Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Elvey (talk | contribs) at 00:01, 8 March 2013 (→‎Request for help with/clarification of BAN policy: LOL). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"WP:VPP" redirects here. For proposals, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).
 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcut
The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.


« Archives, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195

Proposal:Create a capability and process to expunge a block from someone's record when all agree that it was an error

Proposal:Create a capability and process to expunge a block from someone's record when all agree that it was an error.

I always wondered about this in general and now know of a case. Such a block can have an immense impact on someone who cares and has a clean record. I learned that neither exists. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 04:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion about the technical and policy implications of this proposal at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Urgently required. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Log redaction (outside of the limited scope of RD#2 for the move and delete logs) is intended solely for grossly improper content, and is not permitted for ordinary matters; the community needs to be able to review users' block logs and other logs whether or not proper [emphasis original]

Would you be willing to share the details of the case? A block record alone, if clearly mistaken, should not have "an immense impact on someone" as blocks are not brands or scarlet letters; the context should be evident, and if not, a note can be added to the log stating that the block was in error. Intelligentsium 04:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note Redaction using revision deletion will not expunge the log entry, it will gray out and strike through the log entry so that non-admins cannot see who did the action, how long it was for, or what reason was given. A line will still appear in the user's log, it just won't say what happened. MBisanz talk 05:01, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Block log entries can also be oversighted. Of course, this would mean changing the OS policy. --Rschen7754 06:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Answering Intelligentsium, I'd rather keep it general. Hopefully that the proposal is just to have a general result (that the capability exist, and that there be a process for deciding to apply it) and that my question included the premise that all parties (including the blocking admin) agree is reassurance that I'm not looking for an out-of-context answer to take into a particular situation.

Answering Rschen7754 & Intelligentsium, as step 1 at Village Pump technical I asked if the ability technically exists and someone answered "no". So now I'd like to know who is right. (????)North8000 (talk) 13:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the log entry partially (revision deletion) and completely (oversight) are both possible, but their implementation would go very much against the grain of what those tools are for. Personally, I'd rather not start down the (possibly) slippery slope of adding exceptions to those policies. Instead, when you unblock, just add a note in the unblock saying that the block was unnecessary/improper/whatever. If its expired already, do a quick block-and-unblock with a note that the original block was unnecessary/improper/whatever. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Any editor genuinely disturbed enough by the presence of a block log entry agreed to have been invalid, and determined enough to make a case for a change in policy, is not likely to be satisfied by a solution that creates another "corrective" entry in their block log. Leaky Caldron 14:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) "What the tools are for" is doing what's right. What's right is that someone who's done nothing wrong should have an empty block log. — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the past block may be used to justify another block without giving the editor a chance to explain that the previous block was in error. Monty845 15:21, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current proposal is too generic. Even if it reached a consensus, we would then need to conduct a second RFC to actually implement a specific policy for dealing with it. There are two main questions, and both can be addressed in one initial RFC. Question 1: should 1a) RevDel policy allow for the redaction of block log entries; 1b) Oversight policy allow for the redaction of block log entries; 1c) no redaction. Question 2: If there is consensus in favor of 1a or 1b, what standard should be used for redaction/what process is necessary? Monty845 15:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - see the discussion on my talkpage before Christmas. If someone wants an example case, I accidentally blocked an innocent user who provided some information at an SPI using SPI helper script. It's also possible to do similar with the checkuser tools - you tick a box for all the accounts you want blocked, and it is possible to tick the wrong box). In case folks think it doesn't happen often, User:Courcelles has two blocks from admins with bad aim, and User:Dougweller has one, and that's just from a couple of conversations. It happens more than you think.

The proposal I would support has four elements -

  1. Full suppression is carried out by an Oversighter. Revdel is not used
  2. The block resulted from a factual error(admin has blocked the wrong user or did not intend to block any user) not from an error of judgement on the part of the admin (admin intended to block the user, but block is not supported by policy/consensus).
  3. The admin who made the block is the one requesting suppression

The user in such a case should be unblocked immediately upon the error being discovered and advised that suppression will be requested.

I think if the community also desires a process whereby it can declare a block to be invalid and request it to be removed from the record, it needs to be thought through and set out in more detail. I also think that there should never be a circumstance in which a blocked editor can request an Oversighter to suppress their block record. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Elen....why would you exclude cases where the blocking Admin says that it was an intended block, but later decided that it was an erroneous decision?
I was thinking that the mechanism in your last post should be included eventually, but didn't want to complicate my proposal with it at this time.North8000 (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: This seems to be a solution looking for a problem. I have never observed that a user has been unfairly judged simply because of a mistaken block, though I recognize of course that they occur. A block log is not a mark that condemns a user to ostracism for his/her wikilife, and I am sure there are cases where a block may be overturned, but later the original reasons for the block are later substantiated; in this case having the original block record would be helpful.
Moreover, I am somewhat disturbed by the sentiment expressed above basically to the effect that a block is some sort of conviction or prison sentence, and the log thereof a yellow passport that will cause a user to be spurned from every mairie in the countryside. Intelligentsium 17:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with Intellegentsium's point. Also, we don't need to revisit such issues with more arguments and more "ivotes": ('it was mistaken -- no, it was not -- you're an idiot -- no you're a fool, etc.') . Moreover, a history of mistaken blocks by an adminsitrator should not be expunged. Perhaps annotations for incidental mistakes would be fine (I can't imagine a long or contentious discussion about whether to do that, but can't that already be done?)Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment/question I think that an erroneous block on ones block log does have an impact, even if it not the the extent of the over-the-top straw man descriptions of the impact (mentioned above.) For example, a "clean block log" is a widely-used term. Can an editor who has had only an admitted-eroneous block be said to simply have a "clean block log"? The answer is no. Some contortions would be needed like "technically not, but the one block was an error" which people are going to doubt, or if it is said that they do, people will look and say "well no" North8000 (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support both for blocks that were clearly errors (slips of the finger, wrong editor, wrong button, etc.) and also for blocks that a consensus of a hypothetical block-evaluating jury would consider to be bad blocks (violations of WP:INVOLVED; blocks from an admin desysopped for misuse of tools; blocks which normal, sane people would have thought were bad blocks if it had happened to them ... etc. etc.) Injustice damages people, and when it comes to block logs, injustice creates further injustices right down the line. Block #1 is a lousy block, block #2 was only done because there had already been a block allegedly for something similar, block #3 would have been kinda OK, possibly, but not really without warning and if blocks #1 and #2 had been properly recognised as wrongful; appearance at AN/I has a pile-on of drama-whores yelling "But see how many times he's been blocked already!" ... so EnthusiAdmin applies an indef on the basis of the "consensus" of the pile-on of people who haven't had the wit to analyse the previous blocks, and so on, and so son, and so on ... Pesky (talk) 17:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As proposer. Comments elsewhere. North8000 (talk) 18:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - the capability for suppression of blocks from the blocklog already exists; what's needed is agreement on when and how to use it. This could be used for completely mistaken blocks (oops! wrong user! type thing) at least. In addition, it's possible to annotate blocklogs where a disputed block remains - see Wikipedia:Blocks#Recording_in_the_block_log. Rd232 talk 18:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It is a relatively complicated work around to add a note that the block was unnecessary, and is much simpler handled by using an undo. As to the wording, all is undefined, imprecise, and superfluous. If we decide to allow it we can work out the details. There are basically two scenarios that I see someone tries to block Foobar, and accidentally blocks Footar. That can be reversed uncontroversially. The second is by editor error, this does not get reversed. For example, if someone loses count of their 3RRs (ignoring that 2 is prohibited, just not as strongly as 3 or 4), and gets blocked. That never gets expunged, even if they go on to become a Steward. What other types of mistakes are there? Apteva (talk) 20:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) But if an incorrect block is applied, it is actually less work to note that the block was unnecessary in the unblock log entry than to unblock, then suppress the block log; obviously the mistakenly-blocked user will not be expected to wait out the block! This also addresses your point that there be an undo - this is already handled by the unblock function.
As I see it there are two issues here: The first is, should a mistaken log entry be removable? If you edit the wrong page or perform an accidental revert, you can reverse it, but the edit remains in the history. Same goes for all other logs (move, delete, etc., with the exceptions set out in the suppression and oversight policy), whether the action was justified or not. The same arguments can be made about practically any mistaken action that happens to create a log entry, but I find it extremely unlikely that consensus will emerge to enable the editing of all logs. Logs are logs because they by definition record everything save egregious abuse.
The second and bigger issue is the perception that having a block on record, even if mistaken, in some way ipso facto "tarnishes" a user's reputation. This is why users are willing to have this discussion about block log but not delete/move/revert. My opposition stems not so much from the proposal itself as from this second issue. I firmly believe that this issue should be addressed, but this is completely the wrong way to address it, because it validates the claim that blocks are punitive and represent a stain upon a user's reputation which must be expunged to preserve his or her "good name". Blocks are not convictions.
The example cited by That Pesky Commoner above is unfortunate; not only does it not refer to any specific example of where such a thing has occurred or whether or not such a thing is a common occurrence among accidentally blocked users, but more concerning, it also assumes incompetence on the parts of the users involved. It assumes that users (and administrators) will not be circumspect or thoughtful enough to investigate the context behind the block. I am reminded of the old saying, Let people rise to your expectations (or something wittier, I forget); if you prepare for incompetence, then most likely you will encounter it. And even if that case occurs, where a user has a history of blocks, including one accidental or invalid block, that one fewer block is unlikely to change the circumstances.
The potential for abuse and the decrease in transparency in case an admin has a history of making bad blocks are also valid issues that other users have addressed better than I could. Intelligentsium 01:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Incorrect blocks in block logs are valuable - not because of what they say about the blocked user, but because they may in some cases help expose a pattern of carelessness or ineptitude by the blocking admin. I believe the correct solution is the ability to edit or append clarifications to block log summaries when they contain false information, not to pretend it never happened. Dcoetzee 00:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Create a sortable "List of expunged blocks". We need to preserve the record, but it doesn't have to be atomised across individual block logs. Such a list would be much more likely to expose a pattern of admin incompetence than the current situation. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support based on Dougweller's reasoning. By the way, I have no personal stake in the matter, given no blocks, but overall it certainly creates bad feelings for users. The process of agreeing on what is to be expunged needs to be based on WP:CON I think. History2007 (talk) 01:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose If people are being stupid and misinterpreting a log file, that is the people's fault, not the log's fault. If you hide the log file, the people will still be stupid and draw their unwarranted conclusions from other sources. Kilopi (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per Elen. The "oopsy" block, where you didn't mean to block or accidentally blocked the wrong user, is uncontroversial. I think, if there is strong enough consensus here for Elen's formulation, we can go straight to the relevant policy pages and make the changes. As for blocks that were intended but later repudiated by the community or the blocking admin, we need to assess the extent of the problem and define precisely what kind of block can and can't be expunged, and what kind of record to keep. So, for now, I support immediately changing policy to allow suppression (oversight) of unambiguous oopsy blocks when that is requested by the blocking admin, and the creation of a sortable "List of expunged blocks." --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Dcoetzee. Expunging blocks might provide some relief to the blocked user, but it would also shield admins from scrutiny (this is regards to blocks rescinded by the community; oversight of unintentional blocks per Elen seems fair). Hot Stop (Talk) 05:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If bad blocks are removed from the victim's block log but added to a publicly-viewable "List of expunged blocks" (either attached to the blocking admin's account or a sortable - by admin, date and victim - list of all expunged blocks) this will improve our scrutiny of admins. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
An alternative would be to establish a practice where any admin that makes a block which is subsequently overturned by consensus (or deemed a bad block by consensus after it has expired) is blocked for one second with a summary linking the discussion in question. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent suggestion that addresses the problem! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:34, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support expunging blocks: An undo could reverse several forms of unneeded block. Even a genius can make a mistake (Albert Einstein once mistakenly wrote "x' " where ex-double-prime "x' ' " was needed, or I could be mistaken), and there is no intelligence requirement for admins, so the community needs all the undo-admin help it can get. Other nitpick shades of undo can be discussed in other venues, such as line-hiding of borderline blocks, but a simple undo, or "erased block" rewrite of a block entry should be allowed as soon as possible. As a long-term editor with several improperly placed blocks, I can confirm that they are shouted, by many people, as evidence that "your next block will be indef" or the ever-snarky, "it can only end badly for you". I support the unblock, and any similar functions, to reduce the shoot-from-the-hip, knee-jerk, short-sighted actions of [wp:SNOW]]bunny admins. Also see: wp:MELT about the need to wait and re-think some decisions. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:01, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We all make mistakes on Wikipedia. Most of the time, this is on an article or a project page. In such cases, either we fix our own mistakes, or someone else does so. Except for extremely serious cases (such as a major privacy violation or massive copyright infringement), we do not mess with the history. The same should apply for admin actions. We need to be very careful to try to avoid admin mistakes. But when it happens, we should just correct it, and move on. In the case of an incorrect block, it is definitely good form for the admin to state unambiguously (e.g. on the blocked users' talk page) that it was an error. But I don't support messing with the logs. If it comes up (XYZ was blocked before), simply explain what happened, and point them to the blocking admin or someone who knows about the error. Another serious problem with this is who has to agree to the expungement. If it's just the admin, then it is a way for them to (at least partly) cover their tracks. If it's more people, then consensus becomes a problem. Superm401 - Talk 21:16, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: WP:Perennial proposals#Prohibit removal of warnings is, I feel, relevant to this discussion. Toccata quarta (talk) 22:57, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I agree that the official block log should have mistaken blocks removed. Not blocks that are simply overturned because someone else think enough time has elapsed, or the blocked editor is valuable, only blocks where a consensus of admins would agree that the block should not have been issued. I agree with Dcoetzee that I do not want the complete history to disappear, as it could help identify problematic admins, but I believe this is easily resolved, with either a complete history available in another place, or perhaps the incorrect block would be noted on the admins record, which preserves Dcoetzee's goal. yes, I fully understand that one ought to review a block log with care, but in the heat of a contentious situation, it would be unfortunate if an admin glanced at a block log, saw six entries, and didn't read closely enough to see that it was three blocks followed by three unblocks, each noting that the block was a misunderstanding. Why not make the block log informative, rather than a mystery to be analyzed?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strong support. I think if a block was given in error then there should be a way (without extra permissions) to remove a block entry. Allow the user to hide the block if say, it is over 6 months old. Though hidden blocks would only be seen by sysop users and the user himself, the block would remain in effect. –BuickCenturyDriver 08:41, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I am afraid this will lead to more indiscriminate blocking; if the block was an error, the admin could just simply remove it from the log and nobody will ever get to know about it. Zaminamina (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Define all

The Proposal states "when all agree that it was an error", who is All?

  • If All is everyone on Wikipedia, then the proposal fails with the first Oppose vote above.
  • If All is just the Admin who made the block, then the proposal needs a huge rework for clarity.
  • If All is everyone involved, then you need to define how to identify All and where to track their agreement.
JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 19:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is where I, personally, like the idea of a kinda jury of longish-term editors with a fair number of contributions (including at least 30% in article space) to review blocks. A consensus of a jury of "reasonable editors" (avoiding the possible sexism of "reasonable men" ;P) with perhaps 20 members should be sufficient. We do have to face the probability that the blocking admin themselves may never agree with that. Admins are human, and therefore like the rest of us not perfect. Pesky (talk) 20:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like the jury idea is one doomed to fail, amidst various cries of cronyism, cabalism, policy creep, and needless additional bureaucracy... not to mention the people that don't get picked to be on the jury and subsequently get pissy about it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A jury is exactly what we don't want - it opens Pandora's box of other problems, as stated by EVula above, in addition to reinforcing the "court" mentality that pervades this thread. Sinking twenty users' time into this would be a terrible idea (time which could be used to edit articles). I thought the point of this was to be non-contentious; if you invite twenty users to have a discussion then naturally the discussion will drag on ad infinitum.
And just consider the negative impact that even one contentious expurgation would have; I daresay it would far outweigh the questionable positive impact that every noncontentious expurgation could have. Intelligentsium 01:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In my proposal I used "all" as a simplification. It really translates to "If the admin who made the block agrees". And I deliberately avoided discussing (kicked the can down the road on) the possibility of a process to do this when the initial blocking admin does not agree. North8000 (talk) 22:08, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Why not just use WP:CON anyway. History2007 (talk) 01:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. Community consensus is sufficient, and I don't agree with the blocking admin being able to veto expunging. How does that make sense? Consensus rules. For Elen's minimalist proposal, in the case of truly uncontroversial oopsies, it makes sense, but for cases where the community agrees the blocking admin exercised poor judgment, we shouldn't have to wait on that admin's approval for expunging. Too many cowboy admins here never admit they were wrong. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More full views over at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Summary, but the cabalism / picking thingie could be addressed in some way like this:

(copied across) to avoid the cabalism thingie, how about having "block-log-cleaning-juries" drawn from a pool of suitable editors? Editors could opt-in or opt-out of the pool, and a panel of 20 (or whatever number) could be drawn from a list of editors who have chosen to be available to look at whichever particular block log is under discussion. It could work something a bit like opting-in for RfC's, to get a long-list for each case, and picking the working party from the long-list could be randomised.

Sometimes the solutions to perceived (and / or actual) challenges aren't hard to think up. I think, on the whole, it's better to be solution-focussed than problem-focussed.

I think that this situation is one which a panel of fair-right-minded editors would be likely to agree is the kind of block (Rodhullandemu's block of Malleus) which should be removed from the block log.

