Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 129

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Use of USPS stamp images

A inquiry to the US Postal Service “Integration and Planing Rights and Permissions” division on 9/8/15, case ID 124603003, reported that no prior approval is necessary for use of stamp images in "newspapers, news magazines, news journals and other media,” which I take to mean online encyclopedias, as the inquiry specifically referred to use of USPS stamp images on Wikipedia. However users "must credit the USPS and noting its rights, such as “United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.” and “all aforementioned uses must consist of the unaltered, original image...” — that can be obtained by a download free from the Smithsonian Institute’s Arago:people, postage and the post website, as well as USPS sites featuring the most current issues.

Why should Wikipedia policy continue to bar most USPS stamp images, when it is just a matter of reporting image information in historical context of cultural significance in a Wikipedia article and their use is permitted by the USPS? There need be no fear of Wikipedia becoming a stamp album, any more than there is need to fear WP becoming an art gallery, or a video game promotion by representing images of art or box covers. The key is writing informative encyclopedic narrative directly associated with each image. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:09, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

The USPS statement clearly does not release the stamp images under an acceptable free license (specifically that it does not allow alteration, which is a requirement we need to call images free). As such, stamps (since a specific year when the USPS was no longer a direct government agency) are copyrighted works and treated as non-free, and since WP's mission is to minimize the use of non-free, we restrict the use of such stamp images unless they meet NFCC. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

That's not clear. How can the images of copyrighted video game boxes and album covers be allowed on Wikipedia and not stamps as a part of informative encyclopedic narrative? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:02, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Cover art for a notable published work (one that has its own standalone article) is considered to be an acceptable use of non-free images to illustrate how that work is marketed and branded (even if that is not discussed at all in the article). If there was a stamp or stamp set that was notable on its own (eg meeting the WP:GNG for a standalone article, the same allowance would clearly be made. However, individual stamp or series of stamps are rarely notable on their own, and generally are covered on the topic that the stamp is illustrating to say that the topic was commemorated on a stamp or stamp series. And in that case, one rarely needs to see the image of the stamp to understand that context. --MASEM (t) 16:37, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

TheVirginiaHistorian, I think it depends upon where you want to use an image of the stamp. For example, I see that they have stamps with pictures of spoonbill birds and banana splits, and it's unlikely that those stamps would be appropriate for those articles. However, they also have one of the renowned teacher Jaime Escalante, and it would probably be appropriate to include the stamp alongside a well-sourced paragraph that explains that the USPS printed a stamp in honor of him. The File: page would need to be here (not at Commons) and it would need a {{subst:Stamp rationale}} template, but that is probably an acceptable use. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually, no, that would not be an acceptable use if there already existed an image of Escalante, particularly a free one. If we already know what the person looks like from other media, just using the image of the stamp to show another image and to say that a stamp was made to commemorate him would fail WP:NFCC#1 (if a free image was available) and WP:NFCC#3a (if a photograph existed otherwise). There would need to be more discussion on the specific image used on the stamp sourced in the text to made it an allowable use. --MASEM (t) 19:04, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I was assuming that the "well-sourced paragraph that explains that the USPS printed a stamp" would actually talk about the stamp, and that the image of said stamp existed to illustrate the paragraph about the stamp, rather than the article's subject as a whole.  ;-) An unrelated snapshot of the person doesn't really tell you anything about the stamp's appearance, so NFCC complaints on grounds of "we have a different picture of this person" would not prohibit us from using a copy of the stamp to show what the stamp (NB: not the person) looks like. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I see the notable test. Most stamps with historical interest are initiated with joint resolutions of Congress, a majority of both House and Senate. Anti-stamp editors have previously objected that the dust jacket of a book on the New York Times best selling list, or a national marketing campaign for a video game make the respective visual representations “notable”. Surely relative to the larger context of U.S. history, a Joint Resolution of Congress commemorating a person, event or place is even more notable in comparison.

The Template:Stamp rationale is, “used for purposes of illustration in an educational article about the entity represented by the image”. It is not replaceable image, because "a free use alternative won’t exist.” Further, “there is no possible commercial disadvantage to the copyright holder.” The WP:Stamp rationale was used for the images at Puerto Rico on stamps which now is populated with placeholders since their arbitrarily removal. They were at Commons, why must they be exclusively at Wikipedia? I thought the Foundation policy was to migrate images to Commons. This seems to be a narrow parochial argument against the larger interests of the Foundation for free online access to information.

It is notable that Puerto Ricans and other U.S. citizens from U.S. territories were once excluded from U.S. commemorative stamp notice, while now politicians, poets, actors and baseball notables are commemorated as Americans, rather than an anonymous peon. WP has a project to overcome WP structural bias. Is that the proper venue for that article? Or is opposition just a general bias against stamps in Wikipedia at all, as one editor complained. It seems that the anti-stamp view is not consensus policy, as there is a Template:Stamp rationale. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:39, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

No, the act of Congress doesn't make the stamp image notable, but instead lends to the notability of the person or the topic that the act commemorates.

Also, keep in mind that the Foundation wants to encourage a encyclopedia with minimal use of non-free images, those images that cannot be reused and modified by any reuser, so that the work can be distributed freely around the world. Stamps, under the language you quoted, do not fall into that, so their use should be minimized. In an article about the general culture of Puerto Rico on stamps, it would be impossible to illustrate every stamp that has been issued to commemorate that, free or non-free, and where non-free is concerns, on such lists, only one or two representative examples would be appropriate for visual identification. It's not a bias against stamps, since stamps can be used selectively for illustration, just mass representation of stamps without any discussion of the stamp's image importance. --MASEM (t) 14:05, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

That a republic commemorates its outstanding citizens is a remarkable event in history, the expression of it in a stamp happens to be visual rather than verbal. The visual expression should be seen as equivalent to the verbal. The Foundation encourages the use of stamps by providing a Template:Stamp rationale. It does not want free images of persons, places or events modified on Wikipedia so that the personage is unrecognizable. The stamp image is stipulated as non-free in the policy approved Template:Stamp rationale for each image.

The contrast between the free-use Spanish commemoration of 1492 Columbus in 1892 and the proposed non-free use U.S. commemoration of Columbus in 1992 is instructive to the reader, but denied by Masem's misconstruing of NFCC#1, there is no image of the U.S. stamp available except that of the U.S. stamp, although is is allowed in lower resolution in NFCC#3b. In NFCC#3a, where "Multiple items are not used when one item can convey equivalent significant information" — does not apply as the visual contrast between the Spanish and U.S. stamps is not apparent without the U.S. image. There is no multiple image gallery of the same U.S. stamp in the article.

At Puerto Rico on stamps the history of U.S. postage for Puerto Rico is comprehensive, to meet the standards of a Featured Article classification by WP policy. Masem’s characterization of it being “impossible to illustrate” is simply a unreasonable denial of the work completed. Each stamp is discussed in relation to its importance as representative of Puerto Rico in compliance with NFCC#8. The charge that there is no discussion on image importance is unthinking obstruction of the intent of the Foundation. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

The Foundation did not supply Template:Stamp Rationale. That was a template created on en.wiki that does have some allowed uses but does not mean every stamp image is allowed. It simply helps to make assigning a rationale for a stamp easier by filling in some of the required NFCC information that are common to stamps. The rational and other NFCC aspects must still be valid.

Most of the items listed at Puerto Rico on stamps do not require one to see the stamp to understand the topic. You have plenty of sources to note that various people and places in PR were commemorated by putting them on stamps, and that's as far as the sources go, they do not describe anything of significance of the visual nature of the stamp. As such, one does not need to see the stamp to understand why the person or place was commemorated, nor to understand that a stamp was made for them. That said, we are reasonable in allowing one or two visual examples of non-free in such lists, recognizing many readers are visual readers, so one or two stamp images would be fine under NFCC. But not all those presently marked as "no image available". --MASEM (t) 17:35, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Every stamp image which is supplied with a Template:Stamp rationale meets the NFCC requirements for usage by #1 and #3a, it cautions the user to the limits of the non-free image, it must be credited to USPS and “All rights reserved”, even as the entire image is used. All elements of NFCC are met at Puerto Rico on stamps for those with the place holder, “No image yet”, including #8, each stamp is "discussed in relation to its importance" as representative of U.S. stamps of Puerto Rico.

Your interest in the descriptions of the visual nature of each stamp and its production at Puerto Rico on stamps is a technical philately one, which does not directly bear on the subject matter of the article, an article that addresses the history, politics and culture of Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory on stamps. But if that is your particular interest, of course it can be admitted as your contribution to the article to expand its coverage of the topic.

The idea that “There are U.S. stamps about Puerto Rico.” would comprehensively cover the topic of reader interest without visual images of the stamps is reductio ad absurdum. At George Washington, readers want to know more than “George Washington was a Virginian” albeit in an absurd sense, that is all a reader needs to know. An article on a visual medium requires visual representations, so long as article length guidelines are not violated. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:19, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

• "Every stamp image which is supplied with a Template:Stamp rationale meets the NFCC requirements for usage by #1 and #3a," Er, unless I am reading you wrong, you are stating that merely using the template meets the criteria for #1 and #3a - thats incorrect, you have to demonstrate use of the media meets the criteria, then the template can be used as an aide. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:41, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
• The template only helps towards meeting NFCC#10; #1 and #3 have to be satisified by the actual use and rational entered into the template. The subject matter is how PR has been commemorated on stamps, not the visual aspects of those stamps, so images are secondary and not necessary to understanding the topic. That is not to say no image can be used, one or two representative examples are fair, but without any further discussion of the visual aspects of the stamps (beyond a simple description), particularly with commemorated subjects that already have free images, more images are against the Foundation's goal of minimizing non-free use and our NFCC policy that supports that. --MASEM (t) 13:59, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

This discussion badly needs involvement from some US copyright experts. Just because the USPS claims rights doesn't mean it actually has them. There's a general principle that materials produced at taxpayer expenses by agencies and other bodies of the US federal, state, county, and local governments is public domain, and caselaw has even extended this to work produced for them by contractors. It's difficult to see why the US Postal Service would be some magical exception. That said, this is not a question I've pursued in any detail (i.e. with Westlaw and LexisNexis access and other shepardizing resources) since the 1990s, so something could have changed. Most of the intellectual property attorneys I know, who have looked into the overall question, are convinced that WMF is being excessively paranoid about copyright in general, and not permitting the community to avail itself of most of its fair use rights, to the detriment of projects like Wikipedia (they theory being that WMF is trying to avoid litigation it could win hands-down but which would still generate legal expenses; some of us would rather WMF fought those fights and did fundraising efforts and outreach to ACLU, EFF, etc. to back them up).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:16, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It's rather simple, actually. Up to 1978, the USPS was considered a branch of the federal gov't and stamps issued by them were in the PD by the US-PDGov. However, after 1978, the USPS while still an agency of the gov't specifically had copyright laws apply that works produced by the USPS were now eligible for copyright; see United_States_Postal_Service#Stamp_copyright_and_reproduction.

And no, it's not an issue about copyright, it's about being a free content work. We know we are more restrictive than fair use but that's because we are trying to create a free content encyclopedia. Very little has to deal with how things are classified as copyright or not. --MASEM (t) 04:29, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Some of what you say is acknowledged by the NFCC gatekeepers, so that images of out-of-copyright art framed with a USPS border and postage value has been allowed in articles such as battles pictured at Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps. The general usage of the postage places it in the public domain, but I argue additionally that the non-free use Template:Stamp rationale covers us in that it stipulates the USPS copyright, we acknowledge their "All rights reserved", and inquiry to the US Postal Service “Integration and Planing Rights and Permissions” division on 9/8/15, case ID 124603003 concerning use of USPS images on Wikipedia, reported that no prior approval is necessary for use of stamp images for educational, news and "other media". TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:42, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

My point really is that, from years of doing fair-use legal work (as a policy analyst, not an attorney, but in an office full of intellectual-property specialist attorneys), it appears to me extremely dubious that any copyright claims made by the USPS are valid, and that if challenged they would be invalidated at every court level from District through SCotUS, because all the statutory and case law regarding the American governments' attempts to evade or eliminate fair use to control its own materials has ruled on the public interest's side. Unless, as I said, something recently changed radically. If it has, then an attorney steeped in that caselaw should be advising us (and WP:OFFICE) on these matters. If this has not transpired but there's a danger of it, then a) WMF should not be restraining our exercise of fair use out just out of some nebulous "what if" concerns, and b) should be working with other public interest groups like ensure that taxpayer-funded materials remain public domain. It would be an unmitigated disaster if something like crown copyright arose in the US (and other more open, public-domain jurisdictions that follow the US lead), all because various parties not only failed to speak up, but treated a non-law as if it were a law, and thereby established a de facto anti-fair-use "industry standard" that the courts or legislative bodies decided to enforce (which has definitely happened before – ever heard of sample clearances?).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:51, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

See the point I made above: the copyrightability of USPS stamps from 1978 is in the federal code, specifically written in by the Copyright office in response to the Postal Reorganization Act that reflects that the service become essentially an independent agency from the federal government [1]. And again, we are purposely stronger that US fair use not because of any legal issues, but because the goal is to make a free content encyclopedia. Meeting goal assures that we're always within fair use, by happenstance, but no law is requiring us to be more restrictive, it is the Foundation's mission that makes us so. --MASEM (t) 06:00, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The mission: I buy that; I just think it's a mistake. It's a technical matter, and nothing more: All it requires is some kind of wrapper around or metadata tagging of non-FC material, then any re-users of WP material in bulk, who demand or need truly free content only, can exclude that material as they import and repurpose it. They already have to do that with things like the WP logo anyway. WP's mission as an encyclopedia, and now the most-used information source in the world, is far more important than Stallmanesque libre position-taking by the foundation.

The USPS legal matter: I understand that it's a statutory issue. The point I was trying to make, poorly I guess, is that one of the primary functions of the federal courts, from a civil liberties standpoint, is striking down bad statutes. I spent about a decade helping ensure they did so, and it is mostly action by principled nonprofits that kicks those balls through the goal. The right case would nuke that statute as an invalid attempt to evade public domain by using a quasi-privitization shell game (not very different from attempts that the courts have already invalidated).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

While it is very easy to dismiss that those that can't use non-free can just apply wrappers to get non-free-less content, it still stresses on us editors to make sure we do not rest too heavily on non-free being a presumed allowance, thus creating content that requires the non-free to a point where without the non-free it no longer becomes useful. We should be seeing this as a intellectual challenge to figure out how to write on topics without resorting to non-free as to meet the Foundation's mission. And of course, the less non-free we use, the more we keep our noses clean in any fair use issues. As to the USPS, I do note that the action that the Copyright office set included two other agencies that were transferred from being internal to external, similarly allowing them to claim copyright. And that it was no required that take copyright, only that it existed as an option (which the USPS clearly took). --MASEM (t) 16:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

@Only in death: The use of a stamp for a stamp related article such as Puerto Rico on stamps when it is one of the U.S. stamps on Puerto Rico, demonstrates the use of the media (stamps) is required in the Template:Stamp rationale, “protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won’t exist”. That is, making the article into a literary discourse of the fine arts uniquely associated for each stamp image is not a requirement for an article on the stamps of Puerto Rico which addresses its American history, politics, economy and culture on stamps. But images of each of those stamps is a requirement to be comprehensive so as to meet the interests of a general reader.

@Masem:The use of postages stamps “to illustrate the stamp in question (as opposed to things appearing in the stamp’s design)…qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.” The visual aspects are not required to be addressed — those are explicitly excluded. Even when they are, the stamp images are removed capriciously. In the article Puerto Rico on stamps, the image of the Julia de Burgos stamp notes that it "features the poet with blue water flowing behind her, evoking one of her best known poems, “Río Grande de Loíza,” a sensuous ode to the Puerto Rican river where she was raised.” — Yet that image was also removed.

@WhatamIdoing: All copyrighted images are removed, even though they meet the ten NFCC requirements and satisfy the Template:Stamp rationale. One or two are not allowed due to editors blanket removal when they misconstrue the NFCC criteria. An article on stamps can use stamp images. To simply assert it is “impossible” to comprehensively discuss Puerto Rico on stamps to meet the interest of a general reader ignores the editorial contribution. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:42, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Remember that the Wikimedia Foundation and en.wiki's are purposely more restrictive than US fair use law to encourage the avoidance of non-free and the use of free content in its place, so it doesn't matter what fair use would allow, and we do not simply allow for images of things for causal illustration; there must be a reasonable purpose beyond decoration. I know you and I have discussed the de Burgos stamp before since I remember that the language about the imagery would justify it. It is true that it looks like an editor removed all the non-free without question and as they were not readded the files were deleted as orphans, but it is reasonable to readd only the de Burgos stamp image, just that you can't justify all of the others under NFC allowances. --MASEM (t) 05:50, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The community should resist and undo this WMF angle to the extent that it can, because it's ultimately inimical to WP:ENC. One of the principal criticisms of WP as a usable work is the dearth of images. A less frequent but more serious one is our reliance on natural history images and the like from 1800s publications, many of which are grossly inaccurate.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

As long as they are footing the bill for the services, we're bound by their goals. You're welcome to freely fork en.wiki and make the it more amendable to fair use, but as long as we're in the WMF's sandbox, we have to abid by their rules. --MASEM (t) 06:01, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

This last Masem post may be the key to his misunderstanding the article, Puerto Rico on stamps and others like it. The purpose of the article is to convey the information about U.S. postage concerning Puerto Rico’s history, politics, economy and culture in its American identity since 1898. That requires showing images both free-use and non-free use, before and after 1978, in order to satisfy the interest of the general reader, which is a Foundation goal. Images for the visual medium such as stamps is as important as referencing multiple speeches for in a politician's biography. It is not sufficient to say, "Lincoln made several important speeches," the speeches demonstrated as important to the subject should be illustrated individually with direct quotes from each. Visual media should be illustrated with each important stamp image related to the subject.

Masem said, We do not simply allow for images of things for causal illustration. No, NFCC is misconstrued if each stamp image is imagined to be “casual" in these articles, when the accompanying text demonstrates the importance of each one to the subject matter of the article in accordance with NFCC#8. There is no Foundation goal to restrict the subjects of the encyclopedia to only subjects with free images, as non-free images for video games and music albums abound, without the notability conveyed by the Congressional joint resolution for each stamp and the public domain usage of hundreds of thousands of issues for each stamp prior to its illustration here with a WMF sanctioned Template:Stamp rationale. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:28, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

First the WMF has had nothing to do with the Stamp rationale template. It is a template made by editors on en.wiki and that's it, and even then I'm not sure if that was made with consensus or not. Nothing more. Just because it exists does not validate any stance by the WMF or that it was authorized by the WMF.

Second, the article you are presenting is not talking about the importance of the stamps themselves, simply the importance of PR and various people and topics from it that were deemed important enough to be put on stamps. No part of that requires any imagery whatsoever to understand that PR has been memorialized on various stamps - sources are used to validate that these stamps were commemorated. Only in a few isolated cases has there been any specific discussion from the sources of what imagery went on the stamp itself, and those seem only to be one or two lines of prose, nothing in any great detail. It shows that the stamps themselves are not important, only that PR-related people and topics were deemed important enough to be put on stamps. (If you don't have a source to say that the stamp was issued to commemorate that person/topic and are using the image as proof, that's original research and unacceptable, but I don't think that's the situation here in this case).

Of course, we do encourage the use of images to illustrate articles, but now we have to consider that WMF wants to minimize the use of non-free and our NFC policy abides by this goal. This does not restrict free images, since that's explicitly meeting the WMF goal. But non-free images must be used with extremely caution in this case since one does not visually need to see the stamp to understand that a stamp was made to commemorate that person. This is basically the case outlined in WP:NFC#UUI #9 (keeping in mind these are not all-encompassing rules but examples of how NFC applies) A magazine or book cover, to illustrate the article on the person whose photograph is on the cover. However, if the cover itself is the subject of sourced discussion in the article, it may be appropriate if placed inline next to the commentary. You do not have any significant sourced discussion of the stamps themselves (beyond the fact that they were printed) for these stamps outside of de Burgos' which describes why the imagery for the stamp was selected. So that's only one clear non-free allowance. --MASEM (t) 12:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: It's all about fair-use rationale. USPS stamps since 1978 are copyrighted, and therefore cannot be used on Wikipedia except possibly in the infobox of an article about that specific stamp (same as the fair-use rationale for album covers, video covers, and book covers, only on the article strictly about the item -- in this case stamp -- in question). You can't use a copyrighted stamp on an article about the subjct the stamp depicts -- only on an article about the stamp itself. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philately#Stamp_images and [2]. Softlavender (talk) 13:17, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Its all about using the Template:Stamp rationale as specified in your link Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philately#Stamp_images. Further, USPS gave Wikipedia permission to use USPS images without prior permission as "other media" by the Integration and Planning Rights and Permissions case ID 124603003 of 9/8/15. In addition, we have WP:NFC#UUI#9, However, if the cover itself is the subject of sourced discussion in the article, it may be appropriate if placed inline next to the commentary. Each stamp itself is the subject of sourced discussion in the article, so WP:NFC#UUI#9 makes it appropriate to use the image of each stamp if placed inline next to the commentary. Again some misunderstanding: the stamp images do not merely illustrate the article topic, they are the article topic.

@Softlavender: For example, the subject of the article Puerto Rico on stamps is not about Columbus discovering America, it is about Puerto Rico on U.S. stamps, which encompasses the U.S. 1992 commemoration stamp of Columbus discovering America. WP:NFC#UUI#9 justifies use of the stamp image if placed inline next to the commentary, because the stamp itself is the subject of sourced discussion in the article.

@Masem: The Columbus commemorative is about Columbus’ landing at Puerto Rico. That is not original research as you have supposed, it is as sourced to the Smithsonian Institute’s Arago website, which sources the USPS. Generally, WP allows single source attribution from reliable secondary sources, without the need for multiple citations of their sourcing. The sourced discussion on the stamps generally encompasses the commentary provided by USPS, which is a reliable source for information about its stamps in general circulation, as is the Smithsonian Institute's Arago website. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

For images to be called "free", we require that everyone has the right to use and modify the image. While the USPS may have granted Wikipedia this right, it clearly does not extend to reusers, so these images are still non-free.

Your article is not about the stamps, but about the people and places that are represented on the stamps. An article about a stamp itself, specifically would be something like Inverted Jenny. It's subtle but important difference that is critical to understand why you must limit the use of non-free on that article. You have no commentary about the stamps that is not otherwise about the person or place on the stamp; in contrast, the Inverted Jenny has only the briefest info about the plane on it and the bulk on the stamp's history and legacy, something not at all present in the PR stamp article. --MASEM (t) 12:33, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The Template:Stamp rationale stipulates that the images in use are non-free, and it addresses the legal technicalities required of Wikipedia to use them in articles. Narratives including a stamp with sourced discussion in the article can use the image with the Template:Stamp rationale according to WP:NFC#UUI #9, "Images that are themselves subject of commentary." I have stipulated that the article is not about each stamp itself, but the article is about the U.S. stamps of Puerto Rico from 1898 to present as addressed in sourced article narrative, which includes those stamps issued after USPS began printing them in 1978.

The Inverted Jenny stamp article is one of the stand alone “notable postage stamps” which are notable for their errors. Other than appealing with readers in a narrow interest in technical lithography errors in postage stamp mass production, they are described with the same information as that found at Puerto Rico on stamps, but with the additional technical information related to pane size, number issued, reproduction process, inks and adhesive.

I have explained my rationale for omitting these technical philately details for an article devoted to the U.S. stamps about Puerto Rico, but a philatelist is welcome to add the information. That the article is not a technical article on lithographic errors does not take away from its historical interest to the general reader. It is an article which is “not about the stamps” in the sense that it is not about the stamp production errors. But the general reader has a broader interest including the historical context of the people, places and events which are nationally commemorated. For example, the Smithsonian Institute's web page on stamps is Arago: people, postage and the post which mostly includes stamps without errors. The notability for the majority of stamps featured there comes from the joint resolution of Congress commissioning them and the national usage of hundreds of thousands issued for public use. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:41, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Summary for USPS images

• The USPS endorsed the use of the Template:Stamp rationale in that its use in a WP article of “other media” stipulates in the template the USPS copyright and “all rights reserved” criteria, see USPS “integration and Planning, Rights and Permissions” division case ID 124603003 of 9/8/15 responding to an editor request for use of its stamp images in WP stamp articles.

• The proposition that a stamp article substitute stamp images, which have no free-use equivalent, with free-use images other than stamps, does not meet the test of writing to a general reader interest in the historical context of stamps such as Puerto Rico on stamps. The Template:Stamp rationale filled out for each stamp image meets the requirements of NFCC#1 which allows non-free stamp content to be used when there is no stamp substitute. The proposition that the completed Template does not meet the requirements it is written to meet, because there are requirements to meet in the Template -- is circular reasoning.

• The proposition that the article on Puerto Rico with a stamp image or two for illustration satisfies the visual interest of the general reader for knowledge about the U.S. stamps of Puerto Rico from 1898 to present dismisses the visual interest of stamps. That interest is not truncated at 1978 with the creation of the USPS. Each stamps' notability springs from the Congressional Joint Resolution commissioning them, and their general use in the public domain in the hundreds of thousands. The general reader has an interest in stamp articles by subject. The Australian post office estimates there are 22 million stamp collectors worldwide [3], Linn’s stamp magazine estimates over 5 million collectors in the U.S. alone with a particular subject interest.APS Topical stamp articles have a greater notability and general reader interest than narrowly marketed video games featured at Wikipedia, each illustrated with a non-free image box cover, for instance.

• Each stamp at Puerto Rico on stamps that is accompanied with sourced commentary can be appropriately illustrated with a non-free use image according to WP:NFC#UUI#9. Topical articles on stamps with sourced commentary describing each stamp and their significance meet NFCC#10. The proposition that they are unsourced with a citation to the Smithsonian Institute’s Arago webpage is specious; the Smithsonian Institute is a reliable source, the USPS stamp commemorating Columbus in 1992 is about Columbus landing at Puerto Rico, for instance, as sourced. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:45, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Moderator proposal

• Wikipedia:Moderators/Proposal

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new user group with an abbreviated set of administrator user-rights, as an option for editors to request instead of requesting the entire sysop user-right package. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 21:13, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Clarification of BIO1E

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.

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In the second paragraph at WP:BIO1E, the assassination that led to the start of World War I is given as an example (and the only example) of a "highly significant" event. To me, this suggests that the appropriate bar is whether the event is covered in, or can reasonably expected to be covered in, history books. Others prefer a lower bar, especially for more recent events, that requires only extensive RS coverage and a subjective assessment of the event's impact—an assessment which often takes a short-term view. They would include events that very likely will not be covered in history books. Should the guideline be modified to clarify this point? If so, how? ―Mandruss ☎ 19:07, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

No response after one week at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people).

The sentence in question first gives the example of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as an example. This was an event with very high historical impact and is widely covered in history books. The sentence then refers to "the large coverage of the event in reliable sources". This would include many events that receive extensive news coverage but have far less historical impact, if any. This is contradictory, creating more confusion than clarity.

