and developed. is saying that certain groups of editors should be allowed OWNERSHIP of articles they have written, it is explicitly elevating [a] group of editors above [another] group. Thryduulf (talk) 03:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
You have a very odd and confusing idea of what “explicitly” means, given what you described has absolutely no relation to what I actually said. Absolutely nowhere have I stated certain groups of editors be allowed “ownership.” For the third time, I have just stated that it is natural that some editors edit articles more than others. Sometimes they do so because they have specialized knowledge about the subject area. Nothing about that implies certain editors be given ownership, and frankly it’s ridiculous to construe what I said to mean anything like that. Barbarbarty (talk) 03:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@Barbarbarty Multiple of @WhatamIdoing's posts, including the one I was directly replying to, advocate for article ownership without using that term. The post I was directly replying to explicitly claimed Wikipedia depends on a small number of editors.
Stating that outside editors with no connection to the article in interest other than to come and enforce their pet issues unrelated to any substantive content in the article so presumably you object to editors copyediting, typo fixing, adding conversion templates, adding/editing/removing categories and short descriptions, making the article consistent in it's language variety, citation style and/or unit ordering and any of the other myriad of improvements "outside editors with no connection to the article" make? If not, why are infoboxes different? Who gets to decide who is and who is not an "outside editor" and thus who is entitled to stand above consensus? Thryduulf (talk) 00:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
First off, you admit that WhatamIdoing never advocated for article ownership. I still fail to see how it can be shown otherwise. As for your point about things I would “presumably” object to, one look at my posting history would show that the vast majority of my contributions involve things like fixing typos and the like. Simple maintenance issues like adding citations and fixing typos are not “pet issues” in any sense of the term. I doubt any editor on here would think that Wikipedia should have articles with unfixed typos or improper grammar. Infoboxes do not fall into simple “maintenance.” Arbitrarily adding them without discussion, as history as shown, is nearly guaranteed to cause debate. They are entirely done on a case-by-case basis, dependent on a myriad of factors. As I said above, “ownership” is not simply some editors who edit an article more frequently rejecting so-called “improvements” by editors who edit the article less frequently. Barbarbarty (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
First off, you admit that WhatamIdoing never advocated for article ownership I did not do this. I said she has argued for article ownership without using that term, because no matter whether you call it "ownership" or not, when she is arguing for is exactly what we define ownership to be. Infoboxes are no more "pet issues" than fixing typos or any of the other improvements mentioned, the only difference is that some editors dislike them. As I said above, “ownership” is not simply some editors who edit an article more frequently rejecting so-called “improvements” by editors who edit the article less frequently. Except it is, as Nemov has explained in very simple terms above. Thryduulf (talk) 01:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Again, nothing you have pointed to shows anyone advocating for ownership. Nothing. Simply saying that one is “saying without saying” is pointless and unconvincing. Fixing typos and adding infoboxes are not the same, I find it mystifying to read you implying otherwise. If only infoboxes were as noncontroversial as typos that would save us a lot of trouble! But sadly they are not, so pretending someone adding an infobox to every article is the same as fixing typos here and there is not grounded in the reality we live in. As to your last point, that’s not a refutation. And I believe I thoroughly addressed that point already. Under your logic no person who has previously edited an article is allowed to revert someone else’s edit on that same article lest they be accused of asserting “ownership.” I fail to see the logic in such a position. Barbarbarty (talk) 03:34, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@Thryduulf, I'd like to think that I'm arguing for acknowledging the value of content, and by extension for the people who create it.
If we choose to insist upon infoboxes, I'd rather that we did this kindly, while trying to find solutions to the identified problems, instead of with an WP:IDONTCARE WP:YOU WP:DON'T WP:OWN WP:WIKIPEDIA tone. I'm hearing a lot more of the latter than the former in this conversation. I think we can do better than that.
IMO the ideal outcome is more infoboxes and nobody quits writing articles. I think the first outcome is inevitable. I think the second outcome depends on how we treat people who are unhappy with the first outcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I entered this topic about two years ago, completely unfamiliar with it until it came up in an RFC. Since then, I haven’t seen any of the content creators strongly opposed to infoboxes quit. In fact, they’re still actively creating content and opposing infoboxes. One editor even came out of retirement to create new content—so overall, it’s a net win.