We need to learn lessons from Real Life, and one of those most needed (particularly in today's increasingly litigious societies) is the very human tendency for some people to indulge themselves with barratry. We do need to be very aware of the injustices caused by pile-on responses from those who may have an axe to grind, when we're looking at consensus, for example. Pesky (talk) 11:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - a block made in error is an important part of the blocking admin's record some of the time; we need to allow each user to make decisions about how much of a stain it is on the admin's record - for example, if we ever have a community desysop process, if the admin runs for ArbCom, etc. We should definitely make sure that the blocked user's log make it clear that the block was in error - but not hide it. Additionally, some times even a wrong block is important to show that the user should be aware of some thing - for example, there was a case where a new user did a fourth revert of a 3RR violation while logged out. While I (and several other users who commented there) had no doubt that the user logged out by accident, and the indef block for sockpuppetry was wrong, the user knows that if (s)he does this again, an indef block may be the result. And should it happen, admins need to be able to see the previous block to make the decision. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is where having a separate record for bad blocks would solve that problem. The full record of the block is still there for any purpose for which it is needed, but it doesn't get used by the inadequate in a "But he's been blocked X-number of times already! He must be really bad ... he should have learned his lesson by now!" argument. Again, being solution-focussed rather than problem-focussed is necessary, and fairly simple. Pesky (talk) 10:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Where would you put the record of people blocking lay preachers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.118.46.205 (talk) 14:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would support some sort of "badf block" marker - provided that it doesn't prevent anyone from seeing the block details (blocking admin, blocked account, and block reason). Unfortunately, that's currently not possible. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see any major technical issues with having something like that made possible. (and the comment about lay preachers ...(Theo-retically possible es.) ..d'uh? What was that about, and to whom was it addressed? And why is it relevant?) Pesky (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My premature summary, overreaching interpretation and suggested next step / revised proposal

One person pointed out an ambiguity in my proposal (the undefined "all") which I then clarified, but that's now messy. I did a very fast count and it looks like a lot more support than oppose....not that means anything beyond maybe thinking about a refined proposal. More importantly, the reason cited by almost all of the "opposes" was that a record should be kept and visible, even of bad blocks. Finally, one or more editors pointed out the narrowness of my proposal as it only includes cases where the blocking admin admitted that it was an error. This "narrowness" was deliberate (to keep this from dying from complexity) but we should note that leaving it out does not weigh in against it. So I have a revised proposal which the above would indicate probable 90% or 100% support for. Lets let it sit a few hours without any "supports/opposes" in case anybody sees any error or ambiguities which we can fix. OK, it's been about about 9 hours. North8000 (talk) 00:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal When the the administrator who made a block subsequently determines that the block was in error, let's create the ability and expectation that that administrator can and will mark the block as being in error in a way that makes it very clear. This can be via a mark on that block itself, or the ability to create an additional log entry (without creating an additional block) This ability to mark the log shall only be used by an admin to mark their own block as being in error. The "expectation" will be created by some new wording in Wikipedia:Blocking policy. The idea of a system for the community to do this without agreement by the blocker is acknowledged and can be discussed later but (for simplicity) is not included in this proposal.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - When acting as admin on other projects (not Wikipedia) I've even made mistakes of blocking the wrong person simply by pressing the wrong user information and imposing the block. I've always undone such blocks immediately and usually even apologized on the user's talk page with usually a note of praise of what that user has accomplished as well to try and smooth things over. Still, having the ability to mark in the logs itself that the block was in error would be useful. I've also stepped into wheel warring disputes as well where it was later determined by the community at large that the blocks were done in error and bad faith. While the ability to note a small text explanation is already in the MediaWiki software, what seems to be missing is the ability to retroactively mark a specific block as being done in error. Perhaps simply allowing an admin to make an "administrative" entry on behalf of that user in the block log that could be a standard summary field of any kind for any reason but would otherwise not have any impact upon the user? I could see this being used in other log entries too as a more generic tool. --Robert Horning (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: this is obviously a good starting point for further work on less unambiguous areas. Pesky (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I can support the blocking admin marking a block as erroneous in the log. This is purely a case of adding information; I do not support removing information from any block logs. However, a block "being in error" should mean, "At the time of the block, there was not justification for blocking." It does not mean "Since block expiration, or since unblocking, the editor has edited productively." It is the goal that editors will return to productivity after the block is done. That does not mean it was mistaken. In other words, 'user forgiven' is not the same as 'mistaken block'. Superm401 - Talk 18:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Theoretical situation: Admin A makes a questionable block of User. Discussion, and then uproar on ANI, and eventually creation of a case at Arbcom where the Arbcom makes a finding that Admin A's block was wrong. Admin A refuses to make note in Users block record as described above indicating that the block was wrong . Is Admin then in violation of Arbcom's findings? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well no one can be in "violation" of findings. They could only be in violation of sanctions. And that's a different issue, likely handled by ArbCom itself. It's not a requirement for the blocking admin to be the one who amends the block log, so it's not relevant to this. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal only covers cases where the blocking admin has determined that their block was in error. So, your question is not actually germane to this proposal. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Once again i believe there are procedural problems here:
  • If a radical change to the way supposedly erroneous blocks are handled is seriously being proposed there needs to be a much more public process, as in a formal RFC, a listing at WP:CENT, possibly watchlist notices, etc
  • Are we sure this is even possible with the current software? Big changes in the interface take months or even years to implement and can be quite expensive for the WMF to implement, has anyone even asked about this?
  • Will this "notational ability" be given to all admins, enabling any admin to add notes to any users block log at any time?
Until these questions are answered I don't see much point in proceeding with actually discussing the proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:57, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Answering you points and question in order:
  • I don't believe that adding the ability and expectation that when an admin determines that their own block is in error that there is an ability and expectation to make a log entry to that effect is a "radical change". But review of this in a wider venue would be great, given that such a venue would be more likely to lead to implementation once decided. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If adding the ability to add a notation were a huge process (which IMHO is doubtful), then something needs fixing with the system. On the second note, it would kill every new idea and proposal to have to assume the worst and confirm the opposite prior to discussing. North8000 (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding your "ability" question, Per the proposal, "This ability to mark the log shall only be used by an admin to mark their own block as being in error.". If you are asking whether admins would have the technical ability to do things that are in violation of policy (e.g. use that ability ability to add a notation for a non-allowed purpose), the technical ability to do things in violation of policy already exists for all admins and all editors including IP's, but immensely so for admins. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Assumption of guilt

We cant fairly make the assumption the previous block was valid. We can make a guideline that specifically forbids using previous blocks as a motivation to block a person. One time I was blocked for a few hours. Reason given: "dubious IP edits". It took a bit to long to get unblocked for my taste but no real harm was done. Pointing at such entry as if it demonstrates previous problematic behavior should be frowned upon. It smells WAAAAAAAAAAY to much like "making it up as we go along". We should simply close the old case and open a new one. The new one shouldn't be mistaken for reopening the closed one.

I've even seen a group of users report the same guy over and over again, each time assuming the previous reports had already demonstrated his wrongdoings. The uninvolved editor reviewing a report should never be expected to go figure out if the previous report contains evidence.

How many times you've seen the inside of a court room wont tell us if you are guilty or not. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 03:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with you 100%, and your thought should be promulgated, but you'll have to rewire how the human brain works to fully make that happen. In the meantime my proposal is a partial step towards that end. North8000 (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Close?

The proposal went through 2 variations. The first was a bit vaguely written and call for the ability to completely expunge the record. There were approx. 11 in favor and 6 against. Very importantly, the reason cited by all of the "opposes" essentially said that the record of the block should be retained. I then prepared a revised proposal which was more specific, and called for the ability and expectation to mark (rather than delete) the log. Of the 10 respondents, support was unanimous. Moreover, the change clearly resolved the issue cited by all of the "opposes" in the first round. North8000 (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is needed now is to simply present this to the developers, most likely as a Bugzilla request with a link to this discussion noting this is now a formal feature request from the Wikipedia community and that consensus has been formed on the concept with unanimous support. While anybody can make that request, I would suggest that the original proposer make the formal request if possible with support on Bugzilla by as many people who want to follow/support on the Bugzilla request as well. "Advertising" this request on some of the various mailing lists would be useful as well for further discussion or support of this concept. I agree, this proposal should be marked as closed, although further action is needed. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. I'll have to learn how to use that Bugzilla channel; I know nothing about it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:38, 28 January 2013 (UTC) North8000 North8000 (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Next steps

I learned and put in a request at Bugzilla. North8000 (talk) 18:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

They asked how it was different than the ability to create an additional block and immediately undo it. I provided various answers to this, most notably that this possibility was already acknowledged early in the RFC, and responses were made with that knowledge / take that into account. North8000 (talk) 13:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC) North8000 (talk) 12:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Link to bug please? Thanks. — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for asking. I just learned how to file a wp bugzilla and that's basically all that I know. I'll need to and will figure out how to look at it and get a link. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:41, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this is a link. [1] North8000 (talk) 14:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note that if you consider this "bug" to be important, you can "vote" for the bug if only to demonstrate your opinion that it is something that should be seriously considered by the MediaWiki developers. --Robert Horning (talk) 02:52, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Seems weird, after it gets decided here it needs to go thought another more mysterious decision-making process. Where it needs votes but is not an active discussion in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 03:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)North8000 (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While English Wikipedia is obviously the largest project for the Wikimedia Foundation, the guys you are talking to on Bugzilla are the developers for the MediaWiki software.... a whole other bunch of guys that have their own opinions and prejudices. They generally do listen closely to the Wikipedia community very closely (especially en.wikipedia), but they are not bound to straw poll decisions... especially when it requires them to write some code. In theory somebody who wants to get busy and write some some extension to the MediaWiki software could submit a patch right now and push that through and simply make the request that the server gurus at the WMF simply put this feature into en.wikipedia when they get a chance. It is how things operate around here. They do get the final say about changes to the software running this server though. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:30, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that explanation. North8000 (talk) 02:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Deprecation of disproportionate usage of "initialism" on Wikipedia

Following recent decisions regarding removal of the word "initialism"

I would like to gauge consensus on the next logical (to me) step, i.e. deprecating wide use of the term "initialism" in Wikipedia articles.

Please note that I don't seek its complete removal. I acknowledge the existence of the term, and I consider its coverage in the current version of the Acronym article adequate.

Here is a summary of the rationale (see discussions linked above for details and supporting evidence)

  • There is no universally accepted definition of "initialism". While it's true that some reliable sources define it in contrast to "acronym" (describing the latter as being pronounced as words instead of single letters), some others define it as a synonym of "acronym".
  • Most reliable sources use "acronym" for both concepts. The term is therefore receiving WP:UNDUE attention on our site.
  • There exist plenty other cases that are neither pronounced as a word or pronounced as letters (e.g. JPEG), or cases whose pronunciation varies according to the speaker (e.g. IRA). There is no term describing these cases, which makes the alleged distinction between "acronym" and "initialism" even more confusing.
  • Per WP:JARGON, we should "not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader, when more common alternatives will do". Saying that AOL is "commonly pronounced as an initialism" is unnecessarily obscure to most readers. It sounds pretentious and elitist. Introducing LGBT and LGB as initialisms is superfluous and disruptive to the average reader.

If people agree that we should limit our use of "initialism" to specialised linguistic contexts (such as in the current version of the Acronym article) I volunteer to go around and convert the excessive occurrences. Thanks. 220.246.155.114 (talk) 14:06, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have advertised this at Talk:Acronym and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics. Let me know if it would be appropriate to open an RFC. 220.246.155.114 (talk) 14:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't see the problem. Constructions of the form "X and Y" where X and Y are synonyms or otherwise closely related notions are widespread for various reasons that ultimately boil down to instant recognisability. Sometimes, as in the case of "odds and end", "pots and pans", "nuts and bolts" they become idiomatic, almost like a single word. That's known as Siamese twins (linguistics). But one can also make them up on the spot, and this is a good one. "Acronym" is a well known technical term, but not everyone knows it and for those who don't, etymology won't help. "Initialism" is less well known and maybe more ambiguous, but in context you have a good chance of guessing what it means even if you have never seen it. "Acronym and/or initialism" roughly means "acronym in a wide sense" and inherits the advantages of both individual words. The use of such combinations is a matter of good style, especially when writing for a diverse audience. E.g. when the German dialects and local speech forms were unified to a single Standard German language, many such Siamese twins were formed because they significantly enhanced and improved the odds and chances that a farmer or peasant from somewhere all up in the South or a sailor or seaman from somewhere all down at the sea coast comprehended and understood at least minimally one of the two terms and alternative words. Hans Adler 14:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note, this proposal is not about WP:AND or its applications. It's about the overuse of "initialism" in Wikipedia articles, instead of the much more common term "acronym". 220.246.155.114 (talk) 14:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm coming at this from a background of having had some linguistics instruction, so it's hard for me to see the terms as equivalent. It seems to me that there is a useful distinction being made that goes beyond jargon. In the same way that we utilize IPA (which is specialized knowledge akin to jargon) to tell people how words are pronounced, it is within our purview to indicate to readers whether one of these is pronounced as it is spelled or as a series of letters. Thus, to me, this proposal seems to be arguing for making the indication of pronunciation that much harder for no reason except that we might accidentally teach someone a new word.
I understand that reliable sources differ on whether they view acronym and initialism as synonymous (and that is the only difference, it seems, in the definitions of initialism), but we can choose to mark that distinction and to maintain it across Wikipedia articles. It's not as though doing so would violate WP:NPOV any more than not doing so would.
At the same time, I'm fine with considering initialisms a subcategory of acronym so that the former term is used more frequently when the distinction is needed in the same way that tabby and cat are. I'm not sure if that categorization is represented in relevant literature. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 16:00, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The discussions referenced above have already chosen *not* to mark such distinction in their respective contexts (notably, in the Acronym article), unless use of "initialism" is strictly required, for instance in order to explain the nomenclature of the concept. Hence my request to extend this decision to the whole site, following the same logic. Where there is a need to explain how an acronym is pronounced (and I would argue that in the case of LGBT no such need exists), indeed either IPA (an international standard in very wide use in reference works) or a short inline explanation (e.g. "pronounced as a string of letters", which is only 6 characters longer and is exactly the explanation readers eventually get to if they follow the initialism hyperlink) would be preferable. 220.246.155.114 (talk) 16:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the discussions at WT:TITLE and Talk:Acronym were explicitly about WP:AND, not about marking the distinction between acronyms and initialisms. One user even explicitly stated that their support of the move was only about the title, saying "We need not be so imprecise in the body of the article."
Like I said, I'm fine with using acronym as the more general term, which would probably be consistent with most of the initialism>acronym changes you'd like to make. But I'm not behind completely eliminating proper usage of initialism just because it's jargon or because it's possible to use it as a synonym for acronym. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 21:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, thanks. Just to be clear, could you please give examples of what would be OK to change (and how) and what should stay as it is? (You can choose from this list.)
Also, are you suggesting that we take the view that initialisms are a subset of acronyms? This way out did not occur to me, but if so we should state it very clearly, and possibly find sources for it. If we are not fairly prescriptive on this, the same people who hold the view that acronyms and initialisms are disjoint sets, and that it's useful for WP articles to use them as such, are liable to change the occurrences back, for consistency. Also, if we take the subset view, the phrase "acronyms and initialisms" would lose any meaning, so it would be effectively banned from WP, which I'm definitely OK with. 219.78.114.21 (talk) 01:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about the delay. I'm not sure about examples of when we should keep "initialism." Instances would probably be pretty rare. As to your second question, I am indeed suggesting that we may want to consider initialisms to be a subcategory of acronyms, though as I said above I'm not sure how representative that view is. Looking in google books for the phrase "initialism is an acronym" turns up five sources and "initialisms are acronyms" turns up three. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 19:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the pointers. As I predicted, some editors argue that initialisms are not acronyms, further arguing that the distinction has nothing to do with pronunciation(!) I think the bottom line is that for every reference one can find that <X> is an initialism, I can find 100 that say that it's an acronym. 219.73.120.206 (talk) 11:35, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said that "the distinction has nothing to do with pronunciation". I was clearly referring to a rather nonsensical edit summary0 XML is not an acronym. It is an initialism. Also, "initialism" is not a subset of "acronym". They are both distinct subsets of "abbreviation". "Acronym" is derived from the Old English nama, which comes from the Greek onyma and the Latin nomen, all of which mean "a single word used as a name" --Guy Macon (talk) 21:19, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can you calm down please? I am not putting words in your mouth, I am quoting you. Your edit comment says "Pronunciation has nothing to do with it". Perhaps I misinterpreted what "it" is. Can you tell us what your definition of initialism is please? Many of us here are under the impression (perhaps based on the acronym article) that when the distinction is made, it hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a string of letters. 219.79.73.160 (talk) 00:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine that you ran into an edit that changed "'big' and 'large' are synonyms" into "'big' and 'large' are homonyms" with the nonsensical edit summary "Pronunciation is obvious, no need for WP:JARGON"[2]
Now imagine that you reverted the edit[3] with the edit summary "Pronunciation has nothing to do with it. 'big' and 'large' are not homonyms"
Imagine that you later saw someone quoting the above in support of the claim "as I predicted, some editors argue that synonyms are not homonyms, further arguing that the distinction has nothing to do with pronunciation(!)",[4] later going on to say " I am not putting words in your mouth, I am quoting you."[5]
The above is an example of putting words in someone's mouth. It is paraphrasing, not quoting. It takes the argument "'big' and 'large' are not homonyms" combined with an observation that the "pronunciation is obvious" edit comment is completely irrelevant, transmogrifies it into an argument about what distinguishes synonyms and homonyms that was never made, and stuffs the argument in the mouth of someone who never made it. This is a classic straw man argument. Free clue: if what you write contains words not found in the original, you are not quoting. The next time you "quote" me, please cut and paste my actual words and put quotation marks around them. Don't interpret and call it a quote. --Guy Macon (talk)
OK, I am not interested in continuing this. I apologise if you felt like I was putting words in your mouth. 219.78.114.18 (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, a plain reading of your edit summary does indeed suggest that you don't believe that the difference between initialisms and acronyms is one of pronunciation. Your outrage suggests that this is incorrect, but you haven't clarified what you actually meant. In addition, your synonym/homonym example is apples-oranges because no one would argue that the distinction between those has anything to do with pronunciation, while everyone else here has acknowledged that pronunciation is the very thing that the acronym/initialism contrast centers on. Importantly, your misplaced outrage at the anon's plain reading has prompted you to ignore the simple question designed to understand where you're coming from. I'll repeat it: how do you define initialism? — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:43, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So, it seems, you do not agree that part of the definition of homonyms is that they share the same pronunciation. Aren't straw men fun? But of course we must always remember that straw men need something to build them out of, so if your opponent isn't providing enough material to misinterpret, try accusing him of ignore a simple question designed to understand where he is coming from.

Abbreviation: any shortened form of a word or phrase.
There are several types of abbreviations. They include:

Acronym (a type of abbreviation):
A word formed from the initial parts (letters OR syllables OR arbitrary parts) of a name.
Example: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

Initialism (a type of abbreviation):
A group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or expression, each letter being pronounced separately.
Example: "PBS" (Public Broadcasting System).
The difference between an acronym and an initialism is that an acronym forms a new word, while an initialism does not. So "NATO" is an acronym. But "UK" is an initialism. Unless, of course there exist a significant number of people who say UK as a single syllable that rhymes with "duck", or NATO as a four syllable phrase.

Contraction (a type of abbreviation):
Removing part of a word, often replacing it with an apostrophe (I'm / I am) and sometimes other changes (won't / will not).