Options:

• 1 - Clarify the guideline. Remove the Princip example, replacing that entire sentence with: "The event should have received large coverage in reliable sources that devote significant attention to the individual's role."
• 2 - Clarify the guideline. Add language following the Princip sentence: "Historical significance sufficient for inclusion of the event in history books is not required; extensive coverage in reliable news sources may be enough."
• 3 - Clarify the guideline. Add language following the Princip sentence: "Generally, the bar should be historical significance sufficient for inclusion of the event in history books, either demonstrated or reasonably anticipated."
• 4 - No change to the guideline. Simply affirm that: "Generally, the bar is historical significance sufficient for inclusion in history books, either demonstrated or reasonably anticipated." This RfC will then be used to show community consensus, supplementing BIO1E.
• 5 - Do nothing, the status quo is adequate.
• [other] - Roll your own. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:07, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

RfC survey: BIO1E

• 3 or 4 as proposer. I feel that (1) the guidance is inadequate as written, and that (2) the criterion should be historical significance, not simply RS coverage of any kind. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:07, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
• I support option 2. Something that occurred reasonably recently, no matter how notable the event was, is unlikely to turn up in any history book. If an event has been covered extensively by reliable sources, then I don't see why it matters that it hasn't been covered in history books. Omni Flames (talk) 05:04, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• I lean towards 4. As it currently stands we see plenty of articles being created with dubious historical significance (e.g. this person came in second in the 2005 American Idol, has never been heard from since; or had a minor role in a soap opera, which nevertheless did something consequential to the plot and got coverage for it, but then had no other significant coverage or played any notable roles). This needs to be corrected and made clearer. What we need to define is a way to establish "demonstrated or reasonably anticipated" - how would you ascertain if an event will be historical and covered in reliable long-term sources, such as books? "History books" should not be taken in the literal sense - I believe this refers to any long-term coverage in the relevant media for that particular subject. Best, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 16:42, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
• Simply add a non-history-book example, which effectuates the idea of Option 2 without having to change the guidance wording.. Extensive RS coverage, regardless of the publication medium, is sufficient. The idea we can predict what will be in future history books is WP:CRYSTAL. Focusing on "history books" in particular is "medium/genre fetishization" and should be avoided, per the avoidance of it at WP:V and WP:RS themselves and at WP:NOT#PAPER.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:46, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
• 3 or 4 Current practice in news reporting tends to be like sharks in a feeding frenzy so lots of RS material may be generated for events of little or no long term significance. It is OK, in my opinion, to give the term "history books" a broad interpratation in that the term can refer to "popular" writings rather than being restricted to rigorous academic works. Jbh^Talk 18:22, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

RfC discussion: BIO1E

• What you seem to be asking for is some kind of "super notability", based on what a particular subset of reliable sources have written about (or upon our own subjective opinion of what a particular subset of reliable sources might be writing about at some undetermined point in the future), rather than what we know reliable sources generally have written about. I don't see the merit, nor have I seen any indication that it is established practice so as to justify changing the guideline's description of what practice is. I think you're just reading too much into an example that was probably included for its obviousness rather than it setting the bar that all others must pass. We also already have WP:NOTNEWS, which I think is on point with your concern. postdlf (talk) 19:51, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

The guideline confuses me as written. Unless I'm unusually, almost singularly stupid, which is not outside the realm of possibility, it will confuse others as well. My primary goal here is to eliminate avoidable confusion and the resulting wasted time in discussions. Thus I would ask you to !vote 1, 2, or 1 or 2. If you can't see fit to do that, I included 5 just for you. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:58, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

• Endorse Postdlf's points that this example is chosen for its sheer obviousness, also about 'NOTNEWS'. Real problem is the difficulty in establishing what IS going to be long-term significant. Would a better clarifier be the purely practical one that until the volume of available material requires a seperate article, default should be to not create one? Trouble is too many editors see a seperate article as an endorsement of the individual's significance, rather than the most efficient way to present information IM(H?)O. Pincrete (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
• I think there's a bit of a WP:NOTCRYSTAL issue if we start predicting what will be in history books and how it will be covered. Who knows what society will consider important in 100 years? I'd rather keep the example in there, but have an additional sentence to the effect of: "The event should have received extensive and enduring coverage in reliable sources that devote significant attention to the individual's role." In other words, it can't be minor coverage (obviously) and it can't be brief coverage (two days in the limelight and then complete silence is exactly what WP:BLP1E is meant to keep out of the encyclopedia). ~ Rob^Talk 14:44, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
  • That sounds remarkably like option 5. For some reason no one wants to !vote in this RfC, so I'm prepared to let this archive for lack of participation and just continue to live with the ongoing consequences of this lack of clarity.
    The ability to step outside oneself and put oneself in others' shoes is very rare in such decision making. "It's clear to me, with my years of experience, so there is no need for further clarification." Ok then. Wikipedia continues to be designed by the experienced, for the experienced, and the less experienced can just struggle on—or not. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:37, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
    • No, I'm more-or-less voting for both an example and clarification away from the use of "future inclusion in history books", which is not currently an option. The wording of 2 prevents me from supporting it. The clarification there is worded in such a way that it still enshrines "future inclusion in history books" as the gold standard (with occasional exceptions for extraordinary sourcing). ~ Rob^Talk 04:39, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Mandruss, I congratulate you on receiving thoughtful comments, rather than simplistic votes, in response to your Request for Comments. Most people starting an RFC would consider themselves lucky. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

    @WhatamIdoing: The same comments can't be part of a !vote? Ok, I wasn't aware of that, and it hasn't been my experience. And I wasn't aware it was a binary choice, anyway. But thanks all, for the thoughtfulness, and I always consider myself lucky just to be allowed to work at a wonderful place like Wikipedia! ―Mandruss ☎ 01:08, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

• I do not find the guideline confusing and do not think I found it confusing when I first read it. I concede that others may find it confusing and so I support the addition of the clarifying sentence suggested by Rob. I certainly do not think that we should be in the business of predicting how much coverage unpublished hypothetical future history books may or may not devote to a topic. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:41, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
• I think this is a difficult area for less experienced editors, especially when they are interested and excited about writing about a recent event. IMO the biggest focus should be on "enduring" coverage, with a specification that editors should have a reasonable expectation of coverage extending significantly beyond the first anniversary of the end of the event. (For example, almost every murder or kidnapping will get a namecheck in a local newspaper on the one-year anniversary, and that's not enough.) This is not so much "future inclusion in history books" as "future inclusion in any reliable sources", which has some CRYSTAL challenges, but it is far easier to predict one year than one century, the 'deadline' has already passed for many events, and it's easy to clean up next year if we guess wrong.
  Also, expanding the requirement to require coverage in non-local sources would probably help. It's easy to find year-long coverage in local newspapers of (for example) individual children with cancer or the mayor's arrest for drunk driving, but that's not really notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 17 June 2016 (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.

Wikipedia:Disambiguation and inherently ambiguous titles

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.

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What guidance should WP:Disambiguation give for article titles that do not result in a conflict between two or more articles, but which are not inherently unambiguous to a general audience?

Background:

• This content regarding titles that inherently lack precision was added to WP:DAB on June 6, 2015, by SMcCandlish, consisting of a paragraph under "Is there a Primary Topic?", an example under "Deciding to disambiguate", and a summary sentence in the lead paragraph: "Disambiguation may also be applied to a title that inherently lacks precision and would be likely to confuse readers if it is not clarified, even it does not presently result in a titling conflict between two or more articles." SMcCandlish posted a rationale of this addition to the talk page, which received no replies.
• On July 16, 2015, Red Slash removed the main paragraph, with the comment "How does this have anything at all to do with disambiguation?". A talk page discussion between Red Slash and Francis Schonken discussed this removal.
• On July 28, 2015, Red Slash removed the example under "Deciding to disambiguate". On August 6, this example was restored by SMcCandlish and again removed by Red Slash, then, on August 7, restored by SMCandlish, removed by Francis Schonken, again restored by SMcCandlish, and again removed by Francis Schonken. An RFC on the content from that time doesn't appear to have been officially closed, but by my count has three editors in support of the principle of "disambiguation for clarification" and three opposed.
• In February 2016, the lead sentence (the only remaining portion of the content originally added June 6) was removed by Born2cycle, restored by by SMcCandlish, removed by BD2412, restored by Dicklyon, removed by Calidum, restored by Tony1, removed by Calidum, restored by Tony1, removed by Calidum, and restored by Bagumba who locked the page for edit warring. A talk page discussion did not result in any clear consensus.
• On March 23, the lead sentence was removed by Dohn joe, restored by In ictu oculi, removed by Dohn joe, and restored by SMcCandlish. A further talk page discussion ensued.
• With respect to the participants on both sides, the discussion of the proposed guideline so far has generated more heat than light. I'm hoping a straightforward and (pardon the pun) unambiguous RFC can resolve the issue somewhat permanently and put an end to the disruptions to WP:D. Two of the talk page discussions have proposed taking this to RFC, but don't seem to have been able to reach agreement even on what an RFC should look like. As I have not, to my recollection, participated in the dispute, I have done my best to frame it neutrally and been so bold as to just go ahead and post it here. Please let me know if I have missed anything salient in the above summary.--Trystan (talk) 02:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Responses (disambiguation)

• Comment: Parenthetical notes in an article title (unless the parenthetical notes are part of the article title) should only be used to distinguish between multiple articles with the same title. I can't think of a time when I would add a parenthetical dab to a title of an article when it didn't belong, merely to clarify something. Perhaps if some examples of contentious article titles were posted, we could see the nature of the dispute here. --Jayron32 03:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

This isn't a pertinent concern, since the disambiguation in question is always or at least virtually always done with natural, comma, or descriptive disambiguation (can anyone think of any exception?). For about two years, adherents to parenthetic disambiguation pushed for this at naturally ambiguous animal breed article titles as a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS gambit, and consistently failed to gain consensus for that (see WP:BREEDDAB for partial list of RMs and outcomes).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:53, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• No guidance. This kind of guidance is a can of worms - loads of unintended consequences. We should not "pre-disambiguate" an article because "it sounds too generic" or "that doesn't sound like it is an X" or "that sounds too similar to X". If there is an existing encyclopedic topic that shares a name with another topic, there is potential ambiguity, and we refer to WP:DAB's guidance. If there's only one topic, then WP:DAB does not come into the equation. The examples given to illustrate the contested guidance show that. "Flemish giant" - with no context - sounds like it might be a tall person from Antwerp. While this may be true, tall people from Flanders is not an encyclopedic topic. So instead, Flemish giant redirects to Flemish Giant rabbit - a domestic rabbit breed.

  But that's the point - "Flemish giant" redirects to "Flemish Giant rabbit". Why? Because there is no other encyclopedic topic to disambiguate from. Conversely, Algerian Arab is a dab page, while Algerian Arab sheep is an article about sheep. So in this case, "sheep" serves to disambiguate, while "rabbit" does not. If you prefer "Flemish Giant rabbit" for WP:CONSISTENCY purpose or something else, that's fine, but it's not actually disambiguating anything.

  So - there is actually nothing unusual here. Regular WP:DAB questions should be asked of any title. Those questions should not include "Doesn't that kind of sound like something else?" Dohn joe (talk) 03:45, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

"If you prefer 'Flemish Giant rabbit' for WP:CONSISTENCY purpose or something else, that's fine, but it's not actually disambiguating anything." OK, by your narrow definition, this is not actually disambiguating anything, in that there is no confusion what article you want if you say Flemish giant. Note, however, that by a broader definition, quite often that extra word that is "not necessary" does a lot of good in terms of improving precision and reducing ambiguity. Did you look at the railway station example I added? The point is that that minimalist titling that some espouse leaves things looking imprecise, and we have many examples of consensus naming conventions that don't interpret precision and ambiguity in this narrow B2C way. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Projects are allowed to develop naming conventions. They usually are exceptions to the precision/ambiguity criterion of WP:AT - see WP:USPLACE, WP:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies), etc., referenced at WP:PRECISION. So, yes, consistency, or naturalness or some other consideration can override precision. But it should remain an exception that doesn't swallow the rule. Dohn joe (talk) 04:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure projects don't change, supercede, or make exceptions to policy and guidelines. And WP:PRECISION isn't overridden by having the article title "unambiguously define the topical scope of the article". People seem to ignore that provision, and treat precision as a negative when they could use a shorter title without a collision. That's the B2C algorithm, and it's nonsense. Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd never seen Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies) until today. I can't believe it exists. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:09, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Your singular personal belief is not required to make things exists. The world, and the things in it, exist outside of your consciousness. --Jayron32 05:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

And the world outside the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies) basement has moved strongly against this pointless "disambiguation"—WProjects like WP:CANADA and WP:INDIA dropped this silliness years ago. So, what were you saying about "singular personal beliefs"? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:25, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

And yet, it still exists. Notice how you had a feeling or an emotion (you thought it "silly") and nothing changed. The world works like that: reality continues to keep being real despite you having feelings about it. It's odd you haven't learned that. --Jayron32 16:17, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

You don't appear to have a point. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

What Dohn joe is missing is that Algerian Arab was disambiguated to Algerian Arab sheep on the basis of it simply being naturally ambiguous. It only became a disambiguation page later. His 'So in this case, "sheep" serves to disambiguate, while "rabbit" does not' point is completely invalid. He doesn't appear to understand what "ambiguous" and "disambiguate" means. Neither do many of the other correspondents here. Fortunately, RM respondents often do. That's why Argentine Criollo, Welsh Black, British White, Florida White, and many other such names were disambiguated to more WP:PRECISE titles, despite no other article directly vying with them for the shorter ones.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

• No guidance. WP:DAB was created to address a very specific situation – what to do when two or more articles share the same name. Everything else is covered by WP:AT and its spin-offs. For example, I'd consider Flemish Giant to be an inappropriate title (or at least less appropriate than Flemish Giant rabbit) because it fails WP:AT's "precision" criterion ("The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject..."). No extra guidance needs to be added to allow for titles like Flemish Giant rabbit, and any such guidance would be outside the scope of WP:DAB. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:39, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
• Retain the guidance – and this RfC is non-neutral and grossly misleading due to major errors of omission: No policy rationale presented for removal, only false claims that consensus wasn't established. The material describes actual practice at WP:RM for 15 years, and actual requirements of various naming conventions (e.g. WP:USPLACE). Attempts to delete it are based on lack of basic understanding of the word "disambiguation" (it means "to resolve ambiguity"), patently false claims that previous discussion did not happen and that consensus wasn't established, and a minority, extremist view that WP:CONCISE trumps all other article naming criteria in every case, no matter what, despite the clear wording of the WP:AT policy. The RfC falsely paints a picture of a slow editwar. Actual review of the history shows two back-to-back consensus discussions, two different attempts to by parties that the RfC falsely paints as opponents to integrate the material into WP:AT policy itself, normal WP:BRD process and revision, 8 months of acceptance, the two drive-by attempts at deletion predicated on false claims and unawareness of previous discussion, which were reverted by multiple parties. See #Discussion (disambiguation) for details. This RfC, whatever its intent, would reverse much longer-standing portions of multiple stable naming conventions like USPLACE and WP:USSTATION, just for starters, yet none of the affected pages were notified. Three quarters of a year of stability is plenty evidence of consensus, especially after three consensus discussions refined the material to its present state.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

• Recognize that disambiguation is more than one thing. Keep the guidance, as it deters those who try to use the omission (of recognition of this common practice of making titles non minimally short in order to make them more precise and less ambiguous) to drive toward a precision-is-bad minimality. 2620:0:1000:110A:71BE:75D9:749D:32C9 (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

That IP is me. Sorry for forgetting to log in, and expressing myself so poorly. The point is that disambiguation of this "unnecessary" sort is used, widely, in wikipedia, and is even encouraged in various naming guidelines and conventions, for the purpose of supporting the WP:CRITERIA or precision and recognizability. Those who argue against this use of disambiguation seem to want to take a very narrow view of what ambiguty is, and put zero value on precision. This approach is epitomized by the decade-long campaign of B2C for "title stability", described by him at User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia, where he espouses moving toward a system of unambiguous rules, essentially removing from editors the discretion to make titles more precise or less ambiguous than the shortest possible title that does not have a name conflict. To support this approach he has spent years rewording the recognizability, precision, naturalness, and consistency criteria to essentially minimize their value, leaving concisenss as the main criterion. I find this approach abhorrent. Dicklyon (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

There is ambiguity, and there is ambiguity that is relevant to WP:DISAMBIGUATION. They are not the same. Don't conflate them. The only ambiguity that has ever been relevant to WP:DISAMBIGUATION is when two are more titles on WP share the exact same WP:COMMONNAME. --В²C ☎ 21:33, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

See dictionary material I helpfully provided for you. What you just posted doesn't even parse. Disambiguation is removal of ambiguity. All ambiguity is relevant to disambiguation, and all disambiguation is relevant to ambiguity. Disambiguation doesn't magically refer to "only the ambiguity I want it to mean". You don't get to make up your own version of the language on the fly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:00, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

• No guidance from disambiguation should be created for article titles generally. If someone is looking for information about the Flemish Goose, which is very large and sometimes referred to as the Flemish Giant, then it is good to have the search box suggesting "Flemish Giant rabbit" as the only possibility before the person clicks and starts reading and is disappointed. Ditto for the Flemish Giant cross-stitch pattern. A recent example of a too-short page title that I came across was Hybrid name, which I moved to Hybrid name (botany) because on the talk page are such comments as "Why is this article written entirely from the point of view of plants, as if hybrid animals don't exist? We need to redress the balance." and the page itself had a tag "The examples and perspective in this article may not include all significant viewpoints. Please improve the article or discuss the issue. (May 2010)". The situation has clearly confused a few readers because although hybrid animals such as Ligers do exist, there is no special way of naming them, whereas for plants there is a detailed set of rules for creating scientific names. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
• Retain guidance as it stands - This isn't even a properly presented RfC. What is the problem with the current guidelines and why does it need to be re-evaluated per WP:PG? All I'm seeing here is WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT or something for the DRN (which would be rejected). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
• No guidance. I feel that this sort of guidance should be integrated into WP:AT itself, if ever. I've been here on Wikipedia for a long time and I've always understood the WP:DAB guideline to only apply whenever two or more articles have ambiguous titles, and not merely because a non-ambiguous title sounds ambiguous. So such additional guidance that touches singularly on precision should be placed into WP:AT, where a more holistic look at the 5 criteria of good article titles should lead to better titles. Otherwise, the guidance placed on WP:DAB will seek to emphasize precision over the other criteria. —seav (talk) 03:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
• Injection of some facts and reliable sources, since at least half the respondents here don't seem to understand what "disambiguate" means. It is not a made-up Wikipedian neologism, for "resolve a title conflict between two articles" (resolving such conflicts is simply the most common use of disambiguation on WP; it has never, in the entire history of the project, been the only one).
  1. Definition of disambiguate at Dictionary.com (Random House Dictionary [US] and Collins English Dictionary [UK]): RH: "to remove the ambiguity from; make unambiguous: In order to disambiguate the sentence 'She lectured on the famous passenger ship,' you'll have to write either 'lectured on board' or 'lectured about.'"; Collins: "to make (an ambiguous expression) unambiguous".[4]
     Definition of ambiguous: RH: "1. open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal: an ambiguous answer; 2. Linguistics. (of an expression) exhibiting constructional homonymity; having two or more structural descriptions; 3. of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify: a rock of ambiguous character; 4. lacking clearness or definiteness; obscure; indistinct: an ambiguous shape; an ambiguous future." Collins: "1. lacking clearness or definiteness; obscure; indistinct; 2. difficult to understand or classify; obscure."[5]
  2. Definition of disambiguate at OxfordDictionaries.com [UK & US]: "Remove uncertainty of meaning from (an ambiguous sentence, phrase, or other linguistic unit): 'word senses can be disambiguated by examining the context' ".[6][7]
     Definition of ambiguous: "(Of language) open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning: 'the question is rather ambiguous', 'ambiguous phrases' ".[8][9]; "Not clear or decided".[10]. Note that the definition some people want to apply here as if it were the only one does not appear to be a language-related one: "Unclear or inexact because a choice between alternatives has not been made: 'this whole society is morally ambiguous', 'the election result was ambiguous' ".[11]
  3. Definition of disambiguate at Dictionary.Cambridge.org [UK & US]: "specialized to show the ​differences between two or more ​meanings ​clearly: Good ​dictionary ​definitions disambiguate between ​similar ​meanings."[12]
     Definition of ambiguous: "having or ​expressing more than one ​possible ​meaning, sometimes ​intentionally: The movie's ending is ambiguous. ... His ​reply to my ​question was ​somewhat ambiguous. The ​wording of the ​agreement is ambiguous. The ​government has been ambiguous on this ​issue."[13] "having more than one possible ​meaning, and therefore likely to cause confusion: Many ​companies are ​appealing against the ​ruling, because the ​wording is ambiguous."[14]
  4. Definition of disambiguate at Merriam-Webster.com/dictionary [US]: "to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation for".[15]
     Definition of ambiguous: "able to be understood in more than one way : having more than one possible meaning; not expressed or understood clearly; doubtful or uncertain especially from obscurity or indistinctness: eyes of an ambiguous color; capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways: an ambiguous smile; an ambiguous term; a deliberately ambiguous reply.[16] "Not expressed or understood clearly".[17]

Shall we continue?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I think we all know what "disambiguation" means in the real world – however, I think it's one of those words, like "notability", that has acquired a very specific meaning in the world of Wikipedia. In the four years I've been here, I've only ever seen the word used in relation to article-title conflicts. WP:DAB, since its inception, has only ever been about article-title conflicts, and it's the broadening of the scope of this guideline that I object to. DoctorKubla (talk) 18:57, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:REALWORLD. The nature of the discussion has made it very, very clear that "we" did not all know what disambiguation means at all. But let's back up and just look at WP:POLICY: "Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-agreed practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense. ... Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." There are entire naming convention guidelines that depend on this kind of precision disambiguation, and it is regularly performed at WP:RM; the "occasional exceptions [that] may apply" are so common they've often become codified as guidelines themselves! Ergo it has consensus, and it should be documented properly. It does not matter that the current draft of the WP:Disambiguation page only addresses title-collision disambiguation. It is not the only kind of disambiguation we do, and it never has been. We can wikilawyer for another year about what that draft says, and it will never change the facts about what Wikipedia actually does. There is no conflict of any kind between the wording you want to remove and actual WP practice, but there would be in removing it. By contrast, changing the WP:Notability guideline to use a broader definition of the word notable would instantly and radically conflict with actual WP practice. Notability here is a precise term of art with a particular definition laid out in detail at the top of that guideline; it's a criterion that causes results (e.g. article deletion). Disambiguation is simply a procedure, an action taken as a result of the application of other criteria, including precision and recognizability, after balancing their interaction with others, like conciseness. It's an apples and oranges comparison, except in that WP:Notability presently directly reflects WP consensus and best practices, and WP:Disambiguation did not until this was fixed 8 months ago; before then, and without the sentence you want to remove for no clearly articulated reason, the page reflects only some of standard WP disambiguation operating procedures, and pretends the others don't exist. All because people don't know what the damned word means. You're trying to disprove my point that some people are mistakenly treating "disambiguation" as some kind of special Wikipedianism, by trying to show that it's some kind of special Wikipedianism.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:35, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Just because some people sometimes justify title choices based on real world disambiguation does not mean WP:DISAMBIGUATION is, should be, or ever was about real world disambiguation. Whether real world disambiguation should continue to be tolerated as a factor to consider in title selection is within the domain of WP:AT, not WP:D. --В²C ☎ 21:33, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Since you're just repeating yourself, I will as well: See dictionary material I helpfully provided for you. What you just posted doesn't even parse. Disambiguation is removal of ambiguity. All ambiguity is relevant to disambiguation, and all disambiguation is relevant to ambiguity. Disambiguation doesn't magically refer to "only the ambiguity I want it to mean". You don't get to make up your own version of the language on the fly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:DISAMBIGUATION deals with how to resolve ambiguities among two or more titles of actual WP articles. When no actual ambiguities exist between actual WP article titles, then there is no need for WP:DISAMBIGUATION. Period. #NotThatDifficult. --В²C ☎ 20:15, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• No guidance. WP:DISAMBIGUATION has always been, and should always remain, limited to situations where two or more actual articles on WP share the same WP:COMMONNAME. --В²C ☎ 21:33, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:IAR and WP:CREEP. It generally doesn't matter what the exact title of an article is and arguing about such titles is disruptive. Andrew D. (talk) 18:25, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
• No guidance. Disambiguation was intended only to be used where multiple articles shared the same name. Preemptive disambiguation is unnecessary disambiguation and shouldn't be promoted. Calidum ¤ 02:14, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Whose intention are you referring to? What about all the cases where it is used to reduce ambiguity and improve precision? Are you saying just define those as something different, not disambiguation? Or you're saying those are bad and we need to stop making titles more precise than the shortest possible title? Dicklyon (talk) 02:17, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Dicklyon, I can't speak for Calidum, but conflating the WP and general meanings of "ambiguous" and "disambiguation" is not helpful, so I'll be precise about which one I mean. The point is that the merits of whether general ambiguity is a factor to consider when there is no actual WP ambiguity with another title is not a matter of WP:DISAMBIGUATION, but something for WP:AT to address. Perhaps it can be justified by WP:PRECISION, as you say. But unless there is an actual url conflict to resolve between two or more article titles, it's not a WP:DISAMBIGUATION situation, period. That's the point here, and therefore the wording in question has no place on WP:DISAMBIGUATION. --В²C ☎ 00:42, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying. But in the past you and others have pointed to this page to justify making titles less precise and more ambiguous. So having this page acknowledge that removing ambiguity has roles other than preventing article name collisions seems like a good thing that should stay. Dicklyon (talk) 02:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Just asking for my own education – could you point me to an example of a discussion in which WP:DAB was cited as a justification for making an article title less precise? DoctorKubla (talk) 09:48, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Here's one that opened just today: Talk:...Re_(film)#Requested_move_01_April_2016. It doesn't explicitly cite WP:DAB but relies on the theory that only name collisions matter and that ambiguity is otherwise fine. As you can see, editors other than Dohn joe are pretty much unanimous against this interpretation; maybe some of the other "no guidance" voices here will join him? Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Another open case, not explicitly citing WP:DAB, is Talk:Ron_Walsh_(footballer)#Requested_move_13_March_2016; many primarytopic grabs are of this form; treat the disambiguating information as negative and argue that name collision can be avoided in other ways, so we must move to the more ambiguous title. Dicklyon (talk) 17:23, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

And here's a classic example from way back in 2008, with multiple editors on each side of the question: Talk:Bronson_Avenue_(Ottawa)#Requested_move; illustrating that editors often want to reduce ambiguity (disambiguate) even when there are not title collisions, and other editors point here and argue that's not OK per disambiguation guidelines. This one went on at great length and closed as "no consensus", meaning that the attempt to make the titles less precise and more ambiguous by citing "Unnecessary disambiguation" failed in that multiple-RM case. Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

• Stop circumventing policy: Keep what became somewhat stable and take this up through the proper venue for making changes to policies and guidelines, that only in part includes this discussion. A problem I have is that there are errors in thinking and procedure.
  • Note to closing admin: We have long established procedural policy covered under Proposals and Good practice for proposals for making changes to policies and guidelines.

Exemptions like boldly making changes that could be accepted by a broad community consensus, seems to only make confusion and possible perennial discussions on what should be more stable far more often than not. Changing policies and/or guidelines should not be done by edit warring, the apparent practice of BRD, or these "local" only discussions to definitively solve such local editing solutions concerning policies and guidelines. A continued practice of by-passing a procedural policy (protection for any long accepted broad community consensus) does not make it proper, makes a laughing stock of our policies and guidelines, and allows said policies and guidelines to be changed on a whim.