Most of the RFCs over the last two years have been initiated by editors unaware of this long-standing dispute. The pattern is predictable: they ask why there’s no infobox, get dogpiled by the same group of editors, and if they persist, the tone worsens. When it eventually goes to an RFC, the infobox is approved most of the time.
This behavior seems tolerated because these editors are content creators. However, considering they haven’t quit and newer editors often face hostility for bringing up the topic, I’m not seeing the issue you’re raising. Nemov (talk) 16:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
You didn't quit the Wikipedia over it. There are some editors who have been arguing about infoboxes for over 15 years. It's only a contentious topic because that group can't let it go. I feel bad for new editors who wander into the topic not knowing the back story. Nemov (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
It's only contentious because both sides can't let it go.
If the template renaming had happened at a point when I was already unhappy with editing, it would have tipped me over the edge.
What I'm not seeing here is any acknowledgement of the costs. I see the advantages:
Pros:
  1. I like it.
  2. Readers like it.
but not the known list of disadvantages:
Cons:
  1. Some editors dislike it enough that they will reduce their participation or stop writing articles altogether.
You might well say "I like it, so I and other supporters will be inspired to do 2% more editing if we get our way, and it adds 5% more value to readers in biographies and 10% more value in corporations with an WP:ELOFFICIAL link in the infobox. That benefit needs to be set against 1% of editors quitting and 2% fewer notable articles being created. That's still a net benefit, so let's go with it."
But let's not pretend that it is a cost-free choice. A net benefit can have significant harms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing I would urge you reread my comment. I think you'll find there was no finger pointing at a particular side. You're twisting yourself into a pretzel here to defend ownership. There's a cost to everything. I think if you review some of the newer editors who have wandered into this topic they're not being encouraged to edit or learn. Nemov (talk) 05:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Indeed I've seen several examples of newcomers being thoroughly bitten when they dare to ask for an infobox to be added to an article. See for example Talk:Stanley Holloway where suggestions get aggressively shut down. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, there are costs to every choice. What irritates me at the moment is that some costs are being ignored, and one of those costs increases our long-term risk of collapse. (On the opposite side, one of the costs is that readers won't get what they need, which is also a very serious problem.)
For the record, if you see an article I've created without an infobox, you are (very) welcome to go add one. I'm not anti-infobox. I am anti-destroying-Wikipedia-for-the-sake-of-uniformity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
And I'm anti hyperbolic claims that allowing article ownership is somehow the only way to avoid destroying Wikipedia. Nobody is irreplaceable. Thryduulf (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Case in point Jacqueline Stieger, where the box I've just removed (1) highlighted her place of birth Wimbledon and nationality British, which -- for someone with two Swiss parents, who was brought up in Yorkshire, did some of her notable work in France/Switzerland with her Swiss husband and then settled back in Yorkshire with her Swiss stepchildren -- is undue; and (2) copied "artist and sculptor" from the beginning of the capsule, while not paying heed to the fact her notable works predominantly fall into two groups, big architectural sculptures mainly in metal, and jewellery/art medals. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
X thing is bad, because once, some time ago, I saw an instance of X and it was bad, really really bad, as a matter of fact. Milo8505 (talk) 09:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Well sure, but I just looked down my list of created bios by date till I found the first to which someone had added an infobox. I didn't drag out my historical collection of badly added infoboxes including those that had been cut-and-pasted wholesale from another article without changing any of the data, and those that introduced errors in the dates. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the example of Jacqueline Stieger, I'm not understanding Espresso Addict's position. They object to the infobox giving her nationality as British. But the lead has always said that she "is a British artist and sculptor". And the {{short description}} is "British artist and sculptor". And there are a bunch of categories which tend to describe her as English rather than British.
The lead, infobox, short description and other structural stuff like categories are all summaries or attributes of the main content. Summarising obviously involves some loss of detail. Objecting to an infobox seems like objecting to a short description. I often don't like these myself but they seem to be unavoidable.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
It's not so much the details being wrong for Steiger, they give undue prominence to trivial non-representative features of the subject's life, such as her place of birth, while not summarising the actual reasons for notability/interest -- possibly my fault for a slender lead. I'm not fond of short descriptions either but they are invisible to the reader. I'm actually not too fond of categories either, but they go at the bottom, after the references, and so again do not draw the attention of the reader. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:45, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
What makes anybody of you think that the infobox is more prominent than the lead of the article itself? Maybe are you implicitly recognizing that inboxes are actually widely used by readers? Milo8505 (talk) 20:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  • The thing to remember about CONLOCAL is that almost all of our policies and guidelines (which supposedly reflect “global consensus”) contain a line noting that occasional exceptions may exist. This means that global consensus takes local consensus into account. Indeed, there are times when a consensus is reached at an article level (say through a RFC) that actually has greater participation (wider consensus) than the policy/guideline page that is at the heart of the discussion. A policy/guideline may be wonderful for most situations, but problematic in a specific situation.
