::However, many people will think that #1 is "not a good tone", "shows we have an agenda", etc. (Well, yes, we have an agenda - [[WP:MEDRS]].) They think the correct solution is #3 instead of #1, but that is false balance. You can find many small articles about pseudoscientific concepts using a version of #3. [[Gilbert_Ling#Association_induction_hypothesis|Here’s an example]]; that’s clear pseudoscience, not a fringe/minority viewpoint (the full theory violates the [[second principle of thermodynamics]]).
::However, many people will think that #1 is "not a good tone", "shows we have an agenda", etc. (Well, yes, we have an agenda - [[WP:MEDRS]].) They think the correct solution is #3 instead of #1, but that is false balance. You can find many small articles about pseudoscientific concepts using a version of #3. [[Gilbert_Ling#Association_induction_hypothesis|Here’s an example]]; that’s clear pseudoscience, not a fringe/minority viewpoint (the full theory violates the [[second principle of thermodynamics]]).
::In my opinion this is a disservice to readers. Maybe ''you'' understand that #3 means "it’s hogwash", but many ''readers'' will understand it as "there’s still debate". Yes, even intelligent, educated readers. We should state firmly what the actual state of research is; politely, sure, but firmly. We should not give "five minutes for science, five minutes for charlatans" (to modify the [https://mindthetabcount.substack.com/p/false-balance-in-usual usual journalistic aphorism about false balance]). [[User:Tigraan|<span style="font-family:Tahoma;color:#008000;">Tigraan</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:Tigraan|<span title="Send me a silicium letter!" style="color:">Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)</span>]]</sup> 15:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
::In my opinion this is a disservice to readers. Maybe ''you'' understand that #3 means "it’s hogwash", but many ''readers'' will understand it as "there’s still debate". Yes, even intelligent, educated readers. We should state firmly what the actual state of research is; politely, sure, but firmly. We should not give "five minutes for science, five minutes for charlatans" (to modify the [https://mindthetabcount.substack.com/p/false-balance-in-usual usual journalistic aphorism about false balance]). [[User:Tigraan|<span style="font-family:Tahoma;color:#008000;">Tigraan</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:Tigraan|<span title="Send me a silicium letter!" style="color:">Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)</span>]]</sup> 15:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
:::I want to echo @[[User:Tigraan|Tigraan]]'s point here. I would disagree with the idea that hyper-neutral tone also means treating the proportionality of the scientific literature (and the words they use) as all equivalent. Vulcans would, undoubtedly, say #1, not #3. They would, in this analogy, treat the opinions of acupuncturists as relatively unimportant compared to the scientific consensus, given that the consensus is that they are wrong. Wikipedia treats the scientific consensus as the truth, since on wikipedia, verifiability is king and these are the most verifiable trustworthy sources. So when science says that acupuncture doesn't work and is pseudoscience, we also say that. We don't hedge our bets. That's not dispassionate, it's overly ''charitable'' to fringe perspectives. — [[User:Shibbolethink|<span style="color: black">Shibboleth</span><span style="color: maroon">ink</span>]] <sup>([[User talk:Shibbolethink|♔]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/Shibbolethink|♕]])</sup> 16:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
* Why is this even being discussed here? This noticeboard is explicitly "to discuss already proposed policies and guidelines" and discussing user essays here plays into the current burgeoning confusion about people citing essays as policy. Note this has also been raised at [[WP:FT/N]]. [[User:Bon courage|Bon courage]] ([[User talk:Bon courage|talk]]) 05:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
* Why is this even being discussed here? This noticeboard is explicitly "to discuss already proposed policies and guidelines" and discussing user essays here plays into the current burgeoning confusion about people citing essays as policy. Note this has also been raised at [[WP:FT/N]]. [[User:Bon courage|Bon courage]] ([[User talk:Bon courage|talk]]) 05:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
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Should WP:RMCI be formally elevated to the official status of a WP:GUIDELINE? 23:15, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
Initial statement, collapsed 18:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC) to comply with WP:RFCNEUTRAL
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Greetings,
There has existed for eighteen years a set of instructions for how to formally close a requested move. It was initially titled as Wikipedia:Moving guidelines for administrators, later changed to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions (hereafter WP:RMCI). Over the years, it has grown from a simple set of how-to steps to a comprehensive list of guidelines for determining consensus (which began as early as 2006 and has continued to expand through the years). It also has included instructions on who should close requests--first in 2009 when the authority to move pages was explicitly granted to non-administrators, then later in 2019 (following lots of discussion) we introduced rules on how editors who are involved need to not close requests.
The instructional page wasn't classified as anything (guideline, policy, or essay) through 2021, even though it had been originally written as a guideline. Following a post on the talk page that saw no response, it was listed as an explanatory essay in 2021.
Recently, at least one editor has asserted that, as WP:RMCI is "only" an essay, its procedures do not need to be followed; therefore, as one concrete example, editors may feel free to close move requests that they are fully involved in, so long as they think it's the right thing to do. WP:RMCI has been called "purely advisory", "not vetted", etc., leading to questions as regarding its authority--this in spite of the fact that it was written as a guideline and has guided literally thousands of move closures. This has unquestionably led to no small amount of chaos at Wikipedia:Move review following an editor who closed the same move request twice in a row (which is against the closing instructions), both with the same result, and who claimed that the closing instructions that forbid such a close by an involved user were merely "advice".
Support as proposer. The idea that WP:RMCI is not vetted by the community is laughably inaccurate; yes, it has been. It's guided requested move closures for nearly two decades, its talk page (merged with the overall WP:RM talk page) spans thirty-four archives, and drawn-out discussions are common (I arbitrarily picked Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves/Archive_25 and found... a LOT of discussion on the precise wording of WP:RMCI). It is a fully vetted part of Wikipedia. It's not purely advisory--it's literally the only instructions we have on closing move requests. It's not an essay, it has never been an essay, it bears none of the hallmarks of an essay, and its currently listed status as an essay is a mistake. It's not an inconsequential mistake, either; people feel like they can ignore it freely, and that's leading to chaos--you have a 50/50 shot of the person who closes your move request being someone who takes our well-vetted closing procedures (up to and including don't close a move request twice) seriously, or who views them as merely "good advice" that can be freely ignored. RedSlash23:15, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support to stop wikilawyering about whether something is "just an essay" or not. Best practices should be followed, regardless of where they are documented. But for the sake of clarity, let's make it official that this has the support of the community. HouseBlastertalk01:33, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Most of RMCI are basic instructions. These exist all over Wikipedia, but none of them should be turned into guidelines because there is no benefit from doing so, and because doing so causes WP:CREEP issues. For example, there is no benefit of turning Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Bot considerations into a guideline.Other parts of RMCI may not have a consensus if considered individually; for example, the instruction to explicitly declare non-admin closures as such. This requirement does not exist for other discussions, even more impactful ones like RfC's, and discussions on the instruction have shown significant opposition to it on the grounds of WP:NOBIGDEALFinally, this change won't address the specific issue discussed - editors closing the same move request twice in a row. Closing a discussion is an administrative role, and the current wording of WP:INVOLVED states that this does not make an editor involved: One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. Changing this essay to a guideline won't make the editor involved, because when a policy and guideline conflict editors should assume that the policy takes priority.I also don't believe it makes sense to make closers involved for RM's but not other discussions - if this is an issue then it is an issue in all areas, not just requested moves. BilledMammal (talk) 10:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But WP:INVOLVED is dealing with administrators doing things in an administrative capacity (which does not include requested moves), and WP:RMCI is not. Closing move requests is neither restricted to administrators nor is it an administrative task. There's no overlap at all. See below for my more detailed take on why and how this is different. RedSlash17:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both of us cannot close this discussion because WP:INVOLVED forbids us from doing so, despite neither of us being admins nor the close requiring admin tools. INVOLVED applies to all editors who are acting in an admin capacity, and that includes closing discussions - if it didn't, either of us could close this discussion now. BilledMammal (talk) 23:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's an interesting perspective I hadn't considered. I think, perhaps, an explicit (though brief) delineation of why WP:RMCI is more expansive than INVOLVED would be appropriate. Thank you. RedSlash23:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that would solve the issue; the explanation won't remove the conflict, and it won't change the fact that when a policy and guideline conflict editors should assume the policy takes precedence. BilledMammal (talk) 00:00, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@BilledMammal: Is closing an RM an "admin capacity" or is it a "non-admin capacity"? - is there anywhere in which "admin capacity" is defined? - I had always assumed it to mean activities that only an admin is capable of, so, for instance, if an admin is closing an RM they are simply performing a non-admin activity as an admin, just as any non-admin closure is equally a "non-admin" activity. Unless we are using two different registers for 'admin' here on Wikipedia - one to mean "admin", as in the things formally restricted to someone appointed as an administrator, and then 'admin' diminutive form to refer to any activity that can broadly be construed as generally 'administrative' in nature even if it is not performed by an administrator. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:56, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Formal closures are an "admin capacity" or, to use the wording from WP:INVOLVED, "acting as an administrator". From a practical point of view any other interpretation is problematic as it would mean there is no restriction on involved closures. However, it might be worth clarifying that section of WP:ADMIN as I have had debates where editors have claimed that it is appropriate for them to formally close a discussion they were involved in because they were not an administrator. BilledMammal (talk) 11:13, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@BilledMammal: As Vpab15 notes, WP:NACINV specifically requires closing editors to abide by the standards of administrators as described at WP:INVOLVED, but none of this actually means that the original wording of WP:INVOLVED was necessarily meant to apply to anyone other than administrators in any other context. So I see this clash of policy/guidelines as a false one, with WP:INVOLVED not applying to non-admins or non-admins activities except in the very limited way outlined in WP:NACINV, which specifically applies the principles of WP:INVOLVED to closes. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By using the phrasing editors should not act as administrators in disputes INVOLVED makes it clear that one isn't required to use the tools to engage in admin activity ("act as administrators"), and makes it clear that it applies to all editors, not just admins ("editors", not "administrators").
This can be seen in how the community responds to involved closures of discussions; the closure is overturned, and sanctions imposed if the editor continues to insist that because they are not admins INVOLVED doesn't apply to then. Whether this was intended to be the original meaning is not relevant; it is now the meaning accepted by the community, and in my opinion the correct meaning. BilledMammal (talk) 09:10, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@BilledMammal: Fair enough. I guess that makes sense. Although the next paragraph (about the exceptions) is even more ambiguous, mentioning only administrators, not editors, and in fact contrasts administrators with editors, noting: "...acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor...", suggesting that it is worded more with a view to blocks etc. This, if anything, is a good example for the need for further clarity with respect to move closures. WP:RMCI is a more natural extension of the part in the third paragraph, where it states: "Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still the best practice, in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved, to pass the matter to another administrator..."Iskandar323 (talk) 12:12, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 17:13, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply] Withdrawn until the conflict with WP:INVOLVED is fixed. I consider closing to be an administrative action, as it theoretically does not involve the opinions of the closer on the content of the article, but does involve the interpretation of policy and guidance and their application to a discussion, as well as assessing consensus, and requires competence. Their are many experienced non-admin editors with the required competence in general, and fewer people with the required competence for closing any given discussion, as each topic has its own special circumstances, and we do not need closers who are ignorant of those special circumstances. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 05:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is a high stakes fundamental process. When any process is as established, accepted, and in-use as this one, then I am in favor of labeling it as a guideline. The guideline label carries weight both for users and to legitimize the activities of the Wikimedia editorial community and its governance process. Bluerasberry (talk)17:25, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather have this become a information page. Also, this sentence: NACs are not discouraged for requested moves, as long as the non-admin is highly experienced with RMs and our closing procedures sounds pretty discouraging to me. How is someone supposed to become "highly experienced", if you're not allowed to do it? And is this actually different from what we hope for with admins? IMO thoughtful NACs should be strongly encouraged to handle RMs, and admins (who have no similar requirements about knowing how RM works?) should only be involved (in their admin role) if specific buttons are needed for technical moves. Page titles are basically content decisions, and admins get no special rights in content decisions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That could definitely be rewritten. Over the years, we've gone from prohibiting NACs, to discouraging them, to restricting them, to permitting them, and it might now be time to start explicitly encouraging them. I love it. I don't think that has much to do with the fate of this page as a guideline or not, but I love it. (BTW, having it be just an informational page, in my opinion, wouldn't solve the problem of people not taking a WP page seriously if it doesn't have a little checkmark next to it.) RedSlash01:25, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, if RMCI needs fixing, clarification and whatnot we can do that just as for any other page, should not affect the decision to make it a guideline imo. Selfstudier (talk) 06:27, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno. Once a policy or guideline label gets slapped on a page, editors frequently tell me that it's more difficult to get substantive changes made. Also, it's customary to solve the more obvious problems before proposing guideline status.
It is hard to quantify the time spent going through the page line by line, familiarising and refamiliarising the process in the last few months (somewhen between 4-6 months) when I decided to dive into RMs, as such it may not have been obvious to me. What's actually humourous is that those you have pinged are mostly non-admins ourselves, albeit some with pagemover rights, and we might certainly be censured by others if we had started out with this being the guidelines just by this line. Just recently, there is an editor, green in doing NACs, going through RMs, and no one is stopping them, but rather experienced closers are have been encouraging them and guiding them on their talk page. We can always have this tweaked to something more platable: i.e. NACs are acceptable for requested moves provided that the non-admin editor closing the request is familiar with the closing instructions.– robertsky (talk) 05:00, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think your wording would be an improvement. Personally, I'd also discourage editors from handling RMs on pages that they are unable to move themselves. IMO some RMs should be left to admins and page movers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good question - I have no idea really. I have been involved with page moves for a while (mostly technical requests), and have looked over it multiple times in the past year or two. It's not something I read for the first time after seeing this RFC. I can't say I've fully analysed every part of it, or that it is perfect. Also, "discouraged" is not the same as "not allowed". -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whatareyoudoing, I agree with Kj cheetham on a lot of this. I have no idea in terms of an exact number, but I have gone over it multiple times every so often, and I have in no means fully analyzed it. {{ping|ClydeFranklin}} (t/c) 23:22, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, at the moment, I seem to be confirming my long-standing belief that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions. We guess what the WP:UPPERCASE might mean, and we look up little specific sections when we need to quote The Rules™ at someone or remember the name of a specific template (or similar detail), but we don't really read them.
This RFC started because someone didn't want this page to have a tag at the top that says "it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." It sounds from the responses here that even if it were to pass, that's still not happening. If your responses are typical, then the people who are voting for it haven't really read it (recently, or ever), and I suspect that the people opposing only read far enough along to find something they disagree with, and then stop. On a more general level, I wonder if WP:PROPOSAL should advise would-be promoters to tell editors that they really need to read the entire current version of the page, before voting to support the promotion. We don't get many such proposals in a year, and actually reading the page that you want to have marked as having been thoroughly vetted does not seem to me like an unreasonable expectation.