I am in support of retaining what is on the page because we can not right an error by a wrong procedure any more than we should attempt to edit war to create policy. I think this should be closed as consensus to move forward and follow procedure (to be brought up on the talk page), or an admin could move the discussion to the talk page so it can be listed everywhere relevant. The end result would mean leaving things as they are and settling it the right way. This would also reassert that policy should be followed. I would think, from this point, that only Wikilawyers would oppose following policy. Otr500 (talk) 06:31, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Otr500, I, for one, cannot understand what you're saying, specifically what reasoning justifies "retaining what is on the page". What is on the page is the result of edit warring; the point of this discussion is to decide in a more thoughtful process whether it should be retained or not. This discussion has been publicized at the talk page; previous discussions there did not lead to consensus, so someone thought maybe we could have a more productive discussion here. Again, I don't understand what exactly you're saying, much less why. Please clarify. --В²C ☎ 00:34, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

@ B2C: Read the procedural policy. Because you can't here me (I don't understand "exactly" what you are saying) does not mean that others can't. I thought listing in two places, in bold, would be pretty clear as I didn't use any big words. Keep seemed pretty clear and retaining what is on the page equally understandable so I will assume (and hope) a miscommunication would be in the reasoning.

• • "If consensus for broad community support has not developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed.". A discussion to a conclusion, that might involve an admin, would normally stop edit warring. Editors that find themselves in such a position, especially seasoned editors here to build a good encyclopedia, should self include Wikipedia:Edit_warring#Other_revert_rules to include 1RR (one-revert rule) or 0RR (zero-revert rule) and not use reverts to include team reverts to push a POV. I could expect this on articles but policies and guidelines should enjoy more prudence.

"Stop" means exactly what it states and I can provide a definition if that is unclear. Any "edit warring" began at a point and I saw nobody argue with what @SMcCandlish: stated that there were 8 months of stability. Maybe you missed that or didn't understand, and IF I missed something specifically please point it out instead of not understanding everything. I am stating: There should be no edit warring on policy changes or attempted changes. Clear on that? If not you might consider reading the procedural policy again.

To argue that disambiguation has only one meaning does not make it true and that it should stand alone is not policy. Policies should not conflict nor should guidelines conflict with policy. IF WP:AT needs to mention disambiguation and point to a guideline, to make better article titles, then what in the world is the problem with that. What we have is editors that sometimes have a POV and sometimes promote it the tenth degree and Wikipedia enhancement be damned.

Support for the below mentioned Flemish Giant over Flemish Giant rabbit has proven in many article discussions to be against consensus. To support Flemish Giant (rabbit) has also be shown to largely be against consensus preferring natural over parenthetical disambiguation. To try to ride a dead horse that disambiguation means only one thing just does not make it fact.

There is no need to change Belgian Hare but Blanc de Bouscat would be vague to the average reader. It has become practice (like it or not) to clarify titles like this by adding the breed and without the parenthetical disambiguation. Brackets around a word is not the only determining factor of disambiguation. Die-hard Britannica fans do not like this but Wikipedia does not have to be a sister site. Discussions have shown consensus has moved away from Britannica style parenthetical disambiguation, preferring to add the breed as part of the title, and to naturally disambiguate to prevent ambiguity and have consistency within articles, when we are deciding on an article title. Maybe we should examine the little active but relevant essay Wikipedia:Consistency in article titles? This does not mean that such practice of using parenthetical disambiguation is bad, or against policy, but used as an exception.

Sometimes accepted practice (by consensus) already shows the direction of community consensus, without trying to confuse the issue. Adding clarity so that new articles can follow accepted practice without large debates is not a bad thing. This prevents (as mentioned in above discussions) titles like Beveren (rabbit) (unassessed article with no talk page activity at this time), British Lop (stub class that is not a rabbit but a pig), English Lop (that is a rabbit and not a pig), French Lop (that is a rabbit), from Lop Nur, that is not a rabbit or sheep but a lake, and so articles like Welsh Mountain sheep are more clear (less vague) and differentiate (take away ambiguity that is still to disambiguate) a mountain from sheep.

Real world versus Wikipedia world: It doesn't matter because we are not talking animated or other world characters versus real world people. We are talking clarity versus unclear, precise versus concise, parenthetical disambiguation verses natural disambiguation. Leaning towards concise verses leaning towards precision. This should not be a battle. We use balance to name articles, as well as source and community consensus, and sometimes leaning one way or the other is not a bad thing, actually justifiable, and adding article consistency among titles helps and carries broad community consensus. Disambiguation, in the form of adding a word for clarity, does not mean we are promoting precision over concise. It means we are adding some precision so that the precise title name is more clear and less vague, and follows other like article naming. It does not matter how much we wikiLawyer this it is still disambiguation but I am sure we must because that is what lawyers have to do right?

Mr. B2C stated he can not understand what I am saying, and I hope not because of any personal inabilities. This discussion should be on the relevant talk page. The procedural policy, and I will type slow for clarity, states "Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects. Amendments to a proposal can be discussed on its talk page.". "start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include the "rfc|policy" tag...". "The "proposed" template should be placed at the top of the proposed page; this tag will get the proposal properly categorized". These are ways to prevent edit warring and discussions from taking place, all over the place, as well as to ensure broad community consensus is followed, and so that changes made to policy by consensus is transparent, being on the relevant talk page. Listing a discussion here, as well as other relevant places, would be to point to a discussion on that talk page not have continued splintered discussions in many places.

Or; we can just make this a perennial discussion to be brought up over and over again. A lot of times this does not deter community practices as reflected by broad community consensus, no matter how much we discuss a supposed issue. Here is some fantastic reading: What to do if you see edit-warring behavior and How experienced editors avoid becoming involved in edit wars. That is why I stated that a discussion here is not a definitive solution but to gather consensus (not battle) that should be continued on the talk page to effect broad community consensus continuation or change. Otr500 (talk) 10:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

To compress and get to what I think the gist is of Otr500's multi-paragraph, multi-indent-level post above, and cut through a lot of the other chatter here: Eight months ago, WP:DAB was updated to describe actual practice, which is what guidelines are form as a matter of WP:POLICY. There were multiple BRD discussions about the then-long wording. The language was refined, and a short version (the sentence at issue here) was retained. Two thirds of a year later, two editors (B2C and Dohn joe) attempted to delete it on the patently false basis that it had not been discussed. Not only are their facts wrong, they cannot even formulate a cogent reason why it should be removed, just hand-wave a lot, in ways that have confused a few other people into supporting removal of it from its present location, though plenty of others support its retention. Notably, many of those who don't want to keep it where it is right now think it should be moved into WP:AT policy instead. This was also discussed 8 months ago at WT:AT and the decision was to not merge it into AT policy. This is now stable guideline language. A proper closure analysis of this confused and confusing pseudo-RfC should conclude with no consensus to remove the material (since the arguments for keeping it are valid and those for removing it are not, ergo the original consensus to include the material has not changed), and no consensus to merge it into AT policy, because that idea has already been rejected, and no new rationale for why this should rise to policy level has been provided, so again consensus has not changed. There are thousands of things in various guidelines that are relevant to various policies but which remain in guidelines and are not merged into policies, because they are not policy material, but guideline material. This is not mystically different somehow. In absence of any showing that the material does not actually describe long-established WP:RM and disambiguation practice, which it clearly does, the sentence remains in the guideline. Suggesting that it can be removed when it was arrived at through multiple consensus discussions, now that a new discussion to possibly move it into policy fails to come to consensus for that idea, would be patent WP:GAMING. One could just as easily propose that, say, WP:Citing sources should be merged into WP:V policy, and then when that proposal failed to gain consensus, delete the guideline on citing sources! WP does not work that way. Nothing works that way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

• WP:Disambiguation overreaches with respect to minimalist disambiguation, at the expense of the reader, at the expense of naming criteria "recognizability", "precision" and "consistency". If inclusion of a parenthetical term helps, it should be used, subject to balancing recognizability, naturalness, precision, concision, and consistency, and other good things even if not documented. Parentheses should be avoided, but inclusion does not make WP:Disambiguation a trump card. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:05, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Aye. I most cases where this comes up, we use natural disambiguation simply because such a phrase exists in the reliable sources already, and the policy tells use to favor natural over parenthetic disambiguation when possible.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
• Retain guidance – A title like "Flemish Giant" benefits no one. Most importantly, it does not benefit the reader, because it does not clearly define the subject. Shorter titles are not always better. WP:AT does not suggest this, but certain editors continue to the push this notion to the detriment of our readers. It is important that the disambiguation policy does not result in an automatic removal of bits of titles that do not serve to disambiguate from other Wikipedia articles, but do serve to clearly define the topic of the article in line with WP:AT, as Mr Lyon suggested above. The guidance as it stands allows for this to be made clear. RGloucester — ☎ 02:45, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
• Retain the guidance. There has been a reluctance among some of the players to see disambiguation in terms of our readers. B2C's long campaign for a narrow algorithm-like solution was an utter disaster. Tony (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Just for those unaware of it, three times (at least) Born2cycle has agitated for concision-above-all-other-concerns changes to article titles policy and RM procedures, citing personal essays of his on the topic as if they were guidelines. In all three cases WP:MFD userspaced them as anti-policy nonsense [18], [19], [20].  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

• Data point Life is too precious to read all the above, but I once was in an argument over Memorial Hall (Harvard University). This other editor said it should be simply Memorial Hall since, at that moment, no other Memorial Hall had an article -- and apparently guidelines supported that knuckleheaded approach. Anything that remedies that would be welcome. EEng 19:53, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

This reminds me of National Pension Scheme. (Surprise! It's specifically about India.) ╠╣uw [talk] 10:22, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:NATURAL policy, the proper titles would use natural disambiguation as first choice. But in both cases ("Harvard Memorial Hall", "Indian National Pension Scheme"), it results in a new ambiguity (which I needn't spell out here). The obvious solution is WP:COMMADIS: "Memorial Hall, Harvard" (adding "University" seems superfluous, per WP:CONCISE), and "National Pension Scheme, India", or WP:DESCRIPTDIS in the latter case, "National Pension Scheme of India". Both "Memorial Hall, Harvard" and "National Pension Scheme of India" actually border on alternative NATURALDIS, and are attested in sources.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:04, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• Retain the guidance since the lengthy discussion above and below has convinced me that this is useful guidance to editors in encouraging a better and less frustrating experience for our readers. BushelCandle (talk) 06:59, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
• No guidance as I agree wholeheartedly with DoctorKubla. -- Tavix ^(talk) 12:24, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

• Retain the guidance. I am also irked by the Memorial Hall (Harvard University) example provided by EEng and similar ones – articles about obscure things with common-sounding (i.e. wikt:ambiguous) names do benefit from some extra WP:PRECISION. Doing otherwise easily confuses the readers (as the context is often not enough to quickly conclude what the topic is, and matches displayed in the search box do not provide any hint about the topic) and editors (quite easy mislinking) alike. Of course, case-by-case examination is always welcome, but we do not apply WP:CONCISE at all costs. No such user (talk) 15:35, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I, for one, do not call for applying WP:CONCISE at all costs. To the contrary. I call for applying it primarily as a "tie breaker". When considering all other WP:CRITERIA there is no clear answer, then go with the more concise one. It is that simple. But the main point her is that all this is WP:AT consideration; it has nothing to do with WP:DISAMBIGUATION. --В²C ☎ 20:07, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Retain the guidance. It's reasonable to note that some titles may be ambiguous or likely to confuse a reader even if they don't exactly match any other titles, and I'm fine with having at least a modicum of text into the guideline to explain this. I understand that some prefer the term "disambiguation" to be defined more narrowly as just the mechanical process of distinguishing between otherwise identical Wikipedia titles, but I don't think that's particularly useful. There can be (and often is) a difference between what's merely technically ambiguous and what's actually ambiguous, and the latter can be a valid consideration when determining the best title for our readers. ╠╣uw [talk] 19:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• Change names The simplest thing to do would be to change the names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shinyapple (talk • contribs) 01:22, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

• Retain guidance What useful purpose is served by inherently ambiguous titles, even when this is the sole article? Pincrete (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
• Retain Guidance Why would we remove relevant information that helps users avoid pointless move discussions. I have seen time and again pointless move requests to ambiguous titles that fail precision.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  03:23, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

And numerous RMs have closed with the opposite result. Calidum ¤ 03:48, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Not in the case of naturally ambiguous titles. They get resolved one way or another, and this way is much more common that the deleters here understand or admit. (Often a notably different alternative name is available, but when one is not, all that is left is some form of disambiguation).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:08, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• Retain guidance (and apply with common sense). There are situations where reduction of ambiguity is desirable even though there may be only one article with the title. This doesn't mean every potential ambiguity must be "pre-disambiguated", but we should not prohibit this. older ≠ wiser 17:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
• No guidance; at least, not on connection with disambiguation. If there should be guidance of this sort at WP:AT, that is a different discussion. bd2412 T 17:23, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
  • One that was already had about a year ago, and consensus did not agree to import this wording from the guideline. Deletionists don't get to nuke stable guideline wording they don't like by re-proposing failed merges to policy, then pretending that's an argument against retaining it where it was originally. Could kill any guideline on sight with that tactic. Guidelines are guidelines for a reason, because they are not policy material. A simple observation of fact, that WP disambiguates for more that one reason (though one reason is certainly the most common) is not a policy matter, but a guideline matter. It does not tell us to do or not do anything, it describes actual practice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:15, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
• No guidance: As a user of Wikipedia, even years before I joined, it was clear that the bizarre term "?disambiguate" on Wikipedia meant to figure out the title of the article you were looking for when multiple articles have similar titles. I thought it was some term a bunch of geeks made up, proud of their $10 word a bit like the International Obfuscated C Code Contest. (When I first learned C and heard the term "obfuscated", I was confused, and apparently, that was intentional.) I always assumed there was a better more common sense way to describe how to find the correct title than "disambiguation", but now we just accept it. I read a lot, and I have, never, ever seen the word "disambiguate" used anywhere else, although "obfuscate" sometimes. Good writing should avoid unnecessary $10 words [21]. To find more than one use for this $10 word on Wikipedia is a mistake. The word "disambiguate" needs to be "disambiguated"! --David Tornheim (talk) 12:21, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
• No guidance: this is WP:AT matter, not WP:D matter. A general "non-disambiguating disambiguator" guidance is not a good idea: it didn't get accepted at WP:AT (see ample prior discussion), not a good idea to insert some WP:AT-conflicting guidance into the WP:D guideline. Note that specific naming conventions contain guidance against using "non-disambiguating disambiguators" in certain cases (e.g. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Precision): not a good idea to add some conflicting guidance elsewhere (in other words: this is WP:RULECRUFT, ready to open up endless discussions again). For me WP:CRITERIA suffises, combined with what can be found in naming conventions for specific cases (e.g. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music)#Articles in series implying that some article titles in specific series will contain extensions in a uniform format on top of what is necessary for disambiguation alone). The WP:D insertion under discussion here tries to shift the balance among the five WP:AT criteria: it tries to give the "precision" criterion some sort of over-all advantage over the "conciseness" criterion, contrary to the balance between these criteria in the policy. When such shift of balance would be needed (which I doubt), that should be hashed out at WT:AT and not at a guideline that is not even directly about article titling, and thus tries to get an upper hand over a policy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:17, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
  • For clarity: afaics this RfC was not properly notified to WT:AT, not even after unarchiving, despite that it has been suggested multiple times that this is in fact WP:AT matter. So far so good, but then below it is advocated that no "WP:AT/WP:MOS regular (...) should close" this RfC. So please make up your mind: either notify WT:AT and WT:MOS that this RfC is going on, so that said regulars are invited to express their opinion in this RfC, or retract objections that said regulars couldn't close this as uninvolved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:16, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Discussion (disambiguation)

• More detailed background: Attempts to delete part of the guideline, which was established through standard consensus-building discussion and revision many months ago, are predicated on two obvious fallacies: 1) That "disambiguate" is a made-up Wikipedian neologism for "prevent article title collisions". Check any dictionary; it's a plain-English word meaning "to resolve ambiguity"; doing so to prevent title collisions is simply the most common reason we disambiguate and has never been the only one. 2) That WP:CONCISE is akin to a law, and that the most concise possible name must always be chosen no matter what. Actually read WP:AT policy – all of the WP:CRITERIA are considered, and balanced against each other; the overriding concern is not following any "rule" bureaucratically, but ensuring clarity for readers. The naming criteria "should be seen as goals, not as rules. For most topics, there is a simple and obvious title that meets these goals satisfactorily. If so, use it as a straightforward choice. However, in some cases the choice is not so obvious. It may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others."

  The previous debates about this guidance are misrepresented in the the summary in the RfC, which incorrectly paints it as a slow editwar instead of removal, discussion, refinement, acceptance, then much latter isolated attempts to delete it without a rationale. In the original discussions 8 months ago here and here, Red Slash tried to move it into policy itself at WP:AT (rejected), objections were raised about iit original length (it was shortened), and about particular examples it use (removed); the principal objector was Francis Schonken, on the basis of having made a proposal to rewrite AT in ways that would have integrated this and made various other changes (which did not achieve consensus at AT). After revision, the short version of this material was accepted in WP:Disambiguation without incident since that second discussion. This is standard WP:BRD operating procedure, and this revision and resolution process is how consensus is established. By August, the principal objector, Schonken, was removing attempts to reinserted expanded wording and examples [22] but retaining the agreed short version from prior discussions [23], which had already been accepted for two months. It remained uncontroverted for 6 more months, clearly long enough for consensus to be established, especially in a much-watchlisted guideline we use every single day.

  It was drive-by deleted in Feb. by Born2Cycle, with a bogus claim that discussion didn't happen and consensus was not been established [24]. This is is part of his years-long, tendentious campaign to promote WP:CONCISE as some kind of "super-criterion" that trumps all other concerns – which WP:MFD has rejected three times in a row: 1, 2, 3. The recent attempt by Dohn joe to delete material was predicated on his unawareness of the February discussion (which is mischaracterizing as being against inclusion when it was not) [25], his misunderstanding of previous discussions (see WT:Disambiguation#Restored content on precision cut from lead, which covers much of what I've outline here in more detail), and more false claims that consensus was not established.

  After 8 months of stability, the burden is on would-be deleters to demonstrate what the supposed problem is, and provide actual evidence that WP-wide consensus that such precision-and-recognizability disambiguations are permissible when necessary has somehow disappeared all of a sudden. This RfC, and two editors' PoV against this part of WP:DAB, would undo very long-standing naming conventions that call for this kind of precision-and-recognizability disambiguation, like WP:USPLACE and WP:USSTATION, and fly in the face of years of common sense decisions at RM, like the disambiguation of Algerian Arab (now a disambiguation page) to Algerian Arab sheep, and British White to British White cattle. Per WP:POLICY, the purpose of guidelines is to record actual community best practice, not try to force someone's made up idea about how things should be, like changing the meaning of English words, or preventing RM from doing what RM routinely does. Retaining this does the former, and removing it does the latter, both to pretend the word "disambiguation" doesn't mean what it means, and as to elevate concision above every other criterion, against the clear wording of policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

• Comments (since there seems to be confusion): Wait! You mean I just don't like it doesn't mean we can change things just because? How about used in conjunction with and while ignoring all rules.

We have many policies and guidelines and a single one can not be used in disregard of others. I was under the impression we can not ignore all rules, if it is against consensus, even if we don't like it, unless we can sneak it in under the radar. FYI -- we should not really (according to policy) attempt to make or change policy by using WP:BRD unless we "ignore" the policy on Proposals and Good practice for proposals. The first states: "Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy.". The second: "If consensus for broad community support has not developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed.".

Further, the procedural policy explains the process in detail that is located in the second part. A request for comments here is only one part of that process and not a determining factor for an outcome. Some confusion at Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance#Policy discussions seems to be at odds with policy and may contribute to errors. Policy (Good practice for proposals) states the process for any proposed changes to policy:

1)- The first step is to write the best initial proposal that you can.

2)- Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects.

3)- Once it is thought that the initial proposal is well-written, and the issues sufficiently discussed among early participants to create a proposal that has a solid chance of success with the broader community, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include the {rfc tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the proposal.

4)- A RfC should typically be announced at this policy page (and/or the proposals page, and other potentially interested groups (WikiProjects).

There appears to be some confusion at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion concerning sequence or location but policy seems clear.

DAB: Does cover the topic question above as well as WP:AT. Although there are editors that seem to prefer parenthetical disambiguation, or unnecessary use of such on article titles (Britannica style), this has not been established by any broad consensus but more just the opposite according to policy natural disambiguation is preferred and parenthetical disambiguation as a last choice. The etymology of "disambiguation" would be "not unclear" which would be "not clarified". An article title should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that.. Recognizable, natural, and concise goes along with this. DAB states: "Disambiguation is also sometimes employed if the name is too ambiguous, despite not conflicting with another article (yet),". Consistency also goes along with these and gives more than one reason why we have Flemish Giant rabbit, Continental Giant rabbit, French Lop, Lop rabbit, Angora rabbit, and so forth. Certainly using the more common name according to references. Common sense is also thrown in there somewhere.

Conclusion: We should not attempt to change or change policies or guidelines on a whim or by any local consensus. The process is made somewhat complicated to prevent easy changes. DAB and AT do a fine job. I think if editors disagree then they should probably follow the above procedures. Otr500 (talk) 12:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The portion of WP:DAB that you quote was added a couple of days ago. A clear consensus in support of this recent addition would neatly resolve the difficulty of having an orphaned sentence in the lead that isn't explained in the body of the guideline.--Trystan (talk) 18:50, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

It's also based on material present in the original, longer version. The WP:GAME here is to keep whittling away at the material in hopes that it can be made to seem out-of-place in its context. If context is restored, it's obviously belongs where it is. This was true 8 months ago, when the context material was originally reduced, on the basis (Francis Schonken's objection) that the example article titles were "unstable". This wasn't actually true then, and 8 months have proven conclusively that it's not true now, so the original rationale to decontextualizing the sentence has evaporated. Better yet, later editors like Dick Lyon have pointed out that entire NC guidelines, like USPLACE and USSTATION, rely on the exact same principle and have for years, so the examples Schonken didn't like almost a year ago were could have been replaced at any time anyway. A challenge against this provision now is a challenge against multiple naming conventions that have been stable for years.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Request for closure

This RfC was archived by the bot before having been closed. I would suggest that an administrator close it. RGloucester — ☎ 18:28, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

• Shall this long expired RfC ever be closed, or shall it languish here for eternity? RGloucester — ☎ 00:23, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • All the above effort should have been put into something that actually matters. 217.44.215.253 (talk) 11:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
    • It matters plenty, since dispute keeps erupting about this, on policy and guideline talk pages, and in RMs, and elsewhere. The real time drain is the recurrent disputation, not the attempt to resolve it with an RfC. In the end, this can only reasonably close one way, or be consensus-reviewed without a close (not all RfCs must have formal closure and consensus determination by common sense doesn't require it) in one way: to retain the guidance. Let's review:
      • It's been stable for a year+; the original objections to it were mooted by later tweaks (i.e., objections ceased, and the changes the original objectors insisted on were accepted, resulting in a consensus).
      • We've since learned it agrees with multiple long-term naming conventions that weren't even considered when it was written and which were not taken into account by any objections, then or now.
      • It codifies actual practice that has been ongoing the entire time WP has existed.
      • In just a few topics we’ve bothered looking at, the last two years or so produced somewhere between dozens and a hundred RMs that did exactly what the wording suggested, before and after the wording, and with and without naming conventions behind them. The community gets it, even if some editors do not or will not.
      • The wording was clarified and improved further in response to issues raised by the RfC (though there has been back-and-forth reverting about this [26], [27], [28], followed by excessive rewriting (without discussion or consensus) that has tried to eliminate every trace of the wording at issue, in mid-RfC, as shown in this multi-edit diff; this has been very partially reverted [29] to preserve some hint of the material, pending RfC closure.
      • Nothing at all negative has happened on the basis of this wording despite this RfC languishing unclosed (it has not been over-applied to do stupid things, nor was it applied this way before the RfC, and cases which actually need this sort of disambiguation of naturally ambiguous names have been proceeding as if nothing happened. Or they had been. Now confusion and dispute has arisen in the wake of attempts to delete the material during the RfC; e.g. this other RfC has quite a number of editors in favor of such disambiguation in certain kinds of song-title cases, while others suddenly don't seem to think it is possible/permissible, obviously because of FUD surrounding the WP:DAB wording. [Not all support/oppose at that RfC relates to this matter, however; some of it is about WP:CONSISTENCY vs. WP:CONCISE, etc. But at least half a dozen participants are making arguments clearly rooted in the wording at WP:DAB that some are trying to delete, consensus and process notwithstanding.]
      • The numbers are in favor of retention, though not by landslide, to the extent that is seen as meaningful.
      • The RfC itself is misleadingly and non-neutrally worded (in favor of deletion); the contravenes WP:RFC and requires a closer to account for the bias (or to close the RfC as invalid on its face).
      • Supporters have provided source, policy, and RM precedent backing, while deleters have not. Various opposers to inclusion in the guideline have actually wanted to move it into AT policy (going all the way back to its original inclusion in WP:DAB), but this proposal was already rejected at WT:AT. Re-proposing failed ideas when nothing has changed is a waste of time. And one does not get to delete guideline material by proposing an implausible move-and-merge to policy that is sure to be rejected, then claim that this somehow has something to do with whether it can be deleted from the guideline. By that rationale any guideline could be nuked by proposing a such a doomed move and claiming that the material suddenly had no consensus of any kind.
      • WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, WP:EDITING and WP:CONSENSUS are policy (it does not require some local-consensus's permission to codify actual practice in guidelines; this is what guidelines are for, and no one owns them).
      • Finally, the arguments presented here are far stronger for retention than for removal. The latter are primarily predicated on WP:IDONTLIKEIT, factual errors about RM outcomes, confusion about what disambiguation means, and an insistence, with no basis, that the WP:DAB page cannot possibly be about anything but article title collisions even if the word itself has broader meaning.

In short, there really is no case for removal. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 16:42, 17 May 2016 (UTC) [updated 18:19, 17 May 2016 (UTC)]

• So, my first request for closure was more than a month ago...doesn't that seem a bit beyond the pale? Would someone close this thing out, please? RGloucester — ☎ 17:52, 26 May 20(UTC)

RGloucheser, there is nothing to "close". The thread was never actually marked as an RFC, even though people started to !vote as if it was. Just stop responding, and the thread will be moved into the archives like any other old discussion. Blueboar (talk) 18:06, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it was an RfC. The RfC tag is automatically removed after 30 days (i.e. ages ago), when RfCs expire and are meant to be closed. Closure is required, or else there is no resolution to the question asked by the RfC. RGloucester — ☎ 18:13, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry... my mistake. If you are willing to go with a non-admin, I would be willing to formally close. Blueboar (talk) 19:00, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

The "automatic" removal - actually a bot edit - is here, and within seconds it was removed from the RfC listings. There is a request for closure at WP:AN/RFC#Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).23Wikipedia:Disambiguation and inherently ambiguous titles, filed over a month ago. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:05, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't think any WP:AT/WP:MOS regular like Blueboar should close it. Anyone who regularly works on these policypages is apt to have very strong opinions about how they "should" be, when there is nothing to analyze here but the consensus process, disconnected from what the topic is: Wording was introduced; it was discussed; it was modified by those objecting to it; they stopped objecting after modification, resulting in a consensus; it remained stable all year; someone who did not participate in any of these discussions attempted to delete the agreed-upon, stable text without new discussion or even being aware of previous discussion; multiple editors reverted that; that deletion idea has been discussed, and arguments for and against removing or retaining the wording in some form have been aired; which are stronger, from a WP:POLICY, WP:PROCESS, and WP:COMMONSENSE, especially given that the main alternative proposal is "move it into WP:AT", a proposal that was already rejected in the first discussion? The answer is pretty clear, so even if we don't get a formal closure, consensus to keep the wording has not actually changed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:52, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Just FYI, it's not at all unusual for a discussion like this to languish without a formal closing statement for months. I suspect that having nearly all RFCs bulk-listed at WP:ANRFC by one editor causes the limited volunteer attention to be spent where it's not truly needed, at the expense of longer and more complex discussions.