Truncation (always a type of clipping, sometimes a type of abbreviation):
An abbreviation of a word consisting only of the first part of the word. Example: Mic. (pronounced like "Mike") for Microphone.
--Guy Macon (talk) 11:26, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that any uses of the word initialism should be removed in favor of the technically incorrect, or at least less precise (depending on which dictionary you consult) word acronym. We aren't introducing these words for the purpose of showing off our vocabulary or teaching the words; we're trying to write with suitable precision and on the assumption that our readers have a decent education, even to the extent of including the occasional word with four or more syllables.
This is no more "jargon" than our decision to have an article about Motor vehicle collisions rather than "car wrecks" (as if trucks were never involved in collisions). I wouldn't insist that you use the longer word yourself, but I do not believe that we should be reverting other people's accurate choice of terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:59, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As per the above, it is not technically incorrect to say that initialisms are acronyms, based on both the definitions available in reliable sources, and on usage in reliable sources.
Motor vehicle collisions strikes me as another violation of WP:COMMONNAME. Luckily, that redirects to the less pompous traffic collision. 219.73.120.206 (talk) 11:35, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As for your "less precise" remark, I find that there is nothing less precise and more confusing than using a term that has no universally accepted definition, the ones available being incompatible with each other. 219.73.120.206 (talk) 12:16, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a very simple distinction that editors can follow: if the string of letters is pronounced as a word, call it an acronym (e.g. NASA). If it is pronounced a separate letters, call it an initialism (e.g. EU, USA). The acronym article has an explanation of this. As it says, some people call the latter type "acronyms" as well. But there is nothing wrong with calling them initialisms, and if we do then everyone can agree that the usage is correct. Many people learn this distinction in school, so it is not some sort of advanced jargon. Personally, I don't think there is any reason to try to discourage the use of the term "initialism". — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said, there are cases that are neither pronounced as a word or pronounced as letters (e.g. JPEG), or cases whose pronunciation varies according to the speaker (e.g. IRA). Therefore, the distinction you are proposing is not as simple as you portray, and it's what led to the invention of such monsters as "pseudo-blends" in the List of acronyms.
I also doubt that so many people learn that distinction in school, again based on the number of sources defining "initialism" in other ways, and based on the number of reliable sources referring to what you propose to call "initialisms" as "acronyms". 219.73.120.206 (talk) 13:51, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you read the list of acronyms lede, they would call JPEG an initialism and UNIFEM a "pseudo-blend". They use the latter term for things like "MAOI" where the "A" is not an intial. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:06, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
JPEG is also an initialism, which is the catch-all term for abbreviations made from initials. It is true that some sources call initialisms "acronyms", but that does not mean there is something wrong with calling them "initialisms". Even if some sources call "EU" for "European Union" an "acronym", if we call it an "initialism" nobody will mind. People who think that "acronym" and "initialism" are synonymous will be satisfied, and so will people who think they are different. Only people who have a pet peeve for the word "initialism" will worry about it, and I don't give much weight to linguistic pet peeves. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:02, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find the there's-no-common-definition argument convincing. It is a misleading characterization that implies there are a multitude of meanings possible when one says initialism. In reality, the only dispute is whether it has a separate meaning from acronym; when it does, the meaning is unambiguous. When you think about it, this means that it is actually acronym with the inherent ambiguity.
Considering initialisms to be a type of acronym will actually keep us from needing to do a purge the other way (replacing acronym with initialism) and will also help with circumstances where an abbreviation can be either or where it's not clear. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:16, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. One thing though. You say that the meaning of initialism is well-defined and it is only its relationship with acronym that is ambiguous. However, so far I have heard various (stand-alone) definitions that are incompatible, such as the one that Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language gives (anything made from initials, which would therefore include "laser" and "sonar"), and the one at List of acronyms (anything made from initials pronounced as letters, with the additional "wholly or partly" unsourced cop-out). 219.73.120.206 (talk) 14:56, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, it seems like CEEL (as well as the Google books that show up when one searches for "acronyms are initialisms" or "acronym is an initialism") sees acronyms as a subtype of initialism. That kind of puts a wrench in things, doesn't it? — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 16:59, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I told you it's a mess :-) 219.79.73.160 (talk) 00:58, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"JPEG is also an initialism, which is the catch-all term for abbreviations made from initials." According to which source, sorry if I missed it? 219.73.120.206 (talk) 14:24, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Found it, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, per acronym, thanks. 219.73.120.206 (talk) 14:49, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that some sources call initialisms "acronyms", but that does not mean there is something wrong with calling them "initialisms". - It's not just "some" sources, it's "most". Big difference there, which supports invoking WP:JARGON. 219.73.120.206 (talk) 15:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just looked up "acronym" and "initialism" in the OED. Under "initialism" it indicates that the word is "contrasted with acronym". Under "acronym" it has two definitions:
1. A group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately; an initialism
2. A word formed from the initial letters of other words or (occas.) from the initial parts of syllables taken from other words, the whole being pronounced as a single word (such as NATO, RADA).
Then I looked at the American Heritage Dictionary, which has "usage notes". Here is their note about "acronym":
"In strict usage, the term acronym refers to a word made from the initial letters or parts of other words, such as sonar from so(und) na(vigation and) r(anging). The distinguishing feature of an acronym is that it is pronounced as if it were a single word, in the manner of NATO and NASA. Acronyms are often distinguished from initialisms like FBI and NIH, whose individual letters are pronounced as separate syllables. While observing this distinction has some virtue in precision, it may be lost on many people, for whom the term acronym refers to both kinds of abbreviations."
So I think it is perfectly consistent with reliable sources for us to use the word "initialism". — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:20, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We need to distinguish between reliably sourced definitions and reliably sourced usage. According to definitions available, it is equally perfectly consistent for us to use acronym instead of initialism, with the difference that most people will not have to look up its definition, because it reflects common usage. "A number of commentators (as Copperud 1970, Janis 1984, Howard 1984) believe that acronyms can be differentiated from other abbreviations in being pronounceable as words. Dictionaries, however, do not make this distinction because writers in general do not". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.79.73.160 (talk) 00:43, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The sources I cited are the Oxford English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary - both dictionaries that do make the distinction you are claiming dictionaires do not make. It is true that some people do not make the distinction, but since they don't, they would also accept "initialism" as correct. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see it more like, some dictionaries make the distinction, but most writers don't, and therefore quite likely most readers are aware of the meaning of acronym, but not initialism, let alone the difference between the two, which is apparently very much a matter of opinion. Therefore, using initialism is unnecessarily obscure and confusing to readers, while avoiding it is not such a big deal, really. 219.79.73.160 (talk) 01:11, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, this is to say nothing of the number of dictionaries that do not even mention initialism, but they do explain what an acronym is. 219.79.73.160 (talk) 05:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Procedural Objection
Re: "Let me know if it would be appropriate to open an RFC", I have a concern about the claimed "recent decisions" above. The three "decisions" listed were:

  1. Removing "Acronym and Initialism" as an example[6] with "Laurel and Hardy" and "Supply and demand" suggested as replacements. The RfC was shut down and the "decision" made by one editor, presumably because an RfC is not needed to change an example to an equivalent example. No "decision" concerning whether to use the term acronym in place of initialism was made here. The only "decision" was which example to use.
  2. A proposed move of "Acronym and initialism" to "Acronym".[7] The result was two supports and one oppose, with one of the supports specifically saying that the usage is imprecise and thus OK in a title but not in the body of the article. This should have either been closed with no consensus or relisted to get more input. In particular the closing summary ("The result of the move request was: Move per WP:COMMONNAME") does not reflect any consensus found in the RfC. It was the closing admin making the decision rather than reporting what the consensus was.
  3. A proposed move of List of acronyms and initialisms to List of acronyms.[8] This one got three supports and one oppose, which I consider to be a (weak) consensus. Then again, I would have voted support simply because the titles of "list of" articles should match the title of what they are listing. In other words, if you want to change the title of "Elephant" to "Woozle", I would oppose that change, but if the change was made I would support changing "List of Elephants" to "List of Woozles" to match.

Given the fact that two of the above three examples are being falsely characterized as "decisions" and the fact that the title of this section ("Deprecation of disproportionate usage of 'initialism' on Wikipedia") is not neutral and purely descriptive, I don't have a lot of confidence that another RfC will be fairly evaluated.

WP:COMMONNAME specifically says that "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." To take the most famous example,[9] Wikipedia rather famously uses "Portmanteau" and "List of portmanteaus" instead of "Blend" and "List of Blends" Nobody denies that Portmanteau is rarely used outside of Wikipedia, but we use it anyway. The reason? All alternatives are inaccurate. Likewise, "Acronym" is an inaccurate replacement for "Initialism". --Guy Macon (talk) 19:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I thought on Wikipedia we didn't count votes, but arguments based on policy and reliable sources (as opposed to emotional attachment and anecdotes). The discussions above were properly advertised, with no canvassing and with powerful arguments made against initialism. I don't think I deserve to be called a liar when I say that decisions have been made. Sorry if you didn't like the outcome. 219.79.73.160 (talk) 00:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated, I liked the outcome in two out the three. Nonetheless, you did mischaracterize what it was that was decided. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually lots of people use Portmanteau, so I see no reason to claim it is somehow wikipedia specific. On this issue, JPEG is clearly not an initialism, becase you pronounce PEG as "peg" not as the letters. My general understanding though is that "acronym" is widely seen as any word made up from a set of first letters, regardless of whether it is pronounced. That may not be how some linguistic purists use the term, but it is how most people use the term, and so it would follow common name. I think "initialism" is linguistic jargon imposed on us, and should be discoraged from use in most cases, and so generally think this is a good proposal.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • You have it backwards. JPEG is an initialism because it is made of the initials of the Joint Photographic Experts Group. An acronym is an initialism pronounced as a word; an initialism need not be pronounced in any particular way. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:06, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Doesn't this JPEG debate (and the fact that the JPEG article says "acronym") illustrate my point that the use of initialism is inherently ambiguous and confusing to editors, let alone to readers? 220.246.156.35 (talk) 15:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Not really. Edits like [10] are good, because they clarify the text. But changing "the initialism IBM" to "the acronym IBM" is not an improvement to the article, since it doesn't clarify anything. If there is real confusion, the solution is to use "abbreviation" instead of "initialism" or "acronym". — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:25, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear from this discussion that the IP editor is hopping between IP addresses. He or she is using some of them for discussion here and others to make the change that is still being discussed here, e.g. [11] [12] which were made from different IP addresses. . — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:32, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm gauging how the changes are received, and I'm happy to report most occurrences are not being reverted - and I'm editing as an IP, therefore presumably subject to stricter control. It seems that you are implying that I am operating by stealth, but I'm not and I thought I was pretty open about this, reporting some partial results above. Are you saying that I should stop this and wait for some resolution of this discussion? 220.246.156.35 (talk) 15:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I personally don't feel that your test-case implementation is being done in bad faith, and it does seem to have helped get at least one more participant in the discussion. However, some people might feel like it's too close to deliberate disruptiveness. Perhaps a compromise would be to link to this ongoing discussion in the edit summary, something like "changing initialism to acronym per WP:JARGON; feel free to revert and/or discuss at ongoing attempt at consensus-building." — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 16:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about it, but then wouldn't that effectively attract only people who strongly oppose the proposal, which seems to already have happened by the way? In other words, it would be some perverse form of WP:CANVASSing. I'd rather stop doing that for now, if that's what people prefer. (Incidentally, I started doing it before this section was even created.) 220.246.156.35 (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to word it in a way to be neutral to that, but that sort of bias is probably unavoidable no matter what you do. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:20, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're not editing as "an IP" - you're editing as at least a dozen IPs. That makes it much more difficult for people to see how many edits are being made, because the contributions are split among numerous IP "accounts". — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:09, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The IP hopping combined with the comment "I'm gauging how the changes are received, and I'm happy to report most occurrences are not being reverted." brings up the question of whether the IP hopping is being done with the express purpose of making it difficult for anyone to find and revert the places where "initialism" has been replaced with "acronym". --Guy Macon (talk) 23:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. 219.78.114.18 (talk) 00:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Restricted proposal: "pronounced as initialism"

Let's try to break this down a little.

Would people agree that replacing "pronounced as initialism" with "pronounced as a string of letters" is a good change? 219.78.114.18 (talk) 00:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would support that edit - "NASA" is also an initialism, but not pronounced as a sequence of letters, so whoever wrote the text originally was confused. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:44, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, are you talking about one edit in particular? I am talking about a whole class of edits. 219.78.114.18 (talk) 02:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, no ignore me. I understand what you mean. 219.73.123.246 (talk) 12:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, because "initialism" is a perfectly fine word that does not need to be replaced. We don't replace "aircraft" with "machine that flies" or "noun" with "word that denotes a person, place, thing, or idea" There is no valid reason to replace a perfectly valid word. I was going to suggest that the suggested replacement might be OK on the simple English Wikipedia, but that Wikipedia uses "initialism" as well.[13] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Initialism" is a "perfectly fine word" in a world where
  1. Its definition is on every respectable English dictionary
  2. The various definitions are consistent and compatible
  3. Most reliable sources use it consistently
  4. There does not exist another word that is overwhelmingly frequently used in its stead, in reliable sources
  5. Discussions among experts (let alone average readers) on its definition, its usage and its relationship with the aforementioned commonly-used alternative word does not continuously generate confusion, like in this section
Now, I must ask again. To which definition of "initialism" do you subscribe to? Me, I agree with those linguists who "do not recognize a sharp distinction between acronyms and initialisms, but use the former term for both" [14][15][16][17]. Carl has a different opinion. He believes that initialism "is the catch-all term for abbreviations made from initials". He has the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language to back that up, and possibly other sources. Perhaps you trust the Oxford Dictionary online, which defines initialism as "an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately (e.g. BBC)"? 219.73.123.246 (talk) 09:44, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would not support such a change. Avoiding initialism because acronym would work fine is one thing (assuming, of course, that initialisms are a type of acronym, which is not agreed upon by everyone), but deliberately avoiding initialism because it might be a new word for readers is something I'm against. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not only because it might be a new word for readers, but because it's very likely to be a new word for readers and WP:JARGON applies, plus in this case you are liable to confuse readers who do know the word, but do not attach to it the same meaning as the person who wrote the original phrase. (Yeah, in this case the substitution with acronym would not work.) 219.73.123.246 (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Does WP:JARGON apply? Let's break it down:
  • Minimize jargon, or at least explain it. Minimize is not the same thing as completely eliminate.
  • Avoid excessive wikilinking (linking within Wikipedia) as a substitute for parenthetic explanations... In this case, it would require only one additional wikilink. That's not particularly excessive.
  • Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader, when more common alternatives will do. Usage of initialism in these cases is not to teach them to the reader (that's just a happy byproduct). In the case of initialism, there is no common alternative. The phrase "pronounced as a string of letters" could be considered a concise explanation, but that doesn't make it the preferred form.
Jargon is a necessary byproduct of encyclopedic writing so WP:JARGON does not apply to every case of it. WP:JARGON is designed to, in the interest of readability, avoid overuse of it. If you can admit, as you have above, that initialism would be appropriate were its definition more secure, then the issue isn't actually readability and WP:JARGON doesn't apply like you'd like it to. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 16:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Minimize" means avoid it if possible. Here it's possible. Also note that I have said from the start that I acknowledge the existence of the word "initialism" and I am not seeking to eliminate its usage completely, only to limit it... or minimize it.
"Excessive wikilinking" - your reasoning would apply to every single instance of wikilinking. I think you misunderstood what was meant; "excessive" there does not mean "in great numbers", but something like "extreme".
"Common alternative" - this does not apply to this example, but to the cases where one could use acronym instead of initialism, like most reliable sources do.
"initialism would be appropriate were its definition more secure" - Sorry, where did I say that? I see that as a necessary condition, but not sufficient. Most reliable sources not using "acronym" instead would also need to apply before I considered "initialism" as appropriate (in most cases). 219.73.123.246 (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"...use acronym instead of initialism, like most reliable sources do." [citation needed] --Guy Macon (talk) 17:52, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I got from your "'Initialism' is a 'perfectly fine word' in a world where" list that you were saying it was about sourced meaning, not about readability. In addition, throughout this discussion you seem to have assumed that a variable definition of a specialist term would harm readability, but I'm not so sure that's the case. Is this what you believe?
It seems from your proposals that you would like to completely eliminate the use of (which differs from reference to) initialism in Wikipedia articles. When you said you don't want to completely remove it, you cite the acronym article, where the term is mentioned. So it seems that your minimization would quarantine it out of normal usage; that's basically the same as eliminating it. If there are examples where the term initialism would still be used under your proposed deprecation, what are they?
I think that, each time you say that WP:JARGON applies, you are assuming what you should be proving. The decision we are working towards is to determine whether WP:JARGON applies. It's up for debate whether wikilinking the first instance of initialism in any article that uses it is "extreme" (I don't think it's extreme), as well as whether acronym is a sufficient alternative to initialism (others here think it is not). — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 18:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See next section (but also above, really) for sources about WP:JARGON.
As for where to use it, I would not oppose using it where it was proven that reliable sources prefer it over "acronym", or where the term itself is discussed, but necessarily clarifying what is meant, like I did here. 220.246.135.131 (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So you're saying that, on a case-by-case basis, a particular abbreviation could be called an acronym or an initialism depending on what reliable sources say about that particular abbreviation? That approach is akin to the policy regarding original synthesis, though it is carried to an absurdity IMHO. The unspoken caveat to WP:SYNTH is that the synthesized conclusion should be one that requires sourcing. When a commonsense conclusion (XML is an initialism) is drawn from two sourced statements (an initialism is pronounced as a string of letters and XML is pronounced as a string of letters), WP:SYNTH doesn't really apply. Moreover, it seems that, because there isn't a unified agreement on the distinction of initialism from acronymm, that we must make a decision that goes across Wikipedia for the sake of internal consistency, regardless what sources say about a particular abbreviation. In a sense, it's a sort of stylistic issue; we need to make a choice so our readers' experience is more predictable.
The Feb 13 edit you point to is a good one, btw, though as I hope is clear now I don't think sourcing explicitly using the term initialism should be prerequisite to such an edit (which I think is what you are arguing). — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 03:02, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for keeping listening. Let me try and clarify a few things, apologies for the confusion.
Case-by-case: I agree it sucks and it's riduculous. I would definitely prefer a nice, short, simple, unequivocal guideline that everybody agrees on and it's easy to apply. That's what I am still hoping to achieve with this proposal. However, as a compromise with people who somehow still seem to be under the impression that initialism is robustly supported by a wide usage in reliable sources, I can offer to not object to describing a word as an initialism if the number of reliable sources that support that is comparable to the number of reliable sources that support alternative descriptions (tipically acronym). Since I am confident that such occurrences will be very rare, I can settle for that. The way I see it, we would be basically trading some stylistic consistency for some WP:FLAT.
Note however that this would only take care of stuff like articles saying (tipically in the lede), "XYZ is an initialism that blah blah" vs "XYZ is an acronym that blah blah", and I don't think it should cover generic occurrences like in my Feb 13 edit, simply because it is likely to be part of a delicate linguistic/stylistic explanation that would be totally messed up by the ambiguity and readability issues I keep highlighting. We need to find other arrangements for those. Hopefully we can start from that Feb 13 example to build a consensus on this second class of edits. Maybe I should come up with a list of other concrete case studies, along with some categorization, so it's easier to reason about them.
Readability/accessibility for readers is an absolutely central concern of mine in this proposal, closely linked to the goal not making Wikipedia unnecessarily read like Nerdopedia. That's why I keep bringing up WP:JARGON. The reason why you cannot see this in the "perfectly fine word" list is that I think it follows directly from #4, which is a good proxy for it, except better mearurable. 219.73.104.198 (talk) 15:18, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have to ask... why do we need a guideline about this? Wikipedia has too many "rules" as it is. Surely the issue of whether to call "XYZ" an acronym or an initialism (or some other term) is best settled through discussion and consensus at the individual article level. Blueboar (talk) 16:21, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, but I thought it efficient instead of having the same conversation hundreds of times, we'd have a centralised one and simply point to the consensus in the edit comments. 219.73.104.198 (talk) 16:36, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree but disagree. Agree that initialism is a wacky little wiki word that does not have the super precise meaning that some wish to ascribe to it, but I also disagree that something "pronounced as a string of letters" is pronouced the same as something pronounced as a sequence of letters. When you string letters together, you get words. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 02:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good point about string vs. sequence. The reason we want a central place to point people to is the same reason we need WP:ENGVAR. Editors that correct UK/US spelling and people who want to replace "Initialism" with "Acronym" tend to do so on a lot of articles at once. Addressing this on one article talk page is playing Whac-A-Mole. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First use of "initialism"

From the Oxford English Dictionary under the entry for "Initialize": 1899 R. Thoma in N. & Q. 9th Ser. III 103/1 "In my 'Handbook' I gave an initialism of Mr. Watt's, 'P.P.C.R.'" --Guy Macon (talk) 08:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, what is your point? This fact was already part of the acronym article, so I already knew that. Actually, it states, "The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899, but it did not come into general use until 1965, well after acronym had become common." 219.73.123.246 (talk) 09:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that is has been in usage for 114 years and in general usage for 48 years sheds doubt on your "it's very likely to be a new word for readers" claim. Do you have a reference establishing that, or is your evidence anecdotal and based upon your own experience? I was certainly taught the difference at a young age.
Initialism has the advantage over Acronym that the meanig can easily be figured out by anyone familiar with "initials" and "-ism", which is pretty much everybody. If the argument is that the precise definition is not well known, this is true of many common English words. Most people cannot tell you the difference between a Berth, Dock, Groyne, Jetty, Landing, Mole, Mooring, Pier, Quay, Slip, and Wharf -- and indeed most people don't even see the problem with the song "Sittin' on The Dock of the Bay" -- but that does not mean we should avoid using the correct terms. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Our acronym article already contains a reference for "the term acronym is widely used to refer to any abbreviation formed from initial letters", and I have already linked it above.
If that is not enough, we can easily compare the results from Google books for each disputed term. Let's try for JPEG. "JPEG is an acronym" gives me 239 results. "JPEG is an initialism", 1 result. You want XML? "XML is an acronym", 102 results. "XML is an initialism", 1 result.
Like it or not, these sources are saying that the earth is WP:FLAT, and so we must report it. 220.246.135.131 (talk) 23:31, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Long story short

You're not going to get a consensus, let alone a policy decision, which deprecates the correct use of the word "initialism" simply because people have taken to using "acronym" as a catch-all (or simply because they may not have heard of it outside of Wikipedia, c.f. our OTT use of "portmanteau") any more than you're going to get consensus that we should leave greengrocers' apostrophes around simply because the majority of the world's native English speakers are apparently unable to get a basic rule of grammar right. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