BTW, if you have average reading speed for a native English speaker, it'll take you 20 minutes to read that proposed guideline from top to bottom. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t really understand why this should be an information page, IMO it’s not factual or technical information but the community accepted procedure. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:16, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now. The issues are (a) inconsistency in the way we use the terms (or apply the templates for) guidelines, information pages, explanatory supplements, essays, etc., and (b) letting time-wasting by wikilawyers determine those applications. We should be more consistent. Why would this need to be a guideline, but WP:AFD, Wikipedia:Bureaucrats, WP:MFD, WP:RFA, WP:AC, WP:RFC, and WP:DRV are content to simply be process pages, even though they also have a lot of rules/guidance? Why is Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles a guideline, but there's no such guideline for WP:FAC or WP:DYK? Why is WP:PROD a guideline, but WP:AFD and WP:DRV aren't? For all the wikilawyering over essays, our page on WP:ESSAYS is an essay, and WP:PAG lumps the various types of essays together despite practically being treated very different by the community. Maybe one step is to remove "information pages" from the essay of "header" and combine them with "administration" (or "process") pages to produce something that assumes guideline-like adherence, or maybe such is the state we're in that we should actually slap guideline templates on all of these pages just to stop people from extending "just an essay" to "just a page that documents a process for which there's broad support"... — Rhododendritestalk \\ 02:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your perspective. "we should actually slap guideline templates on all of these pages just to stop people from extending "just an essay" to "just a page that documents a process for which there's broad support"..." is actually probably the best solution, because otherwise, in practice, you get people who say "but it's just an essay!" In the meantime, though, I think the proposal is the best solution for the reasons I explained above. RedSlash07:45, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems like a good idea to give a bit of formality to existing practice. If this or that wording needs sprucing up, that can be done in the usual way and shouldn't affect the decision whether to make it a guideline imo.Selfstudier (talk) 06:32, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I think there is one problematic sentence at WP:RMCI that needs to be fixed. It defines involved as: You have ever closed such a move request. That contradicts the wording at WP:INVOLVED and places an unreasonable burden on RM closers, who will have to remember all the previous RM dicussions they have closed. Per discussion below, it is not even clear if "such a move request" only includes the same article, or any article in the same topic. I have no objection to the rest of the essay. Vpab15 (talk) 10:23, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support this proposal, but clarity as discussed above needs to be added to the guideline page soon, and re-organizing non-policy pages via template as discussed below needs to happen also. GenQuest"scribble"16:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as written, at least until contentious points with "involvement" and declaring NAC closes are vetted by the community, since they contradict broader policies. Some parts of RMCI have obviously been written out of one's whim at a time, and do not even enjoy local WP:CONLEVEL among the closers' "community". The case that apparently triggered this whole RfC was Palestinian exodus MR, and the "involvement" RMCI clause being used to overturn the close procedurally. I've closed hundreds of RMs and MRs, I'm fairly well-versed with RMCI, but that clause has slipped under my radar and I'm frankly baffled by its existence. No such user (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"do not even enjoy local WP:CONLEVEL among the closers' 'community'" - can you be specific as to what you're referring to? Wikipedia is a wiki, there's nothing in WP:RMCI which has "snuck through" or exists without the community's support. The INVOLVED part, in particular, was extensively debated, even as small a point as whether or not an involved editor can "relist" a discussion. Everything has been vetted. RedSlash23:00, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I missed that 2019 discussion, which did not have a terribly broad input. Even if I can agree there was a local consensus at the time, WP:CONLEVEL is clear that Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. As for NACs, I've been mildly annoyed at RMCI's insistence on declaring NACs (a thing that has been out of fashion elsewhere on Wikipedia for quite some time) and I'm on record stating that I'm not going to do that for my closes, ever. For the definition of "involvement", you can witness the community backlash right here. See also BilledMammal's objections above, which I fully endorse. No such user (talk) 08:59, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: The 'explanatory essay' has already been discussed more than sufficiently to qualify as a guideline, which obviously would still not mean that it was as hard and fast and as ironclad as a policy, but would cease the confusion whereby some editors seem to think it is optional - a confusion that needs clearing up. There will still be exceptional cases, admins may still need to weigh in, and there will be still be need and scope for a human touch at Move Review, but there will not cause for actual confusion as to what the guidelines are, and what the basic expectations of the process are. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:03, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose mostly per No such user. I, as well, have serious problems that the NAC closure section is in clear contradiction to Wikipedia principles. Also, Rhododendrites makes some good points above. --Jayron3213:34, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now. I'm not opposed to a guideline about moving pages but RMCI as currently written is not it. I don't agree with its instructions, such as the language about involved, as pointed out by others, and the page is too long as currently written. I think there is maybe an opportunity to either rewrite RMCI into a guideline, or rewrite it and promote it to an info page, or maybe split it into a guideline page and an instructions page. There is some possibility for something here, but I oppose putting the guideline template on RMCI as currently written. Levivich (talk) 14:20, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Copyediting doesn't change the meaning of the text; that's editing. But yeah, I might support if we changed the meaning of the text to something else. Levivich (talk) 19:35, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose currently. I agree that the provision "You have ever closed such a move request" is contrary to WP:INVOLVED, which explains that administrative actions do not constitute involvement. Sandstein 16:24, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Temporary oppose. I think WP:RMCI should eventually become a guideline, but I don't think we're at that point quite yet. As other participants have stated, the "You have ever closed such a move request" provision should be removed from WP:RMCI before it rises to guideline status. Additionally, WP:NOTCURRENTTITLE has been added to the page very recently, and – while I agree with its inclusion myself – I'd like to see it receive more affirmative support from the community before letting it rise to guideline status. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:15, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On further thought, switching to weak support. The involvement issues can be hashed out whether RMCI is a guideline or not, so there's no need to hold up an ultimately productive goal on those grounds alone. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as needing more work, per points raised above (e.g. "You have ever closed such a move request"). Also, the NAC instructions differ substantially from our other procedures: to bring them in line with the spirit of NAC, I think admins and page movers should be allowed to close any RM, while other users should only close uncontroversial discussions. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠23:03, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, the involved bit isn't prohibitive - for the general reasoning, the nom's covers it nicely. On the INVOLVED bit, my interpretation is that that sets minimum standards. It doesn't invalidate any guideline to have stricter rules. Now, whether the guideline should have stricter rules is really rather more dubious, but fundamentally, it's not so egregious as to undermine the guidelineification (to my concern, that isn't being flagged as a typo). Nosebagbear (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If closing a discussion creates a perceived conflict of interest than that can only be addressed at WP:INVOLVED, as any editor who disagrees with RMCI can accurately cite WP:INVOLVED and WP:POLCON, and because if it is an issue at RM’s it is also an issue at AFD’s and other formal discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 00:13, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which you did and is why this RFC exists. Many don't agree with that position though. It is of some interest that you only brought it up in order to support a !vote at an RM when most people pointed to an obvious conflict of interest. Selfstudier (talk) 00:21, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If many don’t agree with that position then you should have no issue changing the policy that supports that position, and I encourage you to open an RFC proposing to do so.
I brought it up to push back against the notion that engaging in administrative actions made an editor involved and have not considered the rest of the RM as most of the support for overturning was solely on that basis; how is it of some interest? BilledMammal (talk) 00:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since this RFC is already open and at CENT, you can of course start a subRFC within it for anything that concerns you specifically (as per "Discussion on changing the wording" below). Selfstudier (talk) 00:34, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. As per Bluerasberry. This process is well-tested, it should be as streamlined as possible and such a formal tag contributes to this as well as provides legitimacy. Any contentious points (involvement, etc.) should be resolved before promoting this page to a guideline though. Any user in good standing should be allowed to close any RMs where they are not directly involved. We could set up some general conditions though that are not dependent on public voting, such as it has been done at WP:AFC. --TadejMmy talk06:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Any contentious points (involvement, etc.) should be resolved before promoting this page to a guideline though. I’m planning to open an RFC asking questions about individual contentious points should this RFC pass, which should help resolve them. BilledMammal (talk) 00:00, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First discuss them on the talk page as already suggested by the RMCI guidance so that there is a proper RFCbefore should it come to that. Selfstudier (talk) 00:07, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per CREEP, among other arguments presented above. Lots of WP processes have instructions/rules and we don't make them guidelines. Guidelines are for content editing and for user behavior, not for internal bureacracy. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 02:26, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as BilledMammal, No such user, and others have argued.To comment in particular on the "involved" clause, the suggestion that RMs need a special rule above WP:INVOLVED is unpersuasive. Being "urgent" or not doesn't somehow uniquely distinguish RMs from other processes with formal closures. A typical RFC, AFD, RFD, etc. is no more urgent than a typical RM, with no acute consequences to closing it a couple days or weeks later. Similarly, seeking to overturn a closure at move review is not materially different in difficulty from seeking to overturn another type of closure at deletion review. I see the impetus of the RFC is the case of the 1948 Palestinian exodus RM closure and MR; it features a closer who previous RM closure had already been taken to move review and itself was so controversial that it got no consensus to endorse or overturn. That extraordinary set of circumstances does not justify the proposed broad rule of "You have ever closed...", nor have I seen any other case that does. ("Hard cases make bad law".) There should just be one uniform policy about what "involved" means, and fragmenting the definition is CREEP. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:46, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. If following these over-long "instructions" leads to the kind of close the OP did here and the following extended drama at User talk:Red Slash#Mpox, then they should be burned with fire rather than elevated to a guideline. There seems to be a move afoot to make RM use a mandatory step as it's the place where "scores of editors who know Wikipedia very well" hang out. This is just pointless processology.WP:CREEP, WP:NOTBURO. Bon courage (talk) 04:06, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the evidence is that the apparent application of these "instructions" is an issue. The editor who wrote most of them[1] wants their work elevated to have WP:PAG force so that they can be used to 'forbid' things (as if guidelines do that). Bon courage (talk) 07:25, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. A guideline doesn't enforce anything. It just elevates something away from being a mere essay, and, in this instance, dismissible as a mere nicety, even if it is established by consensus and decades of practical use. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:36, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I fail to see why this can't be an Information page, and there seem to be too many contentious aspects currently. Suggest this idea is parked until the page is better. People will wikilawyer if they are unhappy with any process even if given guideline status. As other note, it is way too long. Well that's a problem with many guidelines and other pages too, but I think the step before attempting to elevate this page's status should be that you first request help to shorten it, trim the cruft, and remove contentious aspects until those have been thrashed out on talk. I get the need for "official guideline" for article content advice, but as a wiki, I think our processes and procedures should generally be described in as lightweight way as we can. Also, be careful what you wish for... making this "official" may make it harder for you to change the bits you want changed in future. -- Colin°Talk09:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose guideline, support information page if issues are dealt with. RMCI is useful, but I do have concerns with page as written. As the closer of the Palestinian exodus RMs, I was somewhat non-plussed at the "closing an RM makes you permanently INVOLVED" part being brought up at MRV as a gospel truth; it runs counter to how discussion closures go elsewhere on the encyclopedia, where INVOLVED is basically formalising the common-sense "don't close discussions you've participated and opined in" rule. And this RfC… I'll be honest, it feels less like codifying RMCI, and more like trying to redefine INVOLVED in without proper scrutiny at WT:ADMIN, where discussions about INVOLVED should be. RMCI should not be too prescriptive; it should just detail agreed best practice. If that's the case, I have no problem with it being an information page. Sceptre (talk) 18:48, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant Support We really need another category like vetted approved "core essays"/"information pages" the best 10% of essays like these which do a good job of giving guidance of explaining how Wikipedia works or give good guidance but don't go to the extent of authoritatively say "this is what to do /not do" which in practice guidelines sort of do. The latter shouldn't creep larger because first, it is creep, it's hard to get the carefulness / perfection needed for give it that amount of clout. But I did support" anyway because I think this is an edge case where it could pass as a guideline given its history of scrutiny, tweaking, acceptance, usage, and being in good enough shape to be a guideline. Also it should be acknowledged that a "yes" here means only to make it a guideline, not an individual endorsement of every sentence in it. And knowing that it may need a few tweaks and changes to fully meet its new status. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:14, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose in practice. Although I am sympathetic to the idea that this could be a guideline, I disagree that it has been clearly vetted by the community. In fact, for 15 or so years I have often avoided trying to sort out small changes to that page precisely because it was never necessary to do so; I could just continue closing as usual without needing to refer to instructions for new closers. In theory, I think we could start with a rewrite of that page, build up consensus, and then bring up the issue again, but I do not believe that the page as written reflects the best practices that have been developed at WP:RM over time, as reflected in my ongoing comments at WT:RM#Involved. Dekimasuよ!17:19, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Both in substance and function, this corresponds to a guideline, and has a clear niche in the systematization of PAGs: This page is to the move processes what Wikipedia:Deletion process is to the deletion process. —Alalch E.20:16, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose RM's are not so special they need their own definition of INVOLVEment, and I cannot support writing this clearly incongruous expanded definition of it into our policies. In the broader sense, codifying this as a guideline is an instruction creep problem. Courcelles (talk) 13:40, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I have a concern, that may not be justified, that a failed proposed policy or guideline generally carries the scarlet banner N This is a failed proposal.The hierarchy of essays, according to Wikipedia, is that an essay is an essay as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. However, in these essays, there is an added level when an "essay" represents widespread norms over a "minority viewpoint". The template uses "Supplement" or "explanatory supplement" that renders an "explanatory essay". If there is an "interprets" parameter, especially if the page provides "additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements", more especially if the "essay" provides this information about policies and guidelines, it is not just a run-of-the-mill essay."Following the instructions or advice given in essays is optional". If this were actually true nobody could ever be subjected to sanctions for not following the "optional" essay. I am sure most here know that in some cases that is a fallacy. I am sure any of our "techies" could pull up the record of how many editors have been blocked or banned for not being here to build an encyclopedia which is an "explanatory essay".Citation overkill has had 176 editors, 150 watchers, and 939 pageviews in 30 days and is an essay (but actually, and not really arguable except maybe from lawyers, an information page) on the Verifiability policy and the Citing Sources guideline.Pure essays are optional, but essays that provide a different aspect, providing sometimes valuable information on the "normal" communitywide practices usually go further.Essays have no official status and do not speak for the Wikipedia community because they may be created and edited without overall community oversight. Following the instructions or advice given in an essay is optional. Generally soft advice belongs in an essay, thus avoiding instruction creep in Wikipedia's official protocols. This is in direct conflict with the content of the "explanatory essay" Wikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia. That "essay" carries multiple warnings. This page in a nutshell States: Users whose behavior suggests they are here for some other purpose risk being blocked or banned. The first paragraph after the quote states, Because Wikipedia is a collaborative community, editors whose personal agendas and actions appear to conflict with its purpose risk having their editing privileges removed. The only thing "soft" is the using of soft wordings "risk being" and risk having.I don't think it would be out of the norm or too big of an adjustment to classify certain essays as explanatory supplements. This would still be an essay, not a guideline, so will not violate those editors not wanting any instruction creep. -- Otr500 (talk) 16:14, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Otr500, when a proposal fails, sometimes we mark it as a failed proposal, but other times we just tag it as an essay. Some things are perfectly fine as essays. See, e.g., Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which has been proposed for policy or guideline status at least three times since I started editing, and still carries no badge of shame at the top. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose- unlike admin activities, RM closes are never urgent, so there's time to make sure that we get someone who's never closed a request on it before. Also unlike admin activities, it's excruciatingly hard to overturn a page move close if the closer won't self-revert. Also unlike admin activities, if the closer does recognize "oops, shouldn't have done that", it's extremely easy to just self-revert--nobody needs to live in fear that they're too "involved", since a self-revert of a move (e.g., "You just closed the request on Kyiv, maybe don't close the one on Odesa" -> "oops, my bad, self-reverting") is very easy for a good-faith closer to do. Also, closing move requests isn't really an administrative task, and is more an editorial one. Without these guidelines as written, the same editor could literally just close the same exact move request over and over and over and over again, stonewalling "progress" in a violation of WP:OWNership. It's one thing to watch your beloved perennial proposal fail; it's quite another when it's one single editor over and over again who keeps closing the request to shut it down. RedSlash16:34, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the same editor could literally just close the same exact move request over and over and over and over again, stonewalling "progress". The flipside of that is an editor who raises the same request with same arguments over and over again until a sympathetic closer gets their turn. We would be basically encouraging WP:FORUMSHOPing. Vpab15 (talk) 17:56, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How is that the flipside? The problem is conflict of interest in the first case and disruption in the second case. Are you saying that the wording should be changed to allow the first case or that the wording already allows it? Selfstudier (talk) 18:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't see the necessity of waiting for someone who's never closed a move request on the topic. Closing RMs is administrative in the same capacity that closing any discussion is: the closer's task is to identify and implement the consensus of other users, rather than acting independently to make content changes. A closer can analyze an individual discussion and its consensus without inherently being influenced by unrelated discussions on similar topics; there's no reason for them to recuse themselves from future closures in the topic area unless they've formed an opinion that would preclude them from being able to close impartially.You mention the hypothetical example of an editor who closes the same RM repeatedly, but there are two possible scenarios this encompasses. First, that editor closes each discussion in line with the relevant protocols (fairly assessing consensus, waiting the full week, etc.); in this scenario, the closures are good, so there's no reason to prevent the editor from making them. The other scenario is that the editor flouts the protocols in their closures (closing against consensus, making inappropriate SNOW closes, etc.); this is disruptive for reasons beyond "they've closed RMs in this area before", so there's no need to maintain such a proviso in order to sanction people who perform these disruptive closures. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While that may theoretically true in general, I think that in the specific case (referred to in the discussion as a "kerfuffle" but which actually need not concern us as it will be resolved in MR and not here) there is the appearance of a conflict of interest and as we all know, the appearance of a conflict can be just as bad as an actual conflict. So even if it may be theoretically true, I still think this is something that ought to be avoided, particularly in CT areas. Selfstudier (talk) 16:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's certainly true for controversial proposals, and I can definitely understand where you're coming from in that regard, but I think a bright-line "you have ever closed such a move request" restriction would also shut down a number of productive and low-risk closures. It's not uncommon for someone to propose a series of RMs on a shared topic - RMs which could easily be bundled, but for one reason or another, are not - and forcing those RMs to all be closed by different people puts a lot of additional strain on that practice.I wonder if "you have ever closed a move request on this article" would be a good alternative restriction? In my view, it'd be nearly as effective at reducing the appearance of conflicts of interest, while also minimizing the added administrative burden on RM closers. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:48, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually what it means, which I think a lot of people seem to be overlooking. The third (and second) points refer back to the first. They say "such a move request", referring to "a move request about the article in question" - but a lot of people seem to be looking at the third point in isolation and coming up with their own sense, out of context, of what "such a move request" means. So, "a move request about the article in question" would best be repeated thrice. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:44, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is true: Also unlike admin activities, it's excruciatingly hard to overturn a page move close if the closer won't self-revert.