As for infoboxes… yes, there is a “global consensus” that they are good things, and adding one usually improves the article. However, we have had RFC that show we also have a wide consensus that notes how infoboxes don’t alway work, that on occasion they can actually be more harmful than helpful… and that we can leave it to local editors to make that determination. This is especially true when it comes to articles about composers.
So, when there is local disagreement regarding a specific composer, when there is a question as to whether an infobox would be beneficial or harmful in that specific situation, the solution is to have an RFC to determine wider consensus about that specific situation.
Ie ASK the community whether that specific article should be considered an exception to our general consensus on infoboxes. Blueboar (talk) 13:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
  • The phrase "global consensus" indicates that we should look across all the languages, not just English. Articles about famous composers seem to have about 50 versions in the various languages and it's easy to spot-check these to see whether they do or don't have infoboxes. I looked at a few examples of English composers as they seemed to be the most likely to be disputed: Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten. My impression is that most languages have infoboxes for these. Apart from English, the main outliers seem to be German and Italian. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    The German encyclopedia is, as far as I know, very rich in classical music content. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:48, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    I do not thing that is the case. Each Wikipedia is separate from others, and they each have their own policies and ways of doing things. Milo8505 (talk) 20:23, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  • There seem to be at least three different meanings of "global consensus" in this discussion. The OP seems to have taken it to mean something that should apply to all articles of a particular type, but in WP:CONLEVEL I think it means a consensus reached by everyone rather than just the editors of particular articles. These are different. It is in principle possible for a global discussion to come to the conclusion that every article should be treated differently. Andrew Davidson introduces another level of "global" that includes other language Wikipedias. English Wikipedia has always claimed its independence from other projects, so I don't think that will fly. On the specific case of infoboxes surely the discussion should be about what to include in them, rather than first a discussion of whether they should exist. If the answer is "nothing" then we simply don't have them. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL in officeholder articles and infoboxes

Latest comment: 13 days ago17 comments11 people in discussion

Is the current policy to ignore WP:CRYSTAL in regards to wording in articles related to upcoming officeholders? Donald Trump had the usage "will be inaugurated" until recently and JD Vance has He will resign on or before January 20, 2025, when he will be inaugurated as vice president of the United States. Similarly, infoboxes have "assuming office on X date". Should it not be "Scheduled to assume office on X date"? There seems to be disagreement on whether CRYSTAL applies since it is almost certain that these individuals will obtain their office barring some unforeseen event. I would like community input on this since if there is CRYSTAL, changes may need to be discussed here and implemented. Noah, BSBATalk 23:32, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources appear to do both. For example:
  • AP article: "President-elect Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20 after defeating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris."
  • NY Times: "Congress is scheduled to meet on Jan. 6, 2025, to count the Electoral College results, and Mr. Trump is set to be sworn into office two weeks later, on Jan. 20."