... And before anyone goes stating that we already have some sort of "initialism is deprecated" consensus, the move requests that are being used as evidence here are some of the weakest closes I've seen in a long time. I'd be extremely concerned if they were being used to justify any wider moves, such as mass article edits. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we will not get a consensus to depreciate the use of the word "initialism"... but neither are we going to get a consensus (let alone a policy decision) to promote the use of the word "initialism". The fact is, the issue of what terms we should use to describe an article's subject can only be determined on an article by article basis... by looking at how our sources describe the specific subject of the article. If the sources use the term "acronym", so should we... if the sources use the term "initialism", so should we... and if the sources are mixed in their usage, then we should reflect that mix by using both terms. Blueboar (talk) 13:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"any more than you're going to get consensus that we should leave greengrocers' apostrophes around simply because the majority of the world's native English speakers are apparently unable to get a basic rule of grammar right" - Yet another man of straw, and uncalled-for sarcasm. The initialism question is a completely different story, because there is not one "correct" thing to do. Portmanteau is also different, and even if it weren't, two wrongs don't make a right. You have contributed yet another non-argument disagreement without answering the open questions or offering an alternative way forward to a problem that you may not be interested in, but a problem nontheless. Not sure why you even bothered. 219.73.105.49 (talk) 15:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thumperward's comments were not a straw-man argument, nor were they sarcastic, nor were they irrelevant, nor were they non-answers or non-arguments. They were perfectly valid reasons why we should not do what you want us to do. Ad hominems are a poor substitute for reasoned discourse. More light and less heat, please. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The idea of using sources to determine whether to use initialism or acronym strikes me as a poor solution. As I believe I said above, it seems like this is a stylistic issue (much like our use of IPA for pronunciation) that doesn't really depend on stringent sourcing and, as an encyclopedia, we want to provide consistency to our readers; if we use the same word to mean different things depending on article or subject, we fail in that regard. Thumperward is right that the anon's proposal is not going to get a consensus, but this doesn't mean that we can't have a consensus about the issue.
Am I correct in surmising that most other people here agree that a distinction between initialism and acronym is appropriate in general Wikipedia articles? — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 03:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What would be the value of a consensus based on emotional attachment as opposed to the policy points raised above?
What would be the significance of a consensus to use a term, if reached by people who cannot even agree on its meaning?
What is the credibility of people claiming that XML is an initialism, asking rudely for evidence to the contrary, and crawling under a rock when such evidence is brought out (quoting reliable sources, not greengrocers' signs)? 218.188.93.139 (talk) 06:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So now people who believe that the two terms are distinct are emotionally attached? I suppose that means that all of the counterpoints brought up are really just rationalizations to keep us from crying over a pint of rocky road. You've been more-or-less polite through all this, don't slip up now. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:42, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I can't find any actual disagreement among this conversation's participants as to the meaning of initialism, other than the anon, of course. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "as opposed to the policy points raised above", Wikipedia policy does not say what you think it does. WP:COMMONNAME specifically says that "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." --Guy Macon (talk) 17:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
COMMONNAME does not really apply to article space, so I don't understand why it's relevant to this proposal. That said, ambiguous most positively does apply to "initialism", and I don't see how anything can be ambiguous and accurate. 219.79.73.25 (talk) 23:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone please summarize the counterpoints?
One cannot expect civility to go one-way indefinitely.
There's been lots of disagreement and confusion throughout, I'm surprised you missed it. The most obvious one was between Carl and Guy over the "Restricted proposal". Guy thinks that acronyms and initialisms are disjoint sets, and so sees no problem with the expression, "pronounced as initialism". Carl on the other hand thinks that all acronyms are initialisms, and therefore the same expression makes no sense to him. 219.79.74.116 (talk) 15:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "Guy thinks that acronyms and initialisms are disjoint sets", That is my opinion, but there is also a good argument for acronym being a subset of initialism and both being a subset of abbreviation. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My point exactly. 219.79.73.25 (talk) 23:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also before your "other than the anon" goes on record to mean that I'm the only person disliking the disproportionate usage of "initialism" on WP, I'd like to point out that so do John Pack Lambert (above) as well as other editors who commented on the move proposals linked at the top of this section. 219.79.74.116 (talk) 16:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:BAIT.
Nobody, not even JPL nor anyone in the other discussions, denies that the terms are distinct. That is not the same thing as accepting your proposal, though it seems that you have missed that distinction from my previous post. The distinction between Carl and Guy is pretty minimal and there's enough in common to work toward a consensus (you don't determine consensus by where people start out from). Given Carl's citation of the AHD and OED that would contradict his position as you've summarized it, I suspect he doesn't actually believe what you think he believes or that he's as confident/firm as I was regarding initialisms being a subset of acronyms. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 17:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, have I ever said that the two terms are identical? Of course they are not, they are spelled differently, they have different histories, and some of the dictionaries (that do mention initialism) provide a different definition(s).
The proposal is about limiting the use of a word that does more harm than good.
JPL "generally think[s] this is a good proposal". To me, that sounds supportive of "I'm the only person disliking the disproportionate usage of "initialism" on WP", if not that he supports the proposal. Would you disagree?
Same goes for Nohat's "nothing would delight me more than to downplay the significance of the rarely-used (outside of Wikipedia) term 'initialism'" and BDD's "[initialism is] linguistic jargon".
Carl has stated his belief (sometimes I feel we talking about religion here) thus, "An acronym is an initialism pronounced as a word; an initialism need not be pronounced in any particular way". I don't see much room for interpretation there, and even Guy now says that the definition of initialism is a matter of opinion. 219.79.73.25 (talk) 23:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This subsection began with Thumperward saying that we're not going to get a consensus your way, i.e. deprecating the use of initialism.
I then suggested we could still find a consensus about how to use initialism
You said that the participants in this discussion "cannot even agree on its meaning"
When I pointed out that there is no substantive disagreement on the meaning of initialism in the discussion, you've pointed to the people who agree with your proposal. But the stance on your proposal is neutral to the definition one has of initialism. You are thus equivocating in ways that muddle the conversation. There's a similar equivocation when I said that you don't see the terms as discrete and you have taken the absurd stance that I must mean that you see them as phonologically and etymologically identical. From context, it should be clear that I am talking about semantic meaning, not phonological structure or etymological history. You're not an idiot, so I'm not sure what purpose this tactic serves.
Pointing out ways in which people differ in the semantics of initialism ignores the substantial core that we all have in common with it. There's so much in common that, not only is it hard to even see how these minor differences would manifest in editing practices, but it's also false to say that we "cannot" come to agreement on such differences when we haven't set out to do so. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 00:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What can I say, maybe I am an idiot! :)
My reading of your "most other people here agree that a distinction between initialism and acronym is appropriate in general Wikipedia articles" was different. I thought that not seeing a consensus towards not using initialism, you were looking to seal a consensus on using it, a reference to which consensus would trump WP:V, WP:JARGON etc in future debates about inclusion of initialism.
Well, I thought, thanks but no thanks. I reserve my right to tell people insisting on writing in a WP article "<XYZ> is an initialism" that reliable sources overwhelmingly point to another term, and no bully is then going to point me to a consensus which is essentially built on WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT (still waiting for that summary).
If, on the other hand, as you more recently clarified, you just want to find an agreement about one unique meaning for the term, so that it can be applied consistently to WP articles, then I think it's a noble cause, and good luck to you getting people to agree, but I'm only marginally interested because "initialism" would still read as gibberish to most of us uneducated masses, and as a minor further point it would be still confusing to those few who are educated, but were told that initialism actually carries another meaning. 219.79.74.254 (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have referenced this proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#On_the_applicability_of_WP:JARGON 219.79.74.254 (talk) 13:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I said "most other people here agree that a distinction between initialism and acronym is appropriate in general Wikipedia articles" and I also said "I can't find any actual disagreement among this conversation's participants as to the meaning of initialism." What comes between them is your claim that we can't even find agreement on the term's meaning. I hope I've been clear now that those are not the same claim (you are correct that the first claim was an effort at starting a different consensus than what you'd like), so finding a few people who don't fit the criteria of "most other people here" in regards to support of the proposal doesn't undermine either claim.
It's your business if you want to portray yourself as a victim because we are insisting on disagreeing with your policy proposal. And if you want to link to a whole slew of Wikipedia policy pages and essays to characterize us as irrational, close-minded bullies, it only speaks to how desperate you have become. Maybe other people would succumb to such emotional manipulation (dear god! Me? A bully? I'll try extra hard to be nice!), but I've been in enough relationships to spot it and I've gotta say that it has the rhetorically opposite effect on me.
Let me repeat Thumperward's statement: anon, you are not going to get what you want. I'm trying to start an alternate consensus based on the current attention about the issue of using the term under question and you are getting in the way of this by sidetracking the conversation. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't trying to undermine any claim, but I was worried that a consensus in that direction would trump policy in *future* conversations with *other* people who would bully whomever brings evidence (which there is plenty) that acronym is much more widely used than initialism outside of Wikipedia.
Like I said, good luck with your consensus. 219.79.91.119 (talk) 23:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I don't care about myself, but in the future please don't refer to unregistered users as "anonymous", because they are not. 219.79.91.119 (talk) 23:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Concerns about consensus trumping policy are only valid if the policy in question actually exists and there are no legitimate questions about interpretation. I am seeing a lot of claims about alleged policies. References to specific wording of specific policies? Not so much. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For reference (and sorry if this has already been noted somewhere here), there was a related discussion some years back on Wikitionary at wikt:Talk:initialism. -- Trevj (talk) 08:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate proposal: semi-status quo

All right, here's my radical idea: we treat acronyms and initialisms as separate and as subsets of abbreviations. We wouldn't systematically remove initialism from articles, but case-by-case replacement with abbreviation would be all right, given discussion at a given article. Abbreviation would also be useful for situations where it's not clear whether the pronunciation is as an initialism or as an acronym. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 16:14, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of... writers/directors/etc.

We gotta do something about the list of these things, like List of Cheers writers and List of Frasier directors. They have no redeeming qualities, and they consist of mere information, violating WP:NOT. Any suggestions? --George Ho (talk) 03:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer if wikipedia didn't have any articles about movies and series. This is not the case however. I don't see aditional damage from a bit of elaboration. You could ignore it and go do something constructive? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 11:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If there is a list of Cheers or Frasier episodes, the two lists you mention might be merged into those instead. Bjelleklang - talk 11:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have always thought that an Encyclopedia should not have any stand-alone list articles... the format is simply wrong for an encyclopedia. Listings of things are what Almanacs are for.
However, it is also clear that many of our editors absolutely love to make lists of things. So here is my solution... The foundation should create a sister project (along the lines of Wiktionary and WikiNews) that would give those who want to work on lists a more appropriate venue in which to do so... a WikiAlmanac. Blueboar (talk) 14:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Read the Five Pillars again. There's more to Wikipedia than just an encyclopedia. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is currently more to Wikipedia than "just" a traditional encyclopedia... I am saying that I think this should be changed... by creating a sister project. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well you're wrong, because much of the time the lists are quite encyclopedic. Trying to get rid of things such as List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky or even List of LucasArts games is extremely laughable. This is core info, they just have their own articles because of size. In a 'traditional' encyclopedia this info would be there, just it wouldn't look like it was separate given the medium. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hear hear, Melodia. There's a reason we have featured lists; these subjects, which may not lend themselves to full prose articles, can be entirely encyclopedic. List of films of the Dutch East Indies, for example, contains several entries for which an article is unlikely to ever be created, as much of the documentation has been lost. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What is so laughable about suggesting that a list of Tchaikovsky compositions would be more appropriately presented in an almanac? I was not proposing that we "get rid of" anything... I am just suggesting that we house it in the appropriate venue. If the foundation created a WikiAlmanac project, I would expect the two projects would be intimately connected. Wikipedia articles would contain links any relevant almanac list pages, and vise-versa. Featured lists could remain featured lists. No information is lost. It's really just a case of where the information would be hosted. I simply think an almanac is a more appropriate venue for information that is best presented in listified format. No point in telling me: "your wrong" ... because nothing you can say will convince me that I am wrong. Lists are what almanacs are for.Blueboar (talk) 13:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And if you want to enforce your opinion that Wikipedia should not be an almanac or gazetteer, open an RFC and prepare yourself for heavy opposition. Until policy is changed, you'll find yourself without a leg to stand on. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa... what's with all this talk about "enforcement"? (I couldn't "enforce" creating a sister project even if I wanted to). I am merely suggesting that a WikiAlmanac sister project would be a more appropriate venue for lists. Obviously, an endeavor like that would be a major change in how we currently do things here in Wikipedia... and just as obviously any change of this magnitude would require a lot of discussion and consensus building before it could be implemented. It would also require getting the Wikimedia Foundation on board (and since setting up a new sister project is not that easy, they may not agree that doing so is worth it).
Now... IF such a sister project were to be created, then we might look at changing our policies and guidelines to reflect the existence of the new sister project (and then it might be appropriate to talk about "enforcement")... but right now, it's all at the initial idea stage. Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A proper list on these subjects is possible, by providing context specific to these directors. An episode list is for the episodes, not the directors, and shouldn't be counted as one. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It should be a basic criteria for list articles that the entities listed should be notable as demonstrated through non-trivial coverage in reliable source.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We have WP:NLIST, which also includes provisions for splits if the main article gets too long. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:12, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There's also WP:SAL. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Take them to WP:AfD, if you get consensus to delete, then you can come back here with a suggested policy to prohibit their creation in the future. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 18:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to, but I need a logical rationale to have them deleted. I could nominate just one, right? Or more? --George Ho (talk) 01:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that was sarcasm. But yes if you really feel they are inappropriate for Wikipedia, take the one that you feel most strongly about to AfD. Logic often has little or no bearing there, so just make your best argument. If there is a policy that supports your position mention it. If there are policies that are counter to position have a rebuttal planned to use if needed. Try not to get overly involved in the discussion. Make your argument and let it stand, not everyone is going to agree with you, that is fine. If someone votes keep with a rationale that you don't have a strong rebuttal for leave it alone. Most importantly keep this in mind, don't let yourself get dragged in to defending your suggestion or your ideas. put it out there, give brief, strong and infrequent rebuttals. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Right now, I guess proposing a merger is the best way to go. --George Ho (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Boy, look at List of EastEnders crew members. It has directors, writers, and staff. --George Ho (talk) 06:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
These lists are pointless -- especially that last one -- but again, that doesn't make ALL lists wrong for WP. For the writers lists, the info should be on the episode list, and if someone really wanted to be able to see who wrote what at a glace they could turn said list into a sortable table. For the crew members....that's just ridiculous, as WP isn't IMSLP. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Take them all (writers+directors) to AFD, but be aware of WP:TRAINWRECK. The most frequent directors/writers can be summarized in prose in the TV show's main article à la Stargate SG-1#Crew, so there is simply no need for a data dump -- IMDB deals with data dumps much better. The episode lists, which see-also-link to IMDB, do already list episode-specific information on writers+directors. – sgeureka t•c 11:54, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of Frasier writers is proposed to be merged into List of Frasier episodes. --George Ho (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lists are better than categories, because they allow to add more information, and help clean the category list of articles. --NaBUru38 (talk) 14:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citations on linked pages