Even if it were true, I think it's not an important thing to worry about because it's not a problem we experience. People don't post RMs over and over and over again; therefore, there aren't identical RMs for someone to close over and over and over again. If that becomes a problem, folks can ask at WP:AN for help. Most admins are very willing to let someone else take over, if they're told that their actions aren't resulting in editors feeling like they can trust the outcome.
And frankly, if you've got someone who knows something about the correct nomenclature for some niche subject, you want that person involved in all RMs for that area. RMs, like any other discussion, would ideally be closed by people who can identify which arguments are stronger or weaker, and sometimes that means having domain-specific knowledge. Like any other discussion, an RM can appear to be evenly divided by superficial vote counting, but if one says X because Crackpots'R'Us uses that name, and the other says Y because reputable scholars use that name, then you should be going with the good sources – and that can only happen if the closer knows that the International Journal of Science is highly reputable, and the very similarly named Journal of International Science is not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wording should be changed to make it clear that the restriction on multiple closures applies to the same article (regardless of what titles it may have gone through} and not to other articles within the same topic area. A statute of limitations could also be applied, maybe a year. Contentious and persistent incompetent closing is a behavioural problem and can be managed by a topic ban if it becomes necessary. Also agree with what WhatamIdoing says. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 05:24, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The objection to WP:RMCI was that it defines involved as You have ever closed such a move request, whereas the current policy at WP:INVOLVED says: an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits that do not show bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. It does seem they contradict each other. Should the wording at WP:INVOLVED be changed if WP:RMCI becomes a guideline? Vpab15 (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
INVOLVED is policy, so I think fixing this is better resolved the other way around. Updating RMCI so that it more closely matches INVOLVED seems like the solution, as ultimately that set of instructions are based off of the policy and not the other way around. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:30, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, they're definitely different issues, and the RMCI "involved" stuff is different on purpose and for a reason. The TL;DR is that WP:INVOLVED prohibits involvement with the same user (or topic area), while WP:RMCI just prohibits it from having a certain pre-expressed position on a topic. Great question though.
Why WP:INVOLVED is as loose as it is:
Administrators interact with a LOT of users. If we prohibited any administrator from ever interacting with the same user twice even in an administrative sense, we'd have a complete clusterbomb of suckiness on our hands.
Oftentimes, admin action is urgent; we have way too few administrators and way too many things to be getting done, and sometimes if you waited for someone who has never been involved, the issue would take too long to get resolved (say, Admin Joe finds a rogue user who's wildly vandalizing tons of articles, but Admin Joe has already sanctioned the guy once before; it would hurt the encyclopedia to say that Admin Joe needs to wait to find someone else to ban the dude).
Administrators are very well-vetted in our rules and policies. They shouldn't need someone to hold their hand and tell them when they're too involved to be impartial. It's the same reason Supreme Court Justices in the United States (at least) don't need to be told to recuse themselves.
On the other hand, move closers:
Most move closers do not interact with most articles. I've been an editor for a looooooooooooooooooooooong time and have a loooooooooooooooooooooot of edits and have been involved in a loooooooooooooooooot of move requests, and I just looked through WP:RM and I could not find a single article listed there which I have ever interacted with. I could close literally any of those requested moves. I'd bet you that, of the fifty or so editors who commonly (once or more per month) close requested moves, probably forty-five to forty-eight of us could serve as impartial movers on any given requested move.
There is zero urgency with requested moves. If Page Mover Tom sees a request on Talk:Foo that he could move, but, shoot, he's been involved in similar discussions at Talk:Foobar... well, it's not going to cause any problem for that move request just to sit tight for another few days until Page Mover Sally happens across it. Requested Moves are important, certainly... but definitely not urgent.
The people who close move requests are almost never administrators. There's about four admins who regularly close move requests and about ten others who do it once in a blue moon, and I'd ballpark-estimate that 90% of moves closed are closed by non-admins. I highly respect my fellow non-admin page movers, of course, but let's be real: as a group, we obviously aren't as vetted by the community. In fact, this is why WP:RMCI's "involved" criteria is as explicit as it is. I pushed hard in the discussion for it to be painfully obvious where the bright lines were, because as a group, we needed those bright lines.
So, no, I would absolutely not suggest following WP:INVOLVED's wording or vice-versa. Different rules for different reasons, just like how categories have different rules than articles. RedSlash05:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Right now there is a move review about an article related to the Arab–Israeli conflict and another about a New Zealand term. Both areas have RM discussions relatively regularly. If we are saying that a closer can only close one discussion in either area, that goes against the letter and the spirit of WP:INVOLVED. I don't think that would be feasible, we would run out of RM closers in no time. Vpab15 (talk) 11:28, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With love, no, I'm very confident there are plenty of well-informed RM closers who haven't committed themselves to either of those issues yet. I could list several of them who aren't involved at all. There's not THAT many of us, but there's not too few, either.
Again, these are two separate issues. WP:INVOLVED deals with administrators performing administrative actions. WP:RMCI's "involved" section deals with neither. RedSlash17:22, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying the same closer shouldn't close two RM discussions that belong to the same topic? For example Slava Ukraini and Odesa, both related to Ukraine? Because that's exactly what you did. Applying that rule would disqualify regular RM closers from closing most discussions. As a closer I would have to go though the hundreds of discussions I have closed to make sure I don't meet the new "involved" criteria. That is a huge burden and I can't see that working in practice. Vpab15 (talk) 18:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It already does work in practice! (FYI, these criteria are several years old and have worked for us for several years; they're not new.)
The restrictions aren't "you've ever edited the article or anything like it". The restrictions are: "You have ever commented on any talk page in such a way as to make clear your position on the move request" or "Your editing on the page in question or about the page in question makes clear your position on the move request".
For mine, the Slava Ukraini request hinged on WP:UE and WP:COMMONNAME about whether the slogan should remain translated into English or not; the way in which I closed it does not in any implicate how I would later close the Odesa request, which hinged on whether the one-S version or the two-S version were more common in English when referring to the Ukrainian city. The proof is in the pudding; I closed the Odesa request back in July, just three months after the Slava Ukraini one, and no editor even suggested that I had been too "involved" to close. (I would've painlessly self-reverted if someone would've brought a legitimate claim of violating those rules; again, there are no shortage of people who could've done a great job closing Odesa.) On the other hand, if I had been the one who closed the Kyiv/Kiev one, or if I had !voted on it, maybe I would've shied away from closing the Odesa one; if there's another Ukrainian city with a Russian name that's proposed to be moved to the Ukrainian name, I will avoid closing that one. I consider this common sense, which is why the discussion ultimately ended up where it did and the page reads how it reads.
In short (too late!), the list of requirements on RMCI with regard to involvement were heavily discussed and meticulously crafted to avoid the sort of wacky prohibitions that you are correctly wary of. No worries, homie; it's not as scary as you think ! RedSlash23:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Even on a per article level, are you sure that this is current practice? When looking at the CoI part, a closer is considered involved if You have ever closed such a move request. By a plain reading this means that if:
7 days pass, I make a determination of the consensus based on what editors have said. Article is not moved.
Significant amount of time passes, eg 6 months to several years, some other user proposes moving Foo to baz
7 days pass, I cannot make determination of the consensus based on what the editors have said, because I closed another RM on the same page at some point in the past
When we have 6.6 million articles, but only 130,000 active editors, at some point we will run out of editors who can close move requests on articles that have had multiple move requests. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:33, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is correct, that is current practice, you could not make that determination. We have 6.6 million articles, but I assure you, we don't have that many requested moves No worries, we've never even begun to come close to a situation where we've run out of possible closers. RedSlash01:37, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to interrupt the thread here, but I do not believe there has ever been consensus to make that "common practice". Until 2019, the directive was to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest (which is good!), but there was no prohibition on closing a second move on the same page, and no indication that the very existence of a previous close itself would be considered indicative of a conflict of interest. Since that change (which I didn't know about, since I don't monitor that page, although I would have objected to it), the page has not had guideline status. I have closed subsequent moves on the same pages many times, sometimes so far apart that I couldn't even remember having closed a move request there previously. When the reading of consensus is clear and accurate, there is no appearance of a conflict of interest. When the reading of consensus is not clear or accurate, there is a problem regardless of whether there has been a previous close on the same page. Dekimasuよ!17:34, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is RMCI so much stricter in this regard when compared to how we handle INVOLVED at the admin level, or non-admin closures everywhere else on enwiki? The purpose of the closer of any discussion is to summarise the consensus that already exists, and doing so is usually not considered involvement by any other standard. What's special about move requests that make it so that we need this restriction? Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:11, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I explained it in much more detail above, but it boils down to A) administrative actions are far more urgent than RM moves, so we can afford to be choosier when it comes to involvement, and B) move request outcomes are much more difficult to overturn. Again, the part that you're concerned about--which I get, again, I understand your concern--was exhaustively discussed a few years ago when it was added to RMCI. RedSlash07:49, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Red Slash: I'm really confused here. Doesn't WP:INVOLVED only apply to admins anyway? So WP:INVOLVED does not really apply to non-admin editors making closures; in fact, the only guideline for that is WP:RMCI. It's unclear to me if RM closures even count as activities conducted in 'an administrative capacity', since this seems to be a contradiction in terms for any activities that are specifically allowed to be performed by non-admins. I sense muddled logic. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems really important to clear up whether RM closure is an "admin capacity" covered by WP:INVOLVED that makes the exception of allowing non-admins to perform it, or if it is a "non-admin capacity" that WP:INVOLVED does not fundamentally apply to, but which the WP:INVOLVED principles are overlaid back onto as applicable to participating admins and non-admins by virtue of the standards laid out at WP:NACINV. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Question. Should we include the bit about WP:Move review that's found at the top of WP:RM as a post closure section? This will lay out (or affirm ) the current dispute resolution path if someone wishes to contest the closure (before the interested party takes the case up to ANI). Duplicating the paragraph here for everyone's convenience:
Wikipedia:Move review can be used to contest the outcome of a move request as long as all steps are followed. If a discussion on the closer's talk page does not resolve an issue, then a move review will evaluate the close of the move discussion to determine whether or not the contested close was reasonable and consistent with the spirit and intent of common practice, policies, and guidelines.
Almost all of it; it is advocating for this change, and trying to present RMCI as more than an essay. I suggest you remove the second sentence from your notification, and reduce your statement down the concise and neutral statement Should WP:RMCI be formally elevated to the official status of a WP:GUIDELINE?BilledMammal (talk) 23:22, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First paragraph:
There has existed for eighteen years a set of instructions for how to formally close a requested move. It was initially titled as Wikipedia:Moving guidelines for administrators, later changed to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions (hereafter WP:RMCI). Over the years, it has grown from a simple set of how-to steps to a comprehensive list of guidelines for determining consensus (which began as early as 2006 and has continued to expand through the years). It also has included instructions on who should close requests--first in 2009 when the authority to move pages was explicitly granted to non-administrators, then later in 2019 (following lots of discussion) we introduced rules on how editors who are involved need to not close requests.
is completely factual and non-biased. The instructions have existed for 18 years. It was titled that way initially. Etc.
Second:
The instructional page wasn't classified as anything (guideline, policy, or essay) through 2021, even though it had been originally written as a guideline. Following a post on the talk page that saw no response, it was listed as an explanatory essay in 2021.
Also completely factual.
First part of third paragraph:
Recently, at least one editor has asserted that, as WP:RMCI is "only" an essay, its procedures do not need to be followed; therefore, as one concrete example, editors may feel free to close move requests that they are fully involved in, so long as they think it's the right thing to do.
A quick look at WP:MRV will show you that at least one editor has asserted that.
WP:RMCI has been called "purely advisory", "not vetted", etc., leading to questions as regarding its authority--this in spite of the fact that it was written as a guideline and has guided literally thousands of move closures.
The first part of this sentence is strictly factual. The second part is also true; are you perhaps upset at the fact that I said "in spite of"? I suppose that could be considered biased language, perhaps. How would you rewrite this without omitting any of the factual details contained in this sentence?
This has unquestionably led to no small amount of chaos at Wikipedia:Move review following an editor who closed the same move request twice in a row (which is against the closing instructions), both with the same result, and who claimed that the closing instructions that forbid such a close by an involved user were merely "advice".
"No small amount of chaos" is certainly an opinion, but I don't see how it's biased. IDK , you go look at MRV and tell me if you see chaos or not. Note: me saying that there is unquestionable chaos is not telling people how they should !vote. It is saying why they should vote: because there is currently confusion. If there were no confusion, there would not need to be an RfC.
Everything from "an editor who" onward is completely factual.
Should WP:RMCI be formally elevated to the official status of a WP:GUIDELINE?
Gotta have the question we're !voting on listed in the RfC, don't we?
All told, I can't see where you're seeing bias, or that I advocated for change in a specific direction in the RfC itself. All I did was provide factual context (though admittedly, perhaps that phrase "in spite of" is too loaded and pushes the reader in a certain direction) for why it is good for the RfC to be brought up. Trust me, this RfC being decisively rejected would have been much, much better than the status quo, where something that "looks, talks, and quacks" like a guideline is being treated by many editors as a guideline while others treat it as an essay. RedSlash23:54, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Much of this is evidence for why it should be a guideline. It's factual, but that doesn't make it unbiased, because it doesn't include the evidence for why it shouldn't be a guideline. BilledMammal (talk) 23:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BilledMammal, I wouldn't worry about this. Sometimes an RFC needs an explanation, and sometimes a fair explanation is going to tip editors towards one side or the other. RFC questions, especially procedural ones, shouldn't necessarily try to give equal validity to all options. We can safely assume that Wikipedia editors are smart enough to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe an explanation is needed here; the question is one that Wikipedia editors are smart enough to understand without explanation, and while the justification is more extensive the justification should be part of a !vote, note the statement. BilledMammal (talk) 00:19, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My advice for the future… when writing an RFC: At the top, just ask the question. Don’t add any explanation. If you think background or explanation is needed, add it to the comments section, or as a separate section entitled “Background” (or something) - By physically separating the question from the background of why you are asking it, you limit accusations of non-neutrality. Blueboar (talk) 02:44, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, write anything else as part of a !vote (or a comment) after the RFC body so it doesn't clog up the RFC listing pages. As for neutrality, I don't think it is crucial for this particular discussion as this is not a contentious topic. Selfstudier (talk) 06:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've written maybe six RfCs in my entire career, so this is something I'm definitely not super experienced in. Your advice--all y'all's advice--is well taken, thank you. RedSlash07:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural close for the non-neutral RfC statement and lack of RFCBEFORE (including poor format choice with separate supp/opp sections, not previously discussed AFAICT), first choice. Second choice: oppose per Rhodo. I do not believe it's really been vetted by the community, MR and RMs are a walled garden, and RMCI is its Bible. It differs in some major respects from standard practice elsewhere (e.g. NACs, interpretation of involved), and I think that's more due to the walled garden nature of it than any kind of community vetting. We need fewer policies and guidelines, not more. Also, it's noticeable that the impetus for this is a recent kerfuffle and I don't think it's a good idea to promote RMCI to a guideline in an effort to "win" an argument over RM/MR procedure. Levivich (talk) 14:37, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To some extent, the "kerfuffle" is the RFCbefore. If there are problems with RMCI then that needs to be addressed someplace, like, er...here? Two of three/four editors opining in a move review that RMCI has problems are here opposing so any issues are getting addressed in proper place and not in a move review. Selfstudier (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A contentious RM followed by a contentious MR (aka, a kerfuffle) makes for a lousy RFCBEFORE and this very obviously non-neutral RfC statement demonstrates why. And contra to some surprising advice below, RFCNEUTRAL is for all RFCs, not just contentious topics. Also, this RfC doesn't comply with WP:PGCHANGE as it's not widely advertised, it's at the wrong pump (should be policy for a new PG), and not listed at WP:CENT. This ought to be shut down and restarted the right way: an RFCBEFORE at the PG page, followed by a neutral RfC at the policy pump listed on CENT. Otherwise, it's not really global consensus. Levivich (talk) 16:11, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nah. PGCHANGE is for changes to policies and guidelines, this isn't that. Policy pump is for existing and proposed policies, isn't that either. No need to list this at WP:CENT afaics. The only procedural screw up was people not raising their disagreement with RMCI at move review talk instead of during a move review. I can do the same thing and just assert that WP:RFCNEUTRAL is only an information page and doesn't apply:) Selfstudier (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on man. WP:PROPOSAL is the policy for making new guidelines and it wasn't followed here at all. (And it has more requirements than PGCHANGE, and it explicitly talks about RFCBEFORE, and VPP, etc.). Please don't argue that a proposal to promote RMCI to a guideline doesn't have to follow the WP:PG policy. Similarly there can be no argument that this RfC question isn't RFCNEUTRAL. If you like the idea, that's fine, but the failure to follow our consensus procedure here is indisputable. Levivich (talk) 16:42, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal, apart from some suggested wording tweaks, seems actionable to me. RMCI has been treated as a guideline in practice and the only issues that have been raised against it are the ones raised in an ongoing move review (by objectors to it). Selfstudier (talk) 16:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've just double-checked, and WP:PROPOSAL, WP:VPP, and WP:VPR are all unanimous in saying that proposals for new PGs or to change PGs should be at the VPP and widely-advertised, so I've moved this from VPR to VPP and listed it at CENT. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've collapsed the initial statement and replaced it with a neutral one; if we are going to try and fix this RfC, rather than making a procedural close and opening a new one, then that issue also needs to be fixed - although I hope that the closer considers that prior to 18:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC) the RfC was lead by a non-neutral statement that might have biased the result.