Looking at who's been active recently at ANRFC, if you want an admin to close this, then you probably need to hope that User:Bencherlite, User:Xaosflux, User:Coffee, User:BD2412 or User:EdJohnston will have time and interest in reading and summarizing 10,000+ words on this subject.

Also, there's no "rule" against requesting closure for any discussion. ANRFC is "Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure", not "Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for comment". It's not an RFC-specific thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Yep. Lots of non-RfCs get listed and acted upon there. "Requests for comment" is only one subsection of "Requests for closure" (though often the only populated one, and people tend to list RfC-like not-quite-RfCs there; it's up to ANRFC admins if they want to reorganize it, and apparently they WP:DGAF per WP:BURO. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• I was going to close this, but I just don't think it's closable as is. By my read, some editors used the "bolded" text to refer to different "sides"/pespectives. If I sift through, ignoring the bolded text, and, just reading everything for content, I think this pretty much ends up "no consensus". The one thing that I think had consensus was that WP:AT is policy and regardless of whether DAB should be merged to it or in what state DAB should be in, it should exist as secondary to WP:AT. But that's just my read of the discussion. As I said, the confusion over what the RFC intent was, and what the RFC was trying to do, in my opinion just makes this a bit of an unfortunate trainwreck. So, while I suppose someone could add a top n bottom template to this, I don't think it's closable (which may be why no one else has either), so please don't consider this a close, but merely my read of things. I hope this helps. - jc37 05:35, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm setting this up as a proper RfC which will focus on a single question, will be located in the correct place, will point to the permalink of this discussion, and will hopefully be closable. Will be done presently. Herostratus (talk) 14:53, 12 July 2016 (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.

Drafts in draftspace versus WikiProject subpages

There's been a series of moves and requested moves about various drafts inside WikiProject open at the moment. I was moving a bunch by hand to draftspace but this was opposed and so we had these discussions:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Outlines/Drafts/Outline of ancient history - RM request rejecting a move from Outlines WikiProject to draftspace.
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dacia/Drafts/Angustia - proposal to move a series from within Wikipedia:WikiProject Dacia to draftspace.
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Swami Vivekananda/Drafts/List of educational institutions named after Swami Vivekananda - proposal to move from Wikipedia:WikiProject Swami Vivekananda draft to draftspace.
• Draft talk:Outline of William Shakespeare - return from draftspace back to Outlines.
• Draft talk:Outline of cardiology - return from draftspace back to Outlines.
• Draft talk:Outline of Jesus - return from draftspace back to Outlines.
• Draft talk:Outline of golf - return from draftspace back to Outlines.
• Draft talk:Outline of Star Trek - return from draftspace back to Outlines.

I can't finding any particular policy for when these should (if they should) be moved from their locations as subpages within WikiProjects or in draftspace but I'd like to put a notice here so that we can have some more outside views for the following discussions, even if it is reversing all the pages moves or keeping them where they are. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:09, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

• WikiProjects own nothing. If they are interested in those pages they can add a banner tag to the talk page, just as any other project can do. --Izno (talk) 11:21, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Izno Based on this revert including other project is not considered acceptable. Either way, there's a lot of discussions and inconsistency about them so I don't know if an RFC is needed or we just go hap-hazardly. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:03, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
• Concur with Izno, as a matter of policy at WP:OWN, WP:BURO, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Also, SmokeyJoe's revert, diffed above, was inappropriate, since he is not the official spokesperson of all those wikiprojects, and the purpose of wikiproject banner templates on talk pages is to identify scope; it's a tagging mechanism for maintenance-side categorization, not a stamp of project turf-warring. "Live" content categories like Category:Ancient history should not be put on article drafts, but it is eminently sensible to wikiproject-categorize drafts, because it helps direct topically-relevant editorial attention to improving them and getting them out of draft state.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:05, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
• It should not be assumed that any article-focused WikiProject has any interest in being associated with any non-article outline. Outlines have a navigation purpose, but as articles they ir are frequently redundant and/or attractors of original research. This is why they shouldn't be carelessly moved to draftspace, if moved, some more care is needed. The proper place for this discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Outlines. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:29, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean by "but as articles their [they?] are frequently redundant and/or attractors of original research."? DexDor ^(talk) 15:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

DexDor, I mean, thinking of the many old AfD battles on outlines, that "Outline of X" pages were frequently noted to be duplication of "List of X" (not to be confused with notable lists), where both exist to list a large number of related topics. This problem seemed to be worse at the bottom of the outline hierarchy. Separately, some people who seem unfamiliar with WP:Outlines would add explanatory prose excessively, and when combined with the partial knowledge that Outlines are not supposed to contain references, the excessive prose violates WP:NOR. Or it forks article ledes, without attribution. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

That isn't clarifying - e.g. what do you mean by "notable lists"? DexDor ^(talk) 06:08, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

A notable list is a list that meets the guideline section WP:LISTN, the narrow case of "list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources", as opposed to the lower bar of Wikipedia:Stand-alone_lists#Appropriate_topics_for_lists. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:31, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

• Move to draftspace - mainly for consistency with how the rest of wp works. For example, if someone creates a (draft) article List_of_bars_in_Fooland then that's probably of interest to 3 wikiprojects (Lists, Bars and Fooland) and should be tagged for those 3 wikiprojects on its talk page, but none of those 3 wikiprojects "owns" that page so it should not be a subpage of a particular wikiproject. Another way to look at this: The Wikipedia (Project) namespace should be for information or discussion about Wikipedia (MOS, XFDs, Signpost...); not content. DexDor ^(talk) 15:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
• Generally Oppose putting Outline drafts into draftspace. They are not proper drafts, mostly being templated creations; they are not proper articles, and all of them probably belong in Portal Space if not a new dedicated name space. Structurally, they should all be subpages of Portal:Contents/Outlines, but I think they are not because the wikilinks were bothersomely long.
• The above list of linked discussions should be set aside per Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive277#Ban_time.3F. Definitely not be considered precedent setting. The central place for productive discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Outlines. Ricky has, in my opinion, got ahead of consensus in doing some things; not a shooting offense but he has irritated some with different styles. The IP is his personal IP hopping troll who started the linked discussions, which were poor both due to being fragmented/unadvertised and poorly initiated. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Why do you think outlines belong in Portal namespace? Portals (e.g. Portal:Fish) are nothing like outlines (e.g. Outline of fish). Anyway, what namespace (article/portal/outline) non-draft outlines are in is largely/completely irrelevant to the question of what namespace (wikipedia/draft) draft outlines should be in. DexDor ^(talk) 06:08, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

1. Because the top level of outlines lies under Contents in Portal space, not under Portal:Contents/Outlines.

2. Because outlines do not contain unique content. They should contain minimal prose, if any.

Portal:Fish are nothing like outlines is correct, Portal:Fish is not under Portal:Contents/Outlines

DraftSpace should be restricted to mainspace drafts. Draft proposals do not go in draftspace. Neither do draft templates, categories or userpages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:56, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

That's like saying root articles should be subpages at Portal:Contents/Overviews. Or that lists belong in portal space as subpages of Portal:Contents/Lists. Portal:Contents is a set of top-level lists (all but one being a list of lists), not a container for encyclopedia articles (of which lists are a type). Yes, lists are articles. And outlines are lists. As stand-alone lists, outlines are mainspace articles, and so having drafts of outlines in draft space is valid. The Transhumanist 20:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• Drafts belong in draft space – That's the dedicated space for them now. Move 'em. The Transhumanist 20:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Portal:Contents/Outlines

• Update: Of the ones above, they have all been resolved (other than the initial Outlines pages not being moved, they are either in draft or not moved from draftspace). However, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dacia/Drafts/Angustia has been relisted and could use more commentators and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alabama/W. H. Taylor I just started. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Removal of "cannot edit own talk page" and "email disabled" from block settings

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

---

I don't feel that administrators should have the technical ability to remove a blocked user's ability to edit their talk page or email other users. If a user is blocked from editing, I believe that they should be allowed to file as many appeals as desired. If a user is blocked and thinks that the block doesn't relate to what they have done (the punishment doesn't fit the crime), they could evade the block, be scared and afraid to communicate with administrators upon return, or, at the worst, sue Wikipedia or Wikimedia because they feel as if they were deceived by "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". I've seen it happen on other websites not operated by WMF, and I don't want it to become a problem on Wikipedia.

I would be willing to make a couple of exceptions to this proposal:

• If a user has filed 5 appeals that have all been declined, talk page access can be removed for a short period of time (not the entire length of the block, unless it's only 24 hours)

• If a user has been sending spam or otherwise inappropriate emails, a change could be made to the blocking form that would enable the option of "Prevent this user from sending email to X user(s) while blocked", which a field to enter one or more usernames.

Sockpuppetry is becoming a large problem on Wikipedia, and in my opinion, a lot of the time, a user's evasion is triggered by the subtraction of their ability to appeal, and they want revenge or just want to be able to edit again. If we allow users to appeal freely, noted the exceptions above, I think block evasion frequency numbers will go way down. 73.114.22.215 (talk) 13:17, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Things are fine as is, our policies defend us against any such ridiculous lawsuits. If there are legal issues you can always contact the foundation through regular mail. These blocks aren't given to just anyone, they are deserved, and I've never seen anyone get one that wasn't. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:25, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@CFCF: I'm not just talking about the legal issues - that's only one concern. All of my other reasons also have purpose. Also, I strongly disagree with the statement that blocks are "deserved". Given Wikipedia's slogan, a lot of users won't think that they even exist, and then get angry when one is implemented against them. 73.114.22.215 (talk) 13:30, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

• First off, c'mon: not one blocked user in ten doesn't think that he's been blocked for No Good Reason (save, of course, that the admins are Out To Get Him). We have a limited number of admins, and admin time shouldn't be sucked up with endless specious appeal after specious appeal. Beyond, that ... seriously? If someone genuinely takes it in his head to sue the Foundation because he's enraged a private website has the right to enforce codes of conduct as the agreed-upon prerequisite for participation, and he finds an attorney addle-pated enough to take such a specious case (a key element in US tort law being the requirement to prove damages) ... well, I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the judge reads the complaint.

  In any event, my longstanding opinion is that every touchy editor washing his hands of Wikipedia out of rage when he discovers that the rules apply to him too is a material gain for the encyclopedia. Ravenswing 15:39, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

• Such a lawsuit would be laughed out of court. If that were a real legal concern, the WMF would intervene, and certainly would not have developed those features. Editors with email and talk page access disabled can still appeal via UTRS, so there's always an avenue open. Unfortunately, we do have blocked editors who use unblock requests and email as a way to make abusive unblock requests, to abuse other editors, or just to waste people's time declining silly appeals that stand no chance of success. At some point, it comes time to say "Enough" there. Talk page and email access is not revoked by default when an editor is blocked, that happens only when it's misused or abused. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:39, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well said Ravenswing and Seraphimblade. Talk page access is not removed on a whim. It comes after continual disruption. This thread should probably be "snow" closed because the policy is not going to be changed. MarnetteD|Talk 16:45, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I think this would be a very cumbersome slogan: Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit if they are prepared to abide by its standards of conduct. I can't sue McDonald's because my Big Mac didn't look like the picture. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

• I would prefer if Admins where a bit more reluctant to revoke talk page access, as it does remove the best and most transparent way to appeal the block and have someone else look at the Admin's actions. That said, the vast majority of talk page access removals are very well justified, and it is an important tool to keep available to admins. We would should try to leave the question up to another admin if it was originally our own block in all but the most unambiguous cases, but there are plenty of those too. Monty₈₄₅ 22:34, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

• There are (unfortunately) some admins who seem to like talk page and email access removal too much. Some of these admins have revoked talk page access after one appeal that is not violating either WP:CIVIL or WP:NICETRY (these actions have been clearly logged). Revoking email access isn't as much of a concern, although technically blocks are only supossed to prevent users from editing Wikipedia. Emails aren't actual edits, so prehaps they shouldn't even be part of blocking. 73.114.33.224 (talk) 19:33, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose removal of these sanctions. They are not employed lightly, and I've never seen them applied in error or without enormous good cause. Perhaps if the IPs on this thread (both of whom have never edited before and are from the same place in Massachusetts) could tell us who they really are, that would shed some light here. Softlavender (talk) 20:34, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - if these block abilities would expose the Foundation to legal issues, they would have either not put them into the software, or given us admins explicit restrictions on using them. Most sockpuppetry is done by users who are here to abuse Wikipedia, not trying to bypass a bad block for good edits. And we don't punish - blocks are preventative, not punitive. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu

• Oppose I agree with Softlavender that these are not used lightly. Having received attack emails in the past the revocation prevents harassment which is a good thing. MarnetteD|Talk 21:37, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - I've seen many, many instances of talk page editing privilege abuse by LTA's, openly disruptive sock puppets, and IPs that clearly and grossly violate Wikipedia's policies after the user has been blocked. These options are disabled by default when a block is imposed, and are enabled via a modification of block settings and based off an admin's judgment call and for reasons that prevent further disruption and abuse when it occurs. Removing the technical ability for an administrator to revoke these privileges from blocked users would result in disruption and abuse that couldn't be easily controlled; it would add unnecessary "red tape" to something that really shouldn't be. If the guidelines on the use of these settings to revoke talk page or email access need clarification, then they should be clarified. Removing the ability for administrators to use the options at all seems crazy to me. If an administrator cannot do it, then who could? Who would? What, are we going to create an AIV2 page to report talk page and email abuse to... whoever it is that is allowed to do it now? I think you see where I'm going with this... :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 23:56, 12 July 2016 (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.

Notability in Knight's Cross Holder articles

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump (policy) § Notability in Knight's Cross Holder articles

 – CabbagePotato (talk) 05:53, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi, a quick note on a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Notability in Knight's Cross Holder Articles. During a recent AfD process, which involved military notability at WP:Soldier, one of the suggestions I got was to see if an RfC may need to be formulated.

I'm seeking input into this potential RfC or other possible ways to address the notability concern in related articles. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:42, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:DATERANGE ambiguity and stylistic concerns

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

---

I recently initiated a discussion regarding WP:DATERANGE, the MoS guideline that specifies use of two-digit abbreviated years in end-ranges (i.e. 1995–99 instead of 1995–1999) for years from the 11th century onward only. Objections have been raised regarding this guideline before, and now again, with many agreeing with my reasoning for reverting to the old format, but it never proceeds any further. Here are several reasons why the current guideline should be abandoned and reverted:

• Date ranges under the current format can easily be confused for something else entirely, especially for ranges ending in years '01–'12. For example, "2010–12" can easily be interpreted as December 2010 instead of a date range of 2010–2012.
• It looks very unprofessional IMHO. Saving a measly two digits is not worth giving the appearance of using unnecessary shortcuts/slang in a respectable encyclopedia.
• It doesn't read naturally for years in the 21st century spanning the 2000s decade to 2010 or later. This is mainly because years from 2000–2009 are usually pronounced "two thousand and", while years from 2010—present are usually said as "twenty". So a range such as 2000–16 being read as "two thousand to sixteen" sounds ridiculous. This is especially problematic for anyone having Wikipedia read aloud by a text-to-speech program.
• Implementation is inconsistent, since it is only applicable to years 1000 AD+ and to none of the years in the BC era (why not?), leading to more confusion and unnecessary stylistic asymmetry.

I am looking to canvass the wider community to see if there is support to revert to the older style, which preferred permitted the entire 4-digit year for end-ranges. Please indicate whether you support the current MoS guideline or the previous one. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 00:43, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Question: You say the old format, but I've just been looking through the history to find when the format changed, and got tired around October 1, 2007‎ when it was still stating a XXXX–XX format as it does today. How long ago was the change from XXXX–XXXX, and why did it change? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:41, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

In 2007, it also said "The full closing year is acceptable, but abbreviating it to a single digit (1881–6) or three digits (1881–886) is not", and this no longer seems to be accepted, except for birth and death dates. It once also specified that date ranges from the first millenium used all the digits (886–889, not 886–89). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

As of February 10, 2012, our own manual of style is cited in this stackexchange question as a "guide" to how to format date ranges - so that's helpful. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 07:25, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, but what I had meant by the "old" style was the permissing of the full closing year (4 digits), which is now removed from the guide. This removal is what has resulted in the change of 4-digit end-years to 2-digits across thousands of articles over the years, and for any 4-digit closing years in new articles/edits to be changed by someone with a comment citing the MoS. I'd prefer the abbreviated form be discouraged altogether, but as long as the 4-digit form is once again permitted as equally legitimate, that would be sufficient. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 14:56, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah, cool. Cheers. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 03:00, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

@Crumpled Fire: The "permissing of"??

@Crumpled Fire: I suggest this be converted to a "formal" WP:RfC, so that whatever its results are carry more "weight"... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Good idea. I've done so here, you and others watching this discussion are welcome to join. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 08:29, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:MULTI and common simplicity and ease, I suggest the RfC should be held right here. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 12:17, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Done. Moved to below. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 13:13, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I've refactored the RfC tag to the top, or it will lead to an accidental fork of the "!voting" (a term some object to) into two redundant sections, as people click links to the RfC and end up below it. I almost did this myself until realizing that the comments were in a section above the RfC tag.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Not a problem, I was considering doing something similar myself, thanks for the help. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 05:05, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Comments on DATERANGE RfC

• Revert to previous style (permit and prefer 4-digit years), per points above. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 00:43, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
• I'm in favor of permitting the "full closing year", without requiring it. "In 2006–07, the sports person did something" is appropriate to the subject, even though I prefer "2006–2007" (or even "from 2006 to 2007", spelled out with actual words) for other contexts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

  FYI, in case you were unaware, this policy isn't just referring to adjacent years, it's any years within an entire century. In otherwords, "1957–98" is preferred over "1957–1998", which is IMO ridiculous. If it were just "1957–58", as in the common practice used for school years/fiscal years/etc., I'd have no concerns. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 14:50, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

• Permit 4-digit years. I can think of no reason to have 2-digit year ranges at all, much less have them preferred. WP isn't paper, so what are we saving by removing some digits? I'm not aware of any increase in understanding by the reader for 2-digit years in ranges, and per above, several possible misunderstandings. I'm saying "permit" rather than "require" only to avoid the same rash of MOS-fanatic changes that caused this dumb situation. --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit 4-digit years—forcing two-digit ranges is silly micromanagement, and I can see no profit from enforcing it. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:23, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer or require 4-digit years: I think MOS:DATERANGE permits 4-digit years: "the range's end year is usually abbreviated to two digits". Two-digit years are an anachronism from before the printing press, in the computer age a two digit year cutoff is a kind of database problem. I was taught to not be ambiguous by using 9999 for four-digit years (and 999 for three-digit years, etc.). –BoBoMisiu (talk) 00:59, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• Require full syntax: I was considering this from the standpoint of standards, with the weight being on simple continuity i.e. One rule to rule them all. With this in mind I considered a range like "1874 to 1984" which would currently read as "1874–984" if we apply the same logic to the formatting as "1874 to 1884" being written as "1874–84". This is nonsensical, so we need several formatting rules to cover different ranges, which leads to confusion and argument. A one rule solution is to always use the full syntax e.g. "1874–1984", "1874–1884", "874–984", "874–1984" etc.. There can, under this simple single rule, be no confusion or ambiguity. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 03:00, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• Previous style (full four digit year required) - We should not be using a potentially ambiguous two digit shorthand.- MrX 03:27, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles, prefer four digit – I wouldn't want to prohibit "1957–58" for school years or sports seasons. It would be nice to come up with a set of simple rules but there are so many exceptions and edge cases I think we need to leave it partly up to editor discretion. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:40, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• Require all digits to avoid confusion and ambiguity; saving two characters (especially in a digital context) is unnecessary. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use {{re|Jc86035}} to reply to me 13:12, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• Leave guideline as it is. This reflects normal English-language usage. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:23, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

  No it doesn't. Two-digit abbreviations for end-ranges consisting of a period of decades or longer (i.e. 1909–98) are virtually non-existent. The only use of this abbreviated format that I've ever seen commonly is for immediately adjacent years, as in fiscal or school years (i.e. 2008–09), as noted above. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 13:40, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

• Require all digits: A consistent style for all dates is far more compatible with automated tools, screen readers for the visually impaired, search engines, etc. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:44, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
  • +1 --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:58, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit 4-digit years, prefer this as default, but leave 4 vs 2 editorial decisions to a case by case scenario. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:48, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles, prefer four digit per the rapidly accumulating SNOW above. Specifying always four digits is tempting, but two digits is extremely common for consecutive years and other edge cases. Alsee (talk) 10:03, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• Require all digits except for school years or sports seasons and the like Peter coxhead (talk) 11:29, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer full years – I've had to correct my own edits to the two digit style more than once, and each time I always wondered why I was having to do that. Even if the two digit style is acceptable, the four digit style is more universal. I can't think of any reason in the context of Wikipedia to prefer the two digit style. Expressing a preference is what the MoS does, by the way. There is no matter of "requirement" in it. Editorial consensus on a talk page should still be able to determine specific instances where the two digit style might have usefulness. RGloucester — ☎ 16:41, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• Comment – In this decision, either leave the current default 2010–12 or require the 4-year 2010–2012 format. But whatever you do, don't leave it as a "dealer's choice". IOW, either leave the current, or go to the full 4 year, but don't leave both formats as "acceptable". This should be a binary choice: either choose the current, or choose the former. Leaving as a "dealer's choice" will lead to chaos and edit warring... (On my end, I've gotten very used to the current format, but the "all-4 year" format would probably be "cleaner" across the whole project...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
  • From below, either A) or B), but absolutely, positively not D), which is just a recipe with dateranges for the kind of minor edit warring over date formats, etc. on RETAIN vs. TIES grounds we have now but probably on a larger scale. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 07:25, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Agreed about D. It's invalid because MOS:RETAIN doesn't actually apply to this. That whole "here's how I personally think the closers should do their analysis" section with the A, B, C, etc. things, should just be hatted as unwittingly disruptive.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Require four-digit years per Fred Gandt, IJBall, Guy Macon above. For simplicity, clarity, lack of ambiguity, and for tools that automatically extract meaning from wp. Regards, James (^talk/_contribs) 17:31, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles... I wouldn't mind requiring "4-digit" for prose, but when it comes to usage in tables, I usually much prefer "1998–99" because it makes the column nice and narrow and there's not all the repeating of 19s or 20s down the column. But then, there are times when "4-digit" is the better choice in tables as well. —Musdan77 (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles, preference to two-digit except where ambiguous per nom. Examples: 1965–68; 2010–2011. 🖖ATS / Talk 00:29, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
• Require all digits, except for school years, sports seasons, and potentially tables if not ambiguous and the like, for the good rationales given. FeatherPluma (talk) 01:00, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles, preference for two-digit except where ambiguous I find 2 digit simpler to read, and people employ 'translations' when verbalising the written form, sometimes using the longest, sometimes the shortest form. Pincrete (talk) 11:07, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
• Question How does a screen reader read 2000-12 compared to 2000-2012? Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:45, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Just to clarify, depending on the answer to the question, my vote will be either ****-**** only or 'both allowed'. As an accessibility issue, if screen readers have issues (which I have seen on other websites, but personally have not experienced on wikipedia) with the ****-** format, generally it should be discouraged. If there is no issue, I dont see any reason it shouldnt. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:03, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Paging User:Graham87...
    On a related note, I understand that the hyphen (or en dash) between the years is silently dropped. It's possible that spelling it out the connection in words, as in "2000 to 2012" or "between 2000 and 2012", would be best for users of screen readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
    • By default, JAWS reads 2000–2012 as "2000 dash 2012" and 2000–12 as "2000 dash 12". NonVisual Desktop Access omits the hyphen when it is present, but when an en dash is there, it reads "2000 en dash 2012" and "2000 en dash 12", respectively. I don't think we should let screen readers determine the guidance here; both forms are exceedingly common, and using "to" and "between" would just not work in many places. Graham87 06:59, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
      • Just to clarify: It would say 'two thousand (en)dash two thousand twelve' versus 'two thousand (en)dash twelve'? I understand punctuation is a mess, I am more familiar with braile readers ;) but to me I think the former would be preferable to the latter. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:48, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
  • According to this blog who tested 3 screen readers - punctuation is a mess (scroll down to the table of dashes). Of note, not all screen readers will behave the same. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:50, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: per Only in death's concern (above); I think it worth considering that if the abbreviated form is allowed, it should only be so when wrapped in <abbr>...</abbr> tags to assist human and machine comprehension. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 12:15, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
• Define full ending year as the default house style, with local exceptions based on discussion of real need (this last part is implicit in the word "guideline" and does not need to be stated). As with any guideline, it would not be useful to say both are permissible and leave it to personal preference; that would be a guideline largely devoid of guidance, and would enable more time-wasting conflict than it prevented. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:52, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
• Require all digits because saving 2 digits is not a huge benefit, having multiple permissible styles gives an unprofessional look, yyyy-yy seems to be more of a US thing that is less commonly used by other countries, yyyy-yy can be confused with yyyy-mm dates, avoids editors toggling between the two formats and one universal rule is so much easier than multiple rules trying to pin down exactly when 2 digits are/aren't allowed.  Stepho  talk  01:01, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles. Retrograde step to insist on all eight digits in all situations, removing the flexibility we currently have. Even in infoboxes and tables? Nuts. Tony (talk) 01:43, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Although I find the two digit style unnecessary, aesthetically ugly, potentially ambiguous, and arbitrary (Why not abbreviate to 1 or 3 digits? Why not for years before 1000? Why omit the grammatically correct apostrophe preceding the two digits?), I would be willing to support a guideline identical to that currently found at MOS:DATEVAR, which allows the abbreviation of month names "only when brevity is helpful (refs, tables, infoboxes, etc.)". Which is not to say that two digits should always be used in tables and infoboxes, but rather only when a cluttering amount of (three or more) date ranges are present. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 02:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

You ask, "Why not abbreviate to 1 or 3 digits?" Do you really not understand why, or is that just rhetoric? The reason is an application of the principle that writing conventions follow speaking conventions. English speakers say and understand year ranges as follows: "1980 to 86"; "1980 to 94"; "2001 to 10" ("two thousand one to ten" or "twenty oh one to ten"); "2005 to 12"; and "2008 to 20." An English speaker would not say "1980 to 6"; "1991 to 4"; or "2011 to 7". Neither would an English speaker say "1980 to 986"; "1980 to 994"; nor "2010 to 012".—Finell 04:00, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Rhetorical. My point being that it's still arbitrary, especially since the proper grammatical form is to place an apostrophe to denote the omission (i.e. 1995–’99), which is also omitted in our style. That the two-digit form has (limited) common usage doesn't mean our MOS should recommend it; I find it to be bordering on slang. Plus, in common usage, it's usually only implemented for years that immediately follow, i.e. 2008–09, not for something like 1901–87, which is silly and used virtually nowhere else but here. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 10:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

the proper grammatical form is to place an apostrophe to denote the omission—no, that is very much not an issue of grammar. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. It's a stylistic choice based on parallelism to word contraction like "isn't" and "'tis", and it has long fallen out of favor in both actual use and in style guides when it comes to date ranges (probably from ISO's influence). Some still recommend it when an abbreviated year (or longer period) is used by itself ("back in '06", "I grew up in the '80s"), which is a style we don't use here except in quotations.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

• Require full "2001–2012" syntax, which will avoid inevitablly confusing or ambiguous constructions. This matches our treatment of page numbering ("pp. 2001–2012", except possibly in some citation styles imported from off-WP that forbid it, but this seems so rare it need not be accounted for, and I've never once had someone revert me correcting to the longer, clearer format). It also comports with our treatment of other similar ranges of numbers ("sources reported between 2,001 and 2,012 fatalities", not "sources reported 2,001–12 fatalities", which to many will imply some kind of subtraction operation).