Personally, I think this is a distinction without a difference. In common usage, saying "X will do Y on Tuesday" is always subject to the caveat that something might occur that prevents X from doing Y on Tuesday. To quote the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: "I shall certainly attend your party, but I must make an exception for the contingency that a roof tile happens to blow down and kill me; for in that case, I cannot attend." voorts (talk/contributions) 23:50, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
This type of stuff is what is outside the bounds of what WP:NOT#CRYSTAL has, eg we can start writing the article for the 2028 Summer Olympics as there's an extremely high certainity it will happen; there may be very extreme circumstances that may cause a change but the odds of those changing events are very low. The planned inaugeration is clearly of the same ilk. — Masem (t) 00:02, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
The part I noticed was Dates are not definite until the event actually takes place, as even otherwise-notable events can be cancelled or postponed at the last minute by a major incident. The Olympics articles always say scheduled rather than will take place. Noah, BSBATalk 00:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
It does not matter in this case. If the inauguration of the next US executive is delayed, I’m confident those articles will be immediately updated. Infoboxes don't handle verbiage well. CMD (talk) 01:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
What about other officeholders? Noah, BSBATalk 01:39, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't see a difference between saying a person is about to become a senator vs. the president. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
The higher the number of electees, the more likely it is that something happens to one of them. We have had representatives-elect die before assuming office. It's an issue of saying something is certain to occur rather than very likely to occur. We have nothing to tell us it's certain they assume office on X. Does this policy simply not apply to any officeholder period and we just state they will be inaugurated/assume office on X rather than scheduled to be inaugurated/assume office on X? Noah, BSBATalk 02:20, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Ditto voorts; difference without a difference. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 03:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
The guidance on Wikipedia not being a collection of unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumptions (from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not) is guidance on content, with most of the discussion on that page being about what warrants an article. It's not guidance on writing style, so doesn't provide guidance in choosing between writing "X will happen" or "X is scheduled to happen", but whether the statement should be included at all. isaacl (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I think it is reasonable that we should ask editors to use "is scheduled" or "is planned" instead of "will" in cases of near-confirmed future events. Maybe for events where humans have no control on the result, such as the next solar eclipse, we can use "will", but I can't see harm to suggest we be a bit more careful for other cases. Masem (t) 22:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
The point is that I was echoing your statement, This type of stuff is what is outside the bounds of what WP:NOT#CRYSTAL has. The choice of verbs is something to be covered by the writing style guidelines (and personally, I think consideration of individual circumstances is sufficiently important that a blanket statement wouldn't be too helpful). isaacl (talk) 22:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Related: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 175#RfC: Interim use of successor in Infobox officeholder Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 21:55, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Best to keep doing as we've been doing for years. Making sudden changes now, would be messy. GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with voorts and Kierkegaard. I have notified the Trump article for the OP. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I would say reflecting the inherent uncertainty of future events is generally good practice (e.g., "scheduled to take place" rather than "will take place"). If the wording would be clunky, there can be some flexibility. And we should take care not to be too cautious about expected events; I find it confusing how infoboxes for a TV season will say it consists of three episodes (based on the number aired) when we have sources confirming eight have been made.--Trystan (talk) 15:06, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Infoboxes are inherently backwards looking. The number of episodes in a season should not be filled in until the season has ended. Similarly, the field for the beginning of an officeholder's term should not be filled in until it has actually occurred. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

New users required to cite sources when creating an article

Latest comment: 12 days ago23 comments10 people in discussion

This wishlist item proposes a hard edit filter which would change citation policy for new users. We've repeatedly discussed requiring sources, and the consensus has been not to require them; per current policy, articles must be on notable topics and statements must be citable, but neither need be cited.

I know changes that affect new editors typically don't ignite as much interest as those that affect established editors, but they are in some ways more important; anything that affects our retention rate will eventually substantially affect the number of active editors, and the nature of their editing.

More broadly, it might be good to set limits on policy changes done through a wishlist survey on another wiki; big changes need broader discussion. HLHJ (talk) 01:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I strongly oppose implementing this on en-wiki. This is not the sort of change that the broader community should be allowed to dictate to local communities. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:22, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
It's just a wish. Anyone can male one. We don't know whether it will ever be implemented (community wishlists don't exactly have a good track record), never mind turned on on enwiki. – Joe (talk) 05:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
As Joe says, a wishlist item is a long way from becoming something that works. We don’t have need for limits on changes; it is very rare for any changes to be pushed on en.wiki. Those that are are large-scale changes that affect all wikis (think Vector2022 or the upcoming IP masking), and the community here is usually very aware of these ahead of time. If wishlist items turn into tools the wiki can use, they tend to require local activation, as different projects have different needs. (En.wiki for example already has WP:NPP, which will see any new pages, which may include pages that aren’t meant to have sources, like disambiguation pages.) CMD (talk) 08:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
The WMF Community wishlists in the past have actually had some impressive successes, particularly in 2018 for NPP's Page Curation extension improvements. It is not all that rare for any changes to be pushed on en.wiki; two slightly earlier community driven major policies largely contributed - at the time - to reducing the flow of sewage in the new page feed: the 2016 NPP user right, and after a 7 year battle with the WMF, the 2018 ACPERM. However, the number of new registrations has since grown again by users whose first intention above all else is to create a new article by hook or crook with little or no regard for notability, relevance, UPE, and spam policies. NPP has lost many of its prolific, skilled patrollers and coordinators either through burn-out and/or the constant whining either from users whose inappropriate articles have been consigned to the queues for the various trash cans or draft space, or have been driven away for good by other (non NPP) back office regulars' complaints, for the sake of complaining, over a couple of misplaced CSDs or AfDs out of thousands.