I've struck my !vote and moved it down to discussion, since it's all based on procedure anyway and the procedure is getting fixed. Yes, I think we should combine the support/oppose into one survey section as well. Levivich (talk) 18:14, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some editors are apparently objecting to the wording rather than the principle. So how to deal with this? Do we fix it now? (subRFCs?) Do we send this back to where it was to start with-proposals? Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RfC: Should WP:REFUND allow for articles deleted through the CSD criteria of A7, A9, A11, G5 to be userfied or restored as drafts?
Requests for undeletion should be used to appeal most instances of proposed deletion and some speedy deletions.
However, there is some debate due to the vagueness of what some speedy deletions actually includes. Currently, WP:REFUND says:
Please do not request that pages deleted under speedy deletion criteria F7, F9, F11, U5, A7, A9, A11, G3, G4, G10, G11 or G12 be undeleted here.
However, as Uanfala has mentioned on the talk, this provision was boldly added by a now-banned user, and the archives are fairly divided to find any hard consensus.
Notably, G5 is not currently listed, but several admins have echoed that they refuse to restore material by banned or blocked editors per WP:BMB as a means to enforce bans and dissuade the user from returning. However, other editors advocate that WP:BANREVERT states there is no hard rule to delete potentially useful content, although you are allowed to. This means there is no settled precedent for either supporting and opposing such requests, and it is entirely up to the reviewing administrator to refuse such a request purely based on their outlook of how material added by banned users should be treated. Thus, I think a centralized discussion regarding this would be the best idea going forward.
So as a repeat from the top, can good faith editors appeal to move deleted material from a CSD to a draft or their userspace to work on? (This assumes that there are no other issues with the pages and, in the case of G5, the requesting editor is not affiliated with the banned page creator unless they satisfy WP:PROXYING). And if so, do administrators use their personal best judgment or concede (in most cases) to allow for community-consensus discussion such as WP:AFD and WP:DRV? Why? I Ask (talk) 22:21, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion (WP:REFUND)
As the proposer, I will not be advocating one way or another. Throughout past discussions, I have already made my position clear elsewhere and do not want to risk any further WP:BLUDGEONING, though I will respond to any follow-up question directed at this proposal. However, I do want to preemptively state that any attempt to misuse this proposal (by paid editors or returning sock puppets) should be treated as with any other disruptive editing, and thus a supposed risk of people gaming the system should not be the sole reason to oppose, as there are modes to prevent abuse. (If we were worried about gaming the system for everything applicable on Wikipedia, and restricted it, then it would not be an encyclopedia anyone can edit. So on that notion, I disagree.) Why? I Ask (talk) 22:21, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This RfC seems a bit malformed. A7 and A9 seem reasonable to restore, as something with no indication of importance might actually be notable and could have useful material; G5 is a whole different issue, and shouldn't be conflated here. Galobtter (pingó mió) 00:47, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can you explain that? G5 has the exact same reasoning as what you put for A7 and A9. Perhaps even moreso, as such articles are likely to have been notable and proper articles outright with no problems inherent to them. SilverserenC02:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The point also being that no one really cares about A7, A9, or A11 restores, but G5 restores as policy would be a definite shift, and is clearly what is the RfC is primarily about. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:54, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For deletions under G5, just create the article again. You could ask for a list of references from the deleted article. I would probably be willing to supply it if anyone requests. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 06:01, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Codifying the allowance of this seems like a good idea just to get the subjectivity of admin responsibility out of the mix. Because I've seen plenty of admins claim they don't want to be responsible for restoring the content if it turns out to be bad for whatever reason. Thus, codifying the use of WP:REFUND (and obviously requiring the requester to be an experienced editor in good standing) for this purpose would separate any admin responsibility, as honestly the sole responsibility for the requested articles should be on the person requesting the undeletion. On their head be it, as the saying goes. SilverserenC02:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Editors who want to reinstate an edit by a sock puppet are permitted to do so, on the condition that they take responsibility for the edit. There is no reason this shouldn't apply to entire articles; I previously did this for Tekla Åberg, but it required jumping through far too many hoops. BilledMammal (talk) 02:42, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There may be attribution problems with this procedure, unlike for reinstating individual edits. You would have to take the article off-wiki and completely rewrite everything added by the banned party. How many editors would we trust to get this right? Any admin can do this already, and there are some editors I would trust, but I would not do this for someone whose work I do not know quite well, because I would be ethically obliged to do the work of checking the new article myself to ensure there were no issues of plagiarism. It would usually be easier to start from scratch, possibly with a list of references from the deleted article, which I would normally be happy to provide. Cheers · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 06:01, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am a bit confused on what you mean about attribution. This is saying that the articles would be restored with the page history which would include the edits by the blocked or banned users so attribution would not be an issue. But if you are arguing that edits by banned or blocked users should never be restored, I am not going to attempt to sway you there. Why? I Ask (talk) 06:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for A7 and A9. Such text could be useful for related articles, even if the topic itself is not notable. For A11 I'm not sure what the use case would be, but at the same time not sure what the downsides would be. Oppose encouragement of G5 undeletions, admin/editor good faith is abused as it is. CMD (talk) 03:19, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What does "encouragement" mean? Such undeletions are already allowed. How is requiring experienced editors in good standing to be the ones making the request an abuse of good faith? SilverserenC03:22, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Given the current REFUND text does not mention G5, I took the raising here to be a proposal to make it more common a situation (encouragement). G5 articles can have deep problems that are not immediately apparent, and the good standing and experience of an editor requires assessment. That is multiple areas where an admin might (should?) apply good faith, and no admin can be expected to be across all G5 history. CMD (talk) 03:34, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would G5'ed articles have any more potential issues than any other article? The reason for them being G5'ed is inherently unrelated to the content of the article or even the article existing itself. Since it's about a banned user having made it, not about whether there was anything wrong with the article. It's not like this is about articles that were deleted for being copyvios, blatantly non-neutral/attack articles, or having hoax content. SilverserenC03:40, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Users can be banned for reasons involving hoax content and copyvios. Once they are, later creations are generally handled under G5 for ease. This does not mean the prior problems are no longer present, just that an admin doesn't need to waste their time finding out. CMD (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That would be the only legitimate reason I can see for refusing a G5 undeletion request, but how many banned users who sock were banned for that? It seems vastly more common for someone to be banned for community interaction issues and otherwise long-term bad will, not for issues with article creation. The only exception I'm aware of there are serial POV pushers, but those are less involved in article creation and more involved in pushing text into existing articles. Also, it only takes a moment to check on why someone was banned. I've had a number of G5'ed articles restored and their content was fine, such as Ennan Alimov. SilverserenC03:55, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Creating new articles is just one tool in the serial POV pusher toolbox! As to the question, I do not have any statistics on proportions, I am responding to this RfC from experience of it happening in cases I have seen. Community interaction issues often coincide with content issues, whichever is ultimately the straw that brings about a ban, and simply checking a ban notice misses this history. I have also worked with some sock pages/content, and restored sock content without change. I don't think this means admins should be encouraged to undelete G5 pages they would not currently want to undelete, which the RfC prompts discussion on. CMD (talk) 04:08, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the easiest way to deal with that to just add it to the REFUND requirements? Any requester of a G5 undeletion must include in the request the reason why the banned editor was banned and how this doesn't conflict with the undeletion request and article requirements. Make the requester do the work. SilverserenC05:01, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, in the opening statement of the RfC, I stated that: this assumes that there are no other issues with the pages. If there is a chance the article can be speedily deleted under G3 and G12, then per my opening statement, it should not be restored. Why? I Ask (talk) 03:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For clarification about A11, I decided to include it as it is one of the few CSD criteria where it is not actively harmful (such as G3, which are pure hoaxes) or completely futile (such as A3, an article that is empty) to restore. I believe these are the four CSD criteria where there exists some form of potentially useable content. For example, some scientist (for some reason) summarizes their findings here before later being published in a peer-reviewed journal. This is purely hypothetical, of course, but (as you said) I can not find a particular downside to prevent including A11 alongside A7 and A9. Why? I Ask (talk) 03:37, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Editors can already ask for restoration to userspace of content deleted under these criteria, so I'm not sure what the policy question is here. I would oppose anything that encourages people to challenge G5 deletions (and an undeleted G5 is still a G5, no matter in which space it sits; it requires substantial input by others to stop being deleteable). —Kusma (talk) 10:05, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, the policy is WP:UDP which is vague in what some of the applicable speedy deletion criteria are. Currently, the page WP:REFUND (while not itself a policy) says that A7, A9, and A11 should not be requested to be undeleted, so it does not seem like they currently are able to request restoration through this venue. This RfC attempts to amend that wording (and potentially some at either WP:UDP or WP:CSD) to formally establish that editors are allowed back these articles if they feel they could help in their editing. Would you support A7, A9, and A11 in that case? Why? I Ask (talk) 10:21, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I don't see any downsides to allowing (not requiring) refunds of potentially useful content if someone wants it. If the requester abuses this, then that's a behavioural issue that can and should be dealt with as per any other behavioural issue. Thryduulf (talk) 10:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for A7/A9; oppose for A11: There is no need to maintain unnecessary administrative hurdles to restoring material that could form the basis of something useful in the hands of the right editor willing to take custodianship of the content - especially so if the restoration is restricted to draft space or user space. Also support for G5 G4 in line with the rationale provided by Filelakeshoe below. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would suggest to remove the G5 part from the proposal as it has been rejected elsewhere and shouldn't just be forum shopped here. —Kusma (talk) 11:02, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That has to do with the wording of G5 which seems to be opposed (and it never specified user or draftspace as opposed to mainspace). There was also differences in opinion on why it should not be added, with some basing it on the fact they oppose G5 restoration and some opposing because they simply did not like how it singled out this specific CSD. And there was also support at the deletion review which is why a centralized discussion to formally decide this for future articles is better. You can not just try to invalidate this discussion that stands on its own merits because you personally oppose it. The current half of the votes above that support show there is a discussion to be had. Why? I Ask (talk) 11:03, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't oppose the discussion, but I would oppose the discussion being WP:FORUMSHOPPED. As mentioned, I did not participate in the previous two discussions, and upon finding them I see that my time was taken up by something which seems to be already trending towards consensus against in two existing locations. If you want to bring more attention to ongoing discussions, the correct course of action is to leave a neutral note here pointing towards that discussion. CMD (talk) 11:20, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That you have supporters for your cause here does not change the fact that this is textbook WP:FORUMSHOPping, especially as you have failed to mention the other discussions that CMD has now linked to, which should be taken into account by the closer of this discussion. —Kusma (talk) 11:21, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
CMD and Kusma, these two (I guess three) discussions have different scopes. The DRV determines if G5 was applied correctly (and it was). The discussion at CSD determines if text is added to G5 that says that editors may request undeletion (and there is no consensus to add the text there). This is a separate issue involving four CSD criteria where it is asking if there consensus to support the general restoration of content deleted to non-mainspace venues to work on. Why? I Ask (talk) 11:30, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal, if I can call it that, seems to be about WP:REFUND, and removing "A7, A9, A11" from the list which says "Please do not request that pages deleted under speedy deletion criteria F7, F9, F11, U5, A7, A9, A11, G3, G4, G10, G11 or G12 be undeleted here". Although it's obvious you want G5 involved somehow, I'm unclear what changes you actually want. The page already says, at least implies through its current structure, that you can already request a G5 undeletion. What changes are you looking for? -- zzuuzz(talk)11:28, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Through the other discussion you have been a part of, some editors have opposed the notion that you should be able to request a G5 deletion or held that it should never be restored no matter what (rendering the ability to request moot). This RfC attempts to formally establish whether or not that is the case. Why? I Ask (talk) 11:31, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find it painfully clear through the whole of policy that a G5 restoration can be both requested and fulfilled. Though I also understand there is no obligation. Thus I still don't understand what's being proposed. -- zzuuzz(talk)11:37, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So you support that users can appeal a G5 deletion and have the content userfied or drafted? Aside from that, it also asks whether or not administrators have the full right to deny such a request purely and systematically on the basis of it being deleted by the four criteria. (This is how most G5 requests for undeletion end up as some administrators believe that no material by editors who were banned should ever be restored without necessarily weighing in on the content of the deleted article in question.) Why? I Ask (talk) 11:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can tell me all about that one day. We're all volunteers and (pretty much) don't have to do anything. We have more than one admin for many reasons and many occasions. This is one of them. -- zzuuzz(talk)12:16, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, there's nothing prohibiting a request for G5'd content. If you find an admin who says no they won't do something, find another admin who will, if you can. There's a lot of stuff I won't do but it doesn't mean it can't be done. -- zzuuzz(talk)12:52, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That seems strange to be able to get userfication of articles deleted by G5 by raising the issue at multiple admin talk pages to see which one is willing to do so. Why? I Ask (talk) 16:01, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not a clear RFC proposal, but as a frequent refunder I will comment. When someone requests a G5 overturn, there is a high chance that they are a sock of the banned user. I like to refer the request to the deleter or blocker of the banned user to make a more informed decision about whether to block the requestor. When it comes to things that were deleted for invalid reasons, I may restore (eg if the file was deleted as a copyvio, but the copy was of a Wikipedia mirror). Even a G5 may be inappropriate if it was edited significantly by someone else. If the deleter is still active, then notifying them of the erroneous delete is a good idea so they can rectify it. Other situations where the circumstances have changed would require a good reason to be given by the requestor. Eg if an A7ed topic is now notable. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal specifies user and draft spaces where notability does not apply. Do you still think a reason should have to always be given for A7, A9, and A11 requests? Why? I Ask (talk) 12:14, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for A7, A9, and A11. But Oppose /conditional support for G5. Conditional in the sense that we should have some guidance about how to handle those requests. It depends what the user was blocked for. Someone blocked for chronic copyright violations shouldn't have anything restored to public view without a thorough check first. That probably means emailing a draft to the requesting user with a warning rather than a userfication/draftification. Someone blocked for egregious harassment and personal attacks shouldn't have their material restored under any circumstance, because we need to prioritize the health of our community. What's unclear are the other cases. If someone's a chronic edit warrior, did some stupid sock puppetry, couldn't stop making cosmetic edits, or blocked for any of the other more IMO trivial offenses, I don't see a reason why a refund shouldn't be granted. In other words, a refund can be requested, but if we're going down that road we should have some documentation for admins outlining the conditions when it is or isn't ok. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 12:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So you would support an edit or proposal that documents when G5 restorations should be allowed? I think there is room to explore that idea, but that may be a different RfC. Why? I Ask (talk) 12:28, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've struck "conditional support" for now, as I'd prefer to err on the side of not refunding banned users' content, but think that there are exceptions to that rule that could conceivably be documented in a way that would add it to the list. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing in this proposal would require anybody to refund anything, it would simply explicitly permit them to do so if they wished. Obviously some content should not be restored (copyvios, attacks, etc), some content that should be cleaned before being put in mainspace (very promotional, highly POV, etc), some content that can be cleaned in mainspace (occasional POV problems, suboptimal formatting, globalisation needed, etc) and some content that was deleted solely because some admins believe that "banned means banned" is of greater importance than providing (even occasionally GA or FA-standard) encyclopaedic content to readers (I vehemently disagree with this, but recognise that it is widely held view). There examples of every type that are deleted per G5. Thryduulf (talk) 13:12, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing in this proposal would require anybody to refund anything - But, as with some admins believe that "banned means banned", there's disagreement about when it should apply. G5 isn't an area I'd feel comfortable just leaving open to individual discretion because some feel that the immediate availability of decent content trumps anything else. While there are absolutely exceptions, I'd want us to err on the side of excluding the content. believe that "banned means banned" is of greater importance than providing (even occasionally GA or FA-standard) encyclopaedic content to readers - You've provided one extreme interpretation of the dispute you're referencing. Here's the other extreme: some admins believe there's no abuse, harassment, or sockpuppetry that's too severe to salvage content because "it's all about the readers", as though encouraging sockpuppetry by toxic personalities doesn't do immeasurable damage to specific individuals/groups or the greater community, doesn't discourage people from contributing, or doesn't dissuade people from participating in the first place. Some believe that damage is just too abstract, so why bother with uncountable hypothetical articles and other contributions from uncountable discouraged/put off users in the future when we can have one more decent article "for the readers" today. A bit stronger than I'd typically use it, but it seemed like a fitting counterpart to a reduction to "solely believe that banned means banned". — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support A7/A9/A11, Oppose G5 as worded, per Rhododendrites and Galobtter - particularly, I think that G5 merits a separate discussion. casualdejekyll14:15, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support A7/A9/A11. I'm less enthusiastic about A11, but whatever. Oppose G5. Recreating content previously created by a known sock is itself prima-facie evidence of socking. We're already losing the sock battle, no need to give them additional assistance. -- RoySmith(talk)14:32, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm honestly surprised you would make this argument, RoySmith, considering your block of User:Lettler as a sockpuppet when they weren't one. And it appears it likely drove them from the project. A bunch of their articles were also deleted under G5 during the period of your block and you appear to have made no effort to rectify that (I got around to fixing it myself today). SilverserenC21:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Silver seren there's very little I can say publicly about that case other than to note that it was an extraordinary situation and policy should not be driven by extraordinary events. If there were pages created by Lettler which were deleted under G5, I have no objection to those specific pages being refunded. Looking over Deleted user contributions for Lettler right now, I don't see any such entries. -- RoySmith(talk)23:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because I had them undeleted just now. I think policy discussions should however include cases where prior policy and methods failed and were harmful to editors on the project. In this case, why isn't there a system for someone's articles to be undeleted if they were deleted under false pretenses? We can argue all we want of deletion review or anything else, but the fact of the matter is that it's been over a month and there was no action taken to fix this issue until I noticed it and happened to make the effort to correct it. When it's something that should have been done immediately after Lettler was unblocked. SilverserenC23:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support A7/A9/A11. As with the above, I Oppose G5, but I'm willing to be convinced in a separate discussion; G5 carries too many other issues to be bundled with the others. --Jayron3215:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see! I believe most administrators are usually willing to userfy such content. I've never seen a request for that get opposed. I would be willing to add G4 to the RfC, as well. Why? I Ask (talk) 15:47, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for the A-series criteria: these are meant to apply to articles; the deletion concern is addressed by moving the page out of article space. Oppose for G5 per WP:BMB; as I said in the parallel discussion happening at WT:CSD (*cough* WP:FORUMSHOPPING *cough*), I'll gladly provide email copies of G5-deleted articles to any editor in good standing who asks so that they can write an article in their own words, but I won't restore them. I intend to continue this practice regardless of the outcome of these two discussions. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:52, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a small request: Undeletion policy should provide enough flexibility to provide list of citations and references. So some who wishes to take stalk of earlier used references in deleted article while working fresh should be possible in most circumstances. Also some flexibility when some one wants to use deleted article just for retaining article history for credits but will be writing article almost afresh.Sorry for not being able to visit RFC proposal in detail and commenting for minimal expectation. I hope my comment is relevant enough and would make some sense. Bookku (talk) 12:33, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the main reason this is so important is because of WP:RUD. If a user wishes to use deleted content, it must be restored for attribution per the legal policy. Why? I Ask (talk) 12:38, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose allowing restoration of G5ed articles at REFUND, per WP:BMB, and because REFUND is only intended for uncontroversial cases (which does not include G5). I don't think we actually need this language at all, it's only really there to stop new users making requests which are very unlikely to be granted, and if you request that an article deleted under the A criteria be moved to draftspace for improvement then it will very likely be granted already unless there's something else wrong with the content. This is only being proposed here because the OP's attempt at WT:CSD to add a right to get G5ed pages restored didn't go well. Hut 8.519:38, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point out the policy that says G5 is considered "controversial". From my understanding, everything deleted without a discussion (e.g., PRODs) is considered uncontroversial. If what you are saying is true, then the text at WP:REFUND needs to update to clarify what is considered "controversial". Also, looking through the archives, there are multiple instances of some experienced editors having their request for pages deleted under A7–11 criteria restored denied. The text may need to be more explicit in how such cases can be restored to non-mainspace venues if that is the case already. Why? I Ask (talk) 21:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The question is literally the name of topic of the discussion. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a question mark. --Jayron3218:25, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support yes they can even be restored straight to mainspace if requested. Contributions are under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License so even if banned anyone uninvolved in good standing should be free to request undeletion and in most cases it should be accepted though we shouldn't ignore the fact this may encorage users to evade bans though so maybe not in all cases but I'd say if uninvolved and in good standing its generally fine. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:42, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose detail restrictive / prescriptive instructions at WP:REFUND. It is the right place for a newcomer’s first request. The responsibility for refunding lies with the admin. If an admin doesn’t know when it’s appropriate to refund a G5, either they shouldn’t be an admin, or should be undeletion G5 deletions. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As others have said, I don't think it makes sense to bundle these questions together. Support A7 and A9; they should clearly be restorable because they are about simple, straightforward flaws that may in fact be easy to correct, sometimes with nothing more than a single sentence cited to sources already in the article or with the addition of an easily-found source or to. A11, definitely no, not ever - unless someone completely screwed up there is nothing of value to the project in an A11 undeletion; and if someone screwed up we have proper channels for that. When people post made-up stuff in article space we want them to stop it and either work on not-made-up stuff or go away, we don't want them to move it to userspace; and unlike A7/A9 the flaw that got the article deleted is not fixable. G5 is more complex in that we have to weigh the desire to discourage block-evasion with the potential to recover stuff of value, but I'd say no to G5 because making it too easy for blocked users to leave meaningful impacts on Wikipedia encourages block-evasion. This is especially true for editors who were blocked for tendentious / POV editing; assuming their POV is a widespread one and therefore inevitably well-represented among editors, they could almost always count on an editor who shares their beliefs recovering their deleted articles, which would defeat the whole purpose of blocking them in the first place. --Aquillion (talk) 21:20, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as an option for A7, A9, and G5; making it clear that "yes an admin can do this", not "yes someone must do this". I think there should also be an option in these cases of "restore / provide the list of sources" (or provide confirmation that there were no sources), leaving the article text deleted. DavidLeeLambert (talk) 19:23, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RFC on using maps and charts in Wikipedia articles
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Maps are used as references in 32,000+ articles. From time to time questions about their use are raised in venues such as WP:GAC,WP:AFD and WT:OR. Policy and guidelines about sourcing and verifiability do not directly address nontextual sources. This RFC was started to answer some of those questions. I feel the Wikipedia community would benefit if we have some codified guidelines about their use to avoid having to continually revisit these topics.Dave (talk) 05:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Both shortcuts are within the bot policy and suggest that they apply for permission for their edits here. I suggest that the top 20 of the article creators are included in the denomination of masscreating editors and they should apply for permission there. In a RFC of 2009, (also at the village pump (policy)), the article number that classifies for masscreation was not really defined, but 25-50 was not opposed. Yet also the ones who created more than 25-50 didn't apply for permission, with one of the prominent cases being Lugnuts, which in my opinion is a deplorable loss, because his investment of time to wikipedia was huge. If his and also of others energy could have been guided to a calmer area, they'd likely still edit (under their original accounts).
They could anyway have been requested to apply for permission per WP:MEATBOT (about bot-like editing), but that policy doesn't seem to have been observed or enforced when the several discussions on masscreation began. Many of the masscreating editors are lost to Wikipedia, and I'd say it is not only their fault, but in part also our fault because we were not able not guide them to a more cooperative way of editing.
In order to prevent further very long discussions, I believe it would be good to just enforce WP:MEATBOT and amend WP:MASSCREATE to the top 20 article creators of the month. If one enters the top 20, they must apply per MASSCREATE, if one edits bot-like and is able to create several articles within a few minutes or two hours they shall apply per MEATBOT.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 09:08, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are conflicting a few things here. WP:MEATBOT doesn't mean we treat all fast edits and lots of changes as being a bot. It talks of disruptive editing, and if it's done quickly, it makes no difference if done by a bot or by hand, and WP:MASSCREATE is talking about specifically using automated or semi-automated tools. If someone is making lots of articles with the use of tools, then they need to fill out at BRFA. If they are creating poor or disruptive articles, then they need to be raised at ANI or another noticeboard. We don't simply create policy to penalise good faith article creation, see WP:NOTBUROLee Vilenski(talk • contribs)09:29, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To prevent long discussions as we had with Carlossuarez and Lugnuts? Future examples might become Adamtt9 or Pvmoutside, both editors who are in the top 20. Adamtt9 creates articles contrary to
Regarding the species in danger comment, I reviewed the three articles referenced. The first two are referenced properly and according to the IUCN are categorized as least concern, so I'm not sure what the editor is trying to say, the third article I did not create...Pvmoutside
You sure also created the third one, just check here. And least concern... ok and? they are still on the red list and the infobox should be a summary of the article in which you usually do not mention the red list as far as I have noticed.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:49, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Uhhh, I want to correct myself. I didn't know that least concern means no concern as I figured that if they are included in the red list for threatened species they are in danger. Apparently it's not like that and I apologize. I still see those articles as taggable, let's say for too technical as they are full of latin names and acronyms and would support the removal of autopatrolled from Pvmoutside. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:47, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No? Where do we state a figure for how much one can create? MASSCREATE talks about using tools. If someone wants to create hundreds of articles that are all well cited, there is no issue. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)14:23, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tools for semi-automation would include things like boilerplate text - a necessity for anyone who is creating dozens of articles per day. WP:MEATBOT would also apply, which doesn't require any tools to have been used.
However, I agree that this proposal isn't the route forward; defining mass creation solely in terms of the most prolific editors is too inflexible and will likely exclude many mass creators, and may include a couple of editors who don't engage in mass creation. BilledMammal (talk) 15:35, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At Masscreate it says any large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation task must be approved by the BRFA. It is the first phrase. Since no-one seems to have been approved, no-one seems to have applied for the rights even though they surpassed the mentioned unopposed threshold and we are having very long discussions on stub creations, I thought it might help narrowing it down to the 20 most prolific ones. But if not even they can be included, who will, and then also what's the sense of having such a policy? To be included in the top 20, doesn't have to be seen as a punishment, and it is also not meant as a punishment, the amendment is meant to regulate the masscreation of articles, so the ones that are good at it, can be shown as the examples to follow to the ones who are not yet so good at it, and this before having created hundreds or even thousands of articles. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What are the actual problems with the individual articles that these editors are creating (ignoring how, when and by whom they were created)? If you cannot identify any specific problems that apply to at least the majority of the articles created, and explain how classifying them as mass-created would address those problems, then all this is a waste of time.
It specifically says "automated". You are trying to make any user who creates a lot of articles need to fill out a BRFA, giving examples of people who create poor articles. All this policy is designed to do is make more work for someone actually making non-automated articles - and if they are making them badly, they'd hardly put in enough time to do a bot request form. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)22:15, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Lee Vilenski. It says semi-automated and underneath comes
That simply isn't true. MEATBOT talks about disruptive bot like editing. It DOES NOT suggest that all edits that are done quickly are bot edits, nor that they are disruptive However, merely editing quickly, particularly for a short time, is not by itself disruptive. That is the bit where this falls down. This proposal suggests that all users who create lots of articles (regardless of quality) should in fact be treated like a bot, and made to fill in a form.
This is also something that is already easy to deal with with existing policy. Is the user using tools? Yes - get them to fill out the form. No? Well, are the articles disruptive, or of poor quality? Yes - report to ANI, other noticeboard, or their talk. They'll soon stop, or gain a block. No? Well, I don't really see the issue. If I wanted to create 30 articles tomorrow that were all well sourced? I don't really see what the issue is, nor would I expect someone to come along and tell me that I need to put in paperwork and become a bot.
Yeah I am not sure if that was a personal attack or a personal point of view. I'd be glad to learn what was you see as a personal attack. You are an admin and like a politician public figure you should be receptive to criticism.
Anyway, while you are right that it is mentioned that for a short while it is not disruptive some of the Masscreators edit high speed on long term. Some like Pvmoutside are editing high speed since years. And if the short term is the one where my suggestion fails, the opposite which would be long term is where I should have your support.
Then I'll also copy paste this part of WP:MEATBOT and then all can decide for themselves.
Editors who choose to use semi-automated tools to assist their editing should be aware that processes which operate at higher speeds, with a higher volume of edits, or with less human involvement are more likely to be treated as bots. If there is any doubt, you should make a bot approval request. In such cases, the Bot Approvals Group will determine whether the full approval process and a separate bot account are necessary.
It doesn't say the edits have to be disruptive in order to apply, just that they have to be high speed enough and their edits can be treated as bot-like editing which applies to several of the top 20 article creators. The title of the shortcut MEATBOT is Bot-like editing and that it is mainly focused on disruptive editing can be a point of view, but one I do not share.
You may want to peruse the recent WP:ACAS. Yes, our current rules don't address mass creation without problems and without the use of tools, and that's not ideal. A big problem seems to be some fundamental disagreements about what, exactly, the problems are when it comes to mass creation and how to define it... — Rhododendritestalk \\ 16:48, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That was pointed out on my talk page, yes. I assumed you didn't see it because you referenced a 2009 RfC but not the one we just had on this topic (a long one that took a lot of time with, as you point out, no real solution). Not saying that should be the end of it -- it just seemed worth mentioning is all. NBD. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 22:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that it does, except insofar as there have been a lot of people who claim the existing guidance does apply, should apply in spirit, or otherwise operate as though we have rules that we do not have. My "not ideal" is just about clarity/common understanding. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 22:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The number one editor on this list produced an average of just over four articles per day. Any of us could sit down and spend 15-20 minutes sketching out a reasonable rudimentary article on a missing notable figure, and thereby create four articles in a day, with nothing even close to resembling mass-editing. BD2412T22:53, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then if the two admins here stonewall my suggestions, how can we apply those policies? If it's not the top 20 or editors who perform semiautomated edits, then who? You are the admins, you should know. Or are you all hoping to block the next one instead of finding solution for them? Be a bit constructive here.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this adds to the discussion, but a few years ago the Tree of Life Project had a bot called Polbot which created many species pages, but was ended when many of those pages needed corrections....Pvmoutside (talk) 00:24, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The following question was proposed previously, but a discussion on it was never opened due to the cancellation of the ArbCom mandated RfC. It might be worth revisiting?
Which proposed definition of mass creation should we adopt? Please rank your choices by listing them in order of preference from most preferred to least preferred. Preferences, weighted by strength of argument, will be resolved through IRV. A: A single editor creating a large number of articles based on boilerplate text and referenced to the same small group of sources. B: A single editor creating more than 100 articles based on boilerplate text and referenced to the same small group of sources. C: A single editor, creating more than 10 articles per day, 20 articles per week or 50 articles per month, based on boilerplate text and referenced only to the same small group of sources. D: None of the above
In B 100 articles are meant in total or per minute? If this is not clarified the ones who prefer not to apply will find any excuse. And I doubt if boiler plate should be mentioned as then a possible answer would be that they edit micro stubs manually for days and then publish all at once within a few minutes like I already read before. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:38, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
100 means in total; previous discussion has suggested that boilerplate is necessary, both because it can be determined by reviewing the articles, and because there is agreement that mass creation isn't simply due to the rate of creation but what is created. BilledMammal (talk) 02:43, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Paradise Chronicle you still haven't explained what problem you want to solve. Until you can do that everything else is pointless. What do you want to achieve by applying MASSCREATE? What benefit will doing so bring to the encyclopaedia? It's worth noting that as far as I can tell from a quick glance, none of the suggested definitions BilledMammal would apply to Lord Cornwallis' articles because they are not based on boilerplate text. Thryduulf (talk) 00:50, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have explained above, but you probably didn't read. The aim is to prevent long discussions in the future as we had in the past with Lugnuts and other editors. I believe if editors apply at BRFA, we can show examples to the ones who create deficient stubs. I'd say Lord Cornwallis and I believe also Moonswimmer and Esculenta for sure (articles are rather good) could serve as examples to show to editors who also want to masscreate articles. But since no-one is interested in that I thought it would be interesting to know how the policies on masscreate and meatbot can be applied. If no-one knows we can also just abolish them, then also no-one will have the idea to bring them up. Either show a way how to apply it or abolish it. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf, I think the motivation is "drama prevention" rather than anything about the articles or the creation – like if we were to write down that "Mass creation applies to the creation of six or more articles per hour, except during a new moon, when the rate is lowered to one article per hour, unless you have reviewed five extra DYKs during the last 90 days, in which case the usual rate limits apply", and another rule that says "If someone claims mass creation when the creation rate is approved by this tool, then the first three editors who notice this are entitled to post 'Liar, liar, pants on fire' on the editor's talk page", then we won't have l-o-o-o-n-g discussions about whether creating two articles that I dislike is "mass creation" instead of "a violation of all that is right and decent".
