Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

Is there any policy about whether images should be on the right rather than left that is related to accessibility? (I usually prefer images to right unless there is already something to the right because it seems to flow the text layout better.) Someone told me that avoiding left images helped reading programs for the visually impaired but I hadn't heard of anything like this. RJFJR (talk) 23:04, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Location is the guideline about image placement, which begins "Most images should be on the right side of the page, which is the default placement." but allows for exceptions to this general rule. It is silent on accessibility issues. The only comments at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Floating elements regarding image placement relate to vertical placement relative to sections. This suggests that there are no significant issues with left-aligned images related to accessibility, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If there are any issues then the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility are probably the most likely to know. Thryduulf (talk) 01:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RJFJR, I've seen a study that showed that alternating left/right image placement makes it harder to read the text. [1] Vexations (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the feedback. RJFJR (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings,

• Quick Summary points:
• Discussion is only expected from those who added sizable content in last 3 months.
  • Lack of support for collaborative environment for content addition and content adding editors (in spite of 20 years of existence of Wikipedia)
  • Lack of scope to reach out to readers of even popular articles for further expansion of the article and related articles and topics.
  • Wikipedia:Articles for improvement/Nominations is one centralized project, it clearly doesn't claim to focus on article expansion but talks of vague word 'improvement' and unsuccessfully competes Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests
  • Since hits/visits to talk pages (other than conflict resolution) are too less in general, so most article expansion purpose of most corresponding projects is in perennial inactive status
  • In most cases, only interested individuals has to share whole responsibility of development (expansion) alone even of articles having notability, scope for reaching out and finding expansionist collaborators gets systemically limited
  • Last but not least behavior and treatment with even genuine research based article expansion making editors is generally rude and systemically biased favoring curators more that the editors who add content.

• Detail statement

While in principle I do respect Wiki policy for everyone to comment, frankly enough, pl don't feel bad, practically,on this particular village pump,I would not be too happy to read from those who have not done any reasonable content addition in last three months. (I do value importance of curation tasks but their always nay saying to need of any introspection what so ever and unapologetic hegemonic policy controlling, without regular experiencing pain of researching encyclopedist's difficulties while adding content and seeking collaboration, an environment detrimental to Wikipedia's content growth goes into my head. Hence I do prefer opinions of those who did sizable content addition in previous 3 months, even if some of their opinions might not agree with me still I would respect them more)

There is nothing new that makes me upset on certain things rather I am used to repetition of old things here again and again still when one is pained it is said that one notes it down is better. Just a while ago I was visiting Wikipedia:Articles for improvement/Nominations. While visiting first time I had very high hopes so I had added the page to watch list so I browsed. A user Thomas Meng seem to have nominated an article of his creation and interest Yu Wensheng probably that does not pass criteria of Wikipedian Bibliolatry so some one opposes proposition not great but okay. Actually most times I see only one user supporting and opposing proposals that is user User:Sdkb, (the rest of the project almost seems to be bot operated). So in any case getting required three Yes votes to pass the project criteria is difficult for most proposals, irrespective of article popularity on count of hit ratio for example I nominated Valentine Day even User:Sdkb did not come even to oppose and for another article Superstition where he supported I am unlikely to get even 3 opposing votes either. The reason hit ratio of Wikipedia:Articles for improvement/Nominations page itself is too low. Information for page Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests Page views in the past 30 days 2,601; Number of page watchers 378; Number of page watchers who visited recent edits 83; Recent number of edits (within past 30 days) 287; Recent number of distinct authors 61; There when I post articles for copyedit experience is no doubt really good; besides huge number of copy editors out side of that project to provide lot of help no doubt I thank all copy editing Wikipedia:WikiFairy curators for their time to time wonderful support.

But now we will come at page information of Wikipedia:Articles for improvement/Nominations Page views in the past 30 days 338 (i.e. daily aprox 10 IMHO most of them will be couple of first time article nominators coming back to see if they would get any lottery of any vote un til they realize practically it is an least active project for most purposes find project page boring and and stop coming again.) What are the other stats? Number of page watchers 87; Number of page watchers who visited recent edits 19; Recent number of edits (within past 30 days) 58 (i.e. daily 2 !) Recent number of distinct authors 12 (i.e. 1 in 3 days rest of many edits likely to be of User:Sdkb and the bot).

It's not that User:Sdkb theirself would be unaware of difficult status of many of Wikipedia projects. In fact one of his recent edit dif summary to Help:Introduction to Wikipedia speaks for itself, their says removing WikiProject directory, since I don't think it's essential, and so many projects are inactive that they aren't a great entry point.... The fact I have experienced is other than literally handful of exceptions visitors hits to even most popular article talk pages is too minimal from where project pages are supposed to catch collaborative users and then how would one find enough active projects working on content expansion collaborations? Most people visit talk pages for unavoidable conflict resolution compulsions. There too many conflict ridden minds doubt even very sincere article expansion request for collaboration even though we know hardly any article content contributors visit talk pages or project talk pages. Again more over any one discusses about collaboration many Wikisplain and ask to go to talk pages and project pages where hardly any article expansion collaborations help comes up on it's own! (Most collaboration I have received is by requesting on individual user's talk pages, after deeply researching changes after investing huge time to see if at all any user with user account adding any content in area of interest. 99 % times what one comes across is small curation edits less than 100 bytes doing copy edit. (And still I am told Wikipedia does not have enough curators and controllers!) I never came across any one saying Wikipedia does not have enough researching content adding encyclopedist editors. There are whole range of rules to show contempt for them at every step. Yes I was speaking of Wikipedia:Articles for improvement/Nominations a reasonably experienced curator uses what language with Thomas Meng who seem to be looking for some article expansion help? 1011005992 "...It seems a little silly for you to create an article, as you created this one—an article with almost no edits in its history other than your own!... some curators use such language directly and many don't but retain same attitude of contempt towards who add content (most times even for quality content too experience can be same!) And what does experienced users at this forum do, if some one writes without citing examples they are pressured to cite example. Provide the example and case is closed ! There is no openness what so ever for any introspection towards systemic problems, and I can't see any thing of that sort in near future!'

So most times whole burden of the research and development of any article is on individual trying to develop the article. Then there is project called draft, but any reader visiting any related Wikipedia article has no way to understand some one might have opened a draft in areas of their interest! So while concept of draft offers great promise of collaboration there is no way a natural process can take place. Even notable topic drafts can get deleted by curators after six months, most drafts are placed with huge negative notices so if any content adding editor is invited there at even notable topic would feel discouraged to add any content fearing is it really worth investing there time?

Even though this is twentieth or so year of Wikipedia, unfortunately on count of introspection my experience from this so called policy forum has not been great, this time to I am not expecting any thing great. Most times I Write here for benefit of future academic researchers if any stumbles by mistake over to my messages here. This time I am trying a little more explicit experiment of only calling on users who have made some reasonable content addition to Wikipedia in past three months. I don't know how many commentators to this forum would qualify my criteria and how many will dare to face hegemony of those who are reluctant to any introspection what so ever.

And when people fail to reason but still want to contest many become grammar Nazi, So to them too pl I am not open to grammar Nazi comments either pl. Thanks.

Bookku (talk) 12:19, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reading over this, what I see are two main perceived problems:

1. There aren't enough content creation editors
2. People are only using talk pages for conflict resolution

Now, do you have any specific proposals for either of these? Without having some sort of mandate of content creation (word of advice: I doubt that pursuing that approach would get you very far), I doubt that there would be an effective way to increase the number of content creation editors. As for talk pages, you could attempt to encourage people to use them more; however, the reason that you find that they are mostly being used for dispute resolution is because editors are just adding the content themselves. 68.193.40.8 (talk) 13:25, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Bookku, would you mind adding a TL;DR summary, as your post is quite long? Regarding WP:Articles for Improvement, we could very much benefit from additional participants voting on nominations and working on the weekly selected article. The project specifically focuses on high-importance but low-quality articles, which is an effective combination for producing the greatest benefit to readers with the least amount of work. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:20, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sdkb, First no one seems to have bothered un til 2012 to have a project for article eapansion i.e. WP:Articles for Improvement, there after almost 9 years more than enough to introspect it's successes and failures, despite couple users include yourself and a bot, bot can not vote, assume you are not around and you have to count project effectively inactive.

What is the main function of an encyclopedia? content expansion or just focus on curation? Other than relative success of feature and good article collaborations so as to keep main page rolling helps retain some prestige of Wikipedia project, but if one sees on content addition on most fronts most articles nothing happens Why?

We could very much benefit from additional participants voting on nominations and working on the weekly selected article. I showed comparison with relatively active copy/edit project; Your good selves know project and it's limitations better than me; We haven't been successful in main space article expansion collaborations ? The editors who participate in articles might have some difficulties, may be you are aware of any of line research particularly among Wikipedia content adding users and may be solutions have been discussed or no one ever discussed these issues before me in past 20 years? Personally I feel environment and facilities for content adding users are not good enough; and other than one library project no one wants to focus on helping in finding out article expansion collaborators in notable articles, You accepted most projects are inactive and search members list their most are retired users, find users from the history their too most are either dynamic ips with whom one can't communicate with exception 1 or 2 rest are usually retired or blocked. Curator focused Wikipedia policy making doesn't understand practical difficulties of content adding users so a status quo culture favoring curators only sans reasonable considerations to Content adding editors persists here for ever. Bookku (talk) 17:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm also having trouble following this very long post, but if I understand correctly your central point is that article writing is often a lonely experience. This is true and I understand that it can be dispiriting. There are two things to remember though. First, when we say Wikipedia is a collaborative project, it doesn't mean you should expect a close cooperation with other editors on a single article. Collaboration here takes many forms, some unique to a wiki environment. It could be that you write an article and some months or years later somebody else expands it; that's collaboration. A "curator" could copyedit or add links or categories to it; that's collaboration. And because we follow WP:BRD, most collaboration, by design, happens without explicit communication between editors – unless there's a dispute. Second, everyone here edits what they want to, when they want to. This is why centralised initiatives like Wikipedia:Articles for improvement or WP:RA, though well-intentioned, often suffer from lack of interest. If you are editing a niche topic, it may be you're the only one. But we do have many highly active, collaborative content projects: WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Medicine, Women in Red, and WP:FAR to name a few. And there are dozens more smaller projects that tick along with a small core group of participation – in my area of interest things like WikiProject Archaeology and the Women's Classical Committee. Many WikiProjects are inactive because interests, and contributors, come and go, but that doesn't mean they all are, by any means.