I asked a question over at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 February 22#Citations on linked pages (I figured that there was a clear policy but could not find it), and the conversation became one about a fundamental disagreement about how to interpret our citation policy. If I had realized that was going to happen I would have started here. Should I start another discussion here? Move the discussion from the help desk? Stay there even if it isn't really the right place? I don't want to be perceived as changing venues to get the answer I like -- I really do want an authoritative answer on what our policy is so I can follow it. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not spelled out in policy... but the general consensus is that information that appears on multiple pages needs a citation on every page where the information is repeated. So... if some bit of information is cited at article X, and that information is repeated in article Y, the citation at article X should also be repeated at article Y. Blueboar (talk) 22:40, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
FYI... There has been a lot of input about this matter at the help desk, where Guy brought the matter about 24 hours ago. The feeback given here by Blueboar essentially matches that given by all five editors who have replied so far at the help desk. --76.189.111.199 (talk) 06:24, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So we should:
I strongly suspect that if I were to start mass-tagging "list of" pages with Citation needed tags, I would be told that doing that is against policy. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:55, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't seen any of the six editors (here and at the help desk) advising to start mass-tagging various "list" pages. The issue is really about if an editor challenges a particular listing (by adding a cn tag). All six editors who have responded so far have said to add a citation to the tagged listing, even if it's sourced somewhere else on Wikipedia. While there are no policies of which I'm aware that say mass-tagging is a violation, it is unnecessary to do that unless you are sincerely questioning the validity of all the listings you are tagging. And if an editor were to claim that it is "against policy", they of course would be unable to provide a link to such policy if it does not exist. ;) In any case, this entire matter started (at the help desk) with a very specific question by Guy: Does content with a cn tag in one article need to be sourced if it's already sourced in another article? The answer given by everyone so far has been yes. --76.189.111.199 (talk) 07:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well if at this point Guy were to start mass cn-tagging then I think he'd pretty clearly be violating WP:POINT. It's not a policy violation, but it wouldn't be acceptable behavior on his part. In general though, all requests for citations should be honored and all unsourced information should be sourced or removed. The four lists that have been brought up twice now are of course in very poor shape and definitely do need further sourcing as suggested. The point here is that the reader should be able to easily verify any and every claim that is made, and not be required to navigate through the related pages until he finds the only once-listed source. Consider what happens when an article corresponding to a list entry is modified and the source is deleted. It's not a good idea to interpret WP:V so creatively. -Thibbs (talk) 08:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The talk of mass-tagging is, of course, a "what if I..." thought experiment. Of course I wouldn't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point. Besides, N2e is already mass-tagging large numbers of "list-of" articles. Do we really need two editors doing that?
I do reserve the right to climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man though... --Guy Macon (talk) 12:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If N2e is being disruptive then that's an issue unto itself. Certainly it's possible to use well-intentioned rules to disrupt, but that doesn't mean that the rules are at fault. I've seen people hauled before AN/I for nominating too many GAs or for awarding too many Barnstars. But in neither of those cases was the solution to put a cap on how many of these actions can be performed. You might consider dispute resolution with N2e if you think he is being disruptive. -Thibbs (talk) 14:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No need for that. It is pretty clear that we are both making good-faith efforts to improve the encyclopedia, but do not agree on how to apply WP:CIRCULAR. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, I'm going to disagree with the five editors at the help desk. If it's cited at the linked article, then it's cited. If you, personally, want to take the time and bother to copy it back, IMO you are welcome to it, but adding a citeneeded tag is silly. It's cited. It's just a click away. KillerChihuahua 09:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
100 percent wrong information to be giving out - if a list says Ted bundy killed 27 people and the article gets updated and now say only 26 because of new evidence what are we to do ... So our solution (written in policy) is we add references with assecsdates to list - so that our readers can see why there is a discrepancy the date of info is clear - thus one will assume one number is not wrong just out date.Moxy (talk) 19:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What information is wrong to be giving out? Did you put your post in the right place? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I posted. KillerChihuahua 04:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like to point out a pattern of behavior that I have observed.
I noticed it in this edit where N2e mass-tagged every claim, making it clear in the edit summary that he realized that there were sources -- just not on that page -- and claiming that "we need to get sources for a lot of the additional claims, beyond the mere article link".
N2e has been doing this sort of mass-tagging for a while, and there is usually a rather interesting followup activity. Example (one of many):N2e
cn tagged this article and then later came back and
removed the claims he had previously tagged and added a bunch more cn tags, then later
did it again, and then
again, leaving 17 new cn tags behind for his next round of content deletion. N2e does this a lot, and again and again cites WP:CIRCULAR to anyone who opposes the tagging or the deletions despite WP:CIRCULAR not saying anything one way or the other about this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:52, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a bit of a stretch to use WP:CIRCULAR in this context unless someone is specifically using Wikipedia or a scraper as a citation. A bluelink is not a citation. In this sense I also disagree with KillerChihuahua's idea that if a citation is only a click away then it's cited. How hard is it to migrate a one-click-away source to the list article? It makes no sense to scatter an article's references across more than one article. This dramatically increases the difficulty of maintaining the list because both pages are separately handled and the sources could be lost in the bluelinked article without the bluelinking article ever knowing about it. WP:SAL clearly demonstrates that stand-alone lists are articles in the same sense that non-list articles are. They are subject to the same verifiability rules. If list articles are allows to use citations from other articles without citing them then this is true for all articles. -Thibbs (talk) 14:36, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That was not my assertion. My assertion was that tagging such an item is silly. The cite is one click away. Add the damn cite, don't add citeneeded. It's the same amount of work, except one improves and the other tackyfies the article. I hope this has clarified the misunderstanding. KillerChihuahua 04:03, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I understand how you feel about it but it is a valid kind of cleanup operation. I agree that it's not the best case scenario, but if it results in a well-sourced article then it's a success. If the challenged material can't be sourced then it didn't belong on Wikipedia in the first place. -Thibbs (talk) 04:54, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • At the bare minimum, every redlink in these types of lists should be cited, and it seems reasonable as such they can be tagged and after a reasonable time deleted if no-one can provide a source.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I strongly agree. I would also say that if clicking the link to the other page does not bring you to a source for the claim, both pages should be tagged with cn, and if the other page doesn't even make the claim, the "list of" page should be tagged with cn. IMO, the only cases where a citation is not required are those cases where [A] the citation is a link away and [B] the page with the link but no citation is a "list of" or disambiguation page. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:50, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Erm. Common sense should prevail here. Firstly, whilst tag bombing is indeed disruptive, consider using {{Refimprove}} on the whole article then raising the specific concerns on the article's talk-page; much less uncivil. Secondly, examine some of Wikipedia's best work, such as our featured lists. You can then model your behaviour accordingly --Senra (talk) 13:53, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is no reason to treat "list of" articles any differently than normal articles. It's certainly not of benefit to the reader to see a list without any sources when sources are readily available. Using Nigel Ish's "bare minimum" is certainly an excellent practical measure and it's one I've used many times myself, but it's not the end of it. Any material whose verifiability has been challenged must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. That's pretty unambiguous in my view. So if an editor tags a list entry or even several list entries as needing citations then they have been challenged and they need citations regardless of whether they have a bluelink. Special exceptions are also clearly laid out. For example with disambiguation pages, Wikipedia:DAB#References provides an explicit exception to the sourcing rules. No such exception can be found in WP:SAL which goes out of its way to say that WP:V applies to list articles exactly the same as it does to all articles. -Thibbs (talk) 14:36, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well let me amend that. WP:SAL does suggest here that "sky-is-blue" claims generally don't need citations unless challenged in good faith. In other words if they don't meet WP:MINREF then they don't need to be cited. A goodfaith cn-tag challenge immediately elevates the matter into MINREF territory, though. -Thibbs (talk) 14:59, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • What bothers me is adding large numbers cn tags, waiting a few months, and then deleting the tagged material when the citation is just a click away. Red links? Tag and delete. No citation on the linked page? Tag and delete. But in those cases where there is a citation just a link away, why not follow the link and add the citation rather than cn tagging it? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • The trouble with these cases where there is a bluelink, is that in many cases information in the source article is not cited (lots of articles don't have precise citations). Even where information is cited, unless an editor can check what the source actually says, then we are in WP:Circular territory - i.e. relying on another Wikipedia article as a reference. Editors should not cite information to references they havn't checked - see WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. This is why the onus must be on people who add the suspect information.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • The act of cn-tagging, waiting for a few months, and then removing material that still remains uncited for those months is a kind of cleanup effort. List articles are often magnets for new editors who don't understand about Wikipedia's verifiability policies and who want to add original research. Unmaintained or improperly maintained lists are actually a huge referencing problem here in my experience. Obviously in an ideal world the editor adding the cn-tag should make at least a cursory effort to find the information himself, but there's nothing to require it. This is at the root of the inclusionist vs. deletionist argument as well. Some editors will spend most of their time improving, expanding, and creating articles and other editors will spend most of their time looking for poorly-written and unmaintained articles and nominating them for deletion or stripping them down to their bare verifiable core. I think that part of the process of assimilation into Wikipedia is coming to terms with the idea that both kinds of editors are valuable. I can tell you it took me quite a while to arrive at that conclusion. -Thibbs (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Again, contrary to Guy's implication, the guidance being given is not to start adding "large number of cn tags". IMO, that point is nothing more than a distraction. And let's be clear... a blue link is not a proper citation, so alluding to as if it is ("when the citation is a just a click away") is invalid and misleading. Even though unintentional, I believe that disregarding or discounting WP:CIRCULAR is, quite frankly, on the verge of being disruptive. It is simply wrong, and illogical, to believe that it is acceptable to essentially require a reader to go to another article to find a source for cn-tagged content in the article they're currently reading. It not only violates policy, but there's no guarantee that the source, or even the article, will still be there. I honestly do not understand why this discussion has been going on for days when the feeback has been amazingly consistent: If a good faith cn tag is present, source it. This all started with a simple question: Do I need to cite content if it's already cited in another article (which is blue-linked)? It was a good and fair question. But it has been answered yes many times by experienced editors, including multiple administrators. The overwhelming response has been clear: if someone adds a cn tag to content, add the source and move on. I think that constitutes consensus. Numerous relevant and foundational policies relating to verification have been cited here and at the help desk. And WP:MINREF is straightforward: You must use an inline citation (not a wikilink) whenever content is challenged, per WP:VERIFY. And to be clear, citation requirements for lists are no different than for articles. As WP:VERIFY makes clear, "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable" (emphasis added). While I certainly appreciate Guy's passion for editing and commend him for his willingness to use discussion instead of edit-warring, I think there must come a point where we can reasonably conclude that consensus has been reached. --76.189.111.199 (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is very simple "take the time and fix the problems you see" if it cant be resolved remove it.Moxy (talk) 20:08, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
76.189.111.199, Please don't make claims about consensus that are not supported by the facts. While it is true that a significant number of participants in this discussion think that there should be citations on both pages, there is close to zero support for your assertion that having a citation on the bluelinked page only is, in your words, "disregarding or discounting WP:CIRCULAR". Whether or not there should be citations on both pages, WP:CIRCULAR does not say what you think it says. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I think any implications that N2e has disruptively edited,[18] now or previously, are highly inappropriate in this forum. I don't know him and had never even heard his name prior to this issue, but I do see that he's been editing for seven years and has never received a block. While it wouldn't surprise me if he (or any other long-time editor) has had some battles with other editors, his squeaky-clean block record over such a long period is, for me, a reliable indication of his intentions. So if someone wants to question his integrity, this is not the proper place to do it. 76.189.111.199 (talk) 20:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I implied no such thing. Yes, I did point out that N2e is using these cn tags as part of a two-step process of removing content, but I never implied that removing content that he believes -- rightly or wrongly -- to be unsourced is "misbehavior". It isn't, and this discussion is simply about what Wikipedia policy is and is not. If I was trying to address user misbehavior, I would have gone to ANI or RFC/U. I am trying to address a question of policy, which is why I came here. BTW, I also have a seven-year editing history with no blocks. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Guy, other editors can simply read your comments about N2e's editing and decide for themselves what you were or were not implying. Please note that Thibbs also alluded to the same point when he replied to your comment by saying, "If N2e is being disruptive then that's an issue unto itself".[19] I am confident that any reasonable person will agree that beginning a comment with, "I would like to point out a pattern of behavior that I have observed" and then adding statements such as "N2e has been doing this sort of mass-tagging for a while" and "N2e does this a lot, and again and again cites WP:CIRCULAR to anyone who opposes the tagging or the deletions despite WP:CIRCULAR not saying anything one way or the other about this issue", plus your use of excessive bolding, can easily be perceived as an implication, or even a direct claim, of disruptive editing. So while you say you never implied "misbeahvior", your comment was actually prefaced by the term "pattern of behavior" and followed with comments about how you object to that behavior. Therefore, I stand by my assessment. And while I fully realize that you also have an equally long history with no blocks (for which you should be highly commended), there was no need for me to point it out because it was N2e, not you, whose editing behavior was being questioned. Finally, regarding your statement, "Please don't make claims about consensus that are not supported by the facts", I truly hope you will re-read the comments here and at the help desk to reevaluate the many relevant facts, policies, and guidelines that have been presented to you by a lot of experienced and knowledgeable editors. I'm not sure how many more editors will need to tell you essentially the same things before you will accept it, but I have a strong suspicion that you fully realize what the overwhelming thinking and protocol is on this matter. ;) I do respect your passion, but sometimes you just need to move on. In any case, I wish you the best of luck in your editing and thank you for your efforts to improve the project. 76.189.111.199 (talk) 05:06, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To directly answer Guy's question about adding "citation needed tags" to all those lists. No, you should not add citation needed tags. What you should do is copy the citations from the articles into the list article. If the problem is that the information at a list article needs to be sourced, Fix the problem by adding sources... since you know that a citation exists for the information, and all it will take is a quick cut and paste from one article to another... so add the necessary citations yourself rather than tagging in an attempt to make someone else do it.
Furthermore, it may not be necessary to add a separate citation for each and every item on a list. For example, it may be that most of the items listed can be cited to one or two sources... rather than repeating those citations over and over again, try to craft a short introductory paragraph where you can cite the relevant sources ... This would mean that the only items you would have to cite specifically in the list text are any odd men out (ie items that are not mentioned in those, already cited, sources). There are options. Be creative and resolve the issue. Blueboar (talk) 17:10, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So you are saying that information in list-type articles cannot be challenged?Nigel Ish (talk) 17:16, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No that is not what I am saying... unsourced information in lists can certainly be challenged. However, in the scenario being presented, the information is not what is actually being challenged. The original question here was premised on the assumption that the challenger knows the information is not only accurate but that it is supported (by a citation) in another article. So what is being challenged is not the actual information that appears on the list, but the lack of citations at the list article. That sort of challenge has a remedy... cut and paste the citations. Blueboar (talk) 17:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
At the real risk of extending this already overly long thread, I must object. I take issue with @BlueBoar's "What you should do is copy the citations from the articles into the list article". We cannot assume another editor (or editors) source is correct. It might even be a dead-link. We must properly check such sources and if we cannot, for example it is a book source which we don't have personal access to, we shouldn't just copy it --Senra (talk) 18:40, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Having just said that, if we "copied the citations from the articles into the list articles" and then made it clear in an edit summary or talk-page post that we have AGF on the source(s) we just copied, I guess that would be fine --Senra (talk) 18:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Senra, I just wanted to clarify about what I'm confident Blueboar meant. When he said to copy-and-paste the source from the other article, I'm sure he assumed that it goes without saying that we must also make sure that the source verifies the content to which it's being attached. Dodger67 (Roger) made the point more precisely in the help desk discussion when he said, "The simplest way to solve it would be to simply copy the cite - after you've verified that it does in fact support the claim."[20] Blueboar can of course correct me if I'm misinterpreting his intentions. For the record, I do not agree with your follow-up comment that says that simply invoking AGF in an edit summary is acceptable. I think it's vital that we always make sure the sources we are personally adding do in fact verify the content, even if they're being used for the same content somewhere else. A simple "I believe you" (AGF) just isn't good enough. In any case, I think both of you really have the exact same thinking on this particular issue and that you were simply trying to be nice when you made the AGF addendum. ;) I'd suggest that you simply strike the AGF comment. --76.189.111.199 (talk) 20:42, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Senra, thanks for striking.[21]. And I enjoyed your edit summary. I knew you were just being nice. ;) --76.189.111.199 (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus

Let me summarize where I think the consensus here is heading.

I was wrong in thinking that standalone lists don't need citations if the bluelinked pages they link to do. This is not explicitly spelled out in any policy, but is implied in WP:V and is supported by an overwhelming consensus that information that appears on multiple pages needs a citation on every page where the information is repeated.

N2e was and still is entirely correct in tagging and later deleting list items that are redlinked, where the bluelinks don't repeat the claim, or where the bluelinks repeat the claim without a citation. In the case where the bluelinks repeat the claim without a citation, both articles should be tagged.

In the case where the list item doesn't have a citation but the bluelinked article does, editors should not tag the list item, but rather should cut and paste the citation from the bluelinked article to the list item. CN tagging and later deleting material when you know where to find the citation and can easily cut and paste it violates our WP:PRESERVE policy.

Instead of adding dozens of Wikipedia:Citation needed tags, editors should consider using Template:Unreferenced section, Template:Unreferenced, or Template:Refimprove. See WP:OVERTAGGING and WP:TAGBOMB.

WP:CIRCULAR clearly does not apply to this situation -- a bluelink is not a citation, and a citation doesn't become a self-referential citation to Wikipedia itself just because it is at the other end of a bluelink. WP:UNSOURCED does apply -- a bluelink is not a citation, and therefore the existence of a bluelink does not in itself source a claim.

The following policies and essays are relevant:

Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence: "When tagging or removing material for not having an inline citation, please state your concern that there may not be a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable. If instead you think the material is erifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."

Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems#Over-tagging: "It is best to provide the fewest number of the most specific possible tags. Placing too many tags on an article is "tag-bombing", disruptive, [and] results in confusion and discouragement more often than it results in improving the encyclopedia. ... It is very rare that more than two or three tags are needed, even on the worst articles. Adding more tags usually results in all of them being ignored."

Wikipedia:Tag bombing: "Tag bombing is the addition of multiple tags to an article or adding one tag to multiple articles. Adding tags to articles should be accompanied by sufficient reasoning on the tagged article's talk page (or in a "reason" parameter where one exists) to explain why the tags are needed."

Wikipedia:Responsible tagging: "When a responsible tagging reviewer sees a problem with a Wikipedia article, he clearly labels the problem with the appropriate tag. As needed he then leaves information clarifying what should be done on the talk page. ... If you are going to put a tag on an article that proclaims it as seriously faulty, you should leave an explanation on the talk page of that article, even though the reasons seem plainly obvious to you. ... A responsible tagger would read each page before applying any tags, and then leave on the talk page a message that shows that he indeed read the page, honestly believes it applies, and is not acting under a whim."

Comments? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:35, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It spelled out in policy - MOS WP:Source list - "Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content as are paragraphs and articles, and they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies such as Verifiability - ensure that each item to be included on the list is adequately referenced ",Moxy (talk) 19:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not spelled out in the policy you referenced. It is not spelled out that "adequately referenced" is not satisfied by the bluelink. Implied? yes. Supported by overwhelming consensus? Yes. Explicitly spelled out? No. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:00, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you mean then - I see the policy saying - if something is on a list it has to be referenced on that list and that the list itself should be neutral to begin with. Perhaps a rewording would help?Moxy (talk) 23:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be so kind as to quote the exact wording where you see "it has to be referenced on that list" explicitly spelled out in the policy you referenced? I only see "it has to be referenced" with "on that list" implied (and of course supported by overwhelming consensus).
As for rewording, I do see that others have read it the way I did at first (see above for details) but I have only seen this in direct response to a particular situation (CN tagging rather than adding a cite when you know that there is a citation at the end of a bluelink, then mistakenly invoking WP:CIRCULAR when someone disagrees) that I don't see any need for a rewording. It would be better to just stop doing those two things. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(in bold above already) It has to be reworded if its not clear to all - cant have confusion on the matter. Wikipedia:Featured list criteria intro to what a basic list has is a good start. Note how at List of Canadian Victoria Cross recipients ever entry has a reference on that page - even if its the same ref from the main pages.Moxy (talk) 05:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to be clear to everyone but you that [A] there is no confusion on the matter after studying our policy. [B] everyone agrees that our policy is pretty much what I wrote in the "Consensus" section above [C] it is not explicitly spelled out in the portion you quoted in bold, and [D] there is no need for any rewording, because "the policy is clear even though this particular situation is not explicitly spelled out" is a valid concept. We do not need to explicitly spell what happens in every situation if the policy is clear, which it is, and everyone agrees on the policy, which we do. --Guy Macon (talk)
  • I think you've got it pretty clearly spelled out, Guy. The only thing I'd quibble over is whether it is acceptable to tag without migrating the ref from the bluelink. But I definitely agree that if the tagging editor knows of the existence of a ref and chooses to cn tag it rather than migrating it then he's not helping very much and if it results in the loss of verifiable material (note: verifiable, not verified) then it is potentially harmful. And if the reason for cn-tagging rather than migrating is to remove material you disagree with then that's clear disruption. -Thibbs (talk) 19:49, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that we should be less concerned with upsetting the delicate sensibilities of editors who cannot be bothered to provide proper sourcing for articles and more concerned with making sure lists, just like other articles are properly sourced. This allergy against telling other editors what the problems are with an article is extremely damaging to the encyclopedia. If nothing can be tagged or questioned, like some of the editors here seem to think, then nothing will ever be improved. Often it is only the potential that content may be removed that prompts improvements to list articles and avoids the sort of very poor condition lists that resulted in this discussion being started.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:35, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I call your WP:NEEDSMOARDRAMA and raise you WP:PRESERVE. (smile) --Guy Macon (talk) 21:00, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nigel is yet another editor with a very long history (6+ years) with no blocks. Although perhaps I would have chosen a different tone to convey the same message, I am very impressed with all of you who have edited for many years without any sanctions. I have heard some editors say that a record like that signifies weakness, but I firmly believe it represents great strength. So thank you to Guy, Nigel, N2e, and all the other longtime editors with empty block logs, for setting such a good example. Having said all that... Guy, if you see a cn tag, add a reliable source! :P --76.189.111.199 (talk) 00:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is indeed good advice, and I will do that to the specific links we are discussing after this discussion closes (I didn't want to muddy the water). That being said, N2e does a lot of CN tagging followed by deletion, and most of the times he is entirely correct (redlinks, etc.). Rather than me follow him around and adding links in the cases where the consensus is that he should add a citation rather than a CN tag (see above for details) I am hoping that he will agree to do that himself in those cases. That way everybody wins. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:26, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We should be clear, though, that whether N2e should add the refs himself or not is a matter of preference and not policy. I think there is a consensus that if not adding the refs is a matter of pure laziness, obstinacy, or sneaky POV then indeed the tagging editor should be adding them himself instead of cn-tagging, but if these cn-tags are part of a normal cleanup effort by an editor who may not have been aware of the source when he placed the tag, then they are at least permissible. -Thibbs (talk) 03:58, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense to me. Thanks for the clarification. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:26, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I fully concur with Thibbs. Although editors should add a ref they know exists rather than cn-tagging, they are under no obligation to do so. And regarding Guy's reference to following N2e around, that of course would be a very bad idea. I hope everyone has a great week. :) --76.189.111.199 (talk) 06:37, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate link. WP:WIKIHOUNDING specificly says "Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam." If (and this is a big if) N2e decides to continue adding CN tags where he knows there are citations at the end of a bluelink I could (if I had the time and interest) follow him around and add citations. That isn't Wikihounding, because replacing a CN tag with a citation cannot possibly be "creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor" In fact, if I replaced every CN tag N2e ever placed with a good citation, he would no doubt thank me.
Also, this is the third time you have responded to a hypothetical argument as if it were some sort of threat. Examining the logical consequences of a policy is a standard method of arguing a point. For example, if you say "we should allow anyone to set fire to a house if the house is really, really ugly" I am allowed to ask "so it's OK for me to burn down your house if I decide it is ugly?" Such a reply does not require a "Arson is a bad idea" response, because it is a hypothetical "what if" comment, not a threat. (Also, I don't know or care who you are or where you live, whereas with a minute or so of searching you would know both of those things about me). I am glad that you hope I have a great week, but I must say that my week would be improved if you assumed good faith on my part. I you think I made a threat, you can just ask me what I meant. I won't lie. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:20, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks. --76.189.111.199 (talk) 09:02, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A Lady surely, not a Gentleman? Not Guy, obviously. Queen Gertrude! --Senra (talk) 21:37, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Guy is a, er, guy. Therefore, I obviously was not going to refer to him as a lady. 76.189.111.199 (talk) 23:48, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Our resident IP drama seeker got the meaning completely wrong by misunderstanding of the meaning of the word "protest" as it was used in Shakespeare's day, so why not get the gender wrong as well? At this point, I am just happy that I am not being accused of being Wired... --Guy Macon (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Guy, I fully understand Shakespeare's meaning of the word, but I have no doubt whatsoever that you understood I was referring to the very common, modern (mis)interpretation. In any case, it was intended simply as a humorous retort to your extremely long, defensive response (admit it :)) to a simple comment meant in good fun ("And regarding Guy's reference to following N2e around, that of course would be a very bad idea"). Clearly, I did not say, or even think, you were a stalker. I only said it would be a bad idea. But you opened the door wide with that comment, so I simply poked a little fun at you because it appeared we were at a point of friendly resolution in this matter with the links. Perhaps I should have used a smiley face. In any case, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. 76.189.111.199 (talk) 07:24, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Round 2