  Permit an exception for tables, if and only if all of the following apply: a) horizontal space in the table is genuinely at a premium, b) line-breaking with "2001–<br />2012" would be disruptive to the table layout or sortability, c) the shortened date is wrapped in <abbr>...</abbr> (or the {{abbr}} template for it), and (not "or") d) the table also includes some shorthand dates like "1996–00" and "2012–15" that cannot be mistaken for yyyy–mm dates (i.e., do not end in "-01" through "-12"). A large table broken up into several smaller ones with the same columns, in the same article, would be considered a single table for this purpose.

  No special exemption for sports or any other particular topic, whether they use dash- or slash-delimited formatting by convention. Wikiprojects do not get to PoV-fork their own little local micro-consensus against site-wide norms, as a matter of policy. WP is an encyclopedia; it is not sports journalism or mimicry of it. WP permits some specialized stylization when it does not conflict with general-audience expectations and comprehensibility needs, but rejects it when it does. And no special pleading for "I got here first" editors. We already have way, way too much WP:OWN/WP:VESTED-violating "get off my article!" behavior, over micromanagement of formatting nit-picks. This has to be put to an end, not expanded even further.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:48, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• Prefer the unambiguous all-digits form, with use of 2-digit shortening where space is at a premium and the meaning is obvious from context. For years not aligned with calendar years, such as 2008-09, that's a different matter, and 2-digit shortening in preferred in such cases, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 06:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
• No uniform rule There is not a compelling case for any one choice. As such, we should let authors decide, and proceed on the basis of MOS:RETAIN. If projects can agree on local consensus for the type of material they cover, that is fine too, but if it results in disputes, MOS:RETAIN should resolve it. Monty₈₄₅ 01:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
  • MOS:RETAIN cannot actually apply to this, because both styles are not equally appropriate – one of them leads to inevitable ambiguities and confusion. RETAIN only applies when the choice between two+ options is completely arbitrary and makes no practical difference.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Require all digits, with limited exceptions, these being for a "year" that spans two calendar years, e.g. an academic year or a sporting year. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles, prefer four digits per most of the arguments above. Four digits is less ambiguous and we don't need to worry about space because WP:NOTPAPER. Kaldari (talk) 15:43, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Either require full years or allow both. I agree that some ranges are ambiguous in their meaning. Stylistic inconsistency is also another problem. When we have a range that goes from 1990 to 2000 (1990–2000) next to a range that goes from 2001 to 2016 (2001–16), it looks a bit weird. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:13, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer four digits, permit two digits for two-year spans. The two-digit format is fine for a school year or TV season, where the meaning is unambiguous; otherwise four digits. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 17:33, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles. This doesn't need to be micro-managed. Leave it to editorial discretion. --Trovatore (talk) 17:57, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Require all digits – The only way this could be more confusing than it is now is if some ranges had two digits and some had four. KSFT^C 18:57, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Require full years with a few exceptions having all the digits reduces the chance of confusion, increases accessibility, and avoids unnecessary abreviations that just don't look formal. However, the two digit format should still be available for labelling types of years that don't quite match up (sports seasons, chool years, Catholic liturgical year etc.) and in tables and infoboxes where space actually matters. Happy Squirrel (talk) 21:56, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit both styles as this should be considered on a case-by-case basis per the good points made above. Andrew D. (talk) 10:29, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
• Decline to Decide this RFC or Retain current guideline, but omit exception for special subject matter. Crumpled Fire states, "Objections have been raised regarding this guideline before" and that "many" (but not a consensus) agreed with his or her position, but obliquely acknowledges that these objections never achieved consensus ("but it never proceeds any further"). The issue was decided by consensus at WP:MOSNUM in January 2014; even then, the topic heading was preceded by "Redux". Crumpled Fire reopened the discussion in early June on the WP:MOSNUM talk page, but got no traction there, so Crumpled Fire brings it here to a different forum. Stability in a style manual is desirable for its own sake. Changing the guideline would require a massive project of revising articles that complied with the existing guideline. If a genuine problem existed, that would justify changing the guideline, but no one has identified a genuine problem. Personal preference for a different style does not, in my opinion, warrant a change to the MOS. Also, does Village Pump want to become the Court of Appeals for the innumerable MOS disputes? I propose that the Village Pump decline to decide this RFC and leave it to the MOS discussion to resolve. Regarding the guideline itself, I would change the current guideline insofar as it makes exceptions based on subject matter (e.g., sports). The MOS guides Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia should not abandon its house style guide because sports (or other publications) follow a different style guide.—Finell 00:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit 4-digit years As noted by Curly Turkey, this is silly micromanagement; MOS needs to be in the business of enforcing general provisions such as WP:ENGVAR, WP:CITEVAR, and WP:ERA, not dictating details to article writers. One of those general provisions (already in there) needs to be that we follow naming conventions in article collections; it doesn't really matter whether we have articles on the National Basketball Association seasons for 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 or 2010-11 and 2011-12, but we need to be careful not to have articles on the seasons for 2010-2011 and 2011-12. And coming here is a great way to cut through the dictatorship of the few MOS trolls: we need to break their dominance. Nyttend (talk) 01:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit 4-digit years. I would prefer to say require four digits, but the MoS should advise not require. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:22, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer two year, permit both - My concern is the literal thousands date ranges used on television pages which are fairly uniform with two years. This includes season section headers. Which reflex could handle it, it would be a large undertaking if for years is required. I prefer two years for season headers personally. There's no ambiguity the ranges imho. If allow both, treat like ERA as mentioned others. Also allow project mos to state a preference per consensus at that project. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:32, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer or require 4-digit years. To have the MOS or drive-by editors enforce a specific two-digit form is just ludicrous. Four digits are clear, immediately understandable, and completely unambiguous. The wiki servers are not going to freeze because of two extra characters. If two digits work better in some instances or in some articles, perhaps allow that as well if agreed to by consensus. But don't dictate two-digits -- that's just silly; it's like dictating a serial comma (or no serial comma). Softlavender (talk) 05:01, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Retain existing format - Requiring the first two digits for ranges in the same century is requiring unnecessary redundancy. I'm not convinced by the argument that "2000-10" is ambiguous and could be read as October 2010, as this is not a format that is acceptable for anything other than year ranges. Most importantly, tables and infoboxes often require abbreviated formats and the existing format caters for this requirement while yyyy-yyyy does not. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The format "2000-10" may not be acceptable to represent "YYYY-MM" according to current MOS (i.e., a wikipedia standard) but it is certainly valid by the ISO 8601 standard that blesses and defines many date formats. DMacks (talk) 09:13, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

And? WP:ISNOT the ISO. We have a different audience; much of ISO 8601 is intended for machine parsing, not human prose.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:22, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

• Permit 4-year but do not require – for many of the same reasons noted above. There may be situations in which the use of two digits is well understood and appropriate, so requiring four digits in all instances is unnecessary (not to mention tedious instruction creep that would require a lot of changes to exising articles that already use the two-digit format). --GoneIn60 (talk) 11:48, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer 4-digit years but allow 2-digit years in certain cases like consecutive years, within the same decade, etc. if the context is clear. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:07, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
• Retain existing format – Wikipedia is a professional, formal encyclopaedia and requires a high standard of writing and formatting. This is the very reason that guidelines such as this exist. Allowing both options would just be messy and inconsistent, and will lead to confusion for readers who get used to seeing the XXXX-XXXX format and then come across the XXXX-XX format. We need to be consistent with this, it's just common sense. Likewise, there is no reason for Wikipedia to suddenly ignore basic writing and referencing conventions by changing to the XXXX-XXXX format. What I'm saying is, not only is writing out both years in full every time completely redundant and counter-intuitive for everyday, casual writers, it is also amateurish and unbecoming of an encyclopaedia given that XXXX-XX is the academic and professional format found in at least the most common style guides. And if people confuse '2010-12' with 'December 2010', especially in what is presumably well-written prose that provides context, then that is their fault. No respectable encyclopaedia would present a date like that, just as one wouldn't present a year range like you want to. By the way, why isn't this discussion taking place at WP:MOSNUM? - adamstom97 (talk) 22:08, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
• Prefer 4-digit years, permit 2-digit where space is an issue. This is a guideline that is widely ignored anyway; best update it to general practice. At the very least require 4-digit years in most tables, where the 2-digit ones play havoc with both aesthetic and sorting. Frickeg (talk) 04:58, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
• Permit 4-digit years - I've never agreed with the 2 digit thing and IMHO 4 digits look much better, Plus as the years continue the 2 digit thing will only get more confusing, 4 is IMHO better. –Davey2010^Talk 14:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
• Retain as is, or grudgingly permit 4-digit years if we must. Johnbod (talk) 19:48, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Extended discussion of DATERANGE RfC

A short discussion was initially had at the MoS/Dates and numbers talk page (the latest of many which went nowhere) regarding the re-introduction of the four-digit endrange year in WP:DATERANGE. When some support was garnered but discussion again stalled, it was then expanded to a discussion and !vote here at the Village Pump, garnering a high level of agree !votes to return to the original style of allowing—or even preferring—four-digit end years (i.e. 2000–2016) instead of the current two-digit end years (i.e. 2000–16) for ranges that occur post-11th century and within the same century.

In addition to the points made and support garnered at the Village Pump, it's becoming clear to me that the general editing public (and likely the general public itself) finds the 2000–16 format disagreeable, as I've already had to revert three instances ([30],[31],[32]) within the last few days of someone changing "2000–16" to "2000–2016" in the infobox for Anton Yelchin (a high-traffic article due to the subject's recent death). As suggested by a user at the Village Pump discussion, I am opening an RfC to hopefully determine once and for all whether the community at large agrees it's time to re-introduce four-digit end years in ranges. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 13:12, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

While if one were writing an informal blog or a company memo, one might not care what date format was used, and not really care all that much if a few people had some difficulty with it, on Wikipedia the fact that alternative styles can be attested to exist does not mean that every imaginable paper-medium style must be permitted, willy-nilly; we have a mission and responsibility to be as accessible to and clearly informative for as many readers as possible. Most of WP:MOS and its subpages consist of best practices selected from a range of possible practices, and selected (especially in favor of clarity over ambiguity, even at the cost of a tiny bit of brevity) by consensus on the basis of experience with what does and does not work well on WP, what leads to continual strife when no firm rule is provided, what WP:COMMONSENSE suggests, and what the preponderance of external style guides recommend. On all four counts, we are pointed toward using the full "2001–2012", not shorthand "2001–12", format. The shorthand style is primarily used in journalism, where saving space is often taken to matter more than clarity, and inside academic citation formats in particular fields, especially those also geared toward maximum compression, for reduced journal printing cost and for expert convenience, at the expense of "lay" readability (e.g. "Jacksom PM, Garcia AG. AmJPsych", versus the "Jackson, P. M.; Garcia, A. G. American Journal of Psychology" we expect here).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:48, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, expanding "Jackson" to "Jacksom" is not a form of compression :-) Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Danm it, I cam't blane mobile auto-correct for that ome.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 

For transparency, recording that I'm notifying WP:TV of this rfc as it will impact most pages within the project's scope. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:36, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Extended content

Possible outcomes? Keep in mind that this policy applies to years 1000–present only, and only to ranges that stay within the same century. A) Status quo (prefer 2-digit, no explicit allowance of 4-digit) B) Only allow 4-digit end-range years C) Only allow 2-digit end-range years D) Equally allow both, using whichever is established/the first editor used, and discuss prior to change (similar to CE/AD policy) E) Prefer one, but allow the other in certain circumstances (specify details in your comment) As the proposer, the outcome I support is B, as I see no benefit to reducing 4-digit years to 2 digits arbitrarily in any case, ranges or otherwise, as argued previously. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 14:26, 29 June 2016 (UTC) This isn't helpful, and should be hatted. Anyone can add another proposed option at any time; you can't constrain people to what you see as the possible outcomes, and it's not your job to steer the closer's analysis. Also, MoS is a guideline not policy. D has fatal problems, per WP:OWN, WP:MERCILESS, and WP:VESTED; while we do have some article-wide, anti-WP:POINT "don't fiddle with stuff just to fiddle with it" provisions like MOS:DATEVAR, MOS:ENGVAR, and WP:CITEVAR, they do not permit micro-management of something like this, i.e. exactly which formatting of a date, within the variations of a particular DATEVAR, is used in a particular table or whatever. Furthermore, MOS:RETAIN does not and cannot apply here, only when the choice between options is arbitrary and makes no real difference; one of these styles (the "2001-09" one) leads to inevitable ambiguities and confusion, so it fails this test automatically. (Also, it's not really similar to CE/AD, which is not "use whichever one you like best, and thereafter no one can change it without an RfC"; there are contextual rationales to use one vs. the other (e.g. an article on geology vs. an article on biblical historicity.) I think you should {{collapse}} this subsection, let discussion continue freely, and let the closer decide what outcomes have been proposed and which if any has consensus. Or an admin should {{hat}} it. While I know it wasn't intended that way, it's disruptive to the RfC process. People are starting to insert objections to your enumerated "possibilities" into their original comments, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC) Apologies, I didn't notice this comment until just now. Sorry for being such a newbie with all this, I believe I'd noticed something similar done in a proposal adjacent to this one which is why I elected to add this subsection. But your criticisms are entirely valid, thanks again for your help. Collapsing. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 20:48, 17 July 2016 (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.

How to handle suspected violators

tl;dr summary: IP editor requests that we give "suspected policy violators" and "suspected vandals" a massive judicial process, to be judged by 12 jurors from their home country, and to get to pick 6 of those jurors themselves. Not happening. Alsee (talk) 13:28, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Anytime an IP address or user is suspected of violating a Wikipedia policy by another Wikipedia user or IP address (the complainant), he or she should be able to decide to either have 12 community members give a consensus as to whether or not he or she violated that policy, have an administrator decide on the guilt, or plea guilty. In a community hearing, it should take at least 7 members to make a guilty verdict. The 12 community members should be picked from a pool of 50 randomly selected Wikipedias. All people in that pool should have to be a Wikipedian for at least a year and have at least 1,00 edits with no history of violations for at least a year, and should have to reside in the same country as the suspected violator . 6 of those members should be chosen by the suspected violator. The other 6 should be chosen by the complainant. Both sides should have at least 1 day to do this. Both the suspected violator and the complainant should have the opportunity to make their cases before the 12 community members give their verdict. Whether the community members or an administrator decide the verdict, the burden should lie on the complainant to prove the suspected violator's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Both sides should be given at least 7 days to build their case before the community members or administrator decide the suspected vandal's fate. If the verdict comes back as guilty, then both the complainant and the now convicted violator should have at least 7 days to make statements before the administrator decides on the sanctions in a sanction hearing. When somebody first complains about vandalism, the first administrator who respond should be assigned as the administrator of that case. If that administrator believes there to be probable cause that the said violation occurred, then he or she should be allowed to block the suspected violator until he or she is acquitted in a properly held hearing or the complainant drops his or her case against the suspected violator. Otherwise, there should be no sanctions until the sanction hearing. Hearings should be done only by an administrator who resides in the same county as the suspected vandal. I think these hearings should be done in an IRC channel. In a community hearing, the administrator should decided the matter of policy, and the community members should decide the matter of fact. In an administrator hearing, the administrator should decided the matter of policy and the matter of fact. Violation hearings, member section hearings, and sanction hearings for suspected violators who reside in the USA should be done only Monday through Friday 8am-12pm PST and 1pm-5pm PST with the exception of New Years Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve. Violation hearings, member section hearings, and sanction hearings for suspected violators who reside in the USA should be done only Monday through Friday 8am-12pm PST and 1pm-5pm PST with the exception of New Years Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, US Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve. Violation hearings, member section hearings, and sanction hearings for suspected violators who reside in the Canada should be done only Monday through Friday 8am-12pm EST and 1pm-5pm EST with the exception of New Years Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Canada Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve. Violation hearings, member section hearings, and sanction hearings for suspected violators who reside in the UK should be done only Monday through Friday 8am-12pm GMT and 1pm-5pm GMT with the exception of New Years Day, Good Friday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Eve. Violation hearings, member section hearings, and sanction hearings for suspected violators who reside in Australia should be done only Monday through Friday 8am-12pm AEST and 1pm-5pm AEST with the exception of New Years Day, Australia Day, ANZAC Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve. Violation hearings, member section hearings, and sanction hearings for suspected violators who reside in New Zealand should be done only Monday through Friday 8am-12pm NZST and 1pm-5pm NZST with the exception of New Years Day, Waitangi Day, New Zealand Labour Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve. 2602:306:3357:BA0:ED19:F25C:138B:A76F (talk) 04:44, 23 July 2016 (UTC) Seems like an awful lot of incredibly pointless bureaucracy. Why don't you just tell us what your previous account/IP was, so we can look and decide if your block was appropriate. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:59, 23 July 2016 (UTC) We are not going to implement this massive judicial system. We are ESPECIALLY not going to let people team-up by nationality to violate our Neutrality rules. BTW, your National Holiday list missed 191 countries. Please do not attempt to fix that oversight. Alsee (talk) 13:28, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

"Further reading" section of articles be limited online resources

There would be benefit to having the resources listed in "further reading" sections limited to online resources only. My specific concern is with "further reading" sections of US city articles. On some US city articles, the further reading sections appear a repository of book titles (see Jacksonville, Florida). Accessing the resources listed on the Jacksonville article would require an additional Google search, and if not available online, a visit to a large library. Limiting "further reading" entries only to resources accessible with via the web would prevent these sections from being mostly useless (except to hard-core researchers). Furthermore, if an editor adds a resource to a further reading list, other editors can only review the resource and decide if it is an appropriate addition if it is available online. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:08, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• I disagree. Your argument falls on the policy WP:PAYWALL. That said the sections shouldn't be littered with only vaguely related books. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:15, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• No - The same principle would apply to inline {{Cite book}} (and journal, anything besides web-based sources), which provide verifiabiliity and are therefore even more important than "further reading". In those cases you could similarly refer to "hard-core verifiers". Anyway, the presence of that information is little hindrance to soft-core researchers. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:41, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• No WP has no requirement that all sources be online for WP:V-meeting references, the same should be true for Further Reading; this would also bias against authors who have not authorized for e-book editions of their works to be published. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• I disagree per Mandruss. Millbug ^talk 19:13, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• No. Among other things, there is no reason we would not want 'hard core researchers' to access articles and find things useful there - hopefully they'll contribute too but the main reason is Wikipedia should provide these things, even if they are paper, as retro as that may be. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• No -- I don't see a reason to limit to online resources; that's what the External links sections are for. I believe it's fine to include books in Further reading. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• No, no, no! Visiting a library is a Good Thing™, try it sometime, you might even like it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• Good grief no. If there is some disagreement about the appropriateness of any given item in the FR section, take the issue to the article's talk page. Softlavender (talk) 21:55, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - I highly doubt the readers the Jacksonville, Florida article are going to print the "further reading" list, take it to the local library, and then special order these books from a library in Florida. The Jacksonville list and many like it seem more cruft than useful and merit a section in WP:NOT, but there's little support for this proposal. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:54, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

To repeat: This is a content dispute, and belongs on the talk page of that article. Softlavender (talk) 03:16, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

it does not sound like a content dispute; rather it's related to the definition of a reliable source. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:24, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

• comment — What might help is to emphasize the importance of using the type/medium parameter in {{cite book}} to indicate whether the source is Paper or eBook. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:24, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

  That's a matter for Help talk:Citation Style 1, not this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:28, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Are permalinks permitted in Wikipedia articles?

An issue as arisen on the Snooker world ranking points family of articles because they use Wikipedia permalinks. As an example, you will see that the 2013/2014 article uses permalinks for the "cut-off" links in the table headings. The reason these links are provided is because the rankings are frozen at each cut-off point, so the purpose of the permalinks is to provide a frozen snapshot of the standings at each rankings revision. For example, by clicking on the third cut-off point you can see the rankings at this stage of the season].

Let me stress, these permalinks are not being used as a "source". The necessary sources are provided at each permalink version.

The point of the permalinks is to provide a frozen version of the article at that particular stage of the season. Bgwhite has now undertaken to removing these links on the grounds that "..Cannot use Wikipedia as a reference or an external link. This one is especially evil as it links to a specific page in time." The first part of that criticism does not apply i.e. they are not being used as sources. The final part of that critcism defeats the objective of including the links in the fist place, because the whole point is to provide a frozen snapshot of the rankings at a particular time.

So will someone please clarify a policy point for me. Do these articles violate policy by using permalinks in this manner to link to a frozen snapshot of the article? If these links are policy violations I will remove them myself in an orderly fashion; however, if they do not violate policy I am not prepared to stand for the removal of these links unless the other editor obtains a consensus to that effect. They are a long-standing feature of the article and if we drop the permlinks the article will be providing qualifiably less information. Betty Logan (talk) 23:25, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I've looked, and I don't find a policy violation anywhere. Have yet to find any consideration of this sort of link whatsoever. "Don't link to unexpected targets" is the nearest I find, and that points to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Link clarity which is silent on the matter.

It's an ingenious solution, I grant you, but does give rise to sending users to some frankly ugly and possibly confusing pages, such as [33], where they will find the information if they know what they're looking for. Arguably it would be in improvement to lift the content and either place it in a new self-standing article, or into collapsed sections of the main article. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:21, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I won't deny there are better ways to include the content, but WP:Snooker isn't exactly awash with manpower. It operates on a skeleton crew so the objective is to make articles functional rather than perfect. The permalinks were conceived as an economical way to provide the information. If we remove these links it's not as though a task force will swoop down and overhaul the articles; it's more likely the job will just get added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Snooker#To-do list where it will stay for years, so I think editors need to appreciate that if these permalinks are removed it could be quite a while before an "ideal" solution is realized. I'm not trying to put a gun to anyone's head, it's just that small projects have to prioritize their workload and I don't think this is a high priority task compared to recording results, updating bios etc. Betty Logan (talk) 01:44, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I can see *why* you have done it that way, which is ingenious as Tagishsimon said, and which does make sense as the information is presented. My question would be 'Why the need for listing all 6 cut-off points in the table rather than just the end result?' Are the ranking revisions at a set time? If there is a need for all the separate cut-offs, then the only option I can see other than how you have done it is just not linking at all. Or linking to the end result and saying 'work it out yourself' either of which I would consider a less informative option. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:38, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

The primary purpose of the article is to list the points for each player for each event and the permalinks are not needed in that respect. The rankings operate as a rolling system so the totals (and positions) at each cut-off point set the rankings at that point in time. Again, this information is still actually available by just clicking the sortable column, but the problem with that is that there is no easy way to just read off the rank for that point in time so the permalinks were added as a convenience. If they were removed the article would still function in terms of its primary purpose i.e. to list the points for each player throughout the season, but we would lose a layer of information that a reader may want. Betty Logan (talk) 19:02, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate it as clever hack, and I appreciate the issue of manpower, but I don't think this is an acceptable technique. It's like a WP:CROSSNAMESPACE redirect, but way WAY worse. It's a table heading that takes someone entirely out of any namespace. The average editor is going to be quite baffled for a while trying to figure out what the heck happened, but a typical reader is going to have absolutely no understanding of where they are. We can't unexpectedly drop readers onto weird non-pages.

I know squat about Snooker, but looks to me like this is excessive detail that we don't really need to provide? Of course someone could want that earlier view of the table, but is this something that a significant number of people will be specifically looking for, and the existing table sort is inadequate? And if this is something that people look for, how do print publications or other websites handle it? Alsee (talk) 20:55, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

This is how the govern body format it on their website: WPBSA. I guess the analogous approach on Wikipedia would be to have one revision per page, or one table per revision in the same article. There may be a technical soultion available: the cut-off totals are sortable but when you sort on them they scramble the rankings too. If there were a way to make the rankings static in a sortable table then that would offer a potential solution. Betty Logan (talk) 19:07, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Requesting Policy on 'Star Databases'

It is possible for people to 'name' any star by making a payment to one of a plethora of databases. Whether these databases serve a valuable social function or they are completely scurrilous is irrelevant - these names have no wider validity and the star may already have an historic name. I found an example on the entry for Messier 29 stating one of the stars had been named with a silly name on one of these databases. I fear this could become a trend - perhaps fed by the fact that it can be used to promote the database used by including the name or even a link. I can imagine the databases encouraging people to add their star to Wikipedia. A clear policy statement would help give people the confidence to rapidly delete such entries wherever they crop up. Stub Mandrel (talk) 16:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we need a specific policy. We already have policies about undue weight, spamming, and inappropriate external links. Putting names from a "name your own" database would normally be inappropriate undue weight, unless such a name has received significant coverage in reliable sources for some reason. I suspect for the vast majority of them, that is not the case. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:42, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

And it's not a trend; these things have been around since at least the earl 1980s, with no apparent impact on the real world.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:14, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

While I might be wrong, I believe the the proper questioning would be on WP:RS grounds, and/or WP:PSTS. Any paid database source would credit as a primary source if I'm not mistaken, and an unreliable and unindependent primary source at that. If any paid database ever reached being cited in multiple secondary or tertiary sources, then one might allow the weighting. Such a view also allows for the perfectly legitimate use of ancient alternate names from Arabic/Chinese/etc. sourcing. LaughingVulcan 00:54, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Verbatim copying of PD material

No apparently applicable noticeboard found.

Yosemite National Park#Habitats appears to have originally copied its text verbatim from this National Park Service web page, a public domain document, using {{NPS}} for the citation. 1. What policy allows this usage? 2. Must the Wikipedia content remain verbatim in this case, or can it be allowed to diverge from the source? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:59, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Public domain material means that it can be used in any manner, including verbatim copying, and there's no real policy to prevent that. We would request that the original source be given as attribution. But that said, we'd rather expect that for the main running prose of the article text, we'd expect users to paraphrase and summarize a PD work rather than wholesale copying as the main body. --MASEM (t) 17:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain_sources is as far as I know the only general guide on what to do once you're sure it is public domain. Basically it as Masem says. There's a whole bunch of templates for marking of various sources of PD, see Category:Attribution templates. Dmcq (talk) 17:32, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Huge swaths of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica were imported wholesale years ago. Last I checked, that public-domain text alone is present in more than ten thousand articles.