On a side note, I would really encourage you to shake off this us vs. them, "content creator" vs. "curator" mindset. It's not accurate and it's not helpful. The vast majority of people active in behind-the-scenes areas like this also have substantial experience with article writing. Even if they don't, it's inappropriate (and futile) to try to restrict a discussion to a certain group of editors. – Joe (talk) 17:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• What I'm hearing in the opening remarks is something I have periodically felt: a volunteer spends time, effort (& sometimes money) in writing a series of articles, yet no one appears to notice. In this pandemic age with ubiquitous quarantines, one tends to feel lonely offline. Having a larger number of active WikiProjects would help by providing peer feedback & mutual support, yet most WikiProjects are moribund, & apparently destined to remain that way. A dispirited content editor might look at WP:PUMP (here), or WP:AN/I, or the Tea House, & decide the only people who get attention are those who set/enforce policy. (And I can attest hanging out at the first two does not lead to a healthy attitude towards Wikipedia: that's where you can see the worst side of this enterprise.)
  So what to do? Having 18 years of experience here, I'll say this--I don't know the answer. More in-person meetups might help, but those won't happen until the pandemic is over. Reviving some of the WikiProjects, or encouraging the ones still thriving might also help, but I suspect that won't happen since most Wikipedians are introverts (like me), & are uncomfortable or unskilled in promoting a cause. And no one should expect the Foundation to try to rescue us: that's something too few employees there have an interest in, & based on previous experience if they tried to help they'd make matters worse. In any case, it's far easier to point out what's broken than offer a way to fix it. -- llywrch (talk) 22:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Llywrch, I wasn't around during the era of active WikiProjects, but I suspect the core issue is just the number of active contributors. If we want projects to be revived, we need to do a better job recruiting and welcoming newcomers to build the size of the editor base. Slightly less important is policing the creation of overly narrow projects which draw away posts from the broader projects that might have a shot at actually building a community. We don't need WP:BIDEN when we already have an American politics task force at WP:WikiProject Politics. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Bookku What does this have to do with Wikipedia policy? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 20:30, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In article List of Georgetown University alumni (and another one I was looking at recently, and possibly others), immediately after the header ==References== there is some hatnote-style text: ''This section is long. You can click [[#External links|here]] to skip it.''. I can't see any guidance that permits such use (or indeed any that specifically prohibits it, if it were properly formatted) and it doesn't violate MOS:COLLAPSE, and it might actually be useful. However, templates like {{Skip to top and bottom}} and {{collapse}} aren't suitable, so do I just delete this instance and others like it? And if it's a useful feature, would anyone write a template? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:26, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is a hatnote, but of a somewhat nonstandard kind. Wikipedia:Hatnote talks about a hatnote (from a section or the top of a page) as pointing to a different page but here a hatnote from one section of an article points to another section of the same article. That puts this usage somewhere in the grey area. Personally I would not delete the hatnote, or at least I would not delete it on the general grounds of MOS non-compliance. If there is a specific objection, it can be discussed locally at the article's talk page and local consensus can be established there. Skipping the References section generally seems like a harmless and occasionally useful option if the References section is too long. The References section is generated automatically and (almost) nobody really comes to the article with the goal of reading the References section as such. But readers may want to look up external links, especially since they are not directly cited in the article. Nsk92 (talk) 11:17, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I have been bold, and removed it. It is unnecessary. Blueboar (talk) 13:43, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Makes sense. There really wasn’t much to skip to. –xeno^talk 13:47, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed with the removal, although more broadly, I do think the amount of space the reference section takes up in some articles is a problem. It makes them seem far longer than they are, which discourages reading. But the solution needs to come from interface changes to MediaWiki, not ad hoc hatnotes. Courtesy pinging Ergo Sum who appears to be the article's main author. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:05, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I think such hatnotes are unnecessary and unprofessional, and should thus be removed on sight. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I have never seen this before and agree that it is a terrible idea that can be reverted on sight. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:50, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's a dispute on Talk:Taylor Lorenz on whether the subject's date of birth can be included in her article. Regardless of the specifics, this case raises some interesting questions:

1. is it ok to "construct" a person's DOB from multiple reliable sources? (In Lorenz's case, her birthday was based a brief mention of her's in "today's birthdays" section on Politico, and her birthyear was inferred from a September 2020 Fortune article listing her age as 35.)
2. is it ok to make a judgement call between conflicting sources? (In Lorenz's case, another source gave her age as 31 in 2018, implying a year of birth of 1986/87, but Brandt Luke Zorn argued to rather trust Fortune)

Lorenz isn't the only case, just the most recent that caught my attention. For a similar case from 2017, see Talk:Vernon Jarrett (there, too, we needed to weigh between conflicting information from the Library of Congress, various obituaries, and the person's own headstone). Bottom line: the question is whether any of this violates WP:SYNTHESIS. The WP:SYNTHNOT essay doesn't include this case among its many exceptions, but maybe it should. --bender235 (talk) 18:24, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: after digging through the VPP archives, I saw that the second point had been briefly discussed in 2013. Jayron32 concluded that it's better to include the contradicting dates (and attribute them explicitly) than to leave the birthdate out entirely. --bender235 (talk) 15:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been working on such situations for years now, often including discussions at BLPN. Rebecca De Mornay (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Lee Grant (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and Lydia Cornell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) are examples. I'll take a look. --Hipal (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly identifying all the references on the talk page would help. It's also important to note any that address WP:DOB, or at least clearly stating WP:DOB status given the refs. --Hipal (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I view (1) as acceptable under the routine calculations exception to WP:OR. Regarding (2), if one source is clearly more acceptable than another, I'd say we're allowed to make a call, but if there's genuine confusion, it might be better to note the uncertainty. Keep in mind that, since many sources rely on Wikipedia (even if they shouldn't), getting a birth date wrong can result in citogenesis that makes it harder to sleuth out the truth down the road. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:15, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• A thought: since the subject is alive, why not ask her? Yes, she could lie about that fact (some have, see for example Ann Coulter & elsewhere in the Talk archives of that person), but for the most part I'd trust any person about such basic facts if there is no other source for them: date of birth, where they went to school, name of people in family (i.e. spouse, parents, children). If the person lies, well the misinformation is on that person, not us. And if they decline to share that information, then we go with the best information we have. Yes, there might be a problem down the road with relying on someone for such basic facts, but if it is confirmed by circumstantial evidence & stands up to common sense, it won't be harmfully wrong. -- llywrch (talk) 21:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Or better yet, if we don't have clear sourcing for a birthday, just forego it. With rare exceptions, it's trivia. So long as their is enough information in the article to put the subject in a generational context, the exact date of birth is trivia. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • That would work if we had the dates she attended college. I believe that is public information, which the institution would be happy to provide. -- llywrch (talk) 22:14, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Neither asking the person nor asking the institution satisfies our need for verifiability. Both are intrusive and unneeded research for a piece of information we do not need to have. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:26, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • So being intrusive is worse than getting a fact wrong? -- llywrch (talk) 23:33, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • Not including the birthday, which is the suggestion that your last two comments were in response to, is not getting the facts wrong. It's simply not including something. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:59, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Asking a person is not a good option. How would we source it, to make it verifiable? Also, this question wasn't about a situation win "no source exists", but a situation in which multiple reliable sources are in contradiction with each other, or each have only a "piece of the puzzle." --bender235 (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Get a reply by email, save a copy with headers at the Foundation, as we do now with copyright permissions on photos. I would think people would be willing to have facts about them in Wikipedia correct. (And if a given person does not want that fact in their Wikipedia biography, we could record that too.) The only reason we don't do something like that now is due to a misdirected emphasis on secondary sources. -- llywrch (talk) 23:33, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "[...] if a given person does not want that fact in their Wikipedia biography"? I remember a time when Wikipedia went to court arguing we don't give people editorial rights over their Wikipedia entries. --bender235 (talk) 00:36, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong agree here, that is a terrible and unworkable standard for public figures. —BLZ · talk 05:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• In some cases, original research to estimate a birth date might work. However, it is a bad idea for Wikipedia as I have seen many examples of complete guesses based on something like a Twitter post saying "Happy 21st!!!". Unsourced or poorly sourced birth dates should be removed. Johnuniq (talk) 23:19, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I am the main proponent of adding the birthdate based on the Fortune 40 Under 40 article naming Lorenz as a notable person under the age of 40. My reasoning is simple: of the three conflicting sources, this is the only source that is biographical, the only source in which the primary subject is Lorenz, and because "40 Under 40" is an age-based commendation it is the only one in which her age is a key fact. The other two sources are about completely unrelated subjects and provide Lorenz's name only in passing, because she (1) happened to be a witness to a random incident on a train and (2) happened to have participated in a trend and could offer her perspective and experience for a trendpiece. Neither of those two sources are reliable in and of themselves with respect to Lorenz's age, much less preferable for that fact. There is reason to trust the Fortune source as accurate, but no reason to trust either of the other two over Fortune here. I think it's important to not just ask the surface-level question "do these sources provide different information?" and leave it undecided, because we should also ask "is there a good reason to trust one source over another for this piece of information?" No one in the discussion has identified a reason why the anonymous CBS News article could be the only one that got it right, because no one seriously believes that; there is no shred of evidence to suggest that an anonymous breaking news reporter working on deadline to get out a story about a loud sound on a train actually researched Lorenz's age and found the correct answer, an answer that later eluded a Fortune reporter whose main task was determining her age. The age inconsistency among the sources is a footnote curio at best. The train article wouldn't even be worth citing otherwise, unless someone wants to work "Lorenz once heard a loud sound on a train" into her encyclopedic biography. —BLZ · talk 02:54, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If we had to choose just one reference, I'm not sure I'd pick the Fortune over the NYTimes. I've often wondered how much fact-checking Fortune does for their lists vs having each individual submit the information for the brief biographies that appear with the lists. Still, choosing one high-quality ref over another is rarely a good strategy.

  Here's the CBN News ref: CBS News staff (February 1, 2016). "Cries of "oh my God" heard on moving Amtrak train". CBS News. Retrieved March 6, 2021. --Hipal (talk) 03:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• OK, let's talk about the New York Times article: it's "These Companies Really, Really, Really Want to Freeze Your Eggs" (August 29, 2018). Is Taylor Lorenz the primary subject of this article? No; it's about trends in oocyte cryopreservation (in common parlance, "freezing one's eggs"). Lorenz is quoted for her perspective and experience as a woman who had frozen several of her eggs. I have no doubt that her perspective and experience are valid and even interesting, but she is not an expert in this field, just someone who can speak to their own anecdotal experience and serve as an example illustrating a (purported) trend among "ambitious, focused and hyper-organized millennials". Lorenz appears in two paragraphs total—the 27th and 28th paragraphs of a 40-paragraph article. The New York Times article has two subsequent editorial corrections: one error was a misattribution of an expert source, the other a misstatement of the location of a clinic described in the story. Both of those errors cut much closer to the heart of what the article is ostensibly about; it is not about Lorenz and it is not about her age.
  I want to emphasize that I am not, in any way, saying "Fortune is always and in all cases a categorically more reliable source than the New York Times and should be preferred in all instances whenever there is a discrepancy between the two sources". I'm just saying that for this fact, in this context, we have only one source where her age is a central fact. —BLZ · talk 06:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLPPRIVACY says "Wikipedia includes [...] dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public. If a subject complains about our inclusion of their date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution [...]". If we have only a few sources and they're inconsistent and none are for the whole birthdate, such that we're having to both judge one of the sources to be more reliable than another for the year and then combining that with a different source for the day (whether we consider it unacceptable WP:SYNTHing or acceptable WP:CALCing), it's clearly not "widely published by reliable sources". Like NatGertler suggests, just omit it pennding better sourcing. -sche (talk) 07:32, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of taking this on a tangent, WP:BLPPRIVACY is one of the most unhelpful policies that we have. I have led several attempts trying to delete or at least modify it, precisely because of this arcane terminology like "borderline notable" (where is that defined? Certainly not anywhere on WP:NBIO) or "widely published" (what is widely published on the internet? WP:PUBLISHED doesn't help), but as I said, this is beyond the topic of this present debate. --bender235 (talk) 17:15, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is, however, still part of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, which is a policy that is fundamental and must be followed. Despite insistence, BLP and its sub sections are still in effect until such a time as they are removed/repealed via a successful RfC. Based on the discussion you linked, the attempt was snow closed; as we know, snow closure meaning by definition that it had "a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted" . Taking a stab at what "widely published" would mean: it would, at minimum, mean "multiple" (reliable) sources stating the same thing. We currently don't have that according to the references available/discovered at this time. This discussion isn't a place to argue for/discuss the repeal — in full or in part — of a policy. That needs its own RfC ran separately. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:06, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@TheSandDoctor: WP:DOB was added in the early days of Wikipedia without any discussion, and it caused issues ever since. The trigger for the 2019 RfC was an issue with the Bryna Kra article, where a reliable source for her DOB clearly exists, but WP:DOB was misused to argue that it is up to Wikipedians to claim privacy on Kra's behalf without her asking for it. This absurd privacy theater was only made possible because of WP:DOB's ambiguous language (WP:RS isn't enough, it has to be "widely published", too; and "borderline WP:NBIO" are exempt anyways, because reasons) which I sought to remove in this 2019 RfC. Bottomline: DOB's are no different than any other biographical fact (name of high school, name of parents, year of graduation, etc.) and as such should be held to same standards as them (i.e., WP:RS). Nothing more and nothing less. Instead, WP:DOB lumps birthdates together with "phone numbers, addresses, account numbers" as if any of the latter even remotely had any encyclopedic relevance.