Guy, sorry to be late to the discussion.
  1. I do not think that you were "wrong in thinking that standalone lists don't need citations if the bluelinked pages they link to do." IMHO you were right; 'and it depends on cases. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, but uncontroversial claims do not require that such ironclad cases be built. List articles containing only bluelinks, are, IMHO, unextraordinary claims, especially in every case where the bluelinked article supports the item's membership in the list article.
  2. Editors who assert that citations are required in every article, even lists for the same claim are engaging in a kind of dead-trees print-based thinking: that any random Wikipedia article, printed out, should contain all citations for every claim made in that article, because presumably it cannot be assumed that the reader can look up linked articles. IMHO this is lazy "I want my term paper done for me by Wikipedia editors, all citations included." IMHO this "print" notion is not based on fact, it is not our problem, and it does not actually have precedent in dead-trees publishing. Print encyclopedias encourage and expect the reader of a referencing article to refer to the topic article for citation support; they did not duplicate citations everywhere. Wikipedia is an online resource, and "chasing" citations tends to be a single-click action; if a reader got the referring article online, they can trivially get the linked article online. It is the purpose of reference materials to present authoritative text supported by reliable sources once, so that updates need only be done in one place, and so synchronization of content is not required.
  3. Requiring citation duplication is busy-work, and is unencyclopedic on the face of it, and, yes, in my opinion, not rational.
  4. Over the years, insistence on sourcing for claims made in articles has grown:
    None (operating on the presumption of good faith of the article author)
    Lackadaisical (hey, let's cite sources, that's more encyclopedic)
    Strong (per Jimmy Wales)
    Crypto-strong (wild, deletionistic enforcement, including deleting articles lacking sourcing, though sources exist but are not cited)
    And now, completely, obsessively over the top: replicating citations all over the encyclopedia, cluttering sentences and lists, even if the bluelinked topic article/section supports the claim well.
  5. I strongly advocate the "reference" approach: facts are expounded, explained, supported in citations in one place (article), and bluelinked (referred to, or "referenced") everywhere else. I therefore strongly oppose needless, cluttering replication of citations where claims are properly supported in their base topic article/section.
  6. You wrote, "This is not explicitly spelled out in any policy, but is implied in WP:V and is supported by an overwhelming consensus that information that appears on multiple pages needs a citation on every page where the information is repeated." IMHO it's not spelled out anywhere because it's not policy, because consensus has never risen to support it in either guideline or policy. "Overwhelming" local consensus is interesting, but is not definitive. Only a true WP:RFC can settle this fairly: don't be buffaloed. --Lexein (talk) 00:30, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! The bit about "so that updates need only be done in one place, and so synchronization of content is not required" has been in the back of my mind, but I didn't want to open up a can of worms. A man who wears two watches never knows what time it is. I have had several responses claiming that it is indeed explicitly spelled out in a policy, but they all went silent when asked to quote the exact wording where it is explicitly spelled out. Good point about local consensus. I always go along with Wikipedia policies whether I agree with them or not, but a local consensus isn't a policy -- even though I almost always follow local consensus where I cannot find a policy. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What you have to look at is how people are interpreting the policies and guides they read overall (The rules are principles). We have to focus on the actual point of Wikipedia (to make all knowledge available to all). Note how I did not say just Wikipedia knowledge but all knowledge. We have to think of our readers over anything else and make accessibility to knowledge as unhindered as possible - focus on the readers over what editors think is best for layout and/or editing easy. So lets looks at 2 very different lists List of best-selling music artists vs List of districts of Nepal. One contains lots of facts and one is just a list with no statements - as a reader (not editor) would you not find it easier to be-able to look up the the fact by way of the references on the list or have to go searching for them somewhere in the main article. Accessibility is a major concern - I myself have MS and can tell you its much easier to not surf through many articles to derive serviceable information for the references I am seeking. Do what is best for the reader - as in easy accessibility to knowledge outside Wikipedia as well as inside the site.Moxy (talk) 07:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I find the way List of districts of Nepal is set up to be far more useful than List of best-selling music artists. I cannot think of any plausible scenario where anyone would want to know that Andrea Bocelli first charted in 1994 and that ABBA are from Sweden at the same time. The one you like seems like an overly busy example of information overload to me. Then again, I would have the exact same opinion if you removed all the citations from the music list and added citations to the Nepal list.
Let me try a little experiment: population of Kaski District vs. Parsa District (using stopwatch)? 12 seconds. How many charted records does Aretha Franklin have vs. Gloria Estefan? Three minutes to find the number for Aretha, gave up after five minutes for Gloria. That's because some Wikipedia editor decided that the release year of Gloria Estefan's first charted record is super important but that the total number of Gloria Estefan's charted records isn't important at all. That's the problem with trying to cram a bunch of info into what should be an index: you always guess wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is good - gal to see your evaluating the situation and making an informed decision. I may not agree with your assessment, but what we need all to do is use editorial discretion. You seem to be on the right path just use common sense and all should work out just fine.Moxy (talk) 17:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh boy, let me address Lexein's comment point by point:

  • 1. Indeed, WP:EXCEPTIONAL spells out the need for multiple high-quality sources for surprising, important, out of character, counter-interest, counter-mainstream, and conspiracy-related claims for which primary or self-published sources are the only support. But it's a far stretch to say that because exceptional claims require exceptional sources, unexceptional claims don't require any.
  • 2. There is nothing "dead-trees" related about requiring that sources used in an article are presented in the same article. In fact it's quite the opposite. The "dead-trees" approach would be to refer readers to a central set of refs in, say, the "endnotes" page of a paper encyclopedia. The modern paperless way recognizes that referential links are fragile. Unlike the paper-based encyclopedia which is physically bound into a single unit, the articles making up Wikipedia and indeed the webpages making up the internet are only usable as reference provided that the group claiming the reference checks back every so often to ensure that the target is still viable.
  • 3. Isn't all editing busy-work? This is a volunteer-based endeavor, but there are rules. If you find that adding sources makes you too busy then you're free to leave this part of the job to other volunteers. But the need for sources is clearly spelled out in the policy and guidelines and so the downside is that your unsourced information may be removed if the next editor can't verify it.
  • 4. Assumption of goodfaith relates to editorial behavior, not content. The two are quite distinct. We don't have to have goodfaith that all sources are accurate and, let's face it, having goodfaith in unsourced Wikipedia material is naive to a fault.
    As you point out in "Lackadaisical", sources are encyclopedic.
    The Crypto-strong era you've described was never acceptable behavior as it has always been contrary to policy here at Wikipedia (unless you're speaking of a lack of non-reliable sources).
    As explained above, the obsessive use of sources is both encyclopedic and necessary in a post-paper era when book-bindings don't hold the information in a single unit.
  • 5. The novel idea of a central authority for sources that are transcluded by reference through the use of bluelinks is completely unsupported by policy or consensus, and for good reason. If such a system were the proper way of conducting article-writing here, then we would be setting up chains of invisible reference rendering the capacity for the reader to verify the material extremely difficult and expanding the difficulty of the job of the editor by orders of magnitude as explained above. This is not a nicely-bound paper volume where we can just flip to the ever-present "endnotes" page. Duplication of links makes eminent good sense here because the pages that make up this encyclopedia are "looseleaf". They are independent of one another. One can be deleted or moved without any disruption to the encyclopedia. Disruption would be manifest if we used the kind of citation by oblique reference you've championed. Every time a page was altered, the other pages that use that page as a source would ahve to also be altered correspondingly. Again, it would increase the editors' workload exponentially.
  • 6. You're wrong. The exact policy is spelled out in WP:V. Consider the following sentence: "All quotations and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed" (emphasis added). Is there any reasonable ambiguity here? What does it mean to have an inline citation? Is it acceptable if it's cited inline anywhere on Wikipedia? What if it's only cited inline on a third-party website or in a paper-copy book? Clearly the word "inline" refers to the line that has been challenged. It's nonsense to claim that there is no policy in support of citing claims within their own articles. If you don't find any language specifically stating this obvious fact then the reason is most likely to do with the fact that nobody who wrote the policy could have ever imagine someone would try to weasel around the words in this way. The need for a citation in line with the disputed claim is unambiguously a part of the official consensus-based policy. The guidelines are even more directly on point. Look at the Manual of Style for Lists - Citing sources. There's no way to even weasel about there. It's an airtight requirement that challenged claims anywhere in articlespace must have a proper citation. And bluelinks simply are not citations.

I hope that covers all the main points. -Thibbs (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to second Lexein's proposal of filing "a true WP:RFC" if anyone is still doubtful, though. This is actually a rather important topic and true clarity would be much better than walking away from thinking that the sourcing requirements are nothing more than local consensus. -Thibbs (talk) 22:12, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thibbs, you've missed my most explicitly-stated point: lists are uncontroversial claims, especially if the bluelinked items are well supported in their topic articles. Further, you exaggerate a lot, and I think you should strikethrough the worst of it. Your attempt to crowbar that sourcing policy quote about challenged material to apply to every bluelink is horribly pointy and undue; such crazed obsessive overuse was never intended by any of the authors of that policy. Ridiculous! Your rhetorical fear of chains of bluelinks is entirely unfounded and silly on its face; that's not what I was talking about, and you know it. I really don't feel like bothering with the rest. It's exhausting, because what you've written borders on bad faith, and no, I don't like it one bit. I never said bluelinks are citations: they link to the topic articles where the citations are expected/required to be. There's nothing airtight here except, apparently, your closeminded thinking on this topic. You won't win: there will never be an inline-ref-per-word-or-phrase required at Wikipedia, or a blanket requirement for inline refs for every entry in uncontroversial lists. --Lexein (talk) 00:00, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
List membership does not represent an intrinsically uncontroversial claim. Uncontroversial claims on lists do not need to be sourced, but as soon as a claim on a list is challenged then it is no longer uncontroversial. See WP:MINREF (which is linked from WP:SAL). And I don't think it's ridiculous in the least to be concerned about the decoupling of source from claim as you've argued in favor of. For any offense I've given you I apologize, but I don't think I was exaggerating and I absolutely assume good faith in your intentions. I'm not sure what to make of your invocation of WP:POINT (which is a behavior guideline) and WP:UNDUE (which is a content policy), and I can't see how either of them have anything to do with my comments, but let me assure you that I'm not here to win. This isn't a battle or a game, it's a serious discussion. And I do encourage you to pursue RfC if you disagree with my interpretations of the policy. My views are demonstrably part of the majority view. -Thibbs (talk) 00:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thibbs, I will be even clearer than I was before: to require extra inline citations to "cover" a bluelink in a list is a de facto assumption of bad faith. It is an assumption of bad faith that the bluelinked article does not adequately source its content with respect to the item's presence in the list. Your negative characterization of "decoupling" aside, your presumption of challengeability is void. There is no presumption that a claim is likely to be challenged, especially (IMHO) if the claim is already adequately sourced in the bluelinked topic article. You may try to wrap yourself in some sort of assumption of consensus, but I only see you here, misreading carefully worded policies (ignoring modifiers) hammered out over years, in order to clutter articles and lists with needless, and redundant, inline citations, where topic articles already adequately source claims referred to (bluelinked) elsewhere. I think we're seeing the dawn of a new kind of content/citation absolutism, right here, designed to ultimately replicate content and inline citations everywhere, rather than simply refer by using bluelinks; I'll call it what it is: "replicationism" or "duplicationism". Just how much needless, redundant visual clutter are you demanding that readers put up with? --Lexein (talk) 00:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This idea that requiring sources to be on the same page as the claims which they bolster is a de facto assumption of badfaith in the editor adding the entry is simply preposterous. I do agree with you that there is no presumption that a claim is likely to be challenged, but if you carefully read the original question you'll discover that in this case an actual challenge was made in the form of a cn-tag. And in cases where actual challenges have been made, then I'm afraid my "replicant" nature compels me to insist that the citations should appear inline with the challenged claim and not inline with a claim made in a different article. I'm not misreading the carefully worded policies but, again, if you'd like to persist with this then I invite you to file an RfC so we can find out how everyone else interprets these carefully worded policies. -Thibbs (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What[Citation needed] bothers[Citation needed] me[Citation needed] is[Citation needed] the[Citation needed] implied[Citation needed] claim[Citation needed] that[Citation needed] any[Citation needed] number[Citation needed] of[Citation needed] Citation[Citation needed] Needed[Citation needed] tags[Citation needed] on[Citation needed] any[Citation needed] number[Citation needed] of[Citation needed] articles[Citation needed] meets[Citation needed] the[Citation needed] "as[Citation needed] soon[Citation needed] as[Citation needed] a[Citation needed] claim[Citation needed] is[Citation needed] tagged/challenged[Citation needed] then[Citation needed] it[Citation needed] is[Citation needed] no[Citation needed] longer[Citation needed] uncontroversial"[Citation needed] criteria.[Citation needed] If[Citation needed] I[Citation needed] see[Citation needed] someone[Citation needed] tagging[Citation needed] everything[Citation needed] in[Citation needed] an[Citation needed] article[Citation needed] and[Citation needed] then[Citation needed] moving[Citation needed] on[Citation needed], mass-tagging[Citation needed] a[Citation needed] bunch[Citation needed] of[Citation needed] articles[Citation needed] at[Citation needed] a[Citation needed] rate[Citation needed] of[Citation needed] one[Citation needed] every[Citation needed] five[Citation needed] minutes[Citation needed], that[Citation needed] does[Citation needed] not[Citation needed] convince[Citation needed] me[Citation needed] that[Citation needed] everything[Citation needed] so[Citation needed] tagged[Citation needed] is[Citation needed], by[Citation needed] definition,[Citation needed] controversial.[Citation needed] --[ Guy Macon ] ([ talk ]) 23:24, 28 February 2013 (UTC) [Citation needed][reply]
For those who might wish to read the above: What bothers me is the implied claim that any number of Citation Needed tags on any number of articles meets the "as soon as a claim is tagged/challenged then it is no longer uncontroversial" criteria. If I see someone tagging everything in an article and then moving on, mass-tagging a bunch of articles at a rate of one every five minutes, that does not convince me that everything so tagged is, by definition, controversial. (edited by Thibbs (talk) 23:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC))[reply]
You have a point there. What you produced above would be a good example of a WP:POINT violation. In normal practice, cn-tags are placed after unverified sentences or key parts of unverified sentences, not after the word "on" or "a", for example. For lists it is appropriate to tag list entries once per unverified entry. Thus, for "List of Kenyans" we would cn-tag the unverified bluelink "Barack Hussein Obama" only once after the word "Obama", and not after each word in his name. This example also illustrates why verification within the list is essential. Given the history of this controversial topic, I can easily conceive of a situation in which the main article on "Barack Obama" was locked down for weeks while a large RfC was underway to determine if Obama was a Hawaiian or a Kenyan. If the main article was locked with him listed as a Kenyan according to some potentially RS source, then the person constructing the "List of Kenyans" might think it was OK to add him to the list without reffing the matter. After the RfC had concluded and it was determined that Obama was not in fact a Kenyan then unless the RfC participants knew of the existence of the List of Kenyans, or unless the creator of the list of Kenyans had also put the main articles for all purported Kenyans on his watchlist, the error would remain until a third party happened to wander into the list article and noticed that the main article (via the bluelink) didn't support the claim. Who knows how long this unverified claim would persist until then. -Thibbs (talk) 23:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC) PS - Apologies in advance if this is a politically sensitive topic for anyone. It was just a quick example and not intended as anything more. -Thibbs (talk) 23:51, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My silly example aside, is there a substantive difference between cn-tagging the unverified bluelink "Barack Hussein Obama" and cn-tagging the every unverified bluelink on "list of Kenyans" -- and then doing the same on "List of Freedonians" and "List of Elbonians"? The former feels like a legitimate challenged claim, while the latter feels like a misuse of the "as soon as a claim is tagged/challenged then it is no longer uncontroversial" rule. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes, if someone is being disruptive by placing excessive cn-tags then he can't hide behind WP:V. If an editor is trying to make the point that an entire list is full of unverified items and he wants to cull them then I might recommend placing a general refimprove banner at the top and posting his intention to cull the unverified list items on the talk page. I don't want to definitively say that it's never appropriate to cn-tag all unverified list members even when there are a lot of them, because sometimes it's necessary to make individual challenges to each item, but often there are better ways of going about performing maintenance. It's a case-by-case question where the person doing the mass tagging runs the risk of getting sanctioned for disruption. -Thibbs (talk) 00:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The edit which started this discussion was this edit to List of production battery electric vehicles (and the user's history says that in two months the cn tags will become deletions...) My position was that tagging and then deleting when you know that there is a citation -- just not ob the list page -- is disruptive and violates WP:PRESERVE. Some here agree with me , but many do not. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:28, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When I read your initial question at the Help Desk, my understanding was that you were asking whether a bluelinked list member whose citation supporting the claim appeared only on the linked page was sufficient as-is, or whether it needed to be cited in the list article as well. As a general matter (i.e. notwithstanding obviously appropriate list members), the answer to this question is that the citations for list members must appear in the list article as well. I agree that tagging and deleting when you know that there is a proper citation is poor form and that it is destructive and quite probably disruptive within the meaning intended by WP:POINT. The threshold for content inclusion on Wikipedia is verifiability, not verification. So if you know that a good citation exists and yet you remove a claim based on nothing more than the fact that it wasn't in fact cited, then you have made an error of judgment. All of this is premised on the idea that you know that there is a citation, though. If not, then you are free to tag and remove with much more latitude. But this should not be interpreted to mean that contested list items need not be sourced if they bluelink to an article that is sourced. In other words you can't infer constructive knowledge here. These are two very different issues. -Thibbs (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, for what it's worth, and per your edit summary, as I said above, I think it's a stretch to invoke WP:CIRCULAR in this matter. Circular refs are cases where actual citations are used that point to Wikipedia or a clone/scraper. When we're talking about citation by reference via bluelinks then no actual citation is occurring. Bluelinks aren't citations so in my view, WP:CIRCULAR is misapplied here. WP:V is all that needs to be invoked. -Thibbs (talk) 00:54, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rejected Post

We have a website based on movie reviews. We have professional reviewers hired for writing reviews. We wanted to post what our reviewer thinks about a movie on a Movie Page. However our post got rejected saying, "We are not reliable source". So, Could you please let us know whom do wikipedia consider as Reliable Source? According to this Policy, no new upcoming websites will ever get noticed. Then what is the difference of Wikipedia and other corrupted media, if only big companies are the ones who are able to post at Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Viralpatel15 (talk • contribs) 06:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources for further details. Generally speaking, what people on Wikipedia are looking for in terms of reliable sources is some organization that is well established and has some sort of editorial review by somebody other than the original author. In other words, can even a professional writer make a review but get that review rejected by some publisher or editor-in-chief and get that review yanked from the site?
I'd also say that citations are a big thing too. Are other people (not Wikipedia... but other people "in the business") citing your publication or website in other publications? How often is that done... occasionally or commonly? Is it done at all?
I know this seems to be favoring "big companies" that are well established, but the point is that you need to earn the respect as being a reliable source which is something earned over time. It is possible to establish an organization and even a website to become a reliable source, but it takes time. Frankly I don't think the bar is set all that high on movie reviews. You might want to get in touch with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Film group and especially make some comments on the talk page of that Wikiproject group. It is there that you will find many of the editors who are explicitly involved with editing film related articles.
Regardless, don't take this personally. You admit you are a relatively new website. Work at improving the quality of what it is that you are doing and in time others will consider your site to be reliable if you maintain high standards and try to improve the quality of what it is that you are doing. Using Wikipedia to promote your website is the wrong way to act anyway, and you need to find another vehicle to advertise your product. If it is as good as you claim it is, your site will eventually be considered reliable and will be cited over time. --Robert Horning (talk) 07:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