Also, remember this when someone tells you that All Editors Agree™ that such text must always have WP:INTEXT attribution to tell the reader that it was imported rather than written by a local editor. Less than 1% of EB1911 text is marked that way in the text. Citations, usually in the form of a template, are the only indication that the text was copied from those sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:00, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

RfC on hidden comments

At Talk:Gustav Holst#RfC on removal of hidden comment, there is an RfC which may have wider ramifications for multiple articles with the same issue. Comments would be welcome. --RexxS (talk) 20:33, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

First thought: This again? WP:WikiProjects are only groups of self-selected "contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia", and their WP:Advice pages are no more binding on the rest of us than any other page written by any other handful of editors.

Second thought: Too bad that ArbCom didn't address this problem specifically; I asked them to at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Evidence#Ownership. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:08, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Lee Hsien Loong

Hi, can someone have a look and advice immediately, as my current sourced edits are being removed by another bias editor. In 3RR situation. ThanksWrigleygum (talk) 07:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

• Your colleague's suggestion to discuss one small change at a time on the talk page is wise. It is usually easier to find consensus on one small point than on several points simultaneously. Discussing a disagreement in edit comments tends to lead to acrimony because there is not enough space to explain properly or acknowledge of what is right in the other side's point, so each side tends to feel that they have not been heard. Note that your disagreement is not over whether the content is well-sourced. It appears that your disagreement is over whether that content is relevant to the article, or perhaps only whether it belongs in the lead or in the body of the article. Perhaps you don't actually disagree so much after all; you can only find out by discussing. Also, please have a look at MOS:INTRO and WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. Good luck finding a consensus. When you find common ground with an editor who at first opposed you, and reach a consensus that is wiser than either of you alone, I think you will find the result "even better, longer lasting" than winning with spears and arrows. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 08:28, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Bbb23: Would you be so kind as to move this conversation to an appropriate forum and ping Wrigleygum? —Ben Kovitz (talk) 08:28, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Coordinate formats

Please join a discussion of geographic coordinate formats. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:50, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Update needed

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 53#Documentation updates. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to Strengthen WP:V by Requiring at Least One Reliable Source for All New Articles

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.

---

Proposed: All articles created on or after October 1, 2016 must specifically cite at least one independent (non-affiliated) reliable source in support of at least one claim or assertion of fact within the article. Articles created after this date that do not cite any reliable sources may be proposed for deletion using the same procedure employed for WP:BLPPROD. For the purposes of discussion we may refer to the as yet to be created tag and guideline as VPROD. Any editor including the article creator, may remove the VPROD tag as soon as a single independent reliable source is added to the article. Reviewing editors and in particular New Page Patrolers are strongly encouraged to look for a reliable source before adding the VPROD tag, especially in cases where commonsense would suggest the likely notability of the subject. Ultimately however, it is the responsibility of the creator of the article and any editors adding material to ensure that all claims are properly referenced to reliable sources. Articles created prior to October 1, 2016 are not subject to VPROD, although they remain subject to the provisions of WP:V and may be nominated for deletion via WP:AfD if it is believed that they fail to meet minimal standards for sourcing.

OP's Statement There are simply too many unsourced articles out there and more are getting through all the time. WP:V is mocked by the existence of unsourced articles, and the credibility of the project is undermined. There aren't enough editors working on NPP as evidenced by the perpetual backlog. And while one would hope that they will try to fix deficiencies in articles they are reviewing, especially serious ones, the reality is that again there aren't enough of them to get every new article up to snuff without the entire system of review grinding to a halt. Yes, I know that one can always later send a problematic article to AfD but that is not a practical solution. AfD is already barely functional from a lack of participation. Articles sent there routinely languish for weeks without a !vote. We need to streamline the process and shore up WP:V. There is no reason why the same standard, which is shockingly minimal, that is applied to BLPs should not be applied to all articles. If requiring editors creating an article to cite just one source is too onerous then it is time to stop calling this an encyclopedia. In closing, I wish to say that I know this will be controversial. All I ask is that the discussion stay calm and polite. (And a support !vote would be nice too.) -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:53, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Support

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dumping ground for information: we are not desperate for new content; we aim for a slightly higher standard than IMDb. The burden ought to be on article creators to demonstrate their articles' merit, not on new page patrollers to disprove it. Requiring article creators to make a small nod towards the verifiability policy is a step in the right direction. Rebbing 02:30, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   This is not a battle between NPPs and article writers. Deleting should always require a higher standard of proof than writing something here. The power should be with those that want to expand the content. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:35, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   I agree, and I don't think this tilts things the other way. There is no barrier to create content. Even if this passes, it only applies to content that has no sources at all, and only applies after some number of days, and only applies if nobody intervenes. I.e. there are no barriers to create, and there are barriers to delete. But yes, this does weaken those barriers. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:21, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

2. Experience shows that AfD participation is low. The proposal will help streamline the process and will also encourage contributors to improve articles. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:38, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   There is no deadline here, so why try to force the issue? Encouragement to improve can happen in a less destructive way, by for example, a talk page message. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:35, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   Is there some combination of approaches you think would be appropriate, including leaving talk page messages, maybe a minimum time after creation before it can be proposed for deletion, etc. I understand the "there is no deadline" argument, but it doesn't negate WP:V's Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. I think the real discussion is about what follows: Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references - I.e. how much time should there be at minimum? What is the process by which this applies to entire articles? Etc. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:26, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

3. Supporting for now. Honestly, I'm not so sure, but I think it's a good discussion to have and worry that such a discussion wouldn't happen if the oppose subheading starts to snowball. If this does find some support, I think it has to be the first of multiple RfCs to hash some things out in terms of process. This is the big idea, but it's doomed if we have to sort out all of the details in the course of discussing the big idea. Might want to modify the RfC text to add a qualifier along those lines. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:15, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
4. Support - Let's face it, our Wikipedia today has too much unsourced information. I would suggest if this does not pass, we go for one single source of any kind, anywhere in the article, formatted in anyway. That's not, at all, too much to ask. We need to grow and encourage the culture of, "source it", from the very start - that is, after all, a core pillar of the project. - Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:27, 24 July 2016 (UTC) I'll add that we should have and not shy away from the world knowing - one source, at least one source, for an article, here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:55, 24 July 2016 (UTC) I'll buy into the 'speedy-to-draft' proposal below, but I don't get the software suggestion as workable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:07, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
5. Support, although with some modifications. I would simply extend the current reference requirements in the BLP-PROD to ALL articles (new, old, BLP, non-BLP, whatever) and call this new procedure VPROD. When BLP-PROD was created, the idea was that it would serve to fish out potential negative BLP info hiding out in plain sight, so to speak, in unsourced BLP articles. However, I have never actually seen BLP-PROD work this way. In practice BLP-PROD has been and is being used to delete thousands of perfectly benign but unsourced articles, a very high proportion of them being vanity pages. Ultimately, Wikipedia is probably better of with those pages having been deleted, even though many of them probably could have been developed into proper articles, given enough time. I don't see why the same principle should not be extended to non-BLP articles. (There is actually not as much difference between these two types of articles as people think, and, by the way, non-BLP articles, still contain loads and loads of BLP info.) After all, we are not talking about creating a new CSD criterion here, but rather a new type of a PROD. If an article has been sitting in mainspace for long enough without anyone being able of having bothered to add at least one reference to it, the article deserves to be nuked. Nsk92 (talk) 15:18, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

   Nsk92 I can live with this. In fact I will add another qualifier. Several editors have expressed reservations about the proposal having the potential to be bitey with new editors. While I respectfully disagree with most of the other objections, IMO that one has some merit. So I would support a qualifier that before a VPROD could be attached to any article that it must first be tagged with an "unsourced" maintenance tag for at least one full month without improvement. Feel free to add this as an alternative proposal if you want somewhere below the discussion. Thanks! -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:27, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

6. Support All articles in Wikipedia should contain, in that article, citations which establish that the subject of the article passes WP:GNG. The exception is the odd case when an article is kept for a specialized notability reason and does not need to pass WP:GNG, which is fewer than 1% of cases. Whenever an article in Wikipedia is being kept on an argument that it could theoretically pass GNG, but actually the text of the article does not provide supporting evidence of that, then the article should be deleted until someone does the labor to bring it to Wikipedia's minimal standard. GNG is a great general standard for articles. It is a waste of time that fringe topics of no interest to almost anyone are discussed at AfD on the basis that theoretically, they might be notable, if only someone did the work to bring them up to standard. Wikipedia:Competence is required and expecting that the text of a Wikipedia article is the starting consideration for assessing by GNG is not too much to ask. I do not think this issue is adequately covered by other policies. Clearly establishing a minimal standard would save a lot of trouble and a lot of wasted attention given to low quality contributions on low importance topics. The new users who try to provide citations are much more valuable than new users who do not use citations, and since volunteer support is scarce, new users who use citations deserve more attention than those who do not. Implementing this as a policy would send a more clear message that Wikipedia has quality controls and that users who can provide citations for their submissions have an inside track for support as compared to users who post without citations. The use of citations is something to be encouraged. Content backed by citations is more valuable than content which is not backed with citations. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Support. I also think that there needs to be minimum standards applied before articles can be created in mainspace (like, at least, extendedconfirmed, but even that's probably too low – I can't tell you how many crummy BLP's I've seen created by drive-by editors lately...). But, neither will ever happen. Around here, all good ideas are shot dead, dead, dead... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:54, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
8. Support but only if we provide a framework in which when an editor first tries to save an article (or an article over-writing a redirect) they are prompted and assisted to provide a source. I'll elaborate more under "Discussion". PamD 12:32, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Support It is strange that an article should be verifiable while at the same time no sources have to be given. That bring the burden of proof to the community instead of to the original author (who should have done his/her homework to be sure of notability) The Banner talk 18:42, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Support Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of unverified information and WP:V is very important for maintaining the credibility of the encyclopaedia. WP:BURDEN already states that reinstating any unsourced information requires the reinstating editor to add a reliable source. I see this as an extension to it. I think it is worth encouraging a culture where the editors are responsible for verifying the information they want to add to the encyclopaedia. Quoting from here, I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient of a barnstar. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:41, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
11. Support This policy is already implied by others: every article needs to be notable, as established by coverage in sources, and every fact needs to be verifiable, as established by reliable sources. And yet I've encountered even experienced editors who think that an article need not contain any facts at all. This proposal reinforces and clarifies the fundamental mission of Wikipedia: to be an encyclopedia, i.e. a reference work that contains information—presumably reliable information, i.e. facts. I concur with the remarks about it being too easy on AfD for people to block deletion of articles without reliable sources. Prodding these articles allows reasonable time to find sources while educating new editors about the need for sources. And the proposal includes searching for sources, so I expect that this proposal would prevent very little good content from getting into the encyclopedia, and would quickly prune a lot of bad. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 08:59, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

1. In my opinion, for articles that do not involve BLP concerns, it is often more valuable to have an article without references than it is to have no article at all. AfDs where there is a question about the veracity of the information in a new article typically receive good participation and are closed without need to relist. Where AfD has problem is when the subject has a few citations, but is probably not notable, or its a foreign person, and we can't tell if the lack of results is a language barrier issue. The proposal is to broad, and while I'm not sure if a narrower proposal would work either, it would at least not harm us by removing articles that don't have BLP/Notability issues merely for not including a source. Monty₈₄₅ 02:49, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   Thank you for your comment. However I don't see how your statement, that seems to imply that sources should not be mandatory, does not rather directly contradict both the letter and spirit of WP:V? -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:04, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   WP:V does not mandate deletion for articles that are not yet verified, which is what your proposal advocates. Your shifting the burden further in favor of deletion. As it stands now, someone needs to review an article and dispute a claim in the article before WP:BURDEN kicks in. Generally we have rejected the approach of removing content merely because it is uncited (outside BLP territory), and instead expect editors to not remove content for not being cited if there isn't a question about accuracy. So, under the proposed change, if someone wrote an excellent article about an obscure insect species, every claim reflecting the state of the research, and there being no dispute that it was perfectly accurate, but just didn't include any citations, we would delete it, rather than fixing it, or letting it stay as an article in need of improvement. I don't agree with that approach. See also Wikipedia:There is no deadline. Monty₈₄₅ 03:15, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   Thanks again for your reply. To a certain degree you are correct. I am proposing a shift in guidelines because the current system is not working. If someone wrote an article about an obscure insect species and it had no sources, I would not know if it was reliable, a great hoax, or partly accurate but maybe not totally. That's becuase I know absolutely nothing about insects. The only way I can have confidence in an article about a subject with which I am unfamiliar is how well sourced it is. Accepting this article with no sources not only undermines WP:V and the integrity of the project, it pretty much just shreds WP:NOR. But WP:V is policy and the system you describe, accurately I believe, is one that subverts WP:V to a degree that it is little more than a strong suggestion, adherence to which is optional and not really all that important. But Original Research is just fine. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:30, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   someone needs to review an article and dispute a claim in the article before WP:BURDEN kicks in Couldn't an editor proposing deletion based on being unsourced be considered the same as challenging the article? In other words, if an article looks to be very good, the editors who happen across it probably wouldn't be likely to propose deletion despite being unsourced. However, for an article that seems e.g. promotional, might be a hoax, etc. it gives a more compelling mechanism to invoke WP:BURDEN. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

2. This concern is already handled by NPP and CSD. Also, there is constant debate as to what constitutes a reliable source and/or an independent source. There's no need to add additional processes beyond NPP and CSD. Softlavender (talk) 03:22, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   I respectfully disagree. NPP has proven ineffective in dealing with the matter for the reasons outlines in my OP statement. And CSD is not intended to deal with this at all. There is no CSD category for even the most gross WP:V fail. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   I still don't think it's a good idea. This is merely a way of bypassing WP:CSD#A7, which is designed specifically not to be bypassed. We cannot create an option that bypasses policy. If anyone wants to PROD an article that appears not to be reliably sourced, they are welcome to, but the removal of the PROD should not be conditional on supplying what that PRODding editor perceives to be up to his/her standard of source. If the article makes a claim of notability (the A7 criterion), there will almost always be a way of verifying this, and anyone who wants to can verify it. Beyond that, questions of GNG and RS belong at AfD. [Likewise, this proposal is subject to abuse -- someone can remove reference(s) on an article and "VPROD" it, and assuming the article creator hasn't noticed (because they are away or were never notified), it will *poof* get deleted.] Softlavender (talk) 04:08, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   Actually I think you have that backwards. CSD is a guideline. But WP:V is policy. You are interpreting guidelines in a way that undermines policy. Also CSD A7 does not in any way address sourcing. It addresses the claim of importance (not even notability). A mere reasonable claim of importance, a much lower bar than WP:N negates CSD A7. And AfD is not a viable solution for the reasons already mentioned. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:31, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   Nope, WP:CSD is policy. And you need to re-read WP:CSD#A7, which specifically does address sourcing or lack thereof. AfD is indeed a viable solution and always has been. Softlavender (talk) 05:48, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

3. Oppose as firstly many of our new contributors really have no idea how to add a reference or source. Second even if they figure that out they would not understand what a reliable source is. Someone else, such as a person that wants to delete it can instead look for a source or better source to reference it. Thirdly this goes against our mission of building an encyclopedia. Any one that wants to make it easier to delete pages needs to examine themselves to see if they are happy with the idea of building an encyclopedia. It is better to improve the page, than throw it away because of a rectifiable deficiency. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:31, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   Thank you for your comment. Your first point is a really good one and I think requires some serious thought. We definitely want to be careful about the bitey potential with new editors. Your second point again places the burden on people other than the article creators and contributing editors for sourcing the article. I don't think that is fair, but more importantly I don't think it is realistically an option. NPP is under heavy strain as it is and there just aren't enough editors to fix every unsourced article that shows up. On your last point I have to respectfully but very strongly disagree. Our mission is indeed to build an encyclopedia. And any project that permits wholly unsourced articles, whatever else it may be, is not an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia must have minimum standards. Unsourced articles completely undermine its credibility. But I do believe your first point is a solid one and we need to talk about that. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:45, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   I think there's enough information for people to learn rapidly how to add a reference or source. And new contributors should be expected to learn rapidly what a reliable source is. There's also plenty of good information about that. 46.37.55.80 (talk) 04:41, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

   I agree with you that we should not unnecessarily alienate new editors, and this is indeed important. However, I see the proposal as leading to quickly educating new editors about something that many people do not understand, and should understand as early as possible when they begin editing: that Wikipedia is a summary of information in other sources, not a place to post first-hand knowledge, promote your friends and favorite causes, etc. The proposal suggests prodding, which notifies the new editor immediately and allows (at least) a week to find a fact with a source. If this prodding were done in such a way that it led the new editor to help finding and citing sources (plenty of us are eager to help), would you find the proposal more acceptable? —Ben Kovitz (talk) 09:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

4. We have a general principle that articles are never "finished". An article that is good except that its sources are not listed is a fine example. I would not like to see such articles deleted only on such grounds. In areas of Wikipedia where there is conflict (i.e. almost all politic areas and many others) it will be used as an excuse for getting rid of articles even when adding sources is trivially easy. At a minimum, it should be that such articles must be tagged for lack of sourcing for a reasonable time (one month or more) before being eligible for deletion on these grounds, and the instructions to admins should indicate that articles should not be deleted if good sources are clearly easy to find. Zero^talk 05:18, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
5. Oppose New editors may come with new ideas for good article but not know anything sourcing or wiki-markup. Don't add a new burden to them. I did try briefly to work on the RfA area and found the number of requirements to give a vote or finish the process overwhelming, so I quickly lost interest. I think a simpler set of rules for RfA or specializing the work as in an assemblyline might help the backlog. I would go back if it were not so burdensome. I find the other backlogs more interesting for now. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:26, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
6. Oppose — I support the notion that every article needs to have support from reliable sources. However, the matter is already covered by existing policies and processes. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:41, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Oppose - I too sympathize with the intent here, but I can not support the proposal. It is possible to write a verifiable stub article without citing a single source. For example: suppose that we did not have an article on Paris, France (we do, but imagine that we didn't). An editor might start one with no content but the statement: "Paris is the capital city of France." That simple statement is so obviously verifiable that it would be ridiculous to require a citation. In fact, we frequently use that statement at WT:V to explain the difference between verifiability and verification (how some statements don't require actual in-line citations to be considered verifiable). It is highly unlikely that it would ever be CHALLENGEd (and if it were, the challenger would probably be sanctioned for disruption). Yet that simple statement is enough to establish that Paris is a WP:Notable topic. We would keep it if it were ever sent to AfD. Sure... that single stub sentence is not much of an article, but it would pass our minimum standards. And sure, in order to say much more about Paris, we would start to need citations. However, until it is expanded, such a simple stub should not be Prodded. Blueboar (talk) 12:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
8. Oppose, procedurally at least. WP:PROD style deletion of new articles amounts to WP:CSD style deletion, because there are no watchers of the new page. As a new CSD criterion, it should be proposed at WT:CSD, where it should be rejected procedural due to not addressing the new criterion criteria. In other words, this proposal here cannot proceed and it is a waste of time to discuss it here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:54, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Oppose. I understand the good reasons for this proposal, but can't support. The biggest issue is nuking the articles of newbies, when those articles could and should be developed. I also think it's pushing Verifiabily too far. We don't have to cite that the WP:SKYISBLUE, and we shouldn't pointlessly challenge/remove useful content when no one really has any good-faith reason to doubt it. PROD is a powerful tool for getting rid of junk cheaply, Verifiability policy is a powerful tool for (good-faith) removal of dubious or lame unsourced text. The core problem here is that we get people submitting crap, and it sucks having to clean up the crap. That's just a fact of life here. Volunteering for Wikipedia means that a significant portion of our work is to clean up crap. When it comes to article-deletion rather than revertible-edit content removal, we're a lot more careful and we deliberately put up procedural quality control. If we have shortages at NPP and AFD, maybe we need to advertise that more help is needed there. Personally, I try to !vote on several AFDs whenever I submit an AFD. I've dabbled in NPP, and for what it's worth I'll try to head back there. (No near-term promises though.) Alsee (talk) 15:12, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Oppose  Failure to support WP:V is a problem, and the fact that the Wikimedia Foundation wants floods of unsourced articles coming in over the transom remains a mystery.  But the ideas behind this proposal are also a problem.  We'd have a new confusing deletion process for administrators to explain to newbies.  What we need is software to prevent unsourced contributions, with an option to post to draftspace.  Speedy moves to draftspace would make more sense than the deletion process proposed here.  The proposal also doesn't consider that a source to support the existence of the topic, which may be a primary source, is the most important source.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:55, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

    A way to speedily move an unsourced article to draftspace sounds to me like a good idea for a counterproposal. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 09:22, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

11. Per Mandruss below, just because an article has no cited reliable sources does not mean that the subject of the article is not reliably sourced. Unless a claim is challenged, then there really is no need for a citation that supports the claim. To delete an article because it has no cited reliable sources then could mean the deletion of an article that has many reliable sources that haven't been cited yet. No, that's just wrong.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  22:34, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
12. Oppose for the very simple reason that this proposal sets a much higher standard than that for the BPLProd. You can only BPLProd and article if it does not have a single source. The source does not have to be reliable nor does it have to be used as a citation. An external links are considered more than enough to prevent a BPLProd. —Farix (t | c) 13:22, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
13. Oppose as contrary to the founding ideals of Wikipedia. Thparkth (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
14. Oppose, unnecessary and counterproductive. I agree with most of the opposition comments above. postdlf (talk) 01:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
15. Oppose solely on the fact that, as has been discussed above, many new editors who have a passion or interest in sharing their knowledge with the world, and who bravely and probably proudly publish their first article, may not only not know how to create a reference, or how to format the 'References' section of the page (or that that section is even a "thing"), but, on the chance that they do know, would have to then study exactly what a reliable reference looks like before they can publish their first shared page. Would be nice if every new editor would get their intellect into this rule, but many will not even know about it, and many good and encyclopedic-worthy pages would likely be lost, and multiply those pages lost by weeks, months, and years under this requirement, tons of good articles would be thrown overboard without even being read. Seems better to educate editors with a notice sent to their talk page (signed by Jimbo Wales himself?), which includes links to "How to write and reference an article", when they submit their first two or three new pages. Randy Kryn 2:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Randy Kryn Thanks for your comment. Your concern is the one objection that I have seen repeated above and that I think holds water. Please see my comment under the 5th support post. Best regards. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:11, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

16. Oppose As much as I believe verifiability is critical, in-article verification is not an absolute. If this was the case we could automatically delete every main space article that did not have a reference, and put a software block on any main space save which resulted in an article with no reference. Wikipedia is about creating a knowledge repository, so it should be easy to get content in. It can and will WP:EVENTUALly be tidied up. Perhaps we could have a software warning on any save that does not have any references in the saved article in main space. WP:BITEY too. A general article is no where near as important as a BLP, for which I agree special conditions are needed. If an unreferenced article gets to AfD then so be it. Chances are that once there, if it worth saving someone will reference it. Aoziwe (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    I could support the software "warning" (without the use of that problematic word), concisely summarizing the WP:V concept (and linking to it), and requiring an additional click to save. If technically feasible, that is. Probably too late in this RfC to gain consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:43, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Should be possible. Roughly similarly, the software already stops you saving with a blacklisted url anywhere. Aoziwe (talk) 13:06, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

    But that only has to look at your edit, not the entire article. Add: Now seeing your word "anywhere", maybe I'm wrong on that point. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:13, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

17. Oppose. My own thoughts echo those of Monty above. We should remove uncited content whose accuracy is disputed. But if someone submits accurate content, we shouldn't remove it just because relevant sources haven't yet been provided. Such pages should be fixed rather than deleted. We already erect too many barriers for new editors contributing content, and we don't need to add more. Dragons flight (talk) 11:30, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
18. Oppose. Proposal does not square well with WP:AGF and WP:NODEADLINE. WP:V does not require everything to be cited. ~Kvng (talk) 15:22, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
19. Oppose. The deletion process at Wikipedia is already WAY TOO complex without adding another layer. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:33, 28 July 2016 (UTC)please ping me
20. Oppose per SOFIXIT. — Esquivalience (talk) 16:01, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

    Yes, "passing the buck" is the culture around here, isn't it?... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 07:00, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

21. Per WP:DEADLINE. Content must be verifiable, not sourced. VQuakr (talk) 07:17, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
22. Oppose per Thparkth. This would drive away good faith contributors who don't yet understand WP:V but would be very easy to game for those wanting to - just add any external link to a new article as there is no way that a machine can verify it is relevant and then we have the much worse problem of an article that looks referenced but actually is not. Thryduulf (talk) 08:33, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
23. Oppose, sources do not need to actually be in an article for its content to be verifiable. ansh666 21:35, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
24. Oppose as not necessary. With speedy delete, PROD and AfD there are enough tools to handle problematic articles. Instead of this we should recommend the increased usage of draft versions for new editors and stress the necessity of references for a good encyclopedic article. As an aside: I strongly disagree with some of the "all content is good content" notions above. Wikipedia is not Facebook or a random blog, so all editors should make an effort to provide sources for their content. New editors should be pointed to these policies as early as possible. GermanJoe (talk) 09:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
25. Oppose While this proposal would deliver benefits, overall it's a step in the wrong direction. We desperately need a huge increase in our quantity of articles and the size of our active editor corps. If not, we'll fall hopelessly behind in our noble quest to present the sum of all knowledge. The world is generating new notable knowledge at an exponential rate – a function both of rising population and a quickening pace of change. Currently the world has almost 3.5 billion internet users, up from about 1.3 billion in 2007 when our number of active editors peaked. A major reason for the decline in active editors despite a near trippling in the number of potential recruits, is the ever higher barriers to participation. These have largely been imposed by a small group of elite users who camp out at AfD and at policy pages, continually arguing for deletion and for tightening policy, thus making editing more difficult. Doubtless this is largely done out of a sincere desire for higher quality, yet this is self defeating. Great to see signs that a good section of the community is becoming more inclusionist in outlook. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:43, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
26. Oppose: This could drive away newbies in my opinion, I'm gonna stick to tagging article as unreferenced. KGirlTrucker81 ^{talk what I'm been doing} 20:16, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
27. Oppose Too many of these articles can be rescued--or at least sourced, even if they turn out not to be notable. The purpose of our rules is to have a balance between getting in as many good articles as possible and rejecting the utter junk as quickly as possible. But the possibility of improvement is often real enough that the bias should be against rapid deletion processes. And, as mentioned, we have an absolute need to continue getting new editors to maintain the viability of the encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 23:40, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
28. Oppose - Seems like instruction creep. I'm a deletionist, and sympathize with the proposers sentiments about AfD being broken. But it strike me that we should be trying to change current policy, rather than adding new policy. Why not rework Wikipedia:Non-admin_closure#Appropriate_closures to mention situations like the one the nominator has highlighted? NickCT (talk) 13:08, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
29. Oppose per WP:CREEP. We already have speedy deletion for hopeless topics and this gets heavy use - thousands of articles are deleted every day by this means. The prod process is meant for uncontroversial deletion, not for such cases. One technical problem is that there are types of topic which we accept regardless of the existence of independent sources – villages or academic journals, for example. The other problem we have is that there are editors who like to wander around making vexatious nominations of reasonable topics rather than making any effort to find sources themselves per WP:BEFORE. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barostat, for example. Andrew D. (talk) 05:37, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Discussion (requiring one source)