Ending this tangent and bringing this back to Taylor Lorenz, though: if you are arguing on the basis of WP:DOB, you essentially have to claim that Fortune magazine published her age without Lorenz's knowledge and consent. Because that's what the policy says: you have to infer that the subject objects to her DOB being "published" on Wikipedia (despite it being published elsewhere). And good luck trying to square the "we can infer a person's privacy concerns" with "we should not infer birthyear from age at date" argument. (I'm being sarcastic to demonstrate how absurd WP:DOB is). --bender235 (talk) 17:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am definitely on board with making sure the birth date is accurate and sourced to high quality RSes, as that does have aspects of privacy concerns. (eg I'm asked for my birthday all the time when I see medical professionals to confirm identity). But I would reasonably say that the birth year and/or the person's age or estimate thereof can have weaker sourcing requirements, as long as there's still some reliability involved. Outside of a few situations, how old someone is is far less a privacy issue and something most people can guess +/- 5 years from just looking at a person's picture, so not something you easily mask. --Masem (t) 15:01, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Trivia, if not reliably sourced, don't add it. Acousmana (talk) 16:53, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that WP:RS is the threshold for inclusion of any kind of information, but a date of birth is not trivia. Not more than a person's middle name, or which high school she attended. --bender235 (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, meant in the case of BLPs, and in particularly celebrity culture garbage, there is an obsession with the age, height, bodily dimensions etc. it all comes under trivia. Arguably there's a hint of ageism in this too. Acousmana (talk) 10:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I would say that if there's conflict between dates, neither one is obviously a clearly better source, and no source notes the conflict, we should forego it entirely. Choosing either one would be unacceptable for reasons that should be obvious; covering the disagreement is a problem in this case because we're essentially "creating" a conflict ourselves. That is, if no source notes the conflict, yet we put "sources differ" in the article, we're essentially introducing this concept that there's confusion or disagreement over the subject's birth date whole-cloth ourselves - in practice it is WP:OR / WP:SYNTH. A mild form of it, yes, but I'm not convinced it's a simple WP:CALC / WP:BLUE thing, because outright stating there's disagreement turns what could be a simple typo in one source into a bigger conflict. If it's something where we don't particularly have to weigh in immediately, and where there is ultimately one right answer, it's better to wait until we can state the correct answer with more confidence. --Aquillion (talk) 17:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Aquillion:: I mentioned at the top that this is not strictly about Taylor Lorenz, because there have been plenty of similar cases in the past. And so just to be clear, in case of conflicting sources, would you prefer to leave out the DOB entirely, or to handle it as in Vernon Jarrett, where a judgement call was made by Lwalt and myself (see Talk:Vernon Jarrett), and a footnote mentioning the conflicting sources was added to the article. In my opinion, this would be a valid solution in Lorenz's case, too. Do you agree? --bender235 (talk) 01:24, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Several participants in the discussion have requested (or bemoaned the lack of) a direct side-by-side comparison of the three sources at issue. I want to lay this out as plainly as possible:

I also want to concur with Aquillion, who was very astute to point out that the claim that Lorenz's age is somehow objectively "in dispute" is a ("mild", and perhaps not unacceptable) form of WP:SYNTH. The fact is, in the real world, Lorenz has a set birthdate. No actual reliable source points out this "dispute". (This December 2020 article in The Washington Free Beacon notes the discrepancy among sources, but I would not make the case that the Free Beacon is reliable generally and regardless the article is labeled in the site's "satire" (?) section—make of that what you will.)

Along those lines, something conspicuous is that no one is making the affirmative case that "the CBS story was most likely to be right based on [reasons], making the other two wrong" or "the New York Times story was most likely to be right based on [reasons], making the other two wrong". The two sides of this discussion are "the Fortune story was most likely to be right based on [reasons], making the other two wrong" or "the fact that generically reliable sources differ at all means that Lorenz's age is unknowable (and therefore she could in principle be older or younger than stated in any of the three sources)". In other words, the argument is: "if all three are 'reliable' yet differ, then none are reliable". This makes no sense, especially when no one is actually affirmatively vouching for context-specific reasons to prefer the CBS article or the NYT article, other than falling back on their big-picture reliability as institutions (which I do not dispute at all; CBS and NYT are perfectly fine sources in general). —BLZ · talk 07:47, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

why does it matter when this "American culture and technology reporter" was born? it's fluff. Acousmana (talk) 10:43, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the date of birth (of this person or any other) is fluff, then what isn't? Does it define her as a person, or her role in history, or her notability for Wikipedia? Probably not. But neither does her college degree, or which social media service she used in her 20s. Trying to look at all these biographical tidbits and ask "does this really matter?" is like looking at a map of the US and ask "now where is the economy?" It's the whole thing that's relevant. --bender235 (talk) 01:12, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see an age in the Fortune article myself, but assuming that it is like the other two and just gives an age as-of date, what that gets you is a range: (cf: {{Birth based on age as of date}}

• Age 30 on 2016-02-30: born 1985 or 1986
• Age 31 on 2018-08-29: born 1986 or 1987
• Age 35 on 2020-09-02: born 1984 or 1985

That still leaves a discrepancy, but is it possible that she had a birthday between being interviewed and one of these pieces being published? Very unlikely for the CBS source, given the nature of the story, but the other two it is plausible in the abstract. However, if the 31 October birthday is correct then it is unlikely as there would need to be almost a year between interview and publishing given the dates of the pieces - not impossible, but unlikely. It's not implausible that one was published a couple of months earlier than anticipated or it could simply be a typo - which adult is going to bother to correct an article saying you are one year younger than you actually are? However, how reliable is the 31 October date? Politico is described at WP:RSP as "reliable for American politics", but Ms Lorenz doesn't seem to be involved in politics. All in all, I'd say leave it out as there is no apparent way to arrive at an accurate figure without original research. If it really must be included, say "born circa. 1984-1987"). Thryduulf (talk) 13:00, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Thryduulf and Aquillion. The argument (link) to choose Fortune over the others because the publication is "by far [the] most credible" and because it gives the oldest age is literally based on personal opinion and original research, as is saying that she lied (itself a baseless aspersion and OR at this point) and then putting a version of that in the article. (The rest of the rationale for unilaterally restoring the age content is also problematic, as I broke down at Talk:Taylor Lorenz#Birthdate, which started this thread.) What Thryduulf pointed out about Politico in RSP and where it is reliable also raises a new concern for me that it is being used outside of its current determined purview.

I do, however, agree that the line located in Taylor Lorenz#Personal life about her being witness to a murder is WP:TRIVIA. However, the CBS source shouldn't be discounted when it comes to this discussion and the concerns raised related to age. We simply have no real way based on reliable sources to determine her age appropriately at this time. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, going into the future we also must keep citogenesis in mind. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 14:55, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: Politico has reported Taylor Lorenz's birthday as October 21 every year since 2016; here's 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2020 again. Politico reports on the inner goings-on of the media biz (especially in D.C., New York, and along the Northeast Corridor) and to suggest that that subject is somehow outside of the scope of their reliability, or even that the business of journalism is somehow completely detached from the topic of "politics", strikes me as absurd.

@TheSandDoctor: You returning to the point that I suggested Lorenz lied. I'll admit that may have been uncharitable of me, but as I've already said it's not central to my argument at all. I'm not out to prove Lorenz lied and I don't have to. The discrepancy in reporting could just as easily be explained as being a typo, or getting notes mixed up, and ultimately whatever happened it does not matter anyway. We don't actually know why the different ages were reported, they just were. I merely suggested a plausible explanation given that Lorenz is almost certainly the only person they would have asked for her age for those stories, which were—after all—not about Lorenz in any significant sense. Personally, I don't care whether or not Lorenz lied about her age and even if she did, honestly, good for her, I celebrate that. I really have no anti-Lorenz ax to grind here whatsoever.

But my question, again, is: why should we trust the CBS News story or the New York Times story over the Fortune story? Note carefully: this is not about the publications, as we all agree that those three publications are all reliable, but what about those three stories. Is there any indication that for that fact exist solely in the CBS or NYT stories, but not in the Fortune story? The answer seems to be no, so instead the argument becomes: "two normally reliable sources got this fact wrong in the margins while reporting on other matters, therefore the most recent and only actually biographical source must also be wrong on this fact." It makes no sense. —BLZ · talk 05:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An example of what we have done in a somewhat similar situation after a few RFC,s is seen at Joan Crawford.--Moxy- 05:10, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are some fundamental differences from the Crawford situation, most notably that in Crawford's case, we have third-party coverage of the uncertainty of the date; that uncertainty becomes part of the story. It's not just a matter of we Wikipuddlians finding conflicting sources. (Also, last I checked, Ms. Crawford remained outside the blanket of BLP, although so many weird things went on in the past year that I may have missed some news on that regard.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:54, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I would just like to add that Wikidata pretends to know the birthday of Taylor Lorenz, and just says "21 October 1984" with no indication of synthesis (d:Q89135464). But Wikidata is great at presenting conjecture as fact (my favourite is d:Q55072099). —Kusma (t·c) 16:23, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kusma: That was added by the original proponent of that date/year in this discussion, Brandt Luke Zorn. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  TheSandDoctor, and now I've removed it. Better not to present conjecture as fact. (No idea what to do about B. Traven, though, so I'll keep that as an example for Wikidata's lack of subtlety). —Kusma (t·c) 16:48, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kusma: I agree that conjecture as fact is problematic. What troubles me is that the disputed information has been re-added and my revert reverted citing this discussion as being dead and ignoring the direction that it appears to be going. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:51, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kusma: removing the information is not a valid solution. Wikidata has Qualifiers for a reason. --bender235 (talk) 16:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Bender235, that's nice. I wasn't aware of these. I still think removing potentially inaccurate data is better than keeping it in unqualified, but I don't mind giving the best available data as long as we state that there could be doubts about it. (Thus my addition of "likely" to the infobox on here). —Kusma (t·c) 17:00, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kusma: generally I'm in favor of keeping all the information (together with qualifiers on how they're contradicting each other) rather than none of the information. Both on Wikidata and here on Wikipedia. --bender235 (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Bender235, Wikidata now says "possibly". If you know a better qualifier, by all means change that. —Kusma (t·c) 17:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  (edit conflict) A major problem though, at least here on Wikipedia, is presenting one of them as fact to the reader by including it in the infobox and lede without qualifying it as being at most a guess (which Kusma has now partially addressed). When sources utterly conflict on info like this though and it isn't widely published, it probably shouldn't be prominently displayed, if included here at all. We need to get it right, not synthesize conflicting reports and decide one is clearly "right" unless RS also notes the issue and makes that determination. Personal opinion and original research don't belong in Wikipedia articles or as justification to include such material. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:50, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  DOB's (or any other biographical fact for that matter) aren't presented as fact when there's a prominent footnote (or other comment) explaining discrepancies. Case in point: Fred Trump's article mentions the fact that there are conflicting sources about his ancestry: some RS claimed it was German, others (including himself) claimed it was Swedish. By your logic this contradiction of RS implies we cannot include either, whereas the common practice on Wikipedia so far has been to include both (or all), and comment on the veracity etc. --bender235 (talk) 18:06, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Aye, but there is a range in that one. What is being advocated for here is a single date/year be included in the body/lede. That is what was restored. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 18:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that in recognition of community requests to provide adequate time for other important movement-wide conversations currently ongoing, the Board of Trustees has published Foundation:Resolution:Update to Universal Code of Conduct Timeline, extending the timeline for the current phase of the UCoC project ("outlining clear enforcement pathways") to December 2021.