3RR Rule Exception for Blanking

Since section blanking is a controversial edit, I don't think it would be a bad idea to create a 3RR Exception for it, similar to the ones for blatant vandalism and self reverting. ThePeriodicTable123 (talk) 21:50, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CREEP. Let's think of the times where blanking would be appropriate: User elects to blank their talk page when they want and it's not otherwise prohibited (i.e. Active sanctions), user blanks their userpage, user blanks a subpage of theirs. If the user really wants to get rid of all the content on their talk page, it's still available via the page history, and editors who are looking for a response will be able to determine when it ceaced to be a part of the page (and not in the user's talk archives). A user's userpage is whatever they want it to be (within certain limits) so no need to restrict the user from blanking on their own. Subpages fall under the userpage category, so no need to restrict there. Now if a user blanks a page that is not in their userspace then we have the reguar blatant vandalism exemption to cover the editor who is trying to restore the page. Obviously if you feel you're in danger of being judged as not on the right side of EW/3RR you can always involve 3rd parties (i.e. Third Opinion or Edit Warring Noticeboard) to see if your evaluation of the situation is correct. The entire encyclopedia won't spontaneously implode because a page has been blanked, so take it easy. Hasteur (talk) 22:33, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely not a good idea at all. (And, unlike Hasteur, I'm thinking of article edits here, as I believe did the original poster). There are multiple good reasons why somebody might decide in good faith to blank a section in an article: it consists entirely of undue weight POV material; or of unsalvagable wrong and unsourced content; or of excessive and inappropriate trivia; or it is simply off-topic. Such edits might be potentially "controversial", sure, but if any controversy arises over them, that's still a normal content dispute like any other, and there is no reason why Wikipedia policy should a priori favour one side of it procedurally, let alone by encouraging one side in the dispute to try "solving" it by edit-warring beyond 3R. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The very fact that the 3RR exists at all means that we favor one side procedurally - whichever side first uses up its reverts "loses". Admins ought to be able to recognize the difference between mindless edit-warring and repeated reverts of inappropriate edits, and act accordingly. There should be no rule that attempts to reduce this type of judgement to a matter of counting to three. (Or four - why is it not called the 4RR?) Victor Yus (talk) 07:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such rule. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 08:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, there is. Victor Yus (talk) 08:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're misreading it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 08:32, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In what way? Victor Yus (talk) 08:35, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One can be blocked before that, or not be blocked even after 5 reverts. This isn't a mindless count-to-three; never has been. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 08:36, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So why does the rule appear on a policy page? Victor Yus (talk) 08:38, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To give people an idea of what could happen and what is expected of them. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 08:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that what the rest of the policy does? If the number 3 (or 4) is not significant (or not particularly significant), then is the statement of the "rule" not highly misleading? Victor Yus (talk) 08:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but so are jaywalking laws and whatnot. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 08:52, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What part of "there is a bright-line rule" are you having trouble understanding? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Who are you asking? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It seems the policy states that there is a bright-line rule, I'm saying there shouldn't be, and Seb is saying there actually isn't. I don't see any problem of understanding, though if Seb is right then the policy ought to be rewritten. Victor Yus (talk) 09:21, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Policy states that there's a bright-line rule which is actually not a bright-line rule. And that's the way it's been treated for years. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:23, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And everyone is perfectly happy with the fact that policy tells this lie? (It wouldn't surprise me; much of policy as I've encountered it seems to have the purpose of misleading people rather than explaining.) Victor Yus (talk) 09:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like the "bright line" comment entered the policy in this edit in 2010. I would tend to agree that is not the most appropriate description of 3RR. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:51, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:3RR is a bright line rule subset of WP:EW. 3RR is the very obvious (and difficult to explain away) test for violating WP:EW. Edit Warring of the garden variety that stays below 3RR is more difficult to prove (Long term edit-warring, Civil PoV pushing, etc). Think of it like the CSD criteria. A CSD can be used for a very specialized case that is a lower threshold for deletion, whereas if the page doesn't meet a CSD, a XfD is required to debate the deletion. Hasteur (talk) 13:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Exempting section blanking from 3rr is a very bad idea. Yes, there are situations where section blanking is appropriate ... but in all but the most obvious cases, if someone objects to the removal of material (ie they return the blanked section) you should not edit war by re-removing it over and over again... the correct course of action is to go to the talk page and discuss the issue - to explain why you feel the section should be blanked, and gain a consensus to remove it. The whole point of 3rr is to encourage such discussion.
The only cases where a section blank would be exempt from 3rr would be those where an exemption already exists (for example, if the entire section constitutes vandalism, removing it would be exempt from 3rr). And, since these are already covered by the policy, there is no need to change the policy as is proposed. Blueboar (talk) 14:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think the proposer actually meant that reverts of section blanking (i.e. section restorations) should be exempt. Victor Yus (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose anything should be exempt if the administrator can see that it represents a reasonably clear improvement (i.e. reversal of what is reasonably clearly harmful). Also if there's a reasonably clear consensus on the specific point in question. Anyone else who seems to be edit-warring (regardless of the time scale, exact number of reverts, etc.) should be given a warning, like most vandals are, after which a block can be is considered if they continue (unless they're doing something very bad that warrants a block straight away). Just my thoughts. Victor Yus (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • There is already an exemption for blanking. See 3RR Exemptions point #4. -Thibbs (talk) 15:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • That says page blanking, but the proposal here concerns section blanking. Victor Yus (talk) 15:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • It covers vandalism. If the section blanking is vandalism then it can be reverted beyond 3RR. Not advisable, though. Better to seek page protection and let the vandal have his temporary "victory". -Thibbs (talk) 16:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • There is basically no bright line between removal of content, and blanking less then the full page. If I remove one paragraph, is that "blanking" and thus reverts are exempt? What if that paragraph is a whole section? What if there is a good reason to remove it? 3rr is as bright a line as you get on Wikipedia. If you violate 3rr, you are almost certainly engaged in an edit war. As mentioned above, you can be engaged in an edit war without violating 3rr, and just because you violate 3rr doesn't mean we block you automatically. (Though and admin who does block for 3rr is almost certainly on firm ground) It is there so that when someone argues they are not in fact edit warring, we can point to it and say yes, you unambiguously are. But that is why this is a bad idea, the exceptions to 3rr are narrowly tailored such that it is rare that exemptions apply to both sides of an edit war at the same time. Suppose I find an entire section that is a blatant BLP violation, and determine blanking the section is the reasonable response to the violation. The contributor who added the violation does not care and restores, pointing to the new blanking exemption. We could go back and forth both being exempt. To the extent the blanking isn't vandalism, reverting should not be exempt. Monty845 19:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • That's an important point and I agree. The only kind of blanking that is exempt from 3RR is that which is also vandalism. 3RR Exemptions point #4 is a vandalism exception, not a general blanking exception. If the blanking is not vandalism then it's a content-related edit and should be discussed, not revert-warred over. -Thibbs (talk) 20:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Templates should not appear in mainspace category

We need an explicit policy stating that templates don't belong in mainspace categories. When readers are searching through a category, they are looking for articles not templates. When templates are categorized, they should only be categorized into categories within Category:Navigational boxes if they're a navbox, or other categories that are template specific if they're not (or both of course). Ryan Vesey 15:16, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I find it profoundly inconvenient and user-unfriendly to unnecessarily hide content-related templates away in specialized categories. FWIW, this seems to be something of a perennial topic on categorization-related pages and to my knowledge there has never been strong consensus for barring categorization of templates in mainspace categories. older ≠ wiser 15:51, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
These templates are not useful to readers and are meant to be used in articles not as articles. We provide list articles for non-template navigation and those articles can and do exist in mainspace categories. Ryan Vesey 16:19, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How are they not useful to readers? Why presume that a reader might not want to find the template used in the articles by looking in the category? older ≠ wiser 18:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Readers would have no idea what a template is (particularly since the word's meaning in wikijargon is rather different from its real meaning). If we want to show them a navbox or something, it might be better to display it on the category page itself. Victor Yus (talk) 11:04, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a reader and an editor. On occasion, while looking at a category, I may notice an article that should be included in a navbox. It often takes an inordinate amount of hunting to try to find the template whereas if it were in the category it would be trivial. Similarly, I may come across a new article and know how to categorize the article, and if I know there is a navbox that would apply but not recall the name of the navbox. What exactly is the harm in providing access to these in the same category(s) as the articles they contain? older ≠ wiser 11:46, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Most navboxes seem to include a link to edit them, so if they appeared on the category page as navboxes, you'd be able to go stright to them. The "harm" in having them listed, I suppose, is that readers vaguely looking for something don't want to be distracted by technical junk they won't understand or need. Victor Yus (talk) 12:23, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The question that underlies this discussion is a basic one: What is the purpose of categorization? Answer that question and the decision on whether to limit categories purely to articles, or to include templates and navboxes becomes clearer. Given some of our recent discussions, I get the impression that there is some disagreement on what the purpose of categorization actually is. Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any data on usage of categories by ordinary readers vs. editors? We might tailor them towards the groups that turn out to actually use them. Victor Yus (talk) 14:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Categorization#Wikipedia administrative categories. Basically, there are categories for articles and categories for everything else, and both groups should be kept apart as much as possible. Note that we do not do this for other non-article pages (for example, we do not categorize Wikipedia:Verifiability in Category:Research methods). The way to organize all the article and non-article content (templates, portals, wikiprojects, task forces, disambiguations, etc.) that is related to a given core topic is with wikiproject categories, with their "quality" parameter (see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment) Cambalachero (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your argument breaks down because projectspace is not meant to be visible to people who aren't trying to find it. Templates, like categories and articles, are content that is meant to be displayed to non-editor readers. {{Hamilton County, Ohio}} is related to Hamilton County, Ohio, for example. Moreover, the original statement breaks down because it fails to distinguish between readers who are editors and readers who aren't; I'm very often a reader as well and look for templates in categories. Finally, nobody's going to be even one bit harmed by seeing a template appear in a category; if they wonder enough to go to it while looking for an article, they'll quickly see that it wasn't what they wanted and be able to go back. Nyttend (talk) 16:40, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on the template, having it in the category could be incredibly useful. If I'm trying to find out information on say Category:World War II tanks of the United States, and it contained Template:WWIIAmericanAFVs, it could be more helpful then any other single item contained in the category. Monty845 19:33, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Do not confuse templates with lists. Lists are allowed in categories meant for articles. But unlike lists, a template is just a tool, used to build the product that the reader will read, but not a worthy standalone product for the reader (nobody would create a template that's not going to be used). Note that only a few templates have a "topic", most templates (for example, {{Main}}) do not have any. To organize and locate templates we have the secondary categorization, that runs independent from the one of articles; and failing that, you may locate such templates at the articles that would use them. They may be used and not properly categorized, but I doubt that a good and useful template is lost in the limbo, unused and uncategorized. Cambalachero (talk) 02:29, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this section should specify that it is about various Navbox templates rather than maintenance and admin templates. I don't find it a very helpful distinction to call these a tool and hide them away in relatively difficult to find categories. I'm speaking from experience. But, you know, whatever, go ahead and make Wikipedia even more difficult for ordinary people to edit or find their way around the components. older ≠ wiser 12:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That goal has already been achieved by calling them "templates" (and often giving them equally opaque names after the colon as well). For ordinary readers, the way to make these things accessible and available from the category page is simply to display them on that page. Or list them directly on the page, with an explanation of WTF they are. My sense of logical order would make me oppose their inclusion as members of the category, were it not for the fact that categories are such a logical mess anyway that it's hard to care much either way. Victor Yus (talk) 14:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A general manual of practice for Wikipedia guidelines

The Manual of Style provides editors with concise, uniform, easy to navigate guidance on punctuation, use of language, layout, formatting, and the like. However, there is no similar well organized, comprehensive guide for general contribution. That is scattered among several loosely organized pages (WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:IRS, WP:N, WP:BRD, WP:CIVIL, WP:AFG, WP:NOT, etcetera).

I think they should be wrapped into a single manual. WP:FIVE, WP:PG, {{Guideline list}}, and {{Content policy list}} are good attempts at basic organization of Wikipedia's many guidelines, but several overlapping categories that can lead readers to alternate listings is not exactly the best navigation aid. I feel a single manual of practice would ease new users' introduction to what is acceptable on Wikipedia and aid existing users' in finding policies they did not already know.

Comments, suggestions, opinions?
—Sowlos 11:19, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen Wikipedia:Help index#Community standards and advice, a descriptive directory of community norms and advice for editors?Moxy (talk) 19:36, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My two cents: It would be nice to see some of it condensed, like a summary-style version of the guidelines. By merging some of the guidelines, overlap could be addressed. For example, WP:CIVIL, Don't bite the newbies and Don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point, all really overlap. Maybe something like an editors' best practises guide would be helpful. Inflicting WP:INITIALISMALPHABETSOUP on newbies to correct misguided behaviour is not going to work for everyone, at least I don't find it clear at times. Maybe structure it like a manual of style, keeping it concise, and linking entries to the main guideline article for further reading? Although I'm not sure how that would be more helpful to existing editors. Maybe the original poster can give a bit more detail about what they think is needed? I think it's a suggestion with potential, anyway.OttawaAC (talk) 02:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a good idea. Richard asr (talk) 12:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OttawaAC, yes, condensing the guidelines where possible is one of the things I am hoping for, but doing so requires a goal, a form we want the final product to take. Asynchronously attacking the issue close-up, on a case by case basis is where the overlap comes from. This is why I propose working the guidelines into a manual style structure like the MoS. All the very valuable information of the guidelines should be presented in the most concise and accessible manner possible.
I'm not sure how that would be more helpful to existing editors
Sorry, allow me to clarify:
  1. Not all editors are of equal experience. Editors who've been here for years may still need to consult the guides.
  2. When things are organized in a hectic manner, it may be difficult for even the experienced to find what they need. Editors often have to cite and/or quote guidelines and policy to others.
  3. If new editors have difficulty navigating the guidelines, it becomes a burden on experienced editors. The most knowledgeable editors on Wikipedia may have little need to read guidelines and essays anymore, but watching over and correcting other editors who may be less enlightened still consumes time and energy.
—Sowlos 12:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just thinking of some of the challenges: One problem with condensing the guidelines would be excluding all the exhaustive examples the guidelines provide, trying to cover all the exceptions and exclusions to the guidelines. That accounts for a lot of the content of certain guidelines, like Notability, or No original research. So, what I would suggest would be a summary of the guidelines that excludes all the examples, but linking readers to the main guideline articles to read details. That would differ from a true Manual of Style where examples are typical—an MOS can include them since they usually only include a handful of words for each example.OttawaAC (talk) 21:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. How about collapsible containers for more redundant examples in pages with 'exhaustive' listings?
Also::
  • While lists of examples may consume space not easily reduced, I am not convinced that the rest of their surrounding content can not be worded more concisely.
  • There are also cases of guides covering topics of multiple policies. WP:OR#Related policies and WP:NPOV#Other resources are good examples of that.
  • Some pages are overly verbose with content that could be split into sub-pages. For example, WP:NPOV#Common objections and clarifications and WP:NPOV#History of NPOV provide valuable information, but they are not essential to instructing people on current Wikipedia policies. They are more about Wikipedia politics.
  • I am not too concerned about reducing the guideline word-count. Some pages in the MoS are anything but short. The MoS's strength is less in its brevity than in its clear organization.
—Sowlos 09:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
After writting the above, I realized WP:N is already broken into several pages, tied together with {{Notability guide}}. This is a good example of the ability to split up a large subject as long as it is tied together by a proper navigation aid.
—Sowlos 09:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2nd order disambiguation by birth date - RFC

Please comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#2nd order disambiguation by birth date - RFC.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been closed and replaced by Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(people)#RFC-birth_date_format_conformity_when_used_to_disambiguate.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:40, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on quotes in Navboxes

Interested parties should comment on a discussion of including quotes in navboxes as this has the potential for far-reaching effects on this oft-used template. Mangoe (talk) 02:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata Phase II coming

I guess many of you noticed that Wikidata Phase I came here a month ago, with interwikis relocated to Wikidata. (If someone missed that, here are the details). Now, Phase II will be about infoboxes, ready to be implemented sometime in April. Many trivial or less trivial relationships between articles have been coded at Wikidata (and this activity continues), with the idea that eventually the info from infoboxes can be relocated over there. This has an obvious advantage that the info in this case will be centralized: For instance, if Lyon gets a new major, and a French Wikipedian changes the info on Wikidata, the info becomes automatically available on our project. There are also disadvantages. First, the infoboxes would need to be coded for this. Second, the data structure on Wikidata is determined by consensus on Wikidata and does not necessarily correspond to the infobox structure we use here, thus, it has to be optimize by the collaboration between the two communities: English Wikipedia and Wikidata. Unlike Phase I, this Phase II will not be implemented here unless we have consensus to implement it, and decide how it should be done.

Normally, I expect that an RFC is running, with roughly the following options:

  • We opt out and do not change anything;
  • We do nothing and wait until other projects get experience, then decide;
  • We opt in and start discussing what, how and in what sequence should be done, and what is the general mechanism for new infoboxes in the future.

Before starting such an RFC I believe it would be useful to hear opinions here. I will now advertize this thread on Wikidata as well. --Ymblanter (talk) 08:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think this "all or nothing" approach isn't a good idea; if subject areas want to recode their infoboxes, but others don't, I see no reason why Wikidata should be prohibited from the ones that want it. --Rschen7754 08:48, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is not "all of nothing", but I think it would be good to understand who is "responsible" for the infoboxes. Since every infobox is used in many articles, we need consensus for everyone of them, but how do we determine this consensus? Is this a Wikiproject business, or do we open a central discussion for each of them, or do we use the talk pages of the infoboxes? And what if we want to deprecate an infobox, or to install a new one?--Ymblanter (talk) 08:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I think that a one-size-fits-all isn't the best approach here; sometimes the template talk page is more watched, sometimes it's the WikiProject. I don't see why this is such a big deal, it's not like someone will march through and reprogram all the infoboxes overnight. --Rschen7754 09:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why this needs any central discussion. If someone wants to use a parameter in a specific infobox then it will be decided on the template's talkpage as usual. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What is needed is a lot more information about how this is going to work. For instance, does each attribute get fetched separately from WikiData through some reference like :d:entity_qxxxx-property_pyyyy-language_en ? (Which would seem to potentially put an enormous computational load on WD). Or would whole templates get served by WikiData ? (In which case, where is the design of these negotiated, and how easily can they be adapted to fit existing local styles and edge cases?)
I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to roll out something more specific, like {{coord}} and {{authority control}}, first. Jheald (talk) 10:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Where's a description of how this would work? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 10:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If a page has sitelinks from Wikidata then some parameter in a template can default to using a property from the item at Wikidata. The important thing here is the sitelinks that triggers this magic. This would look something like (this would be inside the template page)
…
<tr><th>City:</th><td>{{{city|{{#property:city}}}}}</td><tr>
…
A set local value will then override any value from Wikidata. There are several options that can be set for the property parser function to extract specific parts or format it in some way. The parser function is what we call "the simple inclusion syntax" and can be used in ordinary templates. Later there will also be bindings for the Lua scripting language and with that more fancy stuff is possible. Jeblad (talk) 12:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think the option to allow users to toggle between the local data and that stored at Wikidata. For example the following wikitext (replacing n with a number) could be added to {{Infobox person}}.
|labeln = Sex:

|datan = <span class="wb-local_data">{{{gender|{{{sex}}}}}}</span><span class="wb-Wikidata_value">

Failed to render property sex: sex property not found.