The NPP backlog sawtooth profile looks menacing - it should be a regular low-value straight line. It is well known common knowledge that NPP is hopelessly overburdened and can no longer sensibly cope with even the minimum suggested criteria for patrolling new pages. The best way to ensure that the WMF's flagship project - the one that draws all the donations - becomes an untrustworthy resource full of useless and corrupt articles, is to sit back and do nothing and let WP become a mire of misinformation and spam. Wikipedia has already become the buck of media satire with "If you believe Wikipedia, you'll believe anything". The quest is therefore for any measures that will tighten up the article quality at the source of creation.
Although they are aware of them, as usual the WMF Growth Team has played down and resisted addressing these issues in favour of pursuing other, and expensive initiatives of their own design which in the NPP realm remain ineffective. It's the responsibility of the WMF to ensure new users are aware of the rules at the point of registration.
The NPP team has handed solutions to the WMF on a plate, which at the same time will not only reduce the tide of rubbish, but most importantly, encourage the good faith new users to offer articles that have a fair chance of being published. All this project needs is to be written up in MediaWiki source code, but of course short of a mutiny by the community, the WMF will not entertain any ideas that they did not think of themselves and can collect the accolades for.
The "anyone can edit" principle is not a get out of jail free card; it should be quoted in its full context: 'Anyone can edit as long as they play by the rules'. For once and for all, just make those basic rules clear for bona fide new registrants, and help them comply. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia has already become the buck of media satire with "If you believe Wikipedia, you'll believe anything
This is just rhetorically dishonest. When people say this they are generally referring to vandalism, hoaxes, and information on high-profile articles, not the stuff that goes through NPP.
Like, just think about this for a second. Think about the kind of misinformation people generally disseminate and what it is about. Almost always, it's about things people already care about, which means things we have articles on. COVID. Political stuff. Current events. Not obscure new articles. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
I believe that wiki should at least allow new users to create stubs without citations. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:45, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
@Gnomingstuff : Almost always, it's about things people already care about, which means things we have articles on. COVID. Political stuff. Current events. Not obscure new articles. This is unfortunately not true as 800 patrollers will confirm. NPP needs all the help it can get. Why not enroll at the NPPSCHOOL, get qualified, apply for the user right and help out? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
They can do so in draft space. BD2412 T 20:52, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
I think you're misinterpreting my point. I realize that NPP obviously gets a lot of junk and unsourced stuff. But this is not the junk that makes Wikipedia "the butt of media satire." The media satire is about things people actually look up, such as high-profile politicians, major scientific topics, etc.
That doesn't mean that patrolling new pages is not useful, and I am glad people are doing it (I personally doon't have time to take on any more responsibilities and don't foresee that changing). But it's not an area of the project that tends to escape containment, and so should be done on its own merits without trying to make it about "what would the press think?" Gnomingstuff (talk) 07:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Without commenting on the merits of the core portion of this proposal, I think it's worth pointing out that certain types of mainspace pages don't need and indeed are expected not to have references. You could try to get around that by excluding pages tagged with the DISAMBIG magic word, SIA templates, etc. But that won't work if they don't properly format the page common for new users; I don't have any statistics handy for often new users create those type of pages, but I suspect its a large enough number that it should be taken into consideration. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 04:23, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Good point. HLHJ (talk) 23:57, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
One of the commentators on the original proposal pointed out that articles created through AfC in practice are required to have references, so this would not actually change anything for new editors, who have to use AfC anyway. So it would perhaps it would apply to somewhat more experienced editors.
There is a widespread belief that references are required for every statement, let alone article. This is usually applied to edits by newcomers, who get scared off when a solid but unreferenced contribution is deleted without trying to WP:JUSTFIXIT, and who would learn how to cite if it was instead tagged "citation needed" or a cite was added by another editor (we have studied this). But I've seen a solid-but-uncited edit by an admin removed by an IP, too; this is much less serious.