A description of the project and updated timeline is available at Meta:Universal Code of Conduct. In a nutshell, the Wikimedia Foundation is consulting communities on the application of the Universal Code of Conduct.

The project is meant to be collaborative and involve community members at many levels including volunteers serving on the drafting committee. A call for applications will be posted soon. The Foundation is seeking input from as many communities as possible about how such a global policy might interface with their project. Later this month, specific details will be posted about the individual on-wiki consultations, which will start in April and run into May 2021.

For ease of reference to local policies, guidelines, and past practice, the project team would like to conduct a consultation locally on EnWiki (similar to a process used in 2019 by the Talk pages project). Parallel discussions will be occurring on other projects, including Meta.

As a facilitator for this process, please feel free to let me know if you have any thoughts. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a guideline regarding use of the magic word __NONEWSECTIONLINK__ on a talk page? I believe there is advice somewhere that prohibits interfering with the user interface, but what about a user talk page which includes this magic word? It seems obvious that removing the "newsection" link from a user talk page is not desirable, but searching the user talk namespace with insource:"NONEWSECTIONLINK" shows it is used (old example here). Johnuniq (talk) 06:38, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: Sounds acceptable at least in the User Talk namespace to me. WP:SMI talks about particularly disruptive or deceiving elements like fake notification banners. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:24, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing out WP:SMI is what I was partially remembering. So you think that it's ok for a user talk page such as this to be different from all other talk pages? After we tell newbies to click "new section" or "+", they then find a page where that is not possible? Johnuniq (talk) 23:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: yes, I think that's acceptable. There is plenty of stuff you can customize on your User (Talk) page that's not found on all other pages: the way the TOC is rendered, the particularities of archiving, some people even have stuff floating over the sidebar (such as over the Wikipedia logo). Newbies will also be invariably confused about signing their own posts, others signing for them, or a bot taking care of it, as it varies by situation. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:41, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion about COI-related article-space templates may warrant more attention than a typical TfD. XOR'easter (talk) 17:03, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion on the Manual of Style talk page about whether or not to capitalise internet when referring to the Internet; if you wish to participate, please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual of style#The capitalisation of "Internet" (referring to the global interconnected network generally used today). Thank you. (This message was also posted to the miscellaneous page of the village pump, but as the MoS is a guideline, I should probably have just posted it here in the first place.) DesertPipeline (talk) 08:15, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, what is the policy if an editor does not to respond to talk page notices at all, or engage in discussions when their edits are challenged? BD2412 T 01:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of a specific policy, but I believe it is generally deemed acceptable to block editors to get them to respond if they repeatedly ignore requests to engage in discussion and continue editing in a way that is lacking consensus. Number 57 01:18, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it is part of WP:CIR, which includes "the ability to communicate with other editors and abide by consensus". RudolfRed (talk) 01:48, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CIR, which is not policy. Primergrey (talk) 01:59, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Policy? Don't think so. There are essays/info pages - namely WP:COMMUNICATE and WP:RADAR - and editors are routinely blocked under their auspices. Don't think that's any more unusual than WP:NOTHERE blocks (which is also not a PAG). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:59, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I will add though, I think admins should consider the device an editor is editing from when making such judgements (amongst other factors). iOS and Android apps do not facilitate communication. Indeed, it's impossible to make an iOS app user aware of your communication. See: User:Suffusion of Yellow/Mobile communication bugs ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is a fairly serious concern. There really should be some way to send a message that an editor will see no matter what kind of device they are using. BD2412 T 02:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Convince the WMF. I've filed phab tasks and discussed onwiki to little avail. Some were even on community wishlist. Overall issues are summarised in: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#What_we've_got_here_is_failure_to_communicate_(some_mobile_editors_you_just_can't_reach) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:47, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's usually a reason for blocking noncommunicative editors/IPs. Even if they don't get the talk page messages, they'll get the block notice and be forced to explain themselves. In the meantime, it stops disruption. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:34, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That’s the issue. They don’t get the block notice. Well, they don’t get the block message (they just see “You are unable to edit”). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:40, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ProcrastinatingReader, and the response to that may well be, "Hmmm, I don't understand why I'm unable to edit, but let's see what happens if I just make a new account...Hey, great, that fixed it". It's a perfectly reasonable strategy, and one which I routinely employ on legions of crappy web sites.

And thus, a perfectly innocent user ends up getting blocked not just for whatever the first issue was, but also for socking. Dear WMF, mobile is a thing now. In big chunks of the world, it's the only thing. We really need to support mobile users as first-class wiki citizens.

Those of you who follow my ramblings know that I chafe badly when people dump on WMF. So you can take the aura of snark in my message above as an indication of how strongly I feel about this. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:59, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never thought of it that way, so thank you both for the perspective. My understanding is that blocked editors are presented with MediaWiki:Blockedtext, which includes the block log entry. For that reason I try to be as descriptive in the log as possible, and usually include a link to Wikipedia:Communication is required. It might not show up on mobile though, I've never looked actually. As for creating new accounts, I think I usually disable account creation if I'm doing a block for noncommunication, but I'll double check that if I ever run into the problem again. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:23, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is a very concerning point raised and something that I will have to keep in mind in the future. Under normal circumstances, failure to communicate (when coupled with disruptive behaviour) is, however, reason enough for a block under WP:DE and, depending on circumstance, WP:CIR. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is if they do not or (cannot) communicate per the above mobile problem and their editing causes issues, they should be blocked and then we should directly email the WMF dept's responsible telling them its their job to resolve it. Lack of communication is not an option. The actual policy responsible for requiring discussion is WP:Consensus and currently some mobile implementations do not fulfil that policy requirement. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:24, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Only in death: For them to know to do that though, they would need contact info in the block message of some sort. I also would worry about spam etc from non-mobile users trying to appeal their blocks to wmf. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:32, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Wikipedia policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Copying within Wikipedia: Should hyperlink attribution be allowed?

Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia#Hyperlink says:

"A statement in the edit summary such as copied content from page name; see that page's history for attribution will direct interested parties to the edit history of the source page, where they can trace exactly who added what content when. A disadvantage with this method is that the page history of the original article must subsequently be retained in order to maintain attribution."

Do we want to consider this to be proper attribution? -Guy Macon (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• No: as proponent. In my opinion, this creates a copyright land mine. Requiring that a page never be deleted because someone made a copy isn't reasonable. It would be too easy to miss the one edit summary that makes the page undeletable and delete it anyway, thus creating an inadvertent copyright violation. Making a page undeletable could be abused by someone who opposes deletion. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes. It's one of the three methods of attribution explicitly allowed in the Terms of Service. I think we can trust WMF Legal in their interpretation of the license. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No it isn't. That page says "a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages you are re-using" (along with two other ways to do it) A hyperlink to a page that no longer exists does not qualify. If you allow hyperlink attribution, you must make the page you hyperlink to undeletable. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:49, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm simply not convinced that this is a problem unless you get WMF Legal to say that it is. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:53, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes. As Finnusertop points out, including a link to the original source page is one of the three explicitly mentioned methods of attributions allowed under our legal policies. As ProcrastinatingReader mentions below, if you are legitimately concerned that the source page may be deleted at some point in the future, you could add {{Copied}} to the source page's talk page to inform deleting admins of the copyright issue. In the event that someone uses this strategy to game the system to make a page that should be deleted undeletable, the situation could be repaired by moving the page out of the mainspace, e.g. to a subpage of the destination article's talk page, and then updating the attribution accordingly. In practice, this seems to be an issue very rarely, and I would want to see evidence that this is an actual recurring problem before considering a change to our guidelines here, as well as a viable alternative solution beyond the "list of authors" idea. Mz7 (talk) 17:24, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A link to the a the original source page or a link to the missing page where the original source page used to be before it got deleted a year later? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:49, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    If the page were deleted, that would of course be problematic, but the situation would not be irreparable: we can simply undelete the page and move it to an obscure location, then add a new dummy edit with an edit summary that links to the new location of the page history. If we had to do this constantly, then perhaps I might support some kind of process reform, but as it stands, I doubt this scenario happens more than a couple of times every year. Mz7 (talk) 19:22, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    And just to add to this, I'm not suggesting this out of thin air. This repair process is documented at Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Fixing cut-and-paste moves#Parallel versions: This is sometimes done by moving the page history to a subpage of the talk page of the destination page. An example can be found at Talk:Compilation of Final Fantasy VII#Old page history. Mz7 (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes. This is already allowed, and recommended, in the copyright policy. The alternative – tracking down and listing authors – is often impractical. The biggest problem is not source pages getting deleted, but editors not providing attribution in any way when copying, and this is not going to get any better if we make the required process more burdensome.
  As for preserving histories - this is done not just for attribution, it's best practice anyway. I really don't see any issue with "undeletables". If the source page needs to be removed for whatever reason, then it's history should just be kept under a redirect, possibly at a different title. There's no benefit to deletion here. If under some exceptional circumstance the page does need to actually be deleted, then the deleting admin can extract the list of authors and mark it on the destination page; there's no need for this to be forced in all other cases. – Uanfala (talk) 22:50, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Well, I would be disappointed that deleting admins don't know what it means and what happens when they delete page history. I think, I was aware of what happens on deletion in wiping out history very early. Has not someone written instructions for admins about preserving history, when needed? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:44, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, obviously this should be allowed. Despite the policy page saying there are "three" methods, two of them are "hyperlink" based. The third method is listing every individual contributor. Listing every contributor in the edit summary is often impossible due to character limits, and is always inconvenient. So as I understand it, this will often make splits/merges impossible. There's already a template for talk pages when there is substantial edit-history relevant to content on other pages, so accidental deletion isn't really a concern. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:54, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes no good reason to change the status quo. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:40, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes per Mz7. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:35, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (attribution when copying within WP)

• Does this exclude the use of oldid/diff links? I understand the concern to the base bare article name, but using links w/ oldid/diff that contains the text that was copied should be fine? --Masem (t) 17:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would that make the original page undeletable? I am not sure if the diffs work after deletion. An edit summary like "Added 'I like cake!', originally posted by User:Masem" along with the diff would preserve attribution even if the diff no longer works. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• How else would we maintain attribution when merging articles or copying content? – Joe (talk) 17:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merging deletes the source without deleting the history, so we would have no undeletable article. For short sections of content, see my answer to Masem. If someone wants to copy a large page with many editors, preserving the history for attribution is an absolute requirement; failing to do so violates the CC BY-SA 3.0 License. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• This is the only feasible way to do attribution in many cases. For example: copying a template or another page into a sandbox. I'm not going to sit and dig through the page history and write down the name of everyone in the edit summary every time I create a sandbox. It's not really reasonable to expect when splitting or merging pages either. {{Copied}} exists to make sure the page doesn't get deleted. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:09, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Then you are saying that it is OK to make the page you copied from undeletable. Preserving the history for attribution is an absolute requirement; failing to do so violates the CC BY-SA 3.0 License. I don't like it either, but following copyright rules is not something that we abandon when it becomes inconvenient. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's well and good that you say this is an absolute requirement, but that is really a question for the Foundation's lawyers. If they feel it necessary, a list of editors who contributed to a deleted article could be provided for compliance, avoiding all the practical problems of the proposal. In practice, these pages are generally kept as redirects with revision history. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:57, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Could we have some background, please, like what exactly is the issue and where have the previous discussions on the topic been? Does the proposal aim to ban editors from linking, or to force them to always provide a list of authors? This can work if the number of contributors is small, but how do you trace all the contributors to a section of a large established article when splitting it out? Also, a list of contributors may be sufficient for copyright purposes, but having the actual history of that content is always preferable: it shows how the content has developed, it allows in principle to see who wrote what exactly (helpful, for example, if one of the contributors later turns out to have been partial to creating hoaxes), and it preserves a record, in the edit summaries, of justifications for parts of that content.
  And why would the original page need to be deleted? It can always be turned into a redirect (and also potentially moved to a different title), preserving the history, and if there's anything actually nefarious in that history, it can be revdeled. And as for inadvertent deletions, when are these actually likely to happen? The copying is normally indicated in a talk page template, or sometimes in the edit summary of the source page; even if it's not, then the source and the destination pages would almost always have some obvious connection, like one being a redirect to the other. – Uanfala (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re: "And why would the original page need to be deleted? It can always be turned into a redirect (and also potentially moved to a different title), preserving the history", that's not the problem. The problem is when you copy a chunk of a page to another page using a hyperlink for attribution and then years later the original article gets deleted at AfD. Bam. Instant copyright violation.