However, given that I see editors who persist in claim "original research" for material that is both verifiable and cited, I am not convinced. Maybe if we give them another badname they'd switch to that eventually.
Paradise, the problem with "top 20" is that if editor #20 has created 1,000 articles ever, then:
I can do whatever I want for the first 999 articles, including flooding the review queues with 999 articles in the space of 999 minutes, but
if I create just one article per week, then after ~20 years, I'm going to have to get permission from the bot folks to do something that is obviously not bot-like editing.
@WhatamIdoing, the Top 20 are only for 2022, not for the last 20 years. And also, Wikipedia can develop towards quality, as it happened in many areas of Wikipedia. I believe this development will also come to article creation but maybe I am just a bit ahead of time. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:01, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Based on a rolling 12-month period or on the previous calendar year?
It doesn't make sense to tell someone that they were in the top 20 last time, so creating even one article now requires extra permission. And it might not make sense anyway, because what if I create hundreds or thousands of redirects, but someone expands those into real articles? Our tools detect that as being a real article (now), so it would count someone else's article creation "against" my limit, unless you did a manual review, which is not really helping.
And it doesn't address the practical problem with mass creation, which is flooding the review queues. It does not matter what the overall limit is, if you say I can do whatever I want for the first ____ articles, including flooding the review queues with ____ articles in the space of ____ minutes will always be a problem unless ____ is a sufficiently low number that the reviewers can handle the burst of activity (generally accepted as 25 to 50 per day). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then let's turn it around. What kind of editor would have to apply at BRFA as suggested by MASSCREATE and MEATBOT? So far none seems to have applied for and none was given the rights even though they have created more than 25-50 articles per day or used semiautomated tools for their article creations. I have asked this already before but no answer so far. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Paradise Chronicle, I think the rule should be that you apply at BRFA if your future plans will produce a level of articles that the community expects to cause problems for the Wikipedia:New pages patrol. That level has been set at 25 to 50 articles per day for many years. I would personally reduce it slightly, to say something like "25 to 50 articles per day day, or a total of more than 300 articles per month", but other editors would probably choose other numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
300 a month only one has created in 2022, so this would just raise the level instead of reducing it. I'd support a WP:MEATBOT approach that if articles are seemingly faster created than for example the worlds fastest typists (ca. 200 words per minute) like creating several articles within a few minutes or 25 per day its considered semi-automated editing and worth of a review. It's not supposed to punish editors, but much more to regulate masscreation and show editors who like to masscreate articles what the community believes is good for wikipedia and what kind of editing raised concerns. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:56, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just came here to mention that a similar discussion was held here, where some standards were purposed for articles specific to the Dams. I think at the end, it boils down to the quality of article , not the quantity of article. Each project's articles should be discussed on the specific project group because you can find the concerned experts there and can decide on the quality, standards and overall assessment. After all one cannot be an expert in everything. Best regards!nirmal (talk) 02:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion is that the problem could be mitigated by banning the creation of stubs. If an article on a subject doesn't have at least, say, 250 words or an equivalent number of bytes then it doesn't belong in the encyclopedia. Maybe stubs should be relegated to the wiki dictionary or some other site. Smallchief (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An encyclopaedic stub and a dictionary entry are not at all similar, and suggest you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the purposes of Wikipedia and/or Wiktionary. That does not lend favour to your proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 16:59, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Smallchief Great idea the one with the wiktionary. I have/had a similar idea. I thought that if one is not able to word out 10 phrases on a subject, it's not notable enough for wikipedia. As for me it's not enough to add a source, but also the information to the article that is in the source. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:43, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, there was not any clear outcome. Please read the discussion properly. Anyway, in the dam related article, one guy hijacked the process and I left on him to move forward.nirmal (talk) 01:28, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that there was no proper closure, but as to me the replies with the strongest arguments were the ones that supported List of Dams articles (comparable to the Lists of Dams in the USA). And your suggestion of a certain professional criteria per ICOLD is good as well, but not one of your dams created on the 1 of March I checked fulfills your own criteria of 1 Million Cubic capacity. Or maybe you can explain how lower numbers still fit in the ICOLD criteria?Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:31, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RfC on clarifying whether commonality or ties should be preferred when choosing terminology
A: Universally accepted terms should always be used, even for topics where TIES applies, unless the national variety is contextually important to the topic.
B: Universally accepted terms should only be used when TIES does not apply.
Using the examples from MOS:COMMONALITY, under proposal A topics with ties to Britain and America will use glasses rather than spectacles and eyeglasses respectively, and topics with ties to India will use ten million rather than one crore. An example of an exception where national varieties should be used due to being contextually important to the topic would be 100 Crore Club.
Under proposal B topics with ties to Britain and America will always use spectacles and eyeglasses respectively, while topics with ties to India will use one crore.
If there is a consensus for either option then MOS:ENGVAR will be updated to reflect this. 03:48, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
A. Our goal is to write a global encyclopedia, accessible to all English readers, and using universally accepted terms contributes to this goal. We want a reader in India to be able to read an article about a Canadian topic and not be confused by the words used, and we want a reader in Canada to be able to read an article about an Indian topic and not be confused by the words used.
Sometimes, confusion is unavoidable; there is not always a universally used term. For example, a car's trunk or boot. In such circumstances we need to compromise, and MOS:TIES and MOS:RETAIN is a good method to do so, but in circumstances we don't need to compromise, when we can use a word that all readers will understand without us needing to gloss it or without them needing to read another article, then we should use that word. BilledMammal (talk) 03:48, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
B, but explain - while I absolutely appreciate the desire to have articles all use consistent language, I can't reconcile that with the consequence that option A would mean we're treating certain varieties of English as "more English" than others. The "common" language will almost inevitably be either British or American in origin, while other varieties of English get progressively overwritten even when on articles which have a strong tie to that particular language. I think the best compromise here is to have MOS:TIES take precedent, with the caveat that when using a term specific to the relevant variety of English it should be explained at first mention, such as "Tramping (hiking) is a popular activity..." or "₹70 crore (₹700 million)" as suggested below. Turnagra (talk) 08:41, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree we would be treating it as less English, any more than we treat informal English (given our preference for formal English) as "less English" - instead, we would be treating it as less useful for writing a global Encylopedia. However, even if it did treat it that way, I don't see an issue with that; is not English used by 100% of English speakers more English than English used by less than 100% of English speakers?
This applies to words from all parts of the English speaking world; for example, the word we use for Soft drink is the most commonly used word only in Australia and New Zealand, with alternatives like fizzy drink (most common in Britain), pop (most common in the United States and Canada), and cold drink (most common in South Africa and India) rejected for lack of commonality. BilledMammal (talk) 23:29, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BilledMammal, you are not entirely correct about the usage of "pop" in the United States, where that is a highly regionalized usage. "Pop" is the most common usage in Western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and the upper Great Plains and upper Rocky Mountains states. I grew up in Michigan where everyone said "pop", and then I moved to California, by far the most populous state, where nobody says "pop" but instead everyone says "soda" or "soft drink". Otherwise, Michigan English and mainstream California English are quite similar to me. But even half a century after I left Michigan, occasionally someone will say that I sound like I am from Michigan. Take a look at the map in this article. Cullen328 (talk) 06:04, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As am I, BilledMammal. But I have never spent an extended period of time in the Deep South. I have driven through and jetted into the area, staying briefly in hotels and motels. But I am like a tourist from Sydney or Paris when I am in that part of the U.S. Cullen328 (talk) 07:25, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both. Both A and B are too extreme. It depends: How commonly understood is the supposedly universally accepted term? How strong is the tie? How confusing is a term to the readers who didn't get their most familiar term? These vary case by case. They're factors to be weighed as guidance, not rules with an absolute order of priority. For example, "filling station" is arguably a commonality, yet also few people's first choice. Even when there are weak ties, we should usually just pick gas station or petrol station, and even when there are no ties, we should retain gas/petrol/filling station as opposed to forcing "filling" everywhere. Similarly for the commonality "controlled-access highway". On the other hand, "glasses" is very widely understood; even in an article with clear ties we should ordinarily write "glasses". Still other cases will have their own unique considerations. Adumbrativus (talk) 10:01, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A wouldn't require us to use terms like "filling station", because as you point out a good argument can be made against it being a word that is a commonality. It would only compel us to use words where there is a consensus that the proposed word is actually a commonality. BilledMammal (talk) 23:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both A and B - Our goal is to serve [English-reading] users, not force everyone to accept one single format. While it is true that English is not a native language in many regions, it remains widely spoken and probably the most common language the populace can speak if they're multi-lingual (India, in this instance). As such, we have the MOS:TIES to incorporate the respective variety of English. MOS:COMMONALITY is a guideline and as the section header suggests "opportunities" not that "we must and should at all costs" as the proposals say. As such, I don't have any objection to use "100,000 xyz" instead of "1 lakh xyz" or "ten million" instead of "one crore" - non-currency figures (see my comment in Discussion for currency figures; 100 Crore Club is currency-related) - which is where the opportunity for a commonality lie. But we shouldn't force the wording in MOS to "should". — DaxServer (t · m · c) 12:24, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the premise - It is a mistake to think that there is a conflict between TIES and COMMONALITY - a well written article will find a way to achieve both at the same time. On those rare occasions where we must choose, we need to examine the options on a case by case basis. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A/false dichotomy. glasses is a British English word as well as spectacles, so it is not a TIES issue to use glasses. Universally accepted terms should be used if they exist. This is what COMMONALITY says. TIES puts forwards no contradiction. — Bilorv (talk) 16:36, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neither This is a false dichotomy. Editorial discretion should be used to determine which is more relevant. The one place that I find TIES most annoying—the use of crore/lakh—is easily solved by a number of templates on point, or by good old fashioned typing out of both numbers. Editors are smart, I trust folks to make sensible editing decisions. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓23:50, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Generally oppose as a false dichotomy, because we use editorial discretion and do not need a binary rule for everything. If I were pushed to pick a side, it would be A, because we are here to write a global encyclopedia, not pander to local dialect pecadilloes. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 07:09, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neither Deal with matters on a case-by-case basis. There's no need for a universal rule here. Weigh the evidence and make a decision based on the particulars of each individual instance as to which of the two sets of guidance is more applicable. --Jayron3212:27, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A in the general case, but for lakh/crore specifically, DaxServer points out below that "million" is legitimately harder to understand for them, which is enough to swing my viewpoint for that one case. Template:INRConvert seems like the way to go there. ℰmi1y⧼T·C⧽21:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neither A nor B - in most of the cases that this RfC seems likely to be used to officiate, the terms that are actually available are unlikely to be either truly universal or truly particular, but are rather situated on spectra or mixtures between these supposed pure forms. National varieties of English certainly do exist, but they do not each consist of a definitive assemblage of universal and particular language choices in the way this RfC seems to presuppose.
Selecting Option B would encourage TIES flag-planting and parochial deployments of local vernacular, while I expect Option A to be drawn upon by editors, often unintentionally, in service of language that seems universal to a particular editor in situations where the reality is more complex. There is no good reason to choose between these options as a policy matter, when the best practice will continue to consist in linguistic pragmatics carried on "on the ground".
By the way, the language with which the RfC options are actually described seems designed to prevent editors from supporting, for example, universal terms when they are judged equally appropriate when compared to language group-bounded terms in a specific context, without also supporting universal terms in any instance where they are available at all - this non-neutral presentation of a decision that more naturally falls into three preference zones may explain why so few editors to date have been able or willing actually to choose between A and B. Newimpartial (talk) 00:07, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What would you propose as an "option C"? My intent with option A was for it to only apply to terms that there is a consensus are a "universal term", and not to other situations such as when language only seems universal to a particular editor, but the wording may have fallen short of the intent. BilledMammal (talk) 00:51, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of the decision can't be added to the existing options IMO because of the way the terrain is already mapped in the first two.
My idea of a neutrality is better reflected in the following question and options:
hypothetical RfC
How should the choice between universal and Engvar-specific terms be decided:
1. Always use a universal term if a substantially-applicable one can be identified.
2. Prefer the use of universal terms where they can be identified, but not in cases where specific, nationally-important terms are relevant to the topic.
3. Use universal terms wherever they are equivalent to and comparably recognizable to nationally-specific terms, but prefer nationally-specific terms where they are more specific, more recognizable or decidedly more idiomatic.
4. Prefer the use of nationally-specific terms for articles where the scope of the topic is bound (by definition or by the preponderance of sourcing) to the variety of English selected for the article.
5. Always use nationally-specific terms where they exist for the variety of English selected for the article.
6. None of the above: follow local consensus whenever such issues arise.
(edit conflict) The current Option A seems equivalent to my 2., and your option B seems equivalent to my 5. From my point of view, then, not only NOTA (6) but also the middle option (3) are missing, and you have offered a more moderate A against a more extreme B (sitting at 2/5 and 5/5 if you imagine my options as a Likert scale). (And no, I am not actially proposing a 5-option RfC; I'm just trying to articulate why I see A and B as non-neutral in the spectrum of possible opinions.) Newimpartial (talk) 01:17, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For three, if I have understood it correctly that was the intent of my proposal; a term with recognizably issues under a specific ENGVAR is not, in my opinion, compatible with the requirements of COMMONALITY. However, it seems that this opinion may not be universal, which would explain some of the objections to this proposal.
B is equivalent to your 4; it doesn't apply to articles where the ENGVAR is there under MOS:RETAIN rather than MOS:TIES.
(And no, I am not actially proposing a 5-option RfC; I'm just trying to articulate why I see A and B as non-neutral in the spectrum of possible opinions.) If I understand you correctly, you would support #3 and would have proposed a 3-option RfC with the current two options plus that one? BilledMammal (talk) 01:28, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In this hypothetical I would be torn (as I believe would other editors, based in their !votes) between 3 and 6. Also, in an RFCBEFORE I would have tried to reach one option combining my 1-2 and one for 4-5, perhaps through the use of "require/prefer". I get that both of your options are "always", but I think the instrument needs to be sensitive to preferences away from the "centre" of the distribution, so I would avoid "always" in a 3-option format. (Also, I still see your A as closer to 2 than 3, given the use of "always", but if you see it as closer to 3 then you are making my point for me about A representing a moderate option favoring COMMONALITY AND B being a more drastic option favoring TIES.)
digression about my option 4 vs. 5
Also, while I see now that my 5 points to RETAIN whereas your option B points to TIES, I think your option B is still closer to my 5 in key respects: not only in using "always", but more importantly because my 4 requires that that the engvar be bound to the scope of the topic to establish a preference. A topic covering North America, for example, could have strong ties to the US engvar without being bound/limited to it. I have a half-baked example: it might be appropriate to incorporate the US-specific terms used by Major League Soccer and RS about it to describe its own activities, but that topic is not so US-bound that it would make sense to me to follow US syntax where it is not widely understood in Canada, if for example terms about employment or citizenship differ between those two countries and the article makes reference to these aspects.