There is also confusion between notable and has citations that establish notability. I recently posted an unreferenced stub article in the mainspace, and it was draftified and AfCd within the hour. The topic was notable, meaning it would not have been deleted if listed at AfD, and I think I remember an explicit statement that draftifying was an alternative to deletion and could only be used if articles met deletion criteria. The point here is not the individual editors who did this in good faith; the point is that the ensuing discussion made it clear that most of the people on the AfC board thought it reasonable to draftify any unsourced article.
We need to make a conscious choice to either:
  • change policy to require citations on every article (meaning we delete all the articles at Category:Articles lacking sources, or have a massive sourcing drive before the policy comes into effect) and every edit made by a new editor
  • find a way to teach editors to cite unsourced things, and delete them only if the are unsourcable, which is current policy.
Opinions? Next steps? HLHJ (talk) 23:51, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
This is not a new discussion. There is no consensus to do bullet point one, and it is very unlikely to get any. At the same time, the existence of older unsourced articles is not a good reason for new articles to lack sourcing. The example process given seems fine, the article was given time to develop in draft space and was put into mainspace when ready. CMD (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Am I right to say, then, that you favour a policy of "all new articles must have sources" (regardless of whether the editor is new)? How about "all statements added by new editors must have sources"? HLHJ (talk) 15:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
You might be right about my personal policy within some nuance, but the community has decided not to draw a firm line for sourcing but instead to keep a slightly fuzzier set of guidelines. This won't be changed by developments in WMF-developed tools, which we can use or not as desired. CMD (talk) 05:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
@HLHJ I would be very surprised if your ever saw 'an explicit statement that draftifying was an alternative to deletion...'. If you did, I would like to see the diff. As we say on Wikipedia: 'Serious claims need serious sources'. No qualified New Page Patroller would ever contemplate doing such a thing and if they misused their tools to that end they would quickly lose that user right. Articles moved to draft are often pages which the creator has no intention of returning to and completing. If the the creator or a member of the community does not bring the draft or stub up to an acceptable artile within 6 months, it can be deleted under the special conditions at G13 and only under those conditions. Articles can only be physically deleted by an admin and the community is under no obligation to step in and rescue such articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, Kudpung; I think, in trying to be brief, I was incomprehensible. What I meant is that articles that aren't fit for the mainspace, and would thus be deleted if sent to AfD, can be draftified instead of listed at AfD (assuming that they are notable topics, capable of improvement). Articles that are fit for the mainspace, and would therefore not be deleted in AfD, should be left in the mainspace. In other words, we have one standard for whether articles are fit for the mainspace. AfD and NPP do not, or should not, have separate standards. HLHJ (talk) 16:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
AFD isn't supposed to be deleting articles about notable topics. WP:Deletion is not cleanup. I would also question this claim that we have any "standard for whether articles are fit for the mainspace". There appear to be a wide variety of views but no agreed-upon standard.
That said, draftication is used as an alternative to deletion, as authorized under the Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@HLHJ: MY bad. My humble apologies. In a moment of mental aberration I totally misread what you had written. In fact I crafted and co-crafted much of the policies surrounding NPP, pretty much wrote the instructions at WP:NPP and designed and rolled out the user right. A lot has been done recently to improve and clarify the notability standards, especially on some kinds of BLP, but it's an on-going work. NPP is triage, it does mean sending stubs to draft but it's a long way off sounding their death knell. Equally important at NPP is knowing what is is an encyclopedically relevant topic. The fact that something can be sourced does not necessarily mean it belongs here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
No worries, apologies accepted as excessive! Text-only conversations are easy to misunderstand, there's less redundancy. My thanks to WAID: the WP:ATD-I subsection of Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion is, I think, what I was looking for, but I misremembered it, or it's changed. It says that a notable-topic article can be deleted if it "severely fails the verifiability or neutral point of view policies", which I think of as "an article that is worse than no article". Draftifying can be cleanup, and I think in practice is done at a lower threshold, but I'm not sure.
Unlike AfD, no reason is given when draftifying. I don't very much mind what standards we have for new articles, but if I fail to meet them I'd like to know how, so I can avoid it in future. If I'm confused, new editors certainly are.
I'm actually more worried about the editors who seem to be acting on the misconception that all statements (not just BLP), or at least all statements by new editors, need to be cited. I'm pretty sure this is terrible for editor retention (from anecdote and stats). What would be a good way to let them know that they needn't delete every new uncited statement as if it were vandalism? I'm told that this is a bit too complex for a user warning template; any other ideas? HLHJ (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Well... I've been told that one of the best ways to retain a new editor (at least for definitions of "retain" that are as simple as "get them to edit the next day") is to leave their uncited text in the article, and add a {{citation needed}} tag at the end of it.