  The problem is real. Not allowing hyperlink attribution is one solution. Making an ever-increasing number of pages undeletable is another solution (but we would need some way to keep track of which articles can never be deleted). I would love to hear a solution that is better than the above two, but "Ignore the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License and purposely create copyright violations because it is convenient" is not an acceptable solution. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:41, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Not allowing hyperlink attribution is not a solution by itself; we still need a way to attribute the text. Should we be dumping the authors to a list and including it on, say, a subpage of the corresponding talk page? It would be helpful in that case for the software to provide additional support for this. isaacl (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Another possible software enhancement would be for it to support a "link to history" mechanism, so you could link a new article to the history of any ancestor articles. If an ancestor was deleted, then the software could provide a way to still extract the editor names. But something else still has to be done until any new feature work gets planned, scheduled, implemented, tested, and delivered (if it ever happens). isaacl (talk) 18:06, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Because Guy didn't answer, this is clearly related to the DRV topics discussed at WP:AN#Review of DRV supervotes by King of Hearts. Izno (talk) 18:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  You may think that it is "clearly related" but I wasn't aware of the above until just now. This has pretty much nothing to do with the general question I am asking, but see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Frobozz1/PA-design, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#I feel personally attacked for good faith edits - MfD my user page, Incident threats, BRD disruption - still learning, am I wrong? and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Parental Alienation if you really want to get into the weeds. --Guy Macon (talk)

  The relevant bit in the AN/DRV threads – as far as I can tell from all the layers of procedural wrangling – is to do with the Squid article, and the fact that an admin was presumably aware of the issue of attribution, but decided to delete the article anyway. As for the MFD case, as far as I can tell from a quick glimpse, what is at stake is the deletion of a target of a merge, and not its source, so attribution shouldn't really be an issue at this stage, should it? – Uanfala (talk) 19:53, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Thus my statement, "This has pretty much nothing to do with the general question I am asking". I original ignored your request for "context" because there is no context, just a general question about our policies. Then Izno answered for me and got the answer wrong. None of this has anything to do with the question I am asking in this RfC. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Does this not have legal implications? Is this not an office matter? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:57, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, for two reasons. First, Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia#Hyperlink is an English Wikipedia editing guideline controlled by Wikipedia editors. Second, you only have to contact legal when allowing something forbidden by legal or lifting a restriction mandated by legal. We are perfectly free to add restrictions. We could decide that nobody is allowed to use the letter "E" and legal would have no say in the matter. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    You must be a fan of Georges Perec. Mathglot (talk) 08:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A potential solution

• What it sounds like we need is a mechanism to handle the following situation:

1. Article X is created and expanded over time
2. Article Y takes a sufficient amount of article X to require attribution (eg not just a citation, but like a whole paragraph). Attribution is added by linking of some time
3. Sometime after this content is added to Y, article X is sent to AFD and determined to be deleted (not merged nor redirected, nor where it would make sense to history merge X into Y).

So that the deletion "breaks" the attribution that was on Y that pointed back to X that would have been there by X's page history, which would likely still be there to admins but not to regular users. We need to find a way that keeps the history of X available but without having the article of X there. Perhaps when we know that there has been some copying done (can it be possible to automate this check?) that we cannot delete articles but make a deleted target a redirect to some common special page that talks about the history being retained for proper attribution and how the user can go back to the redirect's history to explore that? --Masem (t) 18:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's essentially what I was brainstorming as a possible software enhancement, though I don't see how the check can be automated, so I think the editor creating page Y would have to explicitly link to the history leading up to a specific version of page X. Note this applies to all Wikipedia pages, not just articles. isaacl (talk) 18:19, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there's a few checks that can be made if the {{copied}} template is found on the talk page, or if the history edit summaries contain a diff or oldid (which is uncommon, so this could at least be a list that can be checked manually). But we're likely going to miss other ways that the current language currently allows for (the plain hyperlink w/o oldid or diff), so maybe there's almost a need in Wikimedia that if someone clicks on an oldid/diff of a page that is deleted, that they are taken to a special page to explain what they may be able to do from there; thre we can explain they can contact an admin to help - and if we have this redirect system in place, then the admin can restore+redirect to suit the purpose. I can't see any easy way to do a full Wiki-wide search this way, but we can set up processes to prevent the issue in the future and respond when the need from past deletions comes up. --Masem (t) 18:25, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's what I mean by needing an editor to explicitly link the history, whether it is through the {{copied}} template or a new user interface. To help reduce the window for race conditions, I think a new user interface would be better. isaacl (talk) 18:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am aware that this is not the first time this is brought up. Currently, about a third to half of my edits consist of undoing ill-advised, confused, well-meant but flawed, or purely vandalistic IP edits. A very large proportion of these problematic edits stem from users that have been blocked over and over again such as this one and this one. At the pages I edit, I would say that the vast majority of IP edits are pointless, incorrect, confused, or ill-intended. I know I am not alone in beginning to feel rather despondent at a process that requires an hour's worth of editing to block an IP that then pops up again elsewhere moments later. I am aware that the WP dream is to keep a steady flow of new editors by allowing IPs unfettered access, which I recognize as a worthwhile goal.

However, I do not feel that it is worth the trouble any longer. A large number of IP errors and vandalism sneak by and stick to pages for years and even decades. Most problematic, as far as I am concerned, is that it is largely impossible to communicate with dynamic IPs. Even if they check their talk page once, they will never check it again.

The benefits for new users include more anonymity (IP addresses give away a lot of information) and also lower the risk of being swept up in IP range blocks, themselves the result of letting editors hiding behind IPs blatantly ignore all WP policies. I believe that allowing any IP address five fresh edits per year (for example) should provide ample freedom to begin editing so that we can ensnare them with our charm and keep them around.

Key point: The role of Wikipedia has changed since the early days. It used to be about building an encyclopaedia; nowadays the balance has shifted to maintaining an encyclopaedia. Many articles that are "finished" no longer have as many editors watching them, allowing vandalism and misguided edits to occur with no oversight.

Anyhow, I do not have the time or energy to try to discover the actual proportion of useless or useful IP edits. I am also aware that WP is reluctant to reconsider this policy and I am not expecting this to be fixed today. But in the interest of perhaps finding out just how much of our work consists of undoing garbage, would it be possible to have some element of text one could add to edit summaries to keep track? IF this becomes widespread, Wikipedia could make an informed decision on this problem down the road.  Mr.choppers | ✎  21:46, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To your question: There's a reverted edit tag now. Presumably someone with the inclination could figure out what proportion of IP edits are reverted in entirety (either using undo/rollback, or manually). Possibly with the WMF's IP masking community sentiment on IPs will change. I have encountered lots of helpful IP editors, though. I think it's just that we tend to remember the bad ones, and I'm still not entirely sure those make up the majority. Possibly they would create an account if it were required, but who knows. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I very much agree with Mr.choppers. Allowing IPs to edit is a romantic idea that is about 15 years out of date. In reality, IPs are way more trouble than they are worth. Moreover, letting people edit as IPs discourages them from sticking around and becoming regular editors. Almost every website now requires registration in order to edit/comment, and people are completely used to it. Unlike other places, we don't require an e-mail address or the user's g-mail or facebook password. So I simply don't believe that a simple step such as requiring an account registration will really discourage well-meaning new users from editing. But it will cut down on vandalism. However, soon the issue will likely become a moot point. WMF is planning to introduce IP masking, globally, across all projects, see Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 2#IP Address Masking Confirmed As Mandatory. Not even admins will be able to see the full IP address. Range blocking will become impossible. There is little doubt that once IP masking is implemented, a proposal for some form of mandatory account registration (or something like semi-protection of the entire mainspace) will be made here on en-wiki, and I am sure it'll pass by a wide margin then. Nsk92 (talk) 23:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, with IP masking, blocking of open proxies will become impossible here on en-wiki, unless WMF will be willing to implement some kind of a centralized technical solution for globally blocking them somehow. Nsk92 (talk) 00:27, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some of that is more technical than I care to figure out, but it sounds good to me. Thanks.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:23, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree with Choppers' Key point:. It is becoming harder and harder to maintain quality as watchers fall away with time and rogue IPs become less scrutinized. IPs should be restricted to a few edits as suggested above. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:37, 22 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

• We know that most vandalism is from IP editors, however, the flipside of you saying that registration is so easy is that a huge amount would just move to single use accounts (a large chunk already is), so I'm a bit reticent to agree that there is a level of access effort that dissuades almost no GF edits at all, but does remove a significant chunk of vandalism. The IP masking project, depending on how onerous the poorly managed, in no-way a consultation, despite their initial comments, may well sound the death knell for IP-editing, but until it gets clarified, I am against moving further down the path just yet. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:49, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: Agreed; it's just not cricket. Actually, I don't know what it is at all, because they keep it very very vague and secretive indeed.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:04, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Wikipedia policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Can editors request community review of blocks of other editors, particularly problematic and/or out-of-policy ones? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal (block review)

In July 2019 a section titled "Appeals by third party" was boldly added to the Wikipedia:Appealing a block guideline stating that appeals may only be made by editors subject to a currently active block; other editors may only discuss the block with the blocking admin (but cannot request review). This text was removed a few times by different editors, but was restored by Sandstein who stated consensus is needed to remove or modify the text. Talk page discussions to remove/alter the text didn't reach a consensus on whether to retain the text.[2] This section is currently in conflict with WP:ADMINACCT and WP:Blocking policy, namely: If editors believe a block has been improperly issued, they can request a review of that block at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Some editors have tried to cite this section in WP:AN block reviews, as a rationale for why the review cannot happen. De facto, block reviews still occur with some regularity.

This RfC is started to get broad community consensus of this addition, with three presented options:

• Option 1: (text) Retain the current text: Appeals of blocks may be made only by the editor under a currently active block. Other editors may discuss the block with the blocking admin. The WP:Blocking policy should also be altered to this effect, to resolve the conflict.
• Option 2: (sample text) Blocks should generally only be appealed by the editor subject to the block. Additionally, other editors may request community review of blocks they believe are problematic or out-of-policy (per WP:ADMINACCT) after attempting to discuss their concerns with the blocking admin first.
• Option 3: Remove the section entirely.