Oppose both as being too extreme and lacking in nuance per Newimpartial and lacking any evidence of need for a universal rule. Thryduulf (talk) 16:28, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both - Both options lack nuance. The current ambiguity allows editors to decide what makes the most sense in a given context. If the term with the closest MOS:TIES to a subject lacks MOS:COMMONALITY it can be perfectly acceptable to just explain what the term means, in the same way that articles will usually say "the building is 20 metres (66 ft) tall" it is also perfectly acceptable to say "there are estimated to be 10 crore (100 million) of these plants growing in India" or "the company also produces potato chips (crisps)". It's also worth noting that even where commonality does exist, the implication of a term in the context of a different variety of English may be different. For example, in an article written in British English, saying "the cargo was carried by truck" would generally imply the use of a smaller vehicle than "the cargo was carried by lorry", and in that case the best way to achieve commonality might be to say "the cargo was transported by road using a lorry" or something to that effect. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 00:13, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both – of course this depends on the word and on the article. For an article of strong interest to an international audience (e.g. Big Ben or Superman), there's a stronger case for using universally accepted terms than for an article mainly of interest to people from one country. A word like "spectacles" (which is understood by Americans even though they don't usually say it) is less of a concern than a word like "courgette" (which is generally not understood by Americans). Sometimes (like for "crore") a parenthetical gloss is useful. Some words ("vest", "subway") need extra caution because they have different meanings in different countries, which can lead to confusion. Some topic areas ("football", "college") have a lot of complexity around the differences in terminology. And so on. This needs case-by-case judgement, not a blanket rule. —Mx. Granger (talk·contribs) 03:53, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both per WP:CREEP. Demographics of India avoids the Indian numbering system, despite many of its references reporting data in lakhs and crores, because readers are likely to compare info between the demography articles on other countries. Implementing Proposal A is an unnecessary burden on new editors to definitively identify the article's audience and purpose, rather than this being established through an evolving consensus BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 18:10, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A query, using Chennai Express as an example, as it seems the lakh/crore issue is at the heart of this. This article states in the infobox that the budget was ₹70 crore; wouldn't it be more intuitive and simpler to just do "₹70 crore (₹700 million)"? Curbon7 (talk) 06:04, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the context of currency, if we're going to add explanation, we might as well say "₹70 crore (US$12 million)", or whatever the conversion rate was at the relevant time. If a reader doesn't know what ₹70 crore means, then that reader (presumably not from India) probably has a better sense of what ₹700 million means, but in the end probably not a very good sense of that either. Adumbrativus (talk) 10:38, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I gather this is ultimately about lakh/crore. I would discourage a blanket change to ENGVAR; if we have to, add a note clarifying preferred approaches for that specific case.Going to broad overall changes like this can have unforseen consequences - "B" assumes that all local contexts would use the local term if not for standardisation, but in the example given, 'glasses' is probably more common than 'spectacles' in BrEng. The result would end up mandating an unrelated change that probably no-one actually wants, in order to settle a single specific dispute. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:28, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Glasses" is also more common than "eyeglasses" in American English. I'm somewhat baffled by the claim in the RfC statement that this would apparently mandate two less common terms ("spectacles" and "eyeglasses") instead of a term that is both more universal and more widely used in each of the countries mentioned. —Mx. Granger (talk·contribs) 03:53, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An example from the earlier discussion regarding school terms that went unresolved: Should a page with U.S. ties be using freshman and sophomore instead of the understandable, but less common and more verbose, first-year and second-year student?—Bagumba (talk) 11:00, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Re the Indian currency numbering system, ~1.3 billion people - 1/7th of the global population - uses it. If I were to read "₹700 million" because it is "universally accepted term", I'm lost and absolutely cannot comprehend. I've to mentally convert the figure to "₹70 crore" to understand the meaning. To alleviate the lakh/crore problem, we use {{INRConvert}} - example: ₹70 crore (US$8.4 million) or ₹70 lakhcrore (equivalent to ₹290 trillion or US$3.5 trillion in 2023). And not the "₹70 crore (₹700 million)". The world we live in uses USD as the global base currency. If I were to read an article with ¥10,000 - I've no clue of the value, however using a {{YENConvert}} or a similar one, I'd have a reference point to USD (despite not being a currency I use except paying for international purchases - true for majority of the population). — DaxServer (t · m · c) 12:37, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The issue with INRConvert is that it still doesn't tell the reader how many rupees that it; the equivalent in dollars is useful, but it still leaves the reader lacking information. A MOS:COMMONALITY compromise could be to always type the full number out (₹700,000,000), at least for topics with MOS:TIES to India and Pakistan? BilledMammal (talk) 23:17, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
INRConvert is just a template that we can customize to whatever usefulness we determine it would provide. Or another template. But not a cover-all rule — DaxServer (t · m · c) 07:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ties is to establish which variety of English is appropriate to the article. Commonality directs that, so long as it is sensible and reasonable, non-type specific terminology is (and subject to those provisos, always) preferred over type-specific. I don’t see the issue here? MapReader (talk) 14:43, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MapReader: The issue is that it isn't seen as subject to those provisos, always preferred over type-specific, with some editors arguing that TIES should be preferred - see above, where an editor argues for the use of "tramping" over "hiking" in relation to New Zealand topics, a position which reflects current use in articles - I haven't looked into the subject, but I suspect that hiking meets all those provisos for New Zealand topics. BilledMammal (talk) 23:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing in TIES that ‘requires’ variety-specific terminology if a commonly understood alternative exists; that would both be a nonsense and a direct contradiction of COMMONALITY. Nevertheless, in your example, if “hiking” (despite being clearly common to UK and US English) genuinely isn’t used as a word in New Zealand, the editor would have a point as it doesn’t meet the criteria for Commonality. Accepting that a word we might use every day really isn’t widely understood in another English-speaking country is sometimes difficult, but there are plenty of examples both ways between the UK and US that make the point. MapReader (talk) 05:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then clearly they are wrong, since TIES relates to the generic style of an article whereas COMMONALITY directs toward the word to be used in a particular sentence. MapReader (talk) 05:59, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MapReader: The issue is that editors holding that position can and do argue that it is aligned with policy, and in the process block proposals to use commonality compliant words; this proposal is intended to address that problem. BilledMammal (talk) 06:30, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You talk about a proposal, but looking back at the options referred to in previous discussion, A is essentially current practice and B clearly unhelpful and probably unworkable. In any event, COMMONALITY (and hence A) needs to be used sensibly and is generally a question of re-wording the whole sentence, since there aren't too many cases where are both single words particular to individual varieties of English and another word with the same meaning that is common to both. MapReader (talk) 06:48, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's worth noting that many cases where there can seem to be a conflict between MOS:COMMONALITY and MOS:TIES are actually cases where MOS:JARGON is more relevant. For example, the solution to Americans not knowing what a saloon car is and Brits not knowing what a sedan is is to say "it is a four-door saloon car" or "the car is a four-door sedan", which is generally clear enough for most purposes, especially if the mildly-technical terms "saloon car" or "sedan" are wikilinked. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 00:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 00:39, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, there is, in real life, a systemic bias in favour of more formal and more Western flavours of English; every few weeks there seems to be some trending tweet making fun of Pidgin/Patois/Singlish. Of course, this is the English Wikipedia, so we are well within our rights to prefer a country's formal version of English, but we must be mindful that there are more variants of English than American and British (and Canadian, Australian and New Zealander, if you're feeling spicy), and we've always had a policy of neutrality on which variant to use. On the lakh/crore issue… I'd remove that example from MOS:COMMONALITY; there's just as many English speakers on the Indian subcontinent than there are outside it! Sceptre (talk) 12:35, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion on disallowing use of the ʻokina in Chinese romanized article titles
I have noticed that there seems to be a marked left-wing orientation within Wikipedia (in the United States, it corresponds to the Democratic Party). I would like an explanation as to whether this is really the case, or whether it is just my impression; furthermore, I would like to know, with proof, whether Wikipedia, according to its own laws, can have political orientations, or must, by necessity, always be neutral. I repeat: it would seem, in my opinion, that there is a not inconsiderable left-wing political orientation here on Wikipedia. JackkBrown (talk) 13:45, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are not the first to make such an observation. Officially, we are supposed to maintain a WP:Neutral point of view. Whether we achieve this (or not) often depends on the reader’s own neutrality… those on the right complain that we don’t give their view enough coverage, while those on the left complain that we give it too much coverage. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Blueboar: so (not Wikipedia's fault in any case), is there really a predominantly left-wing orientation on Wikipedia? Even on en.wiki? I would be very sorry if that were indeed the case, because the information itself would suffer greatly. JackkBrown (talk) 14:09, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would say there is a slight left wing orientation, but not a predominant one. Part of the issue is that we require reliable sources, and reliable sources tend to skew left wing. This is especially true with academic sources. Since academics tend to be left of center, this will impact our coverage a bit. Meanwhile, right wing sources tend to be considered unreliable (often for good reasons). As one experienced Wikipedian put it: “The fact is, Reality skews left of center… thus, so does WP.” Blueboar (talk) 14:35, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Left wing" - "right wing" is only one dimension of the political space. Note that Jimmy Wales, principal founder of Wikipedia, and under whom Wikipedia's core policies were developed, has described himself at various times as an objectivist and a libertarian, strongly influenced by Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead; and more recently as "center-right" and "centrist". The culture of Wikipedia is more libertarian than authoritarian (a political dimension that is orthogonal to left/right), and is very much bedded in building an encyclopedia free for all to read and edit, requiring all content to be verifiable from reliable sources, and presenting all content with a neutral point of view. Editing Wikipedia is open to all, with no political test, as long as an editor remains civil and abides with our policies and guidelines. Many editors have some sort of inherent political bias, but many of us, no matter what our political leanings, are dedicated to keeping Wikipeida based on reliable sources and presented with a neutral point of view. Donald Albury16:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As well as everything that has been said above, I would point out that this is a global encyclopedia, not just a United States one. Certain goods, such as universal healthcare, are accepted in nearly all of the world as beneficial (even by those on the right of politics), but not in the US. Even, and probably more so than in much of the world, universal education is considered to be a public good by right-wingers in the United States. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In a Poli Sci class twenty plus years ago, the professor drew a line on the board and then placed one in the center and wrote Dem on left, Rep on Right. At that time, US politics was considered centrist and two sides of the same coin when it came to global politics. The 21st century has brought significant divergence from those positions and I wonder how the professor would define them now. As to Wikipedia, personalities play a far bigger part in being a productive editor and those who believe Wikipedia is hopelessly flawed are of no use to the project and generally fail to abide by civility and verifiability. In short, much of the US "far-right" winds up self-excluding themselves from the project through behavioral activites incompatible with the project as they mistake this for social media where unsourced debate is welcome.Slywriter (talk) 19:36, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you JackkBrown have any specific example where wikipedia is supposed to be left leaning towards the Democratic Party? That there exist certain Republicans who believe conspiracy theories like Qanon or that Obama is not an US citizen doesn't make Wikipedia left-wing but much more academic.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 22:43, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Using the US definition of left and right I think it clearly has a left bias on articles related to US politics, and I could come up with various slam dunk examples of that. I tend to not worry about that unless it gets so bad that it harms the informativeness of the article, which does sometimes happen. I think that the cause is a combination of systemic issues combined with people who want it that way. It would be good to fix the systemic issues enough to meet the lower bar of fixing those where it harms the informativeness of the articles. Those fixes would help in many other areas besides bias. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:25, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would be much more helpful for the OP and any other concerned people to provide a couple of examples—it's impossible to hold a meaningful discussion without something concrete. Johnuniq (talk) 05:15, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia presents the facts as understood by the scholarly consensus in the democratic global west, because of our rules. This makes it "left wing" by US standards, but not particularly left wing by the standards of other advanced democracies. The "alternative facts" of the US right are unwelcome here.—S MarshallT/C07:47, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
From the UK perspective, the Democrats are to the right of our Conservative party. And the Republicans off the chart. There is no equivalent of our left or even centre in mainstream US politics. So your view of left/right bias reflects a US idea of where the "middle" is. But to emphasise S Marshall's point, current political parties and commentators that lie on the right of wherever your spectrum is have adopted a "the facts are unimportant/inconvenient" playbook that is very much at odds with Wikipedia's values. A populist, reckless-with-the-truth, "strong man" political approach isn't necessarily right wing, it just seems to be the current fashion. This, and not economic beliefs, is I think the source of most of the complaints by right wing politicians and commentators about bias on Wikipedia. Why there should be this correlation between economic beliefs and honesty I don't know, and future generations of politicians might change. -- Colin°Talk10:43, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To add to and emphasize something in my previous post, I don't think that overall left/right bias can even be defined much less measured and so I don't think that one can say that such exists. I think that you have to get more specific / granular to really say anything about it. My post was about US politics specifically using the US definitions of the two sides. By saying "US definition", I wasn't talking about where it sits in some large right/left measurement, I meant that even the metrics of the scale are different. For example, in some areas, "liberal" has a very different meaning in the US compared to Europe. Also, in the US the existence of the two "teams" dominates everything; even ideology and viewpoints are often subservient to / determined by team membership instead of the reverse. Also, the types of media where each side predominates in the US are different. Once side is stronger in the legacy media, the other on the internet and talk radio and Fox. Internet and radio are inherently less filtered which means the whackiest stuff comes from there. Also structurally, they are less likely to have an internal review layer which wikipedia policies lean towards. Which in turn, enables people to point to those things and with a broad overgeneralization brush deprecate or de-emphasize those sources. BTW, this isn't just about trustworthiness for wp:verifiability, more importantly here is that deprecation or de-emphasis snowballs into wp:weight which has large impacts. In that realm, it's not about verifiability, it's about which totally verifiable things and views do and don't get covered and get emphasized/de-emphasized IMO the bias in in areas like which aspects get emphasized / de-emphasized/ covered / not covered, existence/non-existence and titles of articles. For example, an article about a conservative figure or organization will be very heavy on what their opponents said about them. North8000 (talk) 12:08, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With very few (unusually erudite) exceptions, people perceiving and commenting on a supposed political bias of enwiki in general are providing much stronger evidence about their own political standpoints than they are about enwiki and its culture. On specific topics, on the other hand, articles may indeed reflect various kinds of biases including left/right political ones, though outside of recent U.S. politics, political spectrum bias is seldom the most prominent among these, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 13:27, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Worldwide density of geotagged Wikipedia entries as of 2013 Wikipedia tries to be neutral, but due to its reliance on published sources, it picks up some of their bias. It might be true that there is a left bias in certain topic areas, probably inherited from the sources that are useful for them. But the biases on here that are really significant IMO are the ones described at wp:systemic bias. None of these are about the left vs right debate, but about the general lack of coverage of topics in non-western nations, disproportionate lack of female biographies, the way articles are written to suit a certain demographic which isn't representative of wikipedia's overall readership, etc.. Compared to these issues, worries about subtle political biases are just a distraction. small jarstc22:05, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For example, many (most?) people believe in ghosts, and Ghost does not say what our overall readers believe. But as you say, that has nothing to do with a right–left political bias. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:47, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My personal opinion is that there certainly are some pages that do have a bias, but not too many have an extreme one. I think that we should further our efforts to inform newer users about the POV noticeboard for the most extreme cases. I've been a registered user on the site since 2018 and have read Wikipedia since I was 7; I haven't heard about it since January of this year. Maybe include noticeboards on some of the Welcome templates? InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 22:45, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pointless edits
Is there a WP:PAG or even an essay that addresses editors who engage in pointless edits where all they're removing is white-space that has no effect on how the article appears? I swear there is (I wanna say there was even an ARBCOM thing related to that type of editing), but can't find it. —Locke Cole • t • c16:23, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) There is WP:COSMETIC in the context of bots, but that's the only one I can think of/find. I too remember something about this at arbcom, I don't think it wasn't the focus of the case but probably in the context of bots and/or MOS issues. Thryduulf (talk) 16:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some concerns here. What is the definition of "too detailed"? That seems rather ambiguous. If it is decided that we should ease up on the detail, we are going to need specific guidelines to keep things within the range of what is considered reasonable. If the main issue is too much emphasis on "fluff" like tiny rural communities that even locals haven't heard of, and listing essentially every minor road the tornado crosses, I would say there is legitimacy to that, and I can work with it. However, if I'm being asked to do away with genuinely interesting, relevant tidbits of information, including contextual damage such as scouring and how far vehicles were thrown, debris patterns, debarking severity, names or types of businesses destroyed, and that kind of thing, I don't know how I can contribute meaningfully, and I don't know how I will be able to accurately portray the type and intensity of damage left behind by tornadoes. That is my main concern. I don't want any details regarding the damage itself left out. My other concern is, what about long-trackers like Mayfield? If we have a non-flexible cap on summary length, important info will basically be forced to me omitted, and don't think that's ok. While I do think we can cut down on informational fluff, I think summary length should be a case by case basis based on track length. Thoughts? I don't have anything else to add and will likely take a break after this. Ya'll can hash the rest of this out. TornadoInformation12 (talk) 06:05, 29 March 2023 (UTC)TornadoInformation12[reply]
I always thought all this detail was unnecessary. My only comment is that the longer these summaries are the less inclined most people will be to read any of it. This isn’t the place to preserve every minute detail of the storm. United States Man (talk) 14:22, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I don't like article summaries having to rely on the Damage Assessment Toolkit, which often has minor errors (especially just following events), is difficult to archive, and is unintuitive for people trying to check citations. Rarely, if ever, should the summaries be as detailed as the actual survey narrative (though they usually are). Penitentes (talk) 14:57, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...this just makes me sad, because I was just trying to mirror what I saw in the past as well as the NWS summary as well. Maybe I did put too much information in this case, but the other ones I don't understand because those were tornadoes that did vast amounts of various levels destructions along long-tracks. In other words, the section in question can be a little shorter if need be, but I don't see the need to shorten any of the other ones. ChessEric16:03, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. I read the article at the center of the controversy, and I don't particularly mind the length. The source being used appears to be scrupulously reliable, and there's no requirement that multiple sources be used. As long as we don't run afoul of WP:LENGTH, I see no problem with the level of detail here. The language is not overly technical, there is, of course, some room for editing and tightening up of the language (perhaps by cutting out, for example, geographic references that are unlikely to be recognizable outside of the immediate neighborhood), but that's part of the normal editing process, and we don't need to set policy to handle that. One person writes something, later on someone comes and edits it a bit, we get to better writing overall that way. It's not really a length or detail issue for me, and we certainly don't need to create some kind of "one-size-fits-all" standard. Let people write, let other people write more, let still other people edit as needed. It's how the process works. --Jayron3216:09, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey I'm not gonna be editing for about a week while I work on my mental health, but I still have some input after sleeping on it last night. How about these ideas? The Mayfield tornado summary was made easier to read because somebody broke it down section by section. It's a lot easier on the eyes, and not as overwhelming. How about doing that rather than putting a hard cap on summary length? I mean some day we are going to have another crazy multi-state long tracker, and a hard cap would create issues. OR another option is making stand-alone articles for particularly major tornadoes, so that if people want a short summary, they can just look at the brief version in the "Confirmed Tornadoes" section below the table, and if they want the full summary, they can click on the article above the paragraph that will take them to the page for that specific tornado (like Mayfield). I also do think we can cut down on the street by street SUPER-detailed analysis, or mentioning every tiny ghost town or rural community the tornado passes near. Like rather than explaining the damage in each neighborhood, just reigning it in to "neighborhoods in the eastern part of town sustained major damage, ranging from EF2 to EF3", plus maybe an extra detail if there is one particularly intersting damage point within that area. I'm willing to reign things in within reason, as long as no actual info gets sacrificed, and I think there's a way to appease both sides. What do you guys think? TornadoInformation12 (talk) 20:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)TornadoInformation12[reply]
Comment – It would be difficult to prescribe a precise level of detail for descriptions for tornado damage, but I think that these sections can be curtailed based on the nature of the data itself. Usage of the National Weather Service's damage survey viewer – a database of sorts – as a reliable source for tornado information is probably a valid use, though the ongoing RfC regarding the usage of maps as sources might be consequential here. Although there isn't necessarily a requirement to use multiple sources for information, the use of multiple sources would provide more context as WP:INDISCRIMINATE recommends. These would I imagine often be local news sources, which would provide context to the businesses and neighborhoods being impacted beyond a perhaps overly detailed play-by-play of street-level impacts. The motivating section for this RfC, however, has other issues with regard to its usage of the source. Many statements are not supported at all by the data available on the tool (e.g. the database, which only lists point by point damage severity, has nothing to say about the tornado being rain-wrapped wedge tornado [...] observed by multiple storm chasers). The section also makes judgements about the tornado weakening or strengthening or changing in size when the source does not indicate anything about the tornado's strength or size at a point. It also appears that the source is being used to reach conclusions that the source does not make. For example, the section states an old barn was structurally compromised when the source says nothing about an old barn, only that a structure was surveyed that falls into a category of small barns and farm outbuildings. The source often uses canned descriptions of damage and type of structure, providing no insight to exactly what businesses and neighborhoods were impacted. I'm worried that the source is being used to tell a story that, while possibly accurate, is not verifiable and may be more descriptive than what the source actually offers. It is also important to note that the survey tool only lists points of damage that the National Weather Service has decided to survey/upload, and should not be used to enumerate or describe the spatial extent of damage. —TheAustinMan(Talk ⬩ Edits)20:58, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
NWS often specifically says it is increasing strength or decreasing strength. Also per WP:CALC (even more specifically, an ongoing separate and un-related clarification RfC) basically says editors can do routine calculations. The clarification RfC seems to say the same general thing where it is routine still for editors to say 1 number is larger than another. So based on that, when NWS says EF3 damage points occurred here, but 1 mile away, EF2 damage points occurred, editors are able to say the EF3 damage was stronger than the EF2 damage, which means the tornado wasn't as strong (aka weakened). So that aspect will still be protected and the clarification RfC is heavily leaning that way it appears. Elijahandskip (talk) 21:29, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The "rain-wrapped wedge tornado" statement being inferred is understandable because I just left it there, although there are several videos and pictures that confirm that it was such. However, I do take issue with some of the other statements, which I will list below:
"tornado weakening or strengthening or changing in size"
This text is in the NWS Jackson survey:
"The tornado continued northeastward, producing tree damage as it crossed the Steele Bayou Canal then into Sharkey County. At this point, the tornado began to increase in size and intensity, and there was evidence of multiple vortices at multiple points along the path in Sharkey County."