There is no deadline. This is entirely contrary to the "wiki-way". And per WP:CON, I don't need to "vote" in a straw poll to have this weighed in a closure. - jc37 01:36, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Assuming you are referring to the date I put in the proposal, it was/is an arbitrary one which can certainly be changed if the discussion drags on. If you are trying to make a different point, then I missed it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:44, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that theconcept of Wikipedia is "many hands make light work". If someone creates a stub, then someone else can add a reference. We need to spend more time developing than destorying due to lack of development. With the obvious exception of BLPs and the like, there is not reason to have such a requirement. WP:SOFIXIT also immediately comes to mind. If participation in AFD is low, let's fix THAT. This is the tail wagging the dog. - jc37 03:04, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks again for your clarifying response. I don't substantively disagree with what you would like to see. I do however disagree with your view of where things actually are. The reality is that there are not enough people participating in NPP and AfD, and to a certain degree, I'm not sure there ever were. While I admire the project you clearly hope for, I am suggesting we deal with the one that actually exists. WP:V is one of the most important policies we have and it is being seriously undermined by a flood of very low quality material that is almost always characterized by poor or non-existent sourcing. I do not believe that requiring a single source is too much to expect if we are to credibly call this an encyclopedia. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:12, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

I feel like what's being proposed isn't quite as radical as how it's going to be taken. We already have this in WP:V:
"Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source.
If you apply that to an unsourced article, you remove all of the text in the article, which "should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source". So no, there's no deadline, but that content can be removed at any time (a rolling deadline?). This proposal seems like it's reinforcing this sentence while adding procedural checks to it. Simply removing whole articles is a little more drastic than the vast majority of editors would actually put into practice, but what's preventing doing this without the proposed deletion-style timeframe? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:40, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

In the passage you quoted above, are you interpreting "lacking a reliable source" as "lacking a citation of a reliable source"? If so, I think you're interpreting it incorrectly. One can have a perfectly good reliable source that isn't cited, and no citation is required until the content is challenged. We could debate the merits of that, but it's the reality of today's WP:V. At least that's how I've always read it and it seems consistent with my experience.
So, you could challenge all of any new article that lacks citations, thereby requiring said citations, but that would be more than a little POINTy in my opinion. And this proposal would effectively make the challenge automatic and implicit, which I doubt is the intent of the existing policy as to that challenge. I believe the policy expects one to actually look for a source before challenging, although that's often not done in practice. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:09, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I think the core of the disagreement is "but that would be more than a little POINTy in my opinion. And this proposal would effectively make the challenge automatic and implicit" - I don't see that as pointy in the least. If you only proposed deletion those articles created by an editor you don't like, or if you only try to delete topics related to a particular religion or political party or something else along those lines, then sure, pointy. But otherwise, it's about a the degree to which you would like to see WP:V applied. And I can appreciate both positions, including the one that sees the unsourced status of at least some articles as problematic. This proposal does not, so far as I see it, make anything "automatic and implicit". We're not talking about a bot doing this. Someone would still have to see the article and say "hmm this really should have a source" and then propose deletion. I can understand the concern that some editors will use this to tag every unsourced article as soon as thy're created, but I think there are a whole lot of particulars that could be worked out to place some checks on this process before it's implemented (of course, obviously, it's not going anywhere anyway). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:38, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I was less than 100% certain that POINTy was the best adjective there. I probably could have omitted that, in hindsight. As for "automatic and implicit", maybe I was misled by the word Requiring in the heading and the word must in the first sentence, despite the word may in the second sentence. Confusing much? But this clarification doesn't change my !vote, as I haven't made one. As I've commented elsewhere, I'd support a software "warning" requiring an additional click to save, if that were seriously on the table. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:04, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Don't read policy lines out of context. As the whole of WP:V makes clear, it's talking about removing unsourced content when there is a good faith challenge regarding its verifiability. Removing content for no other reason than it doesn't have sources in the article at present is not acceptable. This is the only reading of WP:V that is consistent with its full text, its history and consensus-supported practice, and editing and deletion policy at WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD. postdlf (talk) 23:46, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Don't know whether anonymous editors are allowed to comment here and I don't have time to work it out so you can delete this if you like. I merely want to comment that this is a brilliant idea that should have been implemented years and years ago. The vast majority of Wikipedia articles fail to meet basic standards and this would be a helpful step in at least making new ones comply with a core policy. 46.37.55.80 (talk) 04:41, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. There is no restriction on unregistered users (IPs) participating in discussions regarding policy and guidelines. If you are so inclined you can register your support (or opposition if you change your mind) in the appropriate section above. All of which said there are advantages to signing up for your own account and I would gently encourage you to think about it. Thanks again for your input. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:11, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Said advantages outlined at Wikipedia:Why create an account?. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:41, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

A suggestion, requiring software work: When an editor first hits "Save" for a new and unsourced article (including the creation of an article by over-writing a redirect), they should be offered help in providing at least one reference. A dialogue on the lines of "Everything in Wikipedia must be sourced to Reliable Independent sources. Please tell us where you found the information you have provided in this article. Was it (a) a website (b) a book (c) a newspaper or magazine? If you cannot provide sources for your article, click "here" if you expect to find sources within the next x days (after which it will be deleted if no sources are added), or "here" to cancel the article." Then create clear friendly dialogues to ask for the fields appropriate to websites, books, journals. Ask whether this source covers the whole of the article or only one section, in which case guide the ref to the right section. Something like this would avoid the WP:BITEy aspect, while making it quite clear to novice editors that sources are not optional. Unsourced articles could stay online for "x" days, like BLP PROD. Well, it might work. And would ensure that no totally unsourced new articles stayed in the encyclopedia. Though of course there's no automatic check that the given reference actually does support any statement in the article. PamD 12:50, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Or that the given reference actually exists. The main end result of all that work could easily be a lot of cite webs for www.x.com/x.html. I think at some point we have to decide between quantity and quality because we can't have both. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:46, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

• I can understand not wanting to drive away new editors with difficult hurdles for editing. But I know some people will take this and run with the whole "articles don't need sources" propaganda that's been making n unfortunate comeback of late. Reyk _YO! 08:49, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, notability isn't determined by whether you have already cited sources. But articles do benefit from them, and almost all articles past the simple stub stage will contain at least one sentence that is required by policy to have an inline citation (see list at WP:MINREF). WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:53, 31 July 2016 (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.

CSD clarification on OTRS received but not confirmed images

Please see WT:CSD#Proper CSD tag for images that are OTRS received but not confirmed. for a RfC on how to handle images that have been marked at {{OTRS received}} but not confirmed for longer then 30 days. --Majora (talk) 18:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Requirement of references

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

---

I propose that all articles created after August 31, 2016 must require at least one reference, or be deleted. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and there is no way of knowing if unreferenced articles are factual, or if they are hoaxes. If Wikipedia is based upon neutrality, and verifiability, then why are citations not enforced? Not mandatory? Unreferenced articles are tagged with an "unreferenced" tag; but nothing is actually done to ensure that articles have references. Requiring that all articles have at least one reference will greatly reduce false articles, and strengthen Wikipedia's record for accuracy and verifiability, thus improving the quality of Wikipedia. Ethanlu121 (talk) 01:06, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• A proposal for basically the same thing was closed as rejected 2 days go, and hasn't even been automatically archived yet from this very page... Monty₈₄₅ 01:52, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

It was 29 to 11 against so I don't see what would have changed in the last few days to suddenly make it suceede.--76.69.214.83 (talk) 07:25, 8 August 2016 (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.

Permalink to prior discussion and close:[34] ―Mandruss ☎ 18:42, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Bolding of "title" text in redirected sections of articles

TLDR version: When is it okay to have bolded "title" text in a subsection of an article that is the target of a redirect? And how should that be conveyed in our style guides?

I would like to clarify a bit of policy that has surprised me and confused a few other people. Per BOLDTITLE we often (though not always) include a bolded term in the lead of a article to match the article's title. Sometimes we also bold alternate names. So for example: "Jerome Hanover (May 1, 1840 - June 12, 1888) was an actor better known by his stage name Jonathan Waters." That's perfectly fine, as far I am concerned.

The case I want to address is when a redirect target occurs not in the lead, but rather far down in the body of the article. For example, in 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers there is currently a mini-biography for the perpetrator Micah Xavier Johnson, with the redirect going to 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers#Perpetrator. Even though the redirect target is a section far from the lead, his name has been bolded. (Other recent examples of pages using this style include this and that). Such bolding in a section is not mentioned at BOLDTITLE, which deals only with the lead. However, it is claimed that this bolding is a valid exercise of R#PLA, which reads in relevant part:

“ Normally, we try to make sure that all "inbound redirects" other than misspellings or other obvious close variants of the article title are mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article or section to which the redirect goes. It will often be appropriate to bold the redirected term. For example:

• James Tiptree, Jr. (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was the pen name of American science fiction author Alice Bradley Sheldon ...
  • James Tiptree, Jr., redirect from Alice Sheldon

”

Because the possibility of bolding a redirect target in a subsection of an article is only briefly alluded to, and not stated very explicitly, it has led to confusion about whether this approach is in fact encouraged. Due to this confusion and in fact some edit warring, I would like to clarify this situation. The way I see it, there are basically two options, either:

1. The bolding of redirect targets in article subsections is generally allowed and encouraged, in which case the text of R#PLA should be made more explicit and give examples of this usage. OR
2. The bolding of redirect targets in article subsections is not generally allowed and should be discouraged, in which case the text of R#PLA should be clarified to say that such extra bolding only applies to the lead.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan adding bolded title text in article sections (especially if it is placed in the middle of a paragraph), but ultimately I don't think it is a big deal either way. Mostly I would just like to see the style guide clarified so that it is clearer what the recommended practice actually is.

Other thoughts, opinions, options? Dragons flight (talk) 10:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

• Bolding the redirect title in an article section lets readers see immediately that they are in the right place if they arrived there through the redirect. This benefit makes me lean towards #1 (encouraging bolding), but this is less important if the section title matches the redirect title. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Personally, i think bolding away from the lead is disruptive (in that it disrupts the smooth flow of the eye in reading, nothing to do with WP:DE), and should be specifically discouraged as not helpful to the reader. Happy days, Lindsay^Hello 12:37, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Lindsay, apart from 'subject name/s' in lead, bolding is just unnec and distracting. Pincrete (talk) 13:47, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

• I agree that boldface type should not be used except in the opening of the lead. to facilitate a redirect, italicized emphasis is sufficient along with perhaps an {{anchor}} to further highlight the target. Best.--John Cline (talk) 14:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

That (italics) seems a completely new idea, bound to confuse everybody. Johnbod (talk) 14:56, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

The html tags for emphasis are <em> </em>. By them, all enclosed text is rendered in italicized form. There is nothing new about using italics for emphasis. This truth bears out in our own Manual of Style (MOS:EMPHASIS), and with other purveyors of writing style like CMOS, AMA, and APA as well. Best.--John Cline (talk) 07:49, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

• I like it A person's section is much like a person's article, just smaller. Same basic style should apply (vital dates in parentheses, too). InedibleHulk (talk) 17:30, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
• Boldface type should not be used except in the opening of the lead. For example, Footown#Education may contain a list of the schools in Footown and each of those schools (e.g. North Footown Primary School) may have a redirect to Footown#Education, but we wouldn't want the list to all be in bold font. (P.S. Thanks to the OP for providing such a clear explanation of the issue). DexDor ^(talk) 21:52, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't like a list like that. If the section isn't primarily (or only) about the one topic with a proper noun, normal font works best. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:35, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with InedibleHulk. A person's section is pretty much a smaller biography article, made because the person in question is not notable enough to have an article of his/her own. Rules of biography articles like bolding of names should definitely apply to sections when necessary (but of course not when the section title is the person's name; that would be redundant). I can't imagine what else people would be looking for when they type the name of the redirect and not the name of the whole article. Parsley Man (talk) 23:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
• Perhaps we should compromise by bolding alternate letters... :) --Guy Macon (talk)

  MY EYES!!! They burn!! --Majora (talk) 03:30, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

  Well isn't that a creative idea? :P Parsley Man (talk) 04:33, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

  I like it. Not in articles, just in general. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:43, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

  That is a great idea! Or maybe italics? Or both? ansh666 02:14, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

  Well isn't THAT a creative idea?! XP Parsley Man (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

• In many articles, such as names of newspapers, their former name is often not in the first or even second lead section, but is given soon on the page. The bolding of former and alternate titles of books, newspapers, and magazines are just one example of where bolding not only works, but is necessary, outside of the opening of the lead. One area where removing boldface may be a good idea occurs in the listings of characters in books or plays, which are often boldfaced and visually intrusive. On templates, it would be nice not to include descriptor boldfacing (see {{Ghosts}}), which seem distracting and confuse the bolding which occurs when the template is viewed on an article itself. That aside, I always remove boldfacing from names which don't correlate with the article's title, such as names of author's in an article about one of their books. Randy Kryn 3:43, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

It's quite handy in pro wrestler articles, to quickly find the part where Earthquake became Avalanche or Brutus Beefcake became ridiculous. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:40, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

• I also agree with Hulk for a section-biography in an event article. Other redirects, though, case-by-case but mostly probably not. ansh666 02:16, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1; there are many situations where this is appropriate and useful. But there should be some caution as to overuse, especially in listy sections, and where the redirected item is only mentioned in passing. Johnbod (talk) 14:56, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1—and for that, I also point to Business routes of Interstate 69 in Michigan, where each major article section is essentially a separate mini article. Each serves as the target of a redirect, so Interstate 69 Business (Coldwater, Michigan) points directly to the Coldwater section of the listicle. Rather than have separate short articles on each, and deal with notability questions, we've combined them together. Under the principle of least astonishment, we've bolded the titles in each section so that when a reader clicks a link and is pointed to the article subsection, that person knows he or she has reached the right place. Imzadi 1979 → 08:15, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1 definitely for the case of {{r from section}}. For less specific redirects, a significant redirect target should ideally be mentioned and bolded in the lead but I think it is acceptable to bold in the body until such time as someone gets around to improving the lead. If it is not a section redirect and the redirect topic is not worthy of mention in the lead, it probably should not be bolded anywhere. ~Kvng (talk) 17:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1 for the most part. Bolding can certainly be overdone, just like overlinking, but I find it a helpful visual cue for a reader abruptly dumped onto a page that is other than the link they clicked on. older ≠ wiser 18:00, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1 but where reasonably possible I try and avoid the problem by mentioning the subsidiary topic in the article's lead (where it may well have a good claim to be mentioned) and bold it there rather than in the body. Also, if the subsidiary topic is an {{anchor}} in a well-named section heading, that helps without seeming to upset people. Thincat (talk) 09:54, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
• Use best judgment on each redirect individually, but I prefer #1. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1. I think this is pretty much required to support WP:EGG; users following a link must be able to quickly and clearly understand "why am I here?". --A D Monroe III (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1 as it provides the best option for redirects to lists. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:54, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 13:24, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support 1, per pretty much all of the above. This is a case of "I don't understand, so I'm proposing a change", instead of just asking for an explanation. The MoS pages have their own talk pages for a reason.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:45, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Rename account

How can I rename my account? ---Happy Wrrld you (talk) 06:13, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

1. I changed your heading from "Excuse me...". 2. Wikipedia:Changing username. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:16, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

New articles by inexperienced users

A few years back it became Wikipedia's practice to allow new pages in the article space to be created only by users with a certain amount of experience. Has that policy changed? A new page titled Mean value problem was recently created, and its creation was the first-ever edit by the user who created it. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:05, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

As far as I know, the only restriction is you must be a registered user. Anon users cannot create pages. I've never heard of anything more restrictive than that. RudolfRed (talk) 01:39, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I was pretty sure I heard that at the time when they stopped letting anonymous users create new pages. I think it was about six or maybe ten years ago --- something like that. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

@Michael Hardy: Exactly, anonymous editors can't create new pages (with some exceptions, such as talk pages). Anyone else can, it doesn't matter whether it's your first edit to the encyclopedia or your seventy-thousandth. Omni Flames (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

And there's certainly no policy that is meant to prevent registered users from creating pages. We do suggest novice editors that using drafts or the AFC process might be helpful so their work isn't quickly deleted, but that is absolutely not a requirement for us. --MASEM (t) 02:51, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

@Omni Flames: : In that case I think they relaxed the policy some time between its initial enactment and now. Is this codified on some page somewhere? Michael Hardy (talk) 03:14, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

@Michael Hardy: No further restrictions where ever put in place beyond, "you must have an account". The WP:ACTRIAL RfC was denied by the WMF. The denial amounted to an office action so there was no recourse after that happened. --Majora (talk) 03:19, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

And let's be honest. Wikipedia article composition tends to be biased by the demographics of its users (male, young, interested in ICT, Anglo-Saxon/American, hobbyist) so we definitely should welcome new users (that might be outside that bracket) to create articles in orde to broaden our horizon (after all that's what encyclopedia are about). Arnoutf (talk) 16:14, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

What is ICT thanks? Dmcq (talk) 17:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Information and communications technology, very likely. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:01, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, sorry for not explaining the abbreviation. Arnoutf (talk) 19:08, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, yes I suppose I should have been able to figure that out, it is the only one at ICT which makes sense in the context. Dmcq (talk) 22:52, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

In 2009, I began writing my first article with my 16th edit. I have written 75 articles on a wide variety of topics since then, and expanded hundreds more. I did spend quite a bit of time studying our policies and guidelines before getting started, though. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 23:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I also started writing my first article soon after I started editing with high activity. But it's "extrapolation from anecdote" – for every experience like yours and mine, I'm pretty sure I've seem somewhere between dozens and hundreds of basically crap articles created by drive-by (i.e. editors who show up to create a single article, often years ago, and then disappear) and low-activity editors. Retaining new editors is one thing, but the quality of the encyclopedia itself must be a consideration. And something really needs to be done about the many, many low-quality articles created by many, many newbie editors. Allowing editors to create articles with their first edits is clearly a bad idea IMO. I think I'd like to see something like unrestricted article creation restricted to Extended confirmed editors, with pre-EC editors forced to either use AfC or needing an EC-editor "sponsor" before being able to create new articles. (And, yes – I realize such a proposal has no chance of passing. But I still think it's one of the needed solutions to the new article/NPP quandary...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:36, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Please note, IJBall, that I did not try to extrapolate from my personal experience, and I certainly agree that it is very common that new editors write articles that are either mediocre or unacceptable. That is why I am the most active editor at The Teahouse and have devoted a lot of time helping new editors write their first articles. I would support some sort of requirement for new editors either use AfC or meet some reasonable experience threshold. But the WMF disagrees. So, I will try to help the newbies instead. IJBall³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Cullen328:, uh, "IJBall328"? Omni Flames (talk) 06:51, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

It's an homage!! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:14, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

IJBall, Cullen328, THe restriction to allow only autoconfirmed users to create articles in mainspace was introduced in January 2006 following a December 2005 recommendation by Jimbo Wales. Thus proving that Wikipedia is organic and necessary changes can be made. Following meetings with Foundation staff that began in Esino and are continuing right now, chances are that finally, after one of en.Wiki's biggest RfCs ever with its massive consensus, was overthrown by the WMF in seconds without proper discussion or even Jimbo Wales being given an opportunity to comment, something is now back on the drawing board after a 4-year hiatus that will address both the issues surrounding NPP and AfC, and helping new users to craft their first articles within policies and guidelines. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Reference desk for music

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Reference desk § Reference desk for music

 – Not a policy matter. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:05, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice of discussions regarding updates to MOS:TV

This is just a notification to a series of discussions that are taking place regarding updates to MOS:TV, of which editors may have an interest. You can find more information about the initiative and the discussions, here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:32, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Notification of proposal to make Help:Hidden text a guideline

The RfC is at Help talk:Hidden text #RfC on status of this page. --RexxS (talk) 14:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Terminology and WP:Synthesis

An issue came up at the Slut-shaming talk page about how to apply the WP:Synthesis policy with regard to terminology. The matter concerns whether or not we should stick to sources that use the term slut-shaming when framing something as slut-shaming and if not doing so can be a WP:Synthesis violation. How do we judge what is on-topic or is not synthesis if sources don't use the term slut-shaming? Other opinions are really needed on this, partly because the RfC that is included could shape how the WP:Synthesis policy is applied in the future. The discussion is at Talk:Slut-shaming#Scope, with an RfC at Talk:Slut-shaming#RfC: Is it WP:Synthesis to use sources that do not identify the topic as slut-shaming to make claims about slut-shaming?. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:47, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Numbers 1 to 100

It has been proposed that numbers should be considered the primary topic for articles titled "1" to "100" instead of years. This would require numerous page moves and an amendment to the guidelines. Please discuss at Talk:1#RFC1-100. — JFG ^talk 08:32, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Naming conventions for Europeans

It appears to me the situation with European names and titles on Wikipedia is an inconsistent and confusing mess, despite WP:COMMONNAME. To demonstrate, I'll use the case of the éminence grise of the Kaiser's court Philipp Eulenberg. As Wikipedia states, German titles before 1918 came before the name, so his title and name would have then been rendered in Germany as: (a) Prinz Philipp zu Eulenberg. After the War, and the abolition of titles in Germany and Austria, German law allowed them to be incorporated into the person's name, so it would have become (b) Philipp, Prinz zu Eulenberg. However, sometimes on Wikipedia, titles AND titles-that-have-become-names are anglicised, leading to: (c) Philipp, Prince zu Eulenberg or (d) Philipp, Prince of Eulenberg. Further, sometimes european names are anglicised, even when they are quite obvious, leading to (e) Philip, Prince of Eulenberg (note dropped 'p'), or Mikel becoming Michael, Alexandre becoming Alexander, etc., despite the popular media generally rendering european names in their original spelling. This becomes even more problematic when you have an article with mentions and links to other individuals that are all treated differently! As this discussion here [35] on Claus von Stauffenberg concludes: "It appears there has been a consensus, possibly by silence, to allow an unofficial German naming convention." Which is, keep everything in German. I'm guessing there may be a similiar silent French one, etc. etc.

Is there a need for a simpler, clearer naming convention policy with regard to European names and titles? Should they all be in their original spelling — at least with regard to French and German, except where WP:COMMONNAME dictates? 16:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Engleham (talk • contribs)

Possibly. To answer that question, I'd first like to know the answer to some sub-questions.

1. What best serves the reader?
2. What best serves the editor?
3. How important is consistency in these things? Is it a hobgoblin? Or does a lack of consistency have material drawbacks -- makes us look amateurish, turns off some readers (and editors), make us look foolish to (the minority of) readers who are erudite, etc.?

The only one I'm somewhat confident of is #2: the editor is best served by giving her the freedom do what she thinks best, using the skill and wit that has been granted her, and not hobbling her with another imposed rule. However, the editor's comfort is not our primary focus -- the reader's comfort is. And I don't don't know what best serves the reader. Anyone?

As to #3, I am generally of the "consistency is often a hobgoblin; show me the material advantage of it to win me over". But that's just me. Other people are more orderly and just like consistency. I suspect that is what this discussion will come down to.

Making a stab at number 2, though... keep in mind that "Philipp, Prince of Eulenberg" tells the reader "OK, he was some kind of ruler or important guy of a some place" while "Philipp, Prinz zu Eulenberg" tells the reader nothing, and no more than "Philipp, Kwumkum fta Eulenberg" would, and if you think "Well any idiot can mind-translate that 'prinze' means 'prince' in this context", remember that your reader is likely an 11 year boy in Dacca. And if you are of the mind "Well, they can read the article and they'll find out soon enough what the guy's deal was", well, the point here is to give information as quickly and succinctly as reasonably possible and not force the reader to read down into the article when they don't have to. So I would tend to translate titles like Prinz and Ritter etc. Herostratus (talk) 19:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, as long as automatic scripts do not allow the Dutch surname "Van Rijn" to be automatically alphabatised under the R (where it should be according to Dutch conventions) I could not care less.

But no kidding. I would go with the original poster that we should probably not translate meaningless first names (unless the individual person is generally known under its anglicized name such as Frederick Barbarossa - even if an English version is available. And we don't - see Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands where Willem is not translated into William). I agree with Herostratus that honorific, whether they are still a relevant title or not, should be translated (Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (and not "der Nederlanden") is again an example).

So in brief - unless there is a clear historical record for the specific individual - Do not translate first-names or meaningless last names

But yes, translation of titles is relevant. Arnoutf (talk) 20:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I think names are never translated as to meaning. "Englehart" would not be translated to "Angelic Strength". I guess the question is "anglicization" -- should "Jakob Hörner" become "Jacob Hoerner". Most editors don't anglicize, I think. The question is: should it be forbidden, which would also mean that if you come across "Jacob Hoerner" you may -- indeed must -- change it to "Jakob Hörner"? I wouldn't make it hard rule. It should be if readers are being confused and a hard rule would help. Are they? (FWIW I sometimes do and sometimes don't anglecize names, depending on various things -- such as the name ("Ivan" is well known as a Russian name in the English-speaking world, some other names, not so much; etc.) Herostratus (talk) 00:23, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

" translation of titles is relevant." But given that aristocratic titles in German are now technically names, incorporated as part of a persons name, and no longer titles in their true sense, you ARE translating a name if you translate the title of a contemporary individual. Do you see the problem? Some editors on Wikipedia employ the titles in German but put an explanatory rollover note for the more obscure ones, like Ritter, Uradel, etc.Engleham (talk) 13:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I would determine whether a title is in fact a name based on the following heuristic:

(1) "The naming is gender independent" (e.g. Graf/Herzog/Prinz is used for both male and female offspring , Grafin/Herzogin/Prinzess is not used). Example in Dutch Beatrice de Graaf (female professor of history). If the name changes with gender, it is a title, not a proper name.

(2) "All children, not only the elder,ts gets the name", So if Prinz Eulenberg would have 2 sons, both would inherit the name including the Prinz part.

(3) "Inheritance of the name is as with all names". So if Prinz Eulenberg has 7 childrens, and all have the last name Prinz Eulenberg, their children can also inherit the last name "Prinz Eulenberg"

(4) "Plural of the title part is never used". If the title part is integral part of the name, the plural if needed should address the full name as integral whole (something like Prinz Eulenbergs) and not some isolated part Prinzes Eulenberg.

From some browsing, I would already conclude that the 1st heuristic is in practice mostly not met, so I would conclude the title are indeed titles, and not names proper.

PS Herostratus You are right I should have Anglicization instead of translation. Still I would be hesitant to do so, unless the individual is known under his/her anglicised name, or (as with Ivan) a different script (Latin instead of Cyrillic) is used. Arnoutf (talk) 13:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

• For each and every case, the first guiding principle should be "What do reliable English-language sources already do?" We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. Insofar as the preponderance of sources establishes a particular English-language name, we should go with that. It needn't be artificially consistent (a foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds), but it should be verifiable insofar as we agree with what reliable sources do. So, insofar as William III of the Netherlands is referred to in English language sources as William, we do so the same way. Insofar as Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands is referred to in English language sources as Willem, we do the same way as well; even though in the former case we're translating the name, and in the latter we are not; we're following the sources which is all we do. We don't invent knowledge, we report it. --Jayron32 14:07, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I fully agree, and Anglicisation in the case of William III is common, while it is not for Willem-Alexander. In both cases the title (der Nederlanden) is translated, as it is clearly a title. And that should indeed be the first guiding principle. In the case of the head of state of a well known country (like the Netherlands) it is obvious there are many relevant English language source.