Survey (block review)

• Option 3, second preference option 2: The text at Wikipedia:Blocking policy is just fine and this section unnecessary. In my opinion even option 2 does not accurately represent the status quo (I only tried adding it in an attempt to compromise with Sandstein). I find the position advanced by some admins to be concerning, as illustrated by one example: last year I came across a problematic indefinite full protection which an admin made after receiving a phone call from the subject, saying that all future edits should be run through the talk page as edit requests. The protection was totally out of line with policy, but was defended by some admin wagon-circling on some low-watched talk pages. Once it reached AN, it was near-unanimously overturned.[3] I've also successfully requested block reviews before for good-faith but problematic blocks, which would likely have remained in place had a review not been made. That editors can request review of admin actions to the wider community is a fundamental safeguard against any kind of 'miscalculated' admin action, and this safeguard shouldn't be weakened by bold attempts to introduce a non-consensus change into a low-profile guideline page, which is in direct conflict with policy and precedent. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:06, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1. There are good reasons why only the blocked editors themselves are and should remain be able to appeal their blocks.
  • First, it's a matter of basic individual self-determination and autonomy. Blocked editors are people, not the objects of our entertainment. They are the persons best able to decide whether, when and how they want their block discussed in public - including, of course, their own presumably disruptive or embarrassing conduct that led to the block.
  • Second, and in the same vein, it's a matter of enabling the blocked editors themselves to frame the unblock discussion, including its timing and forum, and the arguments they want to advance. They may want to discuss the matter with the blocker first, or let another trusted editor do so. They may want to make arguments that might not occur to whoever else makes an unblock request, or they might want to ensure that any unblock discussion occurs at a time when they are available to participate. They might want to have the discussion individually with {{unblock}} reviewers on their talk page, rather than in a public forum.
  • Third, it's a matter of protecting blocked editors from well-meaning, but incompetent or detrimental unblock requests by others. If a poorly thought-out or disruptive unblock request by others is rejected in a public forum, any subsequent unblock request might be rejected out of hand because there is a perceived community consensus in favor of the block.
  • Fourth, it's a matter of not wasting the community's time with unblock discussions that presumably even the blocked editor themselves considers meritless (or they'd have made the unblock request themselves).
  • But, fifth, and perhaps most importantly, serious unblock discussions are impossible without the input of the blocked editor. A core principle of our sanctions mechanisms is that blocks are preventative, not punitive. Unblock requests are not about "does the punishment fit the crime?", they are about "is the block needed to prevent disruption to the project?". And this, in turn, means that we need to know whether the blocked editor themselves considers their own conduct at issue to be a problem, and whether they intend to continue with it when unblocked. Without hearing from them in their own words, we're in pure punishment mode, not in damage prevention mode, and I don't think we want to be there.

  Insisting that unblock requests are only made by the blocked editor does not prevent admin accountability at all, because it does not foreclose any avenue of appeal. It just makes sure that a useful and productive discussion can be had that takes into account the interests of the blocked editor as well. Sandstein 17:38, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3. The other two options reflect text that was recently added to the guidelines, which contradicts the already pretty detailed policy section Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Unblock requests. I know a few admins are unwilling to countenance feedback on blocks coming from third parties, but this unwillingness leaves the impression of avoidance of accountability. (This impression may not be correct, but the fact that it's there already undermines trust in the system). I imagine that these admins' assumption is that all blocks are good, and so the only conditions under which they can be lifted is when the blocked editor themselves shows readiness to change their ways. But not all blocks are good. There may, for example, be a misunderstanding, and this is sometimes easier to catch by an experienced observer than by the involved party. We should be aware that there are different temperaments as well – some editors would rather leave for good than swallow their pride and ask to be let back in, particularly if they don't agree with the block. Sandstein makes some good points above, and they show it's important to always let blocked editors take part in any discussion about their block. However, this misses the fact that in most cases where third-party appeals are on the table, it's not so much the blocked editor's conduct that's in focus as the blocking administrator's. – Uanfala (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2, with possibly Option 3 as the second choice. The basic principle of WP:ADMINACCT demands that every admin action, including a block, be accountable to and reviewable by the community. There may be many situations where a block was abusive or just bad and against policy but where the blocked editor is for some reason unavailble or unwilling to lodge an appeal. New editors in particular may not understand how to do that. Editors may get sick or have family or other types of real life emergencies or committments making them unavailable. Or they may simply wish to avoid the drama. If a block was bad and against policy, the community still has an interest and the right to hold the administrator who issued that block accountable. That's why a community review of a block needs to remain available as an option even if the blocked editor does not appeal their block. Nsk92 (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 per WP:CREEP, WP:IAR and the points made by the OP. Also, the blocking admin or the blocked editor might not be available for a variety of reasons. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:58, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I support keeping the existing text where blocked editors are the ones empowered to appeal their blocks. As they are the ones who face the consequences of an appeal, they should retain control over when and how an appeal is made. Generally, due to community fatigue, there is one initial chance to word an appeal optimally. Other editors should not be allowed to preempt blocked editors from being able to craft their own appeals, in their words and when they are available, or to explicitly delegate this responsibility. I do appreciate there is overlap with the community's responsibility to provide oversight of administrator actions. Nonetheless I feel it is important to allow those most affected by an appeal to be able to manage their appeal. isaacl (talk) 19:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 Policy says there can be a review, I agree with that and I also agree that it is desirable that an appeal come from the blocked party in the first instance.Selfstudier (talk) 20:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 per the points made above.Sea Ane (talk) 20:41, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 as the full rationales for blocks are often not disclosed on-wiki, having unrestricted third-party appeals will be problematic. Having third-party appeals to change a block "to time served" often will not help the editor blocked. For blocks that are made in error, there isn't the same problem. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3, with Option 2 as a second choice. The user who is blocked is just a witness to the event; they are not necessarily equipped with the knowledge, skill, or equanimity to argue policy to defend themself. I point to my improper block from December which was overturned because I was lucky enough to have support from others at my appeal when I felt helpless and lost (although I did make the initial appeal statement). Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:08, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2, with Option 3 as a second choice. Admins must be accountable to the community, and that includes having blocks they make reviewed by the community. It is generally preferable that reviews are initiated by the blocked party, but there are exceptions - not least because admins are humans and humans make mistakes. The only reasons why it is acceptable to review a block without having discussed it with the the blocking administrator first are where that administrator is unable or unwilling to discuss it (e.g. they don't have time, they apparently aren't around, or are just not responding) or have indicated that they prefer it to be discussed in a wider environment right away. Option 2 is the one that best captures this imo. Thryduulf (talk) 23:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - Would contemplate an appeal by another member of the community besides the blockee, but only with a short time limit (i.e. a week or month). One should not appeal the blocks of others 3 months, 6 months, or a year(s) after the fact (i.e. after a community member has not been around for a middling to substantial period of time) because that would be problematic in various ways. That aside, once in a while disagreement over blocks metriculate to AN rather quickly by interested parties; would prefer a just slighly softer wording of Option 1. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:41, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 - anything else would potentially open up a Pandora's Box of frivolous appeals. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I see option 2 as a line of defence against such appeals, which I agree are undesirable, but would happily support something explicit. I currently have no good suggestion for how to word that though. Thryduulf (talk) 03:39, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 Unless there is some other iron-clad way that the blocked user is informed and explicitly consents to be being dragged through a high profile AN. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:24, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 Before I had experience on arb com I would have said option 3, but we encountered several instances where the blocked party did not want to be unblocked, and did not even want the matter discussed again. At least one or two of these was clearly a matter of someone else trying to harass the individual who had been blocked, which is of course entirely unfair. There has to be some discretion involved here, and #2 is a good compromise solution. DGG ( talk ) 01:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @DGG: has this been a problem on AN before, though? (if so, any links/examples?) I presume someone harassing someone under the pretence of unblock requests would face a harsh WP:BOOMERANG? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:19, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  like this normally fall under arb com. DGG ( talk ) 17:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 An administrator's actions have to be reviewable by others. If a block is grossly out of policy, it should be brought to the community's attention. I hope this does not become a regular occurrence, but it should be possible when needed. Tamwin (talk) 06:08, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 largely per ProcrastinatingReader and Kolya Butternut. A blocked user may not always have sufficient know-how to file an effective unblock request. A third-party review request is likely to be more convincing as its initiation by itself means there is at least one person who feels that the block is wrong and cares enough about it to request a review. – SD0001 (talk) 11:05, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 mostly per Power and DGG, though I'm sympathetic to the arguments of option 3's proponents regarding forced compromise and would certainly prefer it to option 1. Vaticidalprophet 13:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 per Sandstein, Option 2 to seems fairly reasonable too. wikitigresito (talk) 19:33, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 per Sandstein. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 or 3 - I think those esteemed members of our community who have passed RfA and have never before been blocked dont quite get how infuriating it can be to be blocked for what you feel to be a bogus reason. Now in my lengthy block log there's only one or two that I felt that way about, and those definitely were not ones I was going to file an unblock request for. It felt almost demeaning to request to be unblocked for something that I felt I should never have been blocked for. And demanding that somebody do that strikes me, as somebody who has been on that side of things, as just one more affront. If a block is improper it should be lifted. It should not matter who makes the formal request to determine if the block is improper. We should not be demanding that people be contrite when they have been wronged, and yes some blocks are wrong. nableezy - 00:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2.1 If a bad block drives someone off the site, then as it is, there isn't really a set-up to call it to the attention of the Community. Unblock requests are also difficult for new editors to fully get, especially if they're doing so while impacted by the block. I personally don't mind third party reviews. However, as well as prior contact to the admin, I would also require a) the 3rd party ask the blocked editor if they want to appeal and, if not, do they mind the 3rd party appealing? b) Wait 48 hours after a. If there is no response, or the blocked editor goes "no, and no", then an appeal can be made. If the blocked editor doesn't want the appeal (or makes it themselves) then obviously the 3rd party shouldn't be able to make one anyway. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:48, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3, with option 2 as second choice. I have been the victim of a bad block and I can fully understand why someone who's received one would quit. Under the current rules, this leaves the community with no jurisdiction to deal with the matter. We must be empowered to supervise, review and give feedback on blocking sysops' use or misuse of the tools. Some sysops are considerably more block-happy than others which leads to significant levels of inconsistency in our block-related decisions. As of now, any attempt to address problem blockers is hamstrung in every case where the sysop has successfully driven off their target. I believe that there should be a dedicated forum, separate from the Administrator's Noticeboards, for block reviews.—S Marshall T/C 10:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 Seems a good compromise between conflicting concerns.--agr (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 1st choice, Option 2 2nd choice. #3 because, more or less of instruction creep: we don't need to have this section specify who can make the request and under what circumstances; there isn't a problem of bad block appeals that we need to head off with instructions on a policy/guideline page. The PAGs should be as short as possible and this just doesn't make the cut for me. Option 2 as a second choice, because if we are to have a written rule about this, Option 2 is what it should say. Levivich ^harass/_hound 03:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (block review)