</span>

By default only the local data would be displayed. This would require edits to MediaWiki:common.css and MediaWiki:common.js to implement this. – Allen4names (IPv6 contributions) 07:43, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification from the development team

Hey :)

I feel this needs a lot of clarification. So let me start this:

  • The plan is to enable the second phase on all Wikipedias
  • Existing infoboxes will continue to work
  • You will decide if and when to recode individual infobox templates
  • You will not have to agree with the other Wikipedias what properties you use for your infoboxes. So if oyu decide not to show the currency in a infobox for a country but another Wikipedia wants it that is no problem
  • Infobox templates will continue to stay on the Wikipedias - only the data in them can come from Wikidata
  • The syntax that will be available for getting values is at meta:Wikidata/Notes/Inclusion syntax

Please let me know if you have more questions. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lydia, could you confirm that if we want to enter the information manually in an infobox here rather than pull it from Wikidata this will still be possible? I and others have concerns that errors entered into the infoboxes in other Wikipedias (many of which do not use adequate sourcing), not to mention possible vandalism of the Wikidata itself, will be replicated automatically on English Wikipedia, and the only way to change that would be to try and edit Wikidata itself—yet another complication for editors to deal with—and a particularly worrying problem when applied to biographies. The amount of vandalism and ill-informed drive-by edits to infoboxes in individual articles here is not inconsiderable. Voceditenore (talk) 12:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Infoboxes can certainly be set up to allow manual entries as well as defaulting to Wikidata values - see Jeblad's example above. On the other hand, they could be written to forbid manual entries. But the infobox template code will remain here on Wikipedia, so Wikipedia editors can decide how they should be set up. --Avenue (talk) 12:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. What Avenue said. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Building on the above, Wikidata essentially works like transcluding templates - you'll include a field in templates saying something like "|population={WIKIDATA}" rather than "|population=3,498,872". Choosing to switch to Wikidata is a per-template or per-page decision. It won't be like the interlanguage links, which are displayed "on top" of existing content - we won't have Wikidata-generated infoboxes being applied to articles regardless of what's on the page. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You mention 'You will not have to agree with the other Wikipedias what properties you use for your infoboxes. So if you decide not to show the currency in a infobox for a country but another Wikipedia wants it that is no problem.' But let us suppose that an entry in a Wikidata infobox/template is filled in by another editor somewhere in the universe with information with which one might disagree; let us assume that the recommendations in Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers and elsewhere against the use of infoboxes in certain WP articles are ongoing - then imagine, for example, that someone includes in the WikiData information for Sergei Rachmaninoff that he is associated with Romanticism (an edit which is frequently performed by doubtless well-meaning editors in Template:Romanticism) - how does that become evident and how does it get resolved? Does this mean that editors would have to regularly scrutinize Wikidata infoboxes/templates to check them?--Smerus (talk) 13:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are several points to your question. First of all in this case Wikidata is able to hold all the information and you will for example be able to add Romanticism and mark it as deprecated there for example. (The last part is not possible right now but will be). So you can have several statements (with sources) saying different things and you can pick what you want to show in the infobox. So when they want to add this information on Wikidata people will see it there and stop hopefully. The other part is about how the editors on a Wikipedia will notice changes on Wikidata. It'll show up in recent changes and their watchlist. This already happens now for language link changes. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:49, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And on top of this, Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers does not use infoboxes at all and thus will not be affected any Phase II changes on Wikidata at all.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Could you talk about the implications of projects (like Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers) that choose not to have an infobox? I understand the immediate implications. What about the future? -- kosboot (talk) 14:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is really something for those projects (or the whole community) to discuss and decide on; I don't think Wikidata itself is in a position to say anything specific. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, this is why I opened this thread.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't understand why this is a "policy"-question. Is there currently a policy for inforboxes? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No idea. I would obviously not object of moving the whole thing somewhere, but I guess the discussion shows it was somehow needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:47, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A couple more questions:

  • Out of interest, has anybody run any back-of-an-envelope estimates on the load that a serious uptake of Phase 2 will mean for WikiData's servers? -- e.g. how many page hits per minute, how many associated data items to be served, how much latency this may add to page response times, how much hardware is needed to deliver this, etc. ? Jheald (talk) 21:40, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes we've looked into this and hope it will all be ok obviously. However we're rolling it out on a small number of Wikipedias first like we've done for phase 1 as well. If there are any huge issues we expect them to show up there already so we can take measures if needed before they cause even bigger problems here. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The other thing we need to recognise is that the switchover to data sourced from WikiData will primarily be driven by bots, and could ramp up very quickly once an unrestricted green light is given. Have any particular templates been selected as the initial test set for this procedure, to see e.g. whether the server load is indeed manageable and scales as predicted (and to expose and shake-out problems nearest the surface)? How far are we from WikiData having all the data loaded to fully serve those templates? (As I understand it at the moment, the bots are still going full tilt just to get to each WP page having the simplest most basic WD outline page, never mind whether those pages are fully loaded). So what's the timetable for testing in a controlled way a serious migration of some properties data to WD, and serving a serious amount of it back to live WP pages? Jheald (talk) 21:48, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • It'd be up to the local community to decide which templates they want to migrate and then to also do this. The development team does not interfere with that part. As you said bots are already running to fill Wikidata with data. If you come up with a specific infobox template that you'd want to migrate first I am sure some of the bot authors would be happy to help add the necessary data for them to Wikidata. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image formatting

If someone is going to do any work with infoboxes, it would be nice to address a very frustrating inconsistency. Many infoboxes have an image parameter, but there are at ;east three different ways of making the entry:

  1. Full: e.g. [[File:foofoo.jpg]]
  2. No bracket: e.g. File:foofoo.jpg
  3. Bare: e.g. foofoo.jpg

Can we harmonize this as part of this initiative?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a specific Commons file type, so at least from the Wikidata end you won't need to worry about inconsistent syntax. --Rschen7754 21:07, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is nothing to do with Wikidata. Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes is already addressing such inconsistencies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think I understand that it is not directly related to Wikidata, as it doesn't have anything to do with data stored at Wikidata. However, I think
  1. the infobox conventions should be harmonized
  2. addressing Wikidata issues means someone will be editing and changing infoboxes
  3. while one is making a change to an infobox is a good time to harmonize the convention for file names
Is my syllogism correct? --SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citations on Wikidata?

Has any thought been given to putting citations and references on Wikidata? This would seem to be a great use of the resource. I'm sure this would be phase 3 or 4, but I'm wondering if this has been discussed yet. Thanks. 64.40.54.79 (talk) 08:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it's being worked on. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you 64.40.57.72 (talk) 06:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Problems

[22] , [23] , [24] . First of all, this is English Wikipedia. Please write your comments in English. I don't speak Russian. I would like to ask you to read the WP:NFCC|non-free content criteria and in particular WP:NFCC#1|criterion 1. Files like :File:Doc balt flot1.jpg are not permitted because someone else can draw a freely licensed map of the same area. There are already freely licensed maps of all parts of the world. For example,Openstreetmap can be used for this purpose. Photos like :File:SMX-25 - Diving frigate.JPG are not permitted because it seems that vehicles of the same model still exist. It is possible to take other photos of the same vehicle model and publish those photos under a free licence. For example, see WP:NFC#UUI §1 which says that you can't upload unfree photos of buildings which still exist. Stefan2 16:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC) File:Подземоход Требелева.jpg ? Podzemohod Trebeleva was tested in the Urals, Mount Grace, in 1946. Trebelev intended to use his podzemohod in various fields: digging tunnels for urban communication, exploration, mining, etc. However, the design proved to be unreliable, and the project was abandoned. - Now it does not exist. File:SMX-25 - Diving frigate.JPG - it does not exist at all. It is only on paper. SMX-25 a gunship project of the 21st century, a hybrid of surface ship and submarine. it seems that vehicles of the same model still exist. - there is no such ships. How can redraw what does not exist outside the project on paper? File:Doc balt flot1.jpg - It is not a geographical map, it is map of the military facilities. This is the result of several experts to repeat that an outsider can not. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 04:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

why is this here? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 04:56, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
but where? --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 05:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Vyacheslav84, you can't expect people to want to help you if you start conversations by called them "мудак", as you did on Stefan2's talk page. We have strict criteria for the use of non-free content, which Stefan has tried to explain to you despite the insults directed at him and at Wikipedia in general. I would suggest that you apologise on Stefan's talk page and then maybe he will explain things further. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
[25] Vyacheslav84 (talk) 09:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vyacheslav84 (talk · contribs) claimed that some of the images show items which no longer exist or which do not yet exist. In that case, I agree that it would be hard to replace the images (at least for the moment), so I removed the "replaceable fair use" template from those images. When I tagged the files, I didn't see any immediate indication that there were no copies of the items of which you would be able to take a photo. I meant to reply to the discussion on my talk page when I removed the tags, but there was something in between, so I forgot to comment about it.

There is a map (File:Doc balt flot1.jpg) which Vyacheslav84 claims isn't replaceable. I do not agree here. There are plenty of free maps of Kaliningrad which can be used. For example, Openstreetmap has a useful map of Kaliningrad. The locations of military bases isn't copyrightable, so someone could take the map from Openstreetmap and indicate the locations of the places on that map. Finally, File:Doc balt flot1.jpg is in Russian, which is unsuitable for English Wikipedia. If there are further disputes about this file, I suggest that we take this file to WP:FFD where it is more visible for people who often discuss file issues.

Finally, I would appreciate if I am informed about any discussions concerning me. I see that this discussion started about 15 hours ago, but I didn't notice the discussion until Phil Bridger (talk · contribs) notified me about 13 hours later. I usually do not read the village pump discussions on this project. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:47, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

File:Doc balt flot1.jpg - new map is a complete copy of the old map in part actual material. WP:FFD- well can move the discussion there. It is not a geographical map (there is not no mountains or rivers or forests or other geographical elements), it is map of the military facilities. This is the result work of several experts, that an outsider can not to repeat. it Contour Kaliningrad region with scheme location military facilities. Besides military facilities represent special characters, so can no redraw. Replaceability No. Openstreetmap such maps does no. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 08:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The map is obviously replaceable, I think it is pretty much obvious.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Да? Ну тогда Вам ведь не проблема найти свободную замену данной карты? Если вы не заметили, то это не географическая карта, а схема расположения военных объектов (еще и выполненная с помощью специфических военных обозначений). Мне очень интересно, как вы найдете аналогичную карту на гугл-maps (на которой чисто географические карты). А вот географических элементов здесь нет вообще - есть только контур области (причем он нужен чисто для указания местонахождения военных объектов). Vyacheslav84 (talk) 04:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Doo Biʼééʼ Łichííʼí bizaad bee yáníłtiʼ da; doo nihił bééhózin da. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 05:26, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

File:Doc balt flot1.jpg - It is not a geographical map (there is not no mountains or rivers or forests or other geographical elements), it is map of the military facilities. This is the result work of several experts, that an outsider can not to repeat. it Contour Kaliningrad region with scheme location military facilities. Besides military facilities represent special characters, so can no redraw. Replaceability No. Openstreetmap such maps does no. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 04:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All maps are replacable. That information contained at that map can be put onto a free-use map, it contains no information which could not be recreated. --Jayron32 05:21, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WTF? This is impossible to re-do and takes 15 doctor-titles and 76 years of study? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 05:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It will not make a free card, because the main author information (the rest is not important.) Vyacheslav84 (talk) 05:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
card, because what? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 05:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Redraw the maximum will be replaced color Contour (Contour itself can not be changed). The rest will remain unchanged - the location of military facilities. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 05:56, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Free maps of Kaliningrad exist. You can take those maps and put dots, colors, and explanatory text on it anywhere you want. There's simply no need to have a copyrighted map when anyone with the proper skill can create a free map to display the same information. --Jayron32 05:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Your communication-skills in English are insufficient. I think I understood you don't want to re-do the map. That's not an excuse. Then you won't get to use any. This thing is clearly replaceable by anyone with some basic Inkscape or Gimp skills. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 05:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For example, if a tank regiment located in Kaliningrad, the redraw, we can not move it to another location. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 08:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you move it? You can't do that with the picture you have... It's a jpg. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 06:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
New map is a complete copy of the old map in part actual material. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 08:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And your point is...? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hidden infoboxes

Are collapsed/ hidden infoboxes acceptable? Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Hidden infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:17, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Wikipediocracy

I did think the Village Pump was probably a better place for this discussion than the Administrators' Noticeboard, but I thought I would get more involvement in the discussion over there. But Wehwalt is right, that's not the right forum for the discussion, this is. So, here we are. Here, i'll copy my comment from the section over there.

"This is really the last straw. We've enabled Wikipedia Review and lately Wikipediocracy for years and all the chilling effects they've tried to have on Wikipedia and its editors, even though the site is largely made up of banned editors. But the recent incident involving Cla68 and Kevin (which i'm not discussing here, go to the Arbcom discussion page if you want to argue that one out) went too far. Actively, during the discussion, there was a long discussion thread going on at Wikipediocracy, wherein banned editor Vigilant began outing/doxing any editors whose comments he disliked from the discussion, including doing so to a minor. This was in an attempt to get those editors to stop participating in the Wikipedia discussion. Something really needs to be done or steps need to be taken, because this sort of thing can't just be allowed. Make all the jokes you want about the old WP:BADSITES policy, but the strong-arm tactics on Wikipediocracy's part remains."

Now, as for specific policy changes, i'm not quite sure. It really comes down to two options. Is Wikipediocracy to be considered a wholly separate outside site unrelated to Wikipedia, which would make it fall under the rules of Off-wiki Harassment, or is it more connected to Wikipedia because of the heavy involvement of Wikipedia editors, formerly banned or current as it may be, which means it would fall under the normal on-wiki rules for such things, including outing/doxing. SilverserenC 18:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hypothetically, what would that even change? My read of the Off-wiki harassment section says that we can already punish editors on wiki who conduct off wiki outing. I hope your not proposing either a guilt by association policy, or trying to coerce those with authority there to exercise it to enforce wikipedia policy, under threat of on wiki punishment. Monty845 18:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clarifying it as falling under Off-wiki Harassment would be good as well though, since that's been haphazardly enforced as it is. And, no, i'm not. The majority of times when doxing or other such things occur, it's by one of the banned editors and there's nothing we can do about that. However, sometimes, it has been conducted or heavily involved by someone who is still an editor here.
As for the authority thing, i'm not sure. I can definitely see though how being the moderator of a forum that is used to dox and otherwise negatively impact things on-wiki and then also being an administrator here is a problem. I think something does need to be brought up regarding that.
I might also add that considering the recent incidents regarding linking to the Wikipediocracy site and outing and such, we might want to get the site added to the blacklist, so that it's not possible to link to it here. That would fix that issue so it doesn't happen again. SilverserenC 19:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I would read the current off-wiki harrasment policy to apply, and it looks like it has existed in substantially the same form for over a year. Certainly no objection if you think it needs to be clarified. I wouldn't go further and try to punish people who don't personally violate that policy, even if they are seen as facilitating or encouraging it by participating someplace off-wiki. I could also see it torpedoing an RFA, but for someone who is already an admin, given the lack of consensus for any sort of admin removal process short of really serious misconduct, I think we should leave it alone. Maybe, some day, if there is an admin recall process, or other community process for removal it could be reconsidered. Monty845 19:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Then I guess going ahead with the blacklisting of the website URL and perhaps reinforcing the Off-wiki Harassment section is the best way to go for now. SilverserenC 19:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Is Wikipediocracy to be considered a wholly separate outside site unrelated to Wikipedia"? Yes, I think it should be considered that, if only because it is a wholly separate site unrelated to Wikipedia. Of all the nonsense you've peddled here about WR and Wikipediocracy, Silver, this has to be the dumbest. I think you should have taken the hint when this discussion got closed down on WP:AN. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except it has tied itself so closely to Wikipedia, I don't really think it falls under what the Off-wiki harassment section is meant to cover. SilverserenC 19:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipediocracy is a completely separate entity from Wikipedia. Wikipedia rules have zero control over them and their rules have zero control here. Wikipedia's rules only control members of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's rules do cover actions that current Wikipedians take off-Wiki, but doxing/outing clearly falls within the "Off-wiki Harassment" policy. I can see some kind of an argument that a COI arises for Wikipedia admins who serve as mods on a site like Wikipediocracy, and there is no current policy really covering this kind of COI (which is really most comparable to COI within the realm of professional responsibility), but is that what you are talking about here? Because there's no need to declare foreign websites as part of Wikipedia for such a rule to be implemented. -Thibbs (talk) 20:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever works. I just feel something needs to be done to deal with or at least somewhat mitigate the issue of them doxing/outing editors and then threatening those editors with the information in order to make them stop contributing to on-wiki discussions. Because that is direct on-wiki disruption. And really, being a moderator of such a forum, does seem like being a facilitator of it to me. Just being a normal member wouldn't be, but being in charge would be. SilverserenC 21:05, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of abject curiosity, but why are you intersecting with them? I remember dealing with issues surrounding you, Selina Kyle, and Wikipedia Review years ago. It is possible to edit Wikipedia without intersecting with WR etc., even if you are a former member there. Accent on the former. I used to be a member on WR; I left and never looked back and unsurprisingly things have gone swimmingly. If they're such a problem then why interact with them? Why let them interact with you? And what is going on that causes them to care about you and you to care about them? Find that out, fix it, and be happy. --Golbez (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're saying I should just ignore all of the things they do, all of the attacks on other editors, all of the harassment? Even if it's not directed at me, ignoring it would be irresponsible. SilverserenC 21:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seren, basically what you are agitating for here is for an external website, because of the overlap of membership with the Wikipedia, to be considered of the body. If that were to happen, then anything said or done "over there" would be subject to WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:AGF, and a myriad other wiki-acronyms. What you're proposing is no so dissimilar to public schools that try to regulate the behavior of students when they are off-campus and outside of school hours. This is a very swampy morass you're venturing into here. Tarc (talk) 21:28, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's true. Though I do think Off-wiki Harassment should be properly enforced then. Also, blacklisting of the URL seems to be in order considering recent events. Those are simple, easy steps to be taken. SilverserenC 21:41, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seren, this is like, what, third? Fourth? forum that you've tried raising this in? And... gee, not even people with impeccable Wiki credentials are agreeing with you. Though they're diplomatic about it (their skill at diplomacy is why they have these impeccable credentials) so rather than telling you off, they close your threads or tell you "maybe you should waste your time on something else" (more or less). I don't have impeccable Wiki credentials nor am I very diplomatic. So I'll tell you straight up - these attempts at WP:FORUMSHOPPING have already crossed well over into the territory of TROLLING. Yes, you're basically trolling all the Wikipedia editors who happen to comment on Wikipediocracy sometimes. Stop it. At the very least stop making stuff up while you do it.Volunteer Marek 22:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Second? I posted it to AN and Wehwalt closed it saying AN isn't the right forum for this (and he's right, as it's a policy issue), so I moved it here. Oh, and please do tell me what i'm making up. SilverserenC 22:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there was a long discussion about blacklisting the websites on Commons last year. The discussion at Commons:Commons:Requests for comment/offsite discussions#Spam blacklist may contain something useful for Wikipedia. There were also a few comments at Commons:MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. I am not convinced that blacklisting is the option. The problem, as I see it, is that the discussions are taking place somewhere in the first place, and I don't think that blacklisting certain websites would prevent people from harassing other people at external websites. The person who is attacked in the discussions is probably equally hurt regardless of whether it is possible to link to the discussions or not.

About off-wiki harassment, I would make it easy and say that anything which can't be deleted by any Wikipedia administrator is off-wiki activity. The discussions at Wikipedia Review can only be deleted by a selected few Wikipedia administrators who also happen to be administrators of Wikipedia Review. That said, if the activity is directly related to Wikipedia, and the only reason for having the activity off-wiki is that it would immediately be deleted as G10, then I don't think that it would be a big issue to restrict the person's access to Wikipedia. For example, I recall that a user was banned by the arbitration committee last year for posting three photos to an external web site.

That said, I would like to point out that I haven't followed the discussions about the websites on Wikipedia and I have not read the threads on the websites which started this discussion, so I don't know if I have missed something important. Generally speaking, I have only looked at the websites if there have been references to the websites in discussions on Commons. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Request for help with/clarification of BAN policy

2 quotes from WP:BAN policy:

"The Wikipedia community can decide, by consensus, to impose a ban. Community banning discussions generally take place at the administrators' noticeboard or a subpage thereof." and
"If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute.[2] When determining consensus, the closing administrator will assess the strength and quality of the arguments."

So, if this is right, I could use some input from uninvolved editors (you?) at [26] to review some diffs and such and help achieve consensus on action against a disruptive editor. If not, this policy needs editing; I'm being told doing this is not allowed! Thanks.--Elvey (talk) 9:10 am, Today (UTC−8)

Elvey is forum-shopping. (Check Special:Contributions/Elvey to keep up.) But I concur that he could use some input, though I recommend checking on the AN to get the background before jumping in. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear reader, please review what forum shopping is. If you feel seeking more input at the original forum (AN) (that is, what I am doing with my post above) is forum shopping, or you don't, please come to AN and share your view. That kind of misrepresentation of policy is part of why I opened the case about JJ at AN in the first place.--Elvey (talk) 00:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&oldid=542707324"