However, there are many more obscure Prinzes, Grafs, Jonkheren and Barons and whatever more, around. For many of those local reliable sources may ensure that notability is met, but that does not necessarily mean that there is any relevant English language coverage about this person. I would use my heuristics for those cases. Arnoutf (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree that we can't make a rule here, as we have to follow the sources, which know of none of our rules. Some people's names are fully anglicized, some are partially anglicized in inconsistent ways, and some are left in the original language, which may still be inconsistent. So it goes. --A D Monroe III (talk) 21:11, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

This is all good. I especially like: For each and every case, the first guiding principle should be 'What do reliable English-language sources already do?'....We don't invent knowledge, we report it... It needn't be artificially consistent (a foolish consistency. Would the Naming policy pages (which are drafts) benefit from any of these succinct gems? Engleham (talk) 13:06, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Please stop foolishly misquoting Emerson. He was not at all speaking of typographic or stylistic consistency, but rather of refusal to change one's mind or position in the face of changing facts or new evidence. Emerson was a professional writer, who had no problem with stylistic consistency (something all professional writers are familiar with and depend on every day). About 99% of people who ever refer to "a foolish consistency" are getting it wrong.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:52, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Beauty Pageant contestants

I am not sure if anything about this has been posted here, and I am not sure if this is a good place to post it. However I do know that the 13 editors who have contributed to the discussion are just not plain enough. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beauty_Pageants#RFC_on_creation_of_consensus_standard John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:38, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Copyright violations

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is strongly opposed to the proposal. postdlf (talk) 15:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

---

Administrators delete pages that contain copyright violations under CSD criterion G12. Since they should never be restored, when such a deletion occurs, the revisions should be permanently removed entirely from the database, rather than being moved to the archive table. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:30, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• Support

I agree, purging it entirely would make everything run that much smoother. Iazyges (talk) 00:14, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

• What if someone makes a mistake? What if permission is later granted? How would we be able to review the conduct of an admin accused of improper deletion if the evidence is destroyed every time? There are perfectly sound reasons to retain deleted copyright violations, available for review by admins if necessary, and in practice, pretty much never looked at again unless there is a dispute. Monty₈₄₅ 00:30, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose While they are never meant to be restored, they are meant to be accessible by admins for reasons outlined by Monty845 above. Neither is there a legal problem with having copies of copyrighted material in the database, so long as they are not made public. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:17, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per Monty845. Plus there are times where I have to say where the original text came from (sometimes multiple sources) and times where I have to explain close paraphrasing to the editor, using examples from the deleted article. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose partly because of what Monty845 said, partly because I see G12 frequently applied to pages where not the whole content is unsalvageable copyvio, partly because sometimes G12 is used for copyright policy violations which is not the same thing as copyright violations as our copyright policies are much stricter than the law, partly because you are asking for a change in how MediaWiki handles deletions that goes counter to the MediaWiki design philosophy (the subpoint 2 under point 1) and will likely be rejected by developers. Also, I think the WMF can perform a database-side deletion for certain things if there is a need for it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:33, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Strongest possible oppose: Sorry, but MediaWiki is not designed to let users permanently delete revisions from the database. Not only for the "what if someone makes a mistake" or whatever reasons above, but that's just not how the software works....nor should it. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 06:48, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - if this was a legal problem, the Foundation would have made this clear and ensured that it would be reasonably easy to get it done. Short of this, there is no reason to do it - both in case the admin is accused (correctly or otherwise) of making a mistake, and in case an admin thinks (correctly or otherwise) that the user needs to be blocked. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:29, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Snow oppose: If this user repeatedly copying and pasting from a source, then a block is needed. KGirlTrucker81 ^{talk what I'm been doing} 14:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Not sure what "this user" meant in the opinion above (nobody in particular is cited here as an infringer AFAICT,) but "a user" and I agree completely. Plus adding that the evidence to establish a serial copyright infringer would be gone with a complete purge. LaughingVulcan 12:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Administrators delete pages that they believe or suspect contain copyright violations. It sometimes happens that a user has proper permission to post copyrighted material but neglects to give proper notice of permission. Then it looks like a copyright violation, so it's perfectly reasonable for an administrator to delete it. But it is not reasonable to say a copyright violation has been demonstrated to have occurred; one can only say that a reasonable suspicion necessitated the deletion. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:03, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
• What problem is this proposal supposed to fix? 86.17.222.157 (talk) 10:14, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose This would prevent the reversal of deletion errors where the Wikipedia text was not a violation, such as was the original, the other was a public domain source, the other had a compatible license, or was written by the same author... Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:20, 20 August 2016 (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.

Reduction of newspaper staff in the US

Hi, I recently saw a video by Last Week Tonight citing that there has been a reduction of newspaper staff and more of a biased (if the newspaper gets say a rich owner or a very highly motivated profit-oriented corporation) as newspaper circulation is being reduced. How will credible sources be used as sources if the potential for such sources may be in jeopardy in the future? --AllyUnion (talk) 20:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't argue that credibility will change all that much, other than perhaps a general perception change. What is happening is that news sources other than traditional print newspapers, like frankly Wikipedia, Wikinews, or more generally on-line news sources are being found that don't require the monthly subscriptions that newspapers traditionally have depended upon to pay for their publication. Some newspapers are adapting pretty well, while others are not. It is a hard economic reality that the sources of revenue are drying up for newspapers.

The main thing is that fewer stories are being written with fewer people being employed by those newspapers. What that means for Wikipedia is that it will be harder to justify notability and simply obtain information about more obscure topics. The major topics, stuff that generally isn't hurting for sources, will generally get ample coverage as long as somebody is doing the reporting. As long as the reporters are at least trying to obtain multiple sources of information themselves (as any decent journalist and frankly even Wikipedia article editor ought to do too) and putting some modicum of effort into writing the story, it should remain credible even if there is just one reporter somewhere actually writing article like in a traditional newspaper format and style.

As for bias.... you should assume that all sources are biased anyway. It is a mistake to have ever thought that any particular source is unbiased and completely neutral... including frankly Wikipedia for that matter as hard as people do try as they might to maintain a NPOV. That is also why you should be striving for multiple independently derived sources for anything you look at. --Robert Horning (talk)

It is a general problem, not just a US one. The economics of print journalism have been transformed by the internet. Some publications are folding or merging, some are doing less original journalism and relying more on syndicated material and yes there may be some who lower their quality standards to the point where we have to stop treating them as reliable sources. As a Tertiary source we shouldn't be damaged if major stories are only reported by twenty journalists instead of fifty. But if it gets to the point where our coverage of the events of 2020 is thinner than our coverage of the events of 2010 simply because there are fewer secondary sources, then I think we'd need to start flagging up a problem. ϢereSpielChequers 23:10, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be a worth wild endeavor for the Wikimedia Foundation to somehow help print journalism in someway... --AllyUnion (talk) 09:21, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Print journalism dug its own grave by financial and editorial shenanigans that drove subscribers away (e.g. raising subscription rates extortionately, having auto-re-subscription as the only option, having no purely online subscription option, becoming shills for vested interests), as much as by changes in technology. What Wikimedia might do is act as a clearing house that vets the net, certifying the more honest and reliable of the amateur sources. Dhtwiki (talk) 17:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

There actually is harm that I've seen myself that the failing print system has on WP, given the commitment of some to stick to RS, UNDUE, and other policies like glue.

There is little question that journalism today is far less objective/unbiased, and has adopted more opinionating reporting (read: the general reporting of news interspersed with opinion without marking that type of story as an op-ed) to make them competitive with clickbait and citizen journalists; it's not universal but it is affecting many more sources with cutbacks like these.

There should also be little question that by its nature, most mainstream journalism is politically left-leaning which doesn't automatically bias them but it is important to recognize this stance as opinionated reporting starts to gain more prevalence. Its also the case that known right-leaning works are not shy about opinionated reporting and thus generally are often not considered RSes for factual content due to exaggerations in reporting.

So what is happening is that the RSes that are left over, the left-leaning ones, start adopting undeclared opinionated reporting that slant the approach to stories to that side of the political spectrum and often start to craft stances and narratives that appeal to their viewers and not to journalistic integrity. (This is the situation that the Trump campaign have identified, for example, but this is not the only area where this happens) Normally, on WP, we'd theoretically counter that with inclusion of counterpoints from the right-leaning media. What happens in reality is that because those right-leaning sources are considered non-RSes, editors frequently dismiss their claims as fringe or minor and not appropriate to include among the "factual" information presented by left-leaning sources, even if it patently obvious that these left-leaning sources are using an opinionated reporting or even crafting a narrative. Because we have long treated many of these sources as reliable, it is very hard to convince editors to possibly take a source as opinionated even if it reads clearly as opinion, unless there's an "editorial" statement above a printed article.

Or more tersely, editors refuse to consider a 60,000ft view of a topic, and instead want to consider the "ivory tower" of established RSes even though we know that ivory tower can no longer be considered a truly unbiased source. This is not to say that we have to re-evaluate what are RSes, but recognize that NPOV is designed to consider the effects of opinionated reporting, such as WP:YESPOV to report statements as claims rather than fact if they appear controversial, or that WP:FRINGE is not meant to eliminate entire sides of a right-leaning issue just because no left-leaning RSes have opted to report on the other side despite many mainstream right-leaning sources (that are otherwise not RSes) offering their opinions on the matter. There are of course overriding issues like BLP that come into play first and foremost, as well as leaning too heavily on RECENTISM for ongoing controversies (most of our articles on controversies would be better off to be put on a 1-2 year long hold but this is not going to happen soon). We otherwise do have the right policies in play as long as all editors recognize that with its decline, print journalism is no longer the bastion of unbiased reporting it used to be taken as decades ago, and as a tertiary summary source, we can and should use consensus-based decisions to keep a neutral POV. --MASEM (t) 18:05, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

No source is ever (or has ever been) 'truly' unbiased, but that doesn't mean that there are not reliable sources. The idea that there has been a fundamental change, wherein we now "know that the ivory tower can no longer be considered a truly unbiased source" is absurd. Your entire post is an exercise in WP:OR to the extreme. Wikipedia is not a host for original content, for marginalised viewpoints, or whatever. It is a reference work based on mainstream reliable references. We report what RS say, and collate it. We are not a project that exists to right great wrongs in the media establishment. We already have methods to deal with opinion pieces that appear in RS outlets, notably WP:NEWSORG. Wikipedia has no place in what editors above have portrayed as a battle between "print media" and various other "new media". RGloucester — ☎ 14:38, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

You're self-demonstrating the issue, as by insisting that we only report was RSes say and can't include marginalized viewpoints, but if the press has opted to marginalize viewpoints (as Trump and the GOP have claimed about the Trump campaign, as one example), there's no way to demonstrate that if we're stuck to RSes, and its a self-propagating closed loop. My point is that we should be able to consider the nature of a controversy from a 60,000 ft view, keeping a minds eye that factual information must still be sourced to RSes, but points of view do not require that same nature of scrutiny (though still need to be better than Random Joe's Blog). We may not be able to fully describe what we can see at the 60,000 ft, but we can do a lot better than with our heads stuck in a set of sources that we know are getting less objective for a number of reasons. And no, this is not about righting great wrongs, this is staying neutral. Recognizing that there's significant viewpoints being left off the table because our block of go-to RSes have failed to recognize them and/or reported on them in a contradictory manner is not righting anything, but simply making sure that we are staying neutral and not adopting the press's stance on a topic. Remember, the point here is that opinionated journalism - where opinions inserted but not explicitly declared - is a known fact, and NEWSORG does not tell us how this should be handled; that's why YESPOV is important, to put contested statements as assertions, and not facts. But this all requires us as editors to know what the big picture is and what is the slice of that big picture that we can neutral and comprehensively summarize from both strong RSes for fact, and other sources for statements of opinion. --MASEM (t) 15:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the purpose of Wikipedia is. We, as editors of Wikipedia, have no credentials. Certainly, we have no credentials to determine when the amorphous body you call 'the press' has 'marginalised a viewpoint'. I strongly contest the idea that there is a 'set of sources' that 'we know are getting less objective for a number of reasons'. Who is 'we'? I do not know this. You are taking your own opinion on the nature of the so-called 'media', and letting it colour how you think Wikipedia should disseminate information. Wikipedia is not meant to compete with 'the press'. It is not meant to showcase points of view that mainstream reliable sources do not carry. It simply a catalogue of information from reliable sources, collated by volunteers. It is not a source of original research, nor is it a creator of 'new information', nor is it a collection of all available information. WP:NPOV does not mean to present every view of a story as if each were equal, nor does it mean to present every view at all. It means giving each view WP:DUE weight, on the basis of RS. If a view does not appear in the so-called 'set of sources' you mention above, it would be WP:UNDUE to include that view in the encylopaedia. I think you need to take a hard look at your reasons for being here. If your goal is counter a press that has 'opted to marginalise viewpoints', then you might be better suited to a different sort of project. RGloucester — ☎ 17:25, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Actually we do have some type of credentials, under the nature of wisdom of the masses (that's the whole point of a wiki) - it's why consensus is so important. We use original research every day in constructing articles. For example, our approach to determining what is or isn't a reliable source is something that came from editors, not from any publication. It is influenced by what is used in other published works, but it is completely novel to anything else. The near entirety of our articles are structured in a novel ways that are not present in other works, requiring us to piece together summaries. Consensus is what guides us to know that we're "right" on these approaches, and that's our authority as tertiary editors. To that end, its necessary to point out that neither UNDUE nor FRINGE restrict viewpoints to only mainstream media; it requires a careful use of reliable sources. And here's another sticking point in terms of our sourcing is that many right-leaning works, notable Breitbart, are rejected as reliable sources for fact but not for opinion, and yet many many times opinions from the right-leaning sources are ignored because editors assume "not reliable for anything". It is very easy for editors that agree with a viewpoints presented by the ivory tower of left-leaning sources to stand behind WP policy and refute any changes, but our polices do actually expect us to consider the entire picture to know what to include and what not to include; unfortunately too many editors end up taking this ivory tower approach and refuse to allow any outside-looking considerations with exactly the type of arguments you give. It wouldn't be as bad if the press were perfectly objective (as in such cases, they would report on all major viewpoints), but as pointed out with declining employees and fighting for views from blogs and citizen journalists, that idea is long gone. --MASEM (t) 14:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

The press has never been any form of objective, nor has academia, nor has anything else. Humans are not objective beings. We each have a subjectivity, and we can never completely shake said subjectivity, no matter how hard we may try to do so. Said subjectivity will always in appear in whatever we do, whatever we write, &c. That's why Wikipedia is not based on objectivity: because there isn't any complete objectivity that is easily accessible. Instead, it is based on verification in reliable sources. Wikipedia does not claim to present an objective account of the world's history, &c. Indeed, we know that it does not do this. It simply collates reliable sources into easily digestible chunks. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of all possible viewpoints, all possible information. It sticks to hard line based in WP:V and WP:RS: that's the basis of the encylopaedia. I'm perfectly aware that the account provided by RS will always be skewed and far from any form of a so-called 'objectivity', but RS is the only foundation on which we can build such a project. As soon as RS and V are removed from the equation, one simply becomes a web-hosting service for opinions and business webpages, which is what you seem to desire. If you seek so-called of 'totality of opinion', where nothing is true and nothing is false, where everyone may have an opinion, and where every opinion has equal validity, where everything under the sun can become an encylopaedia article, one again, I say that Wikipedia is not the project for you. RGloucester — ☎ 14:25, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

While objective journalism is not devoid of opinion, those works that follow it took great strides to make sure that editorial content was placed under "editorial" banners, and content that was meant to be objective would generally avoid subjective statement (though implicitly one or two would slip in). Objective journalism would also not simply stop with one side of an issue but try to seek all relevant opinions. Today, however, we have subjective content being put into articles without alerting the reader to that subjectivity, and we have print articles that only consider one side of the issue and/or make superlative assessments of other viewpoints without seeking their input. This all makes the content more compelling to attract viewers but is counter to the scholastic goals we have in considering neutrality.

And I will point out that we don't need to weaken RS policy for this. Taking the example of Breitbart, which has come up many many times at WP:RS/N, it falls into being a reliable source for its opinion only (as a recognized major right-leaning publication), and absolutely not as a reliable source for anything otherwise factual. Unfortunately, in controversial topics dealing with left-vs-right politics, where the opinions of the left are readily included because we accept left-leaning sources without fail as RSes for both fact and opinion, editors will refuse to allow opinions in from right-leaning sources because they consider these 100% unreliable (which in fact is not what consensus has determined, they're just not reliable for facts). If the sources were far less opinionated, we'd not have this issue because objective reporting would at least note and document some of the right-leaning views in discussing the overall situation.

Further, this is not about giving every view equal time or validity. It's simply recognizing that right now, sticking to the above treatment of RSes (sticking only to those that are considered RS for facts, ignoring those that are RSes for opinions) cuts the fabric of any controversy to favor a specific viewpoint due to the nature of opinionated journalism (a type of gerrymandering for news sources), whereas we should be better than if we know that there are significant voices in that controversy being left off the table. (The three points in FRINGE suggested by Wales still applies). --MASEM (t) 14:41, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Objectivity does not mean 'seeking all relevant opinions'. Objectivity means seeking one essential truth, i.e. the truth of an object as proper to the object itself, to the exclusion of all subjective viewpoints, i.e. views of an object by an external subject. In any case, Wikipedia is not a battleground for cultural wars. If your goal is to challenge 'opinionated sources', then you should try and change the sources or the system which produces those sources, which is not something you can do here. Wikipedia is not meant to contest the RS description of events, controversies, &c, as opinionated. That would be an activist project antithetical to the encylopaedia. RGloucester — ☎ 16:30, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Objectivity is generally easy for non-controversial topics, as you state. But when we are talking about a controversial topic, the only way to be objective is to consider all major aspects of a controversy (and by definition, that has to be at least 2 aspects). Opinionated reporting does not take that into account, but we must if we are purporting to be a neutral, objective work and that requires us to consider opinions and the like from these sides.

While we are not supposed to be a battleground for cultural wars, the problem is with the changing landscape of mainstream sources becoming more opinionates, and the insistence that these must only be the RSes that we use, we create a battleground because we are eliminating significant viewpoints that are marginalized out of the mainstream sources, and editors get upset about that and/or when the point is challenged, the established editors holding their ground engage in battleground behavior (it works both ways).

Clearly, there is a lot of balancing acts here. We can have the most objective reporting on a controversial topic and you'll still have an editor or two get worked up about the lack of a viewpoint they feel is omitted but can't produce anything but forum posts to support it; obviously we would never give in this case. Balance is achieved by consensus building, and that does require a much more open take on what a controversy is actually about, and not sticking our heads in the sand from considering anything else than what the RSes state. WP:FRINGE is all about making sure to use consensus-based decisions to make sure reasonably significant minority stances on a topic are adequately covered, not bury them.

And there is nothing we can do as editors to stop the shift of major sources going towards opinionated reporting, but we can work to make sure that systematic bias is not repeated in WP articles. But I will point out again: everything you are specifically stating is self-demonstrating the issue: trying to challenge this system is a catch-22 when discussing this with anyone that feels that the situation is fine. It's not fine, there's a reason we're losing editors and reputation, and that we seem to be getting more and more ANI/Arbcom actions over behavior, is partially because the insistence to stick to opinionated sources as fact and not consider any other possible options during consensus discussions leads to intractable positions and heated debates. Being more common sense and reasonable and open to other source use when there is a controversy that involves left/right politics and/or the media makes a lot of sense, would significant reduce tensions in various subject areas, and would help make articles more neutral and improve their permanence in the future. --MASEM (t) 01:11, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

You keep banging on about "the changing landscape of mainstream sources becoming more opinionated". There is no evidence that this is the case, and in any case, it wouldn't be for Wikipedia to do anything about it if it were. This is your opinion, a common opinion in the populist politics of any present, whether now or in the past or in the future, but it is not one that has any backing in reality. No one believes that RS present 'fact'. They merely present an account of events that society, and the structures that support that society, have deemed acceptable. Such accounts are inevitably reviewed and revised as time passes, as societal structures change, as people change. With such hindsight, one might hope for a better view on what has actually happened, but even that cannot be guaranteed. The idea that we should seek 'permanence' is strange, because knowledge is never permanent. The real solution to the problem you describe is to remove non-notable topics, such as the 'controversies' you mention, from the encylopaedia. RGloucester — ☎ 01:22, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The transitioning landscape of media is well reported [36], [37], [38], [39], etc., and should be readily obvious when one reads a unlabeled op-ed to find opinion among the facts. And the idea of permanence is that controversies can be notable, but we should be writing from a long-term view, and opinionated reporting gets in the way since those sources are trying to influence the controversy or perception of it, rather than stand back and stay objective. --MASEM (t) 01:39, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

To add, here's a piece from the NY Post by a former NY Times editor yesterday that explains the situation in a different light [40] namely that there used to be a separation of "news" and "editorial" desks at most papers, but that's been pruned out of most organizations (due to shrinking budgets) allowing editorial to mix with news. And when the media can be a major influencer of public thought as it is with elections, that severely undermines the concept that the media is generally unbias and neutral. It's why we have to be much more aware of the situation of any controversy beyond just what the RSes say to stay unbiased and neutral. --MASEM (t) 14:09, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I would see it as a good thing if Wikipedia was to start relying less on news reports, which are, everywhere outside Wikipedia, regarded as primary sources, and more on secondary sources such as books or articles that provide some interpretation of events. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 10:03, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

World wide policies?

Hello there,

I saw that M:Ignore all rules Appears on meta under "Global policies". Does this mean it applies only on every Wikimedia Project, or also on Wikipedias in all languages? Generally, Im curios are there wikipedia rules or guidelines, other then the official TOU, that apply in all languages? For example, Can a community decide to ignore IAR? What about NPOV or AGF?

Maybe you guys can help me find where can i read more about this? I searched everywhere but couldn't more then a vauge answer.

Thanks,

18:37, 14 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mateo (talk • contribs)

@Mateo: The closest thing we would have to something that would apply to all projects would be the WP:PILLARS. The pillars are part of the m:Founding principles and you can also see that the pillars is interwiki linked with a lot of projects indicative of wide ranging acceptance. There are a few exceptions outlined on the meta page but beyond that, they would be the most accepted. As for other policies, since each project is separate they would be the one to decide them. So WP:N varies widely between projects and it often happens that an article that is acceptable on one is not on another. --Majora (talk) 19:14, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I also thought the pillars would be considered core principles for all languages. But that's not an obligation. Plus, can't find them on m:Founding principles either, and interestingly enough it says that some projects don't even rely on NPOV. This makes the question of "Core Global Wikipedia Priniciples" even more relevant. Maybe there are none other then TOU?

Let's look at it from a different angle: do you know of any incident where the foundation confronted a community (in a different language or project), because of principal difference of opinion (miss-use of wiki of some sort)?

Mateo (talk) 19:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Mateo: The pillars are on the meta founding principles pages. They are just worded differently and in a different order, but they are there. As for the projects that are exceptions to the pillars they are that way for a reason. Commons is about media and WikiVoyage is about travel guides. Both of which have different goals than a written encyclopedia. As for the Foundation confronting a community, I know of them stepping in to stop WP:ACTRIAL. That was the RfC (supported by the community) that would have restricted page creation to (auto)confirmed accounts. So there have been instances where the Foundation has told a community, "no". However, they are very very rare and can result in a large backlash. See WP:SUPERPROTECT for an example of the backlash, although that situation didn't really have anything to do with the founding principles but instead a software implementation dispute. Generally, the Foundation stays out of community affairs though, preferring to let the volunteer editors make the decisions. --Majora (talk) 20:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Great examples you gave there, exactly what i was curious about. The remove of a Superprotect authorization may seem technical, but it derives from Wikipedia principles:

"Disagreements should be discussed openly... not by a tool controlled exclusively by the WMF, alien to the community processes and administrators."

The fact that the origin of the protection tool was German wikipedia, but that the removal was made categorical to all projects, allows me to understand that the foundation (supported, i assume, by a large sum of the general community) will act versus a community-tool that in her eyes jeopardizes core principles of wikipedia (in this case: open editing to all and ironically enough "community processes").

As hundreds of different communities make different use of Media-wiki set of authorizations, this sets a highly valuable precedent.

Do you know of any other similar example?

I would also like to open this discussion to any other user who is interested in Wiki-governance. Do you know where is the place to do that?

I sincerely appreciate your help,

Mateo (talk) 13:31, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

@Mateo: You misunderstood the superprotect issue. It was a tool put in place by the WMF to lock out local community administrators who attempted to disable a software implementation on their project. The backlash was enormous since it is long standing community belief that administrators can (and should be able to) edit every page and are trusted enough to act out the will of the community. Eventually, the WMF relented and allowed the German Wikipedia to disable the software but the superprotect code lasted in the MediaWiki software for quite some time afterwards (it was only recently removed).

Off the top of my head I cannot think of any WMF v community disputes but I know that there probably have been some. As for a place to discuss Wiki-governance it depends on what exactly you want to discuss. If it is about a specific policy then that specific policy talk page would be the place. If it is more general policy discussions then here or at WP:VPM would probably be alright. There really isn't a place designed for that since the point of the project is to go out and build the encyclopedia. Having philosophical discussions about the governance of the project is something that really only comes up when there is a specific problem to discuss. --Majora (talk) 23:04, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

(minor technical point) Superprotect was never a component of MediaWiki itself, merely how we had things configured here at WMF using the existing protection code. You can see this how I removed it that day. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 06:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@^demon: Forgive my nooness, but does that mean it was not an intentional feature of the software, but just a technical configuration that was named only after discovery? Mateo (talk) 12:47, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@Mateo: It was a specific technical configuration within WMF that was called superprotect from the outset (not after the fact). The point I was trying to make is that it wasn't a feature added to MediaWiki, it was making use of existing code--indeed the same code that runs normal everyday protection. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:01, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@^demon:, Got it. :) 23:25, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@Majora:, so in simple terms it was WMF vs. "Officials" in the German community that resulted in WMF kneeling down from the abillity to "Superprotect" an article, and not Grman WMF chapter vs. German community that resulted in Main WMF intervantion? This does change my understanding of the case.

But what about the example of WP:ACTRIAL? Wouldn't you say that it encounter a minor clash between an (English) community's wish to enlarge thier control over new pages, and the WMF protection on what they see as a cross-value in all projects, that is "anybody can write a new article"?

Mateo (talk) 12:41, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@Mateo: Oh absolutely. The actrial refusal is a great example of that. I regret a little bit bringing up the superprotect issue in this thread as that was a little bit of a tangent that was only somewhat related to the topic. As for still allowing anyone to write a new article that is why we have WP:AFC. Even IPs can still write new articles. They just have to go through the draft process and have it reviewed. --Majora (talk) 17:46, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@Majora:, Oh no don't regret it. It's highly useful aswell.

As for "Even IPs can still write new articles." I would ask why adding "still"? The "Anyone can edit" is a core principle of wikipedia, and as the example of WP:ACTRIAL show, it wont be changed any time soon. The foundation will keep it alive not only as a value, but also because it is essential for the main slogan of this whole project. The fact that IP's can edit and create new pages maybe symbolic, but i assume it helps to recruit resources for wikipedia. Mateo (talk) 23:25, 23 August 2016 (UTC)