The question posed in this RfC ("Can editors request community review of blocks, particularly problematic and/or out-of-policy ones?") is not neutral or sensible. It should be rephrased as "Can editors request the community review of blocks of other editors?". The question omits that this RfC is only about blocks of others, not of one's own blocks. And presumably everybody who appeals a block believes that the block is problematic or violates policy, else why appeal it? This qualification is therefore also not needed. Sandstein 17:46, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some questions: (1) If there is an improper block, and after discussion with an administrator it is not resolved, does that mean a discussion has to be about whether there should be action taken against the administrator? (2) Sometimes an satisfactory unblock request is declined because an administrator has not read it properly (3) There can be other exceptions such as misunderstandings [4] or blocking the wrong user. The unblock process is too slow, there is at least one unreviewed request from January. Peter James (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point on the first (that it should be clear it's about other editors); I will tweak. On the second point: I think the qualification is necessary. There are different reasons to appeal/review, such as on the basis that the block is no longer necessary or that the editor has learned, etc, which doesn't mean that the original block was out-of-policy (though, it could still be misguided). Such discussions also happen with some regularity. I feel like introducing these two separate details directly into the RfC question will make this discussion a slight WP:TRAINWRECK. I have no particular opinion on appeals for other reasons and am happy with the actual status quo as it exists at AN. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I have always assumed that if an administrator takes an action against another editor, and I see a problem with that action, I could contact that admin to discuss it... and (if need be) I could post a thread at WP:AN to discuss the issue with the rest of admindom. Is this not the case? Blueboar (talk) 18:50, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Not when it comes to blocks. Or at least the situation is unclear when the matter comes to blocks. I am pretty sure that every time I have seen a community review of a block being started at AN/ANI without the blocked editor requesting an unblock, Sandstein brought up this particular provision of Wikipedia:Appealing a block ('third-party block appeals are not allowed'), usually resulting in protracted discussions of the matter. Nsk92 (talk) 23:19, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • What if there is a potential pattern of bad blocks? Surely we should be able to discuss the individual blocks to determine whether there is a pattern of poor judgement on the part of the admin. SOME flexibility is needed here. Blueboar (talk) 00:44, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• It seems like a potential other option is to require the blocked person to consent to a third party requesting review (or to provide a window of time in which to object). I think some of Sandstein's objections are persuasive, but also know that blocks are emotional and confusing times, such that third party review is potentially extremely helpful to some users who don't feel equipped or otherwise feel overwhelmed/uncertain about the situation. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I do appreciate that being blocked is a confusing time, and I sympathize with blocked parties feeling overwhelmed. I think it is important, though, to try to guard against this becoming a situation where they agree out of distress to a third-party appeal, without taking time to consider what is the best course of action. In a different context, Bilby suggested having advisors provide guidance to aggrieved parties on possible future steps. This could be useful for this scenario. isaacl (talk) 20:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• If I understand the intent of Option 1 correctly, I think it is a reasonable description of common practice that doesn't necessarily conflict with WP:ADMINACCT or the blocking policy, although it could definitely be worded better. Essentially, whenever a third-party editor posts on AN or ANI asking for a block to be reviewed, the community will generally want a statement from the blocked user that explains their view on the situation. Outside of situations where a block is a clear error or clear misapplication of policy, I can't think of a situation where we would unblock someone without hearing from the blocked user first. The intent is not to give administrators carte blanche to make bad blocks with impunity as long as the blocked editor refuses to appeal their blocks, but merely to convey that in the wide majority of cases, appeals will be unsuccessful if we don't have a statement from the blocked user themselves. Mz7 (talk) 21:24, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Block reviews are generally distinct from appeals (usually being made on the basis of being out of policy; Sandstein reverted this change too so I presume he disagrees with it). The community is generally inconsistent on what to do about actual third party appeals ime, often it depends on the editors participating in a given discussion on a given day. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:51, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Hmm, having looked into this a little more, I think I better understand the context of the dispute here. I would agree with you that if a third-party user comes to ANI asking that someone else's block be reviewed, e.g. accusing the administrator of being WP:INVOLVED or some other clear policy violation, we should not dismiss their argument just because it did not come from the blocked editor themselves. The rationale for this would be WP:NOTBURO: in legal disputes in the United States, it is not uncommon for a court to dismiss pending litigation purely on procedural grounds before reaching "the merits", e.g. if the plaintiff lacks standing to bring the case; Wikipedia is not a court, however, and NOTBURO states that A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request.

  With all of this being said, I think I would still support adding language that discourages most forms of third-party block appeals/reviews, unless a block is obviously flawed. The status quo seems to be fine, but I am concerned that with this RfC, we will inadvertently tip the status quo towards encouraging more third-party reviews to the detriment of our time and energy. Among the options here, it looks like Option 2 is the closest to my views, although I feel that a bit more emphasis should be placed on the "should generally only be" part. Mz7 (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem is a bad appeal can ruin the opportunity for a reasonable appeal in the short-term. It's not an issue of ignoring arguments, but letting the party most affected by the appeal manage when and how those arguments are made. It's unfair to blocked editors to allow anyone to make an appeal, without any co-ordination on its form, wording, emphasis, or other aspects. isaacl (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I think trying to invoke WP:NOTBURO or WP:IAR as a reason for allowing is not an ideal approach. It tips the scale in favour of editors who understand community norms, or editors with lots of TPWs of such editors, who can reconcile different policies together and know how the community responds to different issues in practice. Guidelines should reflect that status quo, documenting it so that people less familiar with back-office operations can also request the community review issues (and indeed, many times such editors have picked up on valid problems). It's probably undesirable not to make this clear for all editors, and unacceptable to provide a misleading image of this (which is what the current section does). I am aware folks get overly cautious on 'tipping the scales' too far, which is why I tried to compromise with Sandstein in what was, in my opinion, a careful worded change opening the door to block reviews for out-of-policy issues but not too wide. (my actual opinion is slightly more wide, though acknowledging isaccl's concerns on something too wide.) None of the choices explicitly say "any editor can appeal for any reason they want". So at best option 2 is still carefully worded and option 3 just reverts to whatever editors believe the status quo is (without documenting such) (which is pretty much in WP:BP: you can, but use common sense). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:44, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd add that, in my experience, the admin making the allegedly problematic action rarely ever backs down in local discussions (possibly because they firmly believe in their action, or the saving face aspect, or both). Indeed, in all the actions I've appealed to AN that were overturned the admins all declined to reverse themselves. This isn't really an indictment of the admins (people can naturally disagree on application of policy), just the fact that I think "you can discuss with the blocking admin" (from the current text) is toothless/unhelpful in practice. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding those supporting option 3 as editors may not know how to appeal or are overwhelmed: I dislike the community making an appeal on their behalf without discussing it with them first. Communication is a bedrock principle for a collaborative project. We should be attempting to work with the blocked editor to determine the best path forward, and not assuming we know best. isaacl (talk) 23:29, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

IMO: the immediate problem with that view is [5]. There are several secondary issues, ranging from confrontation and high-profileness (similar to fears against running RfA), to the community's role in admin accountability (if a poor action is so painful it causes an editor to quit, and other editors can't request review with the community, is ArbCom now the only choice?). Blocking is the pointiest stick in the toolbox. It should also be the one used most cautiously, and subject to the most avenues of review when it is not. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are always special circumstances that can be handled differently. This does not warrant, in my view, removing any restrictions (as per option 3) on who can initiate an appeal. When it is possible to communicate with a blocked editor, we should be trying to do so, and it poses no significant barrier for reviewing an administrator's actions. isaacl (talk) 00:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you don't object to option 2, then? As I feel like your statement does lead to significant barriers if you also oppose option 2 (it would mean ArbCom is the only viable option [though, per remedy 5.x, that viability is in question]).

For option 3: I've seen thoughtful appeals come from third parties, like Ritchie333, which have helped in cases (in some they don't, but usually because editors say third party appeals bad, which comes around into a loop to this very RfC). I believe WP:UBCHEAP can apply in many cases, and more importantly don't really believe the art of crafting a persuasive block appeal / wider community relations has much to do with whether someone has learned and can be a productive editor. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like trying to list specific circumstances; I think individual cases should be evaluated on their own merits. I don't like that there isn't any mention of trying to work with the blocked editor. There have been fine third-party appeals; I've also seen poor third-party appeals. It's not about the blocked editor having to learn how to do the lobster quadrille. It's inconsiderate to take an action on someone's behalf without even trying to co-ordinate with them and understand what they want to do next. isaacl (talk) 01:00, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On the second half that's a fair point. It's worth noting that both option 1 and option 2 were each mostly written by a single editor without being churned through stages of policy-writing (hence my emphasis on sample text). I didn't feel extra specifics mattered because in this particular RfC I'd like to see the broader ideological issue resolved. I agree to adding text regarding best practices in third party appeals if option 2 passes. Although, I do think block reviews or criticism of the blocking admin is distinct from appealing on behalf of a person (a fine line, admittedly). On the first part I still don't follow; surely with option 1 cases can't be evaluated on their own merits, since it's a blanket ban on third party appeals? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On general principle, special circumstances can always apply to any guidance; start listing some exceptions out, and people can start thinking those are the only special cases. In this particular case, "problematic" is so broad that almost anything could be put into that category. isaacl (talk) 01:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Genuine question, could I ask the option-3 !voters why they think option 2 (or whatever tweak someone might want) wouldn't be your preferred choice? If it's just "prefer not to have more rules" that makes sense, but presumably any block someone would question they must think is problematic? Nosebagbear (talk) 13:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's an ongoing RfC at WT:NAZI#Proposal. Feel free to participate. Firestar464 (talk) 01:48, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I created this essay to address a problem I perceived while participating in an ANI thread. User:Vincentvikram/Always keep context in mind when arguing claims I have made the essay as abstract as possible with a few examples. Would love to have any feedback on it. Thanks. Vikram Vincent 10:51, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#R3: "This criterion does not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move, unless the moved page was also recently created."

Here, "recently" is undefined, which caused Fastily to be screamed at for performing an R3 deletion on a redirect just shy of a day old.