Obviously, there are limits (e.g., blatant vandalism, probably untrue material, libelous BLP content), but if retention is the goal, then we should do more inline tagging and less "Ooops, you made one mistake. Go back to the beginning and start completely over". Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a game of Mother, May I?, but some of us treat it that way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Agreed; there are plenty of reverts of newbies that are fully justified. It's a specific and thus perhaps fixable problem when editors think "unsourced" is in itself an adequate justification for reverting. Newbies who figure out how to source correctly on their first edit are rare.
In an attempt to fix this one specific problem, I drafted a user warning template, and tried unsuccessfully to add information to introductory tutorials, and discussed UI design for adding of inline tags using semiautomatic tools (T209797), and putting one-click templates in VE (T55590) might help a bit. But I've not gotten anywhere with any of this. Any suggestions, however wild, would be most welcome. HLHJ (talk) 05:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Videos from YT and WP:RSPYT

Latest comment: 12 days ago22 comments7 people in discussion

Hi there, I've been adding some original, subtitled Latin content to some pages, from a series of readings which are available as CC-By content now at here, here and here. The content is verifiable and properly sourced. Where the readings are sufficiently significant to the topic, this seems a reasonable thing to do, eg at Martin Luther. It is also more in line with MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE to subtitle the original than to read from a translation. If an editor feels the content is not sufficiently relevant, that is fair enough of course.

However, it has been raised that WP:RSPYT applies and the videos are simply not to be used as WP:RSPYT states that YT is simply unreliable as a "source". I don't think this is right but wanted to get some clarity. Jim Killock (talk) 18:57, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the wording of WP:RSPYT is poor - YouTube is a publisher, not a source, and so is neither reliable nor unreliable. While most videos hosted on it are unreliable and/or copyright violations (for various reasons), there are exceptions and there should not be any prohibition on citing those exceptions. The onus is on the person wanting to cite them to show they are reliable and not copyright violations, as well as the usual DUE, etc. but once shown to be acceptable and relevant there is no reason not to cite such videos imo (unless of course there are better sources of course). Thryduulf (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
"use" as well as "cite" perhaps, in these instances? Jim Killock (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
With YouTube videos, even those released by a free license, we want to make sure of a few things. First, that the account that posted the material themselves are a reliable source. To take the first image in the first link provided, File:Dr. Samuel Johnson- Letter of Thanks for His Oxford Degree.webm, the YouTube it was pulled from appears to be no-name with zero evidence of any reliability on their own (they claim to be an independent student of Latin and Greek). While the content may be accurate, we shouldn't be using that questionable reliability for such sources. Another problem, but which is not the case here, is that there are people that create CC-BY videos on YouTube that include considerable amount of copyrighted material (that is not in there control), beyond what fair use would allow, and thus belie the CC-BY allowance. YouTube itself doesn't check this, so we have to aware of such problems. Masem (t) 21:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
That all makes sense. But I would assume that it is OK so long as the checks can be made? The author of these videos is pseudonymous but give sources. In the case you mention, he cites the public domain Life of Johnson by James Boswell for the text; a search for "ingratus plane et mihi videar" turns up page 75 of this edition, in Latin and English, so the content is easy enough to check.
I have sufficient Latin to know that his pronunciation and diction is decent, and to check the sources linked to match up with what is said. I'm also able to translate most of the simpler texts from Latin to English where needed. Jim Killock (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if the YouTube source is accurate or that it cites other sources; if it is not from an established RS outlet it is no more reliable than a forums post. JoelleJay (talk) 03:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Unless it clearly cites its sources, is published by an established expert in the field, or a few other scenarios - i.e. exactly the same as a text source. Thryduulf (talk) 03:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
...yes, an established RS outlet. JoelleJay (talk) 03:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
...and sources that are reliable but not established and/or which are not "outlets". Thryduulf (talk) 03:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Either a source is the account of an official outlet with a formal editorial policy that establishes it as RS, or it's an SPS from an established expert. If you need to replace "outlet" with "verified official account of an established expert" you can do that. JoelleJay (talk) 03:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
To be clear I am asking about a very simple scenario here. The Johnson video foe example follows this script:

'INGRATUS planè et tibi et mihi videar, nisi quanto me gaudio affecerint quos nuper mihi honores (te credo auctore) decrevit Senatus Academicus, Iiterarum, quo lamen nihil levius, officio, significem: ingratus etiam, nisi comitatem, quá vir eximius[831] mihi vestri testimonium amoris in manus tradidit, agnoscam et laudem. Si quid est undè rei lam gratæ accedat gratia, hoc ipso magis mihi placet, quod eo tempore in ordines Academicos denuo cooptatus sim, quo tuam imminuere auctoritatem, famamque Oxonii Iædere[832], omnibus modis conantur homines vafri, nec tamen aculi: quibus ego, prout viro umbratico licuit, semper restiti, semper restiturus. Qui enim, inter has rerum procellas, vel Tibi vel Academiæ defuerit, illum virtuti et literis, sibique et posteris, defuturum existimo.