Proposal: define "recently" as "less than a month ago". (i.e. if a page is created on 2 February, last day to be eligible for CSD R3 is 1 March) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:32, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think a month is about right. The big hurdle for R3 should really be the obvious implausibility, not the exact recentness - and something that made sense in 2006 might look implausible now but should be discussed, but something that looks implausible now probably still looked implausible in February 2021. I've previously not really thought this needed to be codified, but if people are really raising a stink on the basis of recentness when it happens to a day-old redirect, maybe it's worth making an actual solid line. I'd also like to mention that I just can't read {{db-redirtypo}} without my brain reading it as "re-dirty-po". ~ mazca ^talk 15:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• As I indicated at WP:VPI#Define "recently" for CSD R3, I'd prefer a bit longer, but this is acceptable. I'd also prefer if we didn't have to spell it out, but clearly we do - not so often in practice about people complaining about the speedy deletion of days-old redirects as about people complaining about the declination of years-old ones. —Cryptic 16:07, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This has come up lots of times at RfD over the years and the rough consensus has always been that there isn't a firm cutoff but it's measured in weeks not months (or, by implication, days but I don't recall that coming up). Generally the more implausible it is the more lenient people generally are about recentness. If there is really a need to define it rigidly then certainly 1 month is acceptable, but I'm not convinced that there is such a need. Simply writing down the consensus of "weeks, not months" as guidance somewhere would seem sufficient to me. Thryduulf (talk) 16:54, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's not real problem here, just Fastily being more conservative than they need to be. The redirect in question probably could have been speedy deleted as a request by the only creator of the page anyway. No big deal, let's move on with our lives. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 17:24, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Oiyarbepsy on not seeing any problem here, unless one can be shown by a link to the actual screaming rather than a second-hand report of it. Like most things its best left rather vague because bright lines tend to lead to gaming. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:39, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "link to the actual screaming", Alexis Jazz already asked for it, and I declined because this site really doesn't need the extra drama. Let's keep the focus on defining a suitable interval based on its own merits please. -FASTILY 22:41, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• This gets brought up from time to time (for example, in these two discussions from 2019). One month is consistent with most people's views, but my impression has been that there is broad agreement that flexibility is good and that having an explicitly set cut-off point is undesirable. – Uanfala (talk) 11:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd to me that there is a policy on merging articles, but apparently nothing on demerging. In other words we can go through a lengthy merger discussion and come to a consensus to merge, and then a single editor can undo the merger. While the merger discussion is preserved on the Talk Page, there apparently no guideline about explaining the reasons for the demerger or even documenting it in an edit summary. Apparently, if other editors disagree with this single editor, they have to go through the whole merger discussion again, and then that single editor can demerge again without discussion... Is that correct?--Jack Upland (talk) 07:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's covered by WP:BRD and WP:CONSENSUS just like anything else. So while no, an editor shouldn't unilaterally undo a merge that has strong consensus, assuming you're talking about Goldberry, the "lengthy merger discussion" was three brief statements, opened and closed by yourself – not exactly an ironclad, let's-never-talk-about-it again result. Haleth made an appropriate bold edit to restore the article with additional sources, and the correct course of action now is to discuss whether it should remain, not get hung up on process. – Joe (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Joe's assessment of the situation: it wasn't a strong merge consensus to begin with, but the onus was rightly on me to present the sources that would justify the topic being kept as a standalone article. This topic area does not currently have a lot of active regular editors, though the most active editor Chiswick Chap, who has produced numerous GA class articles within the scope of the project, have concurred that the article should remain since there are ample good quality sources to write the article from, perhaps up to GA status even. Because consensus may change, there are plenty of precedents where even a strong prior consensus from AfD's are not "ironclad, let's-never-talk-about-it again results", as articles have been kept, redirected or deleted contrary to the previously established consensus. Haleth (talk) 14:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wow Village pump (policy). Yes, it was BRDed and we've been discussing amongst ourselves to reach CONSENSUS just as Joe says. I actually wasn't at all enthusiastic about Haleth's resurrections, but it has been an illuminating time discovering the wealth of sources available and using them to make the articles as informative and robustly-sourced as I could. The result has certainly been to widen and deepen the Project's coverage of women, and indeed of sexuality, somewhere I never expected to go. The merger discussion was indeed minimal, and there was no visible attempt to make the case for the defence, which would have been strong. I agree with Joe that if anything is needed now, it's discussion, but to be honest the article now shows that such a remarkable number of scholars have voiced clear and diverse opinions about Goldberry that deleting her would be a flagrant failure of process - she passes the GNG with a flying leap (over flowering pots of water-lilies) - and merging her to Tom Bombadil would be extraordinary - she is a fully-formed character in her own right, and a glance at the two articles would convince 99.999% of known editors who've ever looked up a source that we have here two fully-fledged article subjects. Far from just mirroring each other, they, the scholarship about them, and indeed their appearances in Bored of the Rings, are in harmony yet strikingly individual. It all feels very right and proper. All the best to you guys, Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:43, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, obviously I was NOT talking about Goldberry!!! I deliberately made a general comment with a scenario that DIDN'T fit Goldberry. ASSUME GOOD FAITH!!!--Jack Upland (talk) 18:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's disingenuous of you to assert that it is "obviously" not about that topic when you never brought up a concrete example in the first place, and it isn't unreasonable for others to look at your most recent edits to get more context on what you are trying to say. It's not a case where you brought up Korean Peninsula first, only for someone to dig up your comments from the talk page for Goldberry in response. Your outcry about good faith is also inconsistent with the uncivil remarks you made against other editors on their talk pages, in direct retaliation to their remarks in this discussion after you realized that this discussion is not going the way you intended. Haleth (talk) 01:45, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To address the general point: I'd say reverting a merger that was approved by a strong consensus is a bit like recreating an article after it has been deleted. If the article is identical to the deleted one, it can be speedily deleted, but a new article that does not have the deficits addressed in a previous AFD should be considered on its merits. So a simple reversion of a merger with no changes can be simply reverted with WP:BRD telling the de-merger to discuss. In the case at hand, a total rewrite showing independent notability means that a fresh merge consensus would be required. —Kusma (t·c) 17:50, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Insert routine agitation to remove RFMerge as a clearly useless process. Izno (talk) 18:11, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On the general point, I agree with Kusma that no special process is required; as long as there's good reason based on the sources available, which of course may have increased in number and quality since the merger, then everything's fine. (And lots of shouting and exclamation marks don't help any; people can rightly assume context, since we have one here, without in any way assuming bad faith.) Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:11, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is not about Goldberry. Please stop assuming that it is. I have a perfect right to raise issues about policy. However, since you bring up the "Goldberry scenario", I think that scenario is obviously very different from the scenario I originally raised. I think that scenario relates to a page with very few active editors, of which possibly none are actively watching the page on a long term basis. In this scenario, you can have a merger supported by (say) three editors and a demerger supported by two editors a few months later. I have encountered this situation at Korean Peninsula and many other pages. Potentially, this scenario could play out over many years, with the "consensus" changing depending on the handful of editors who are there at that moment. As I understand it under the merger rules a single editor can close a merger discussion after one week if there is no merger discussion and perform the merger. I've certainly done this. This scenario is I think equally problematic, but it is less asymmetrical. The only difference is the editor proposing the merge has to go through a process and provide a reason, while the demerger doesn't. This may just be an inevitable consequence of low editor involvement. It still seems problematic to me that there is no obligation on the demerger to explain why he or she is demerging. (Of course, this wasn't the case in Goldberry.)--Jack Upland (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As I just said, I'm not assuming any such thing, and my last comment was in fact a general one. I'd also commented elsewhere that you seemed to have followed policy in the specific instance, so I have no issue there; what I do think is that adding more policy to demerging in general will not improve things in any way, and I'd oppose any increase in bureaucratisation there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:17, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So why not remove the bureaucratic procedure about merging?--Jack Upland (talk) 22:22, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The bureaucratic procedure is optional (any editor can merge anything at any time, but most such merges will be immediately reverted). It exists because it can be helpful to advertise and then have a formal discussion for contentious issues. I don't fully understand your point about asymmetry, as WP:MERGE and WP:SPLIT both can be done boldly or with discussion, and can both be undone boldly or with discussion. —Kusma (t·c) 23:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Kusma, that's helpful. Yes, the correct term is split, not demerge... I guess then my question is is a split discussion warranted if it's been preceded by a merge discussion. I would tend to say yes. I would also tend to think it should be the other way round too, of course. That really clarifies the issue.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:48, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did provide a detailed explanation in my initial edit summary why I split the article back out. You immediately objected both to my rationale, and to the topic itself being revived as a standalone article even though the contents had been significantly expanded from the version that was merged and numerous sources have been added. Your position still hasn't changed going by your comments on its talk page almost two months after the split. So I find it hard to fathom that you are now saying "this wasn't the case in Goldberry". As I understand it now, it isn't prohibited to close your own merge proposals after 7 days (unlike AfD's), or for a merge discussion to be closed with less then a handful of participants who all provided one sentence responses. But I would say it isn't best practice, as both scenarios create a weak level of consensus that can be bold overturned or rebutted provided it is done with good reason by the editor who invoke WP:BOLD. Just as these kind of bold edits are confirmed to be acceptable custom by Joe, Kusma also pointed out that there's also no stopping other editors from boldly reinstating the already weak consensus if they are unconvinced by the substance of the additional sources or split rationale, which can be observed when looking at the edit history of Korean Peninsula. Haleth (talk) 01:45, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Because my query was not about Goldberry and it wasn't the case in Goldberry that the split wasn't explained. Anyone who is interested can read your edit summary and decide if that is "best practice".--Jack Upland (talk) 04:59, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• First note that you do not need to go through the AFD procedure to merge two articles... it can be agreed upon informally by those working on the two articles. However, you do need someone like an admin to carry it out. There is a very simple reason for that... maintaining copyright. The merged article needs a record of what has been merged and where it came from. Blueboar (talk) 22:57, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have been following merger policy which says that I can conduct the merge myself...--Jack Upland (talk) 00:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• With regard to my comment about explaining reasons for splits etc, I think on reflection this is a matter of etiquette and good record-keeping. I think if there has been a previous discussion on a talk page and you have decided to take the article in a different direction, then you explain why you have done so. At the very least it is good to provide a signpost so that a later editor can fathom what has happened. I see many talk pages where it is very difficult to understand what has happened. But, as I say, this is a matter of etiquette.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have been involved in a number of lengthy discussions over the years about how to describe groups outside the political mainstream. Some examples are the English Defence League, the Proud Boys and antifa. There doesn't seem to be any relevant policy or guideline, other than Contentious labels.

In my opinion, categorization of political groups requires expert opinion found in writings by political scientists and other social scientists or in watchdog groups with a reputation for this. However, many editors consider it appropriate to use news articles or passing mention in academic writing.

Journalists have no special expertise in political categorization. We rely on them to tell us what happened. For all we know they get their descriptions from Wikipedia.

Should there be a guideline for this?

TFD (talk) 13:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there needs to be any special guideline on this per WP:CREEP. Discussions like those are inevitably going to be contentious; all we can do is encourage editors to seek out the highest-quality sources available, remain civil, and abide by policies and guidelines like MOS:LABEL and WP:NPOV. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:13, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is missing the point – people's current understanding of policy leads them to make (what at least I would consider to be) questionable editorial decisions, like eschewing the academic understanding of political groups in favour of off-handed mentions of political labels in partially related news articles written by journalists. The solution to this isn't to just wish upon a star and hope people choose to interpret extremely general guidelines like WP:NPOV in a radically different way, it's to clarify policy guidelines.

I don't think any specific political expertise is needed to say what so and so group did, journalists are fine in this regard, but I don't think we should trust random journalists to accurately categorize groups political groups as say "neo-fascists but not white nationalists" or something. These are the kind of descriptions that should be left to experts, in a similar way to why I wouldn't trust a journalist's assertions about general relativity, but I would probably trust them to report on scientific consensus on the matter. --Volteer1 (talk) 08:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion (not a formal RfC, yet) regarding the "military conflicts" exception of the above is under way at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Coats_of_arms_in_infoboxes. Input of further editors would be welcome. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:25, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Media, the arts, and architecture When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Should a fictional character in film or television be presumed notable if the portrayer of the character received a major award for their portrayal of the character? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 07:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• No — the award means people have praised the actor. That doesn't mean the character is notable.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:53, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Enough for an individual article for the character? No. There needs to be ample coverage on the character's conception, characterization and reception. —El Millo (talk) 08:02, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• No, the award of the actor does not imply notability of the character. For an example, I don't think anyone would reasonably presume that the character Hal Fields in Beginners is notable enough to warrant an article, despite the actor who portrayed him, Christopher Plummer, receiving an oscar for his performance. --Volteer1 (talk) 08:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Or Dave Boyle in Mystic River. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• No - Acting awards rewards just that, acting. There's little to no connection between how well a character is played and how notable that character is. Volteer1's example above is right on the money. PraiseVivec (talk) 10:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Of course not. It is instructive to look at Academy Award for Best Actor and see how many of the roles portrayed do not have standalone articles (the vast majority of bluelinked roles are not fictional characters). —Kusma (t·c) 11:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• No, and suggest snow close. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 14:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• No - The fictional character needs to be notable themselves; the notability of the actor who plays that character is not so important. Agree with the comments above. Netherzone (talk) 14:37, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• No As per other editors, the character has to be notable because of articles and reviews, not because someone played them won an award. Characters like Lady Macbeth and Bill Sykes have pages because they have been discussed and written about.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]