The script matches the Project Gutenberg transcript of the source it cites. Google translate gives a passable translation that roughly matches the English subtitles.
There might be a question about the translation of the English subtitles, if the text is more complicated. In these, the author has generally gone with a public domain translation, which is also easily verified. Occassionally they are his own work, which obviously does need checking according to context and complexity.
Assuming the subs and original source are public domain; and the relevance of the original source can be established from secondary sources, then I'm struggling to see why there would be a problem using this content. Jim Killock (talk) 08:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Because (in general) the only thing a video of a reading adds over the script is aural. And given Latin is a dead language I would want to see someone who has qualifications in the area reading it (I would at minimum accept a catholic priest here FYI). Because YT is self-published I have no idea if the person reading it is competent. I cant even verify from the audio if it matches the script because I dont speak latin to start with. It absolutely would be suitable for an External Link, but there's nothing you can source content from it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
There are plenty of competent Latinists, judged competent by trained Latinists. WP has plenty of trained Latinists. Not everyone can judge everything against sources; not all of us can access all sources or other people's abilities to recite another language; the same would apply to Welsh or Gaelic for example, in that I personally cannot evaluate a spoken Gaelic source or translation. Wikipedia depends on a network of people evaluating sources; that is inherent in WP's work AIUI. Jim Killock (talk) 13:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
YouTube videos are self-published, YouTube myself just acts as a way to publish those videos. So they can be reliable is they from an otherwise reliable source, so if the Associated Press upload a video of their news coverage it would be as reliable as any other work by the Associated Press. For individuals they need to be subject matter experts who have been previous published by independent reliable sources (WP:SPS) or show they have been used as a citation by other independent reliable sources (WP:USEBYOTHERS). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Right, but my use case falls outside of this scenario. Say someone sings "Jack and Jill went up the Hill" and releases it under CC-By. They cite and link a public domain music sheet. They use an anonymous name and they are not a known subject expert. According to the criteria set out above, the video is an unreliable source, as it is not published by a subject matter expert, nor used as a citation by an independent reliable source, so must be disallowed (not republished) on Wikipedia.
These videos are performances (recitals) not cited sources.
I am confused. Jim Killock (talk) 20:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
If it's being used for the purposes of verification then it's a reference, and must be from a reliable source. If it's only being used as an external link, rather than for verification, then it comes under WP:External links. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
The intention is not that they are used for verification; they are performances for "illustrative purposes", rather like images on the page. See for example: this Martin Luther reading. The idea is that the reader can get an idea of the original source material. The performances may be verified; but the performances are not sources, they are derivative works. Jim Killock (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
RSPYT only applies to verification, and this appears to be a matter of inclusion not verification. Whether a video made by an anonymous performer should be included or not is the same as if a particular image should be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:49, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks very much; is there guidance on how and when appropriately licenced images are included? Jim Killock (talk) 22:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Answering my own question: MOS:IMAGES. I think there is a bit of lacuna in guidance here, as illsutative videos of performances or recordings etc don't seem to be covered in MOS, or if they are, I haven't found it. Jim Killock (talk) 22:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites#YouTube and {{External media}}. If you don't wrap stuff in ref tags, people are less likely to think you are trying to use it to support article content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. None of this content was wrapped up in ref tags. Confusion may have arise because the challenge was made over the "verifiability" of the content; as the videos are derivative works of public domain sources, eg Luther's pamphlet, it's important that the video's sources are clear and checked, even though the video is not being used as a citation. Jim Killock (talk) 07:30, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
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