"The first indications of EF3 to EF4 damage occurred along Pinkins Rd, where each structure along the dead end road, including several manufactured homes and a site built home, was demolished."
"As the tornado moved into the western side of Rolling Fork, the tornadic wind field was broad, encompassing the area from Race St where exterior damage occurred to the Sharkey Issaquena Hospital to Bear Lake Rd on the south end. The corridor of greatest damage on the west side of the city, up to EF3, extended from 7th St between Martin Ave and Joor Ave to 3rd St between Southern Ave and Lewis Ave to S 1st St near Wright Ave."
"After the tornado crossed Deer Creek into the eastern side of Rolling Fork, some intensification occurred, with additional EF4 damage noted. Two homes, one along Sharkey St and one along Collette Ave, had all walls collapsed."
"Another area of EF4 damage was along Mulberry St and Hunt St, where additional homes and businesses had all walls collapsed, Several other structures had roofs removed and some walls collapsed as far north as Lindsay St and Magnolia St. As the tornado approached US 61, several businesses were impacted, especially in the area between Walnut St and Rosenwald Ave. Several of these businesses were metal building systems that were nearly or completely destroyed."
"Around 30 mobile or manufactured homes at the Chuck's Dairy Bar property were destroyed."
"old barn was structurally compromised":
On the DAT, there is an EF0 point along Grant Road at latitude 32.84 longitude -90.99. This point says, "damage_txt Small Barns or Farm Outbuildings (SBO)" followed by "dod_txt Uplift or collapse of roof structure." The "comments" given were "much of roof removed and structure compromised - old structure." This is verification of that.
"canned descriptions of damage and type of structure, providing no insight to exactly what businesses and neighborhoods were impacted:"
See above comment on the NWS Jackson survey. As far as the specific businesses impacted other than Chuck's Dairy Bar, they were already in the summary, so I left them there.
I should also note that on the DAT, the NWS Jackson has no info about what the tornado did after it hit Rolling Fork. Therefore, the damage points is what I used beyond that point and the only thing I noted besides that was changes in strength. Whether this is insightful or not is up for debate, but I just wanted to explain where in the information came from. ChessEric23:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@ChessEric: I appreciate the commentary provided on some of the examples. I see the statements are backed by the survey report published by the Jackson weather service office, but given that's the case, it should be made clear what's being sourced. Since those statements are not explicitly verified on the interactive data toolkit, then the <ref> should be near the relevant information. The frequent, consecutive use of citing the damage toolkit makes it seem as that information is coming from the tool when it is not. As for the old barn example, that's not necessarily verified by the source: it's an "old structure" and has been classed as a small barn or farm outbuilding, but that doesn't necessarily imply it's a barn. @Elijahandskip:WP:CALC would be relevant if the NWS listed the intensity of the tornado along its path, but that's not what they're doing. They are only indicating the degree of damage experienced by structures, which can vary based on the sturdiness of the structure or the density of structures independent of tornado intensity. For instance, a tornado doing EF5-rated damage moving over a rural area and striking a small chicken coop has not necessarily "weakened" simply on the basis that damage to the chicken coop could only be rated as EF2 at highest. —TheAustinMan(Talk ⬩ Edits)00:24, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Decide on a case by case basis, but base such case by caseness on the severity of a tornado. I believe that some tornadoes should have longer article leads, but not all of them. For example, a minor tornado that maybe killed one or two people shouldn't get a longer lead section than a stronger tornado which almost cost as much as some hurricanes. I think that our articles on mass shootings do a good job of exemplifying what should happen to tornadoes. Articles on major mass shootings like the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting have clearly longer and more detailed leads than the Mayfair Mall shooting, which killed zero people and injured only eight others. Case by case is the best action pace. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 22:51, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. I don’t think the length is an issue here, and think it misguided to be “looking for guidance on how to best adhere to WP:MOS and WP:NOTEVERYTHING regarding what information is not insignificant” here. There seems a valid concern about mostly single source, but that would be to comply with WP:WEIGHT and to avoid WP:NOTMIRROR. Otherwise I think length might mean an issue with WP:INDISCRIMINATE, but not in this case because it has a connected narrative. Level of detail guidance seems more a WP:DETAIL topic than length per se. I would perhaps offer guidance that level of detail should harmonize with WP:WEIGHT, that greater WEIGHT should be given greater prominence of position and length, and items not present in multiple sources or in major sources should have little or no mention. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:59, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So what's the consensus here? Case by case? If so, before we make a summary, each time we'll have to agree an a length limit. That's fine with me as long as it keeps everyone happy. Thoughts? TornadoInformation12 (talk) 03:56, 30 March 2023 (UTC)TornadoInformation12[reply]
For me, my thoughts are do what you're best at. Some people are good at writing, but not at editing, which is to say some people may write and reference things great, but when deciding among the plethora of information on a topic, they aren't great at deciding which bits of information are vital, and which can be omitted without losing meaning for the reader. That's perfectly okay. We don't expect every contributor to be perfect at every aspect of good writing. If you're good at writing, but not at editing, it's okay to leave that task for someone else; so long as you understand that sometimes people will remove sourced information if its presence doesn't improve the article in question. That's a normal part of editing, and if you're okay with people editing your work down, no one should feel obligated to hold back on what they are good at. We shouldn't be setting policy saying ahead to try to stop you from contributing by your own means, so long as you also understand that people will make improvements to your writing, and sometimes removal is improvement. That's my whole point above. Writing too much isn't a problem at all. People can come along later and tighten things up. It's fine, so long as we're all obeying WP:CITE and WP:V and WP:NPOV and all the rest. --Jayron3212:16, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Jayron… trimming long articles is all part of the process, but we would rather have something to trim than not have enough. So… if you are not sure whether to include some bit of verifiable information… go ahead and include it. And if it subsequently gets trimmed out, no big deal.
Finally, don’t take it personally. Remember that the goal is to improve the article… and improvement involves both adding and removing (or rewriting). Blueboar (talk) 13:00, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like the decision is this; if you're working on the summary, put the information that you think is important and let other people come in and make the necessary changes. Now I've trimmed a lot of the Rolling Fork section (mostly removing DAT inferences), but I wouldn't mind it becoming longer again. Now someone tried to make an article for this tornado, and that was not necessary, but I see why there was an RfC for this topic. ChessEric16:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
if you're working on the summary, put the information that you think is important and let other people come in and make the necessary changes That's not an isolated decision on this topic, that is literallythe entirety of how Wikipedia works. You've not described a special decision that applies just to tornadoes, you've described how every word of every article on Wikipedia got there. It's just what we do. --Jayron3211:57, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Google Gboard's microphone icon support speech recognition for iOS and Android devices. For devices with different operating systems there exist free softwares and free add-ons for Google Chrome (full list available at the following link: [2]: Dictation and TalkTyper, Voicein and Lipsurf). 151.82.234.22 (talk) 20:20, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's long been known that we have a vector for vandalism that easily lets vandals deface hundreds of articles at once: templates. While many common code-heavy templates have been protected to be only editable by Template Editors, there are still hundreds of templates that anyone can edit.
Recently, there's been an uptick in template vandalism. One such case was reported two days ago at VPT, with the vandal inserting a graphic image in a template that showed in popup preview images. Another vandal today transcluded an article related to feces, such that the short description and images shown at the top of the article in the apps were about that. While both cases were reverted pretty quickly, due to caching, readers saw the vandalized results even hours later and clearing of the vandalism isn't straightforward since one can't just edit the article itself or see anything in the page's history.
I'm aware that we have reasons for leaving mainspace articles unprotected by default. However, templates are edited much less frequently, with templates like navboxes or sidebars perhaps needing an edit once a month to add a new article. I propose that we put all unprotected pages in the Template namespace under pending changes protection (with perhaps an exception for /doc subpages). The fallout for even a single damaging edit is disproportionally huge compared to article space edits, and not so trivial to fix. Opencooper (talk) 17:19, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, the rationale section puts it better than I ever could. I think the current protection tiers are good for what the page deems "high-risk" templates, but I propose having pending protection for the rest of the templates since semi-protection only applies after 250 transclusions, which is still a lot of articles that can be affected. Opencooper (talk) 18:01, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Putting every template under WP:PC would be excessive. It would prevent a new editor from writing an article and developing a new template to go along with it. But I agree we could certainly use a much lower threshold than 250. Spot checking a few templates from the latest spree, I see transclusion counts ranging from 12 to 67. I could certainly get behind a transclusion threshold as low as 10. -- RoySmith(talk)18:09, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Any discussion of preventing unregistered users editing templates is meaningless without consideration of data about templates under the broad topic of 'sports', a huge proportion of which are maintained by anons. It's not the only topic like that either. -- zzuuzz(talk)18:18, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned in the 2021 discussion, since pages can be transcluded from any namespace, I think this may just lead to more templates in project space. I think in the long term, as generations of Wikipedia editors leave and are no longer actively watching the pages they created or updated, there will be a problem with monitoring for poor edits. However this issue extends beyond templates, and will need a broader solution. isaacl (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pending changes has its own issues in the template namespace, which is why it isn't used there. One I believe is that it will always show the latest revision to any page not itself under PC. We still have other tools at our disposal and there's more we can do with them. -- zzuuzz(talk)18:06, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was not aware of this technical issue, so I'll amend my statement above to support semi-protection for all templates with more than 10 transclusions. -- RoySmith(talk)18:12, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any extension of Pending Changes into the Template namespace or any other. Nothing in the last 14 years has made me change my mind on what I think of Flaggedrevs and all implementations of it. The existing tools we have are fine, and going back on our promise of being the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit in cases where we don't have to. Adding layers of bureaucracy to harmless templates is just going to be a time sink. I do think it would be acceptable to open up the wording in WP:PROTECT somewhat to make it easier to apply varying levels of protection to templates targeted by vandals. Reducing the threshold for high-risk template protection might also be reasonable. The WordsmithTalk to me19:11, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so based on people's comments, using pending changes in Template space has issues and is mostly a no-go. The next best option then seems to be lowering the threshold for protection, but that then presents the issue of blocking off IP editors, which I don't think anyone wants to do. Are there any other possible solutions? Opencooper (talk) 20:39, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I've proposed some insubstantial changes to WP:Competence is acquired, adding wikilinks and minor clarifications, and would like other to comment on them, and if possible expand.
I have formally deprecated the other essay WP:CIR and removed it from my own User:Jaredscribe/Encyclopedic_Ethics, and apologized to everyone I've quoted it at, before having fully evaluated it. I now understand why its perceived as a "personal attack" - its a threat of indefinite block.
The bare statement that someone "is incompetent" or "unqualified" - may or may not be an "attack", but in neither case is it a "personal" attack in the way that a slur on someones race/sex/nationality/etc is "personal" attack. However, the essay as written is most definitely a severe "attack", that many senior editors feel necessary to make against novices or outsiders who may be intransigent on some point or another. Its an attack on user's very existence as an editor, although not on user's existence as a human. Due to this equivocation in the sense of the word "personal" here, this leads to not-unfounded accusations of personal attack when an editors competence is called into question.
I've proposed to resolve this ambiguity by removing, first of all the vague threat to make it more clear, and secondly by holding all users equally accountable. My WP:Bold proposition - admittly a major rewrite with no consensus - was reverted and a subsequent talk page discussion per WP:BRD went nowhere.
I'm now "forking" the CIR essay to drafting another explanatory essay that presents competence as an aspiration rather than a requirement.
I'll propose it here in a week or two to get feedback before publishing to the WPspace.
Looking at the link count [4] and the pageview statistics [5], for Wikipedia:Competence is acquired, it appears to be seen as of little significance by most contributors, and I doubt that anyone much will consider it something worth getting into a debate over. WP:CIR, on the other hand, is cited frequently, as the "explanatory essay about the disruptive editing guideline" it represents itself as. Given the multiplicity of contributors, [6] the link count, [7] and the pageview statistics [8] for this essay, I'd have to suggest that JaredScribe's 'formal deprecation' (whatever that is supposed to mean) is likely to have little effect, and that better arguments for its replacement will have to be presented than those we have seen so far. It is (I think it is safe to assume) almost always cited by contributors because they agree with its premise - that a lack of competence can on its own be sufficiently disruptive as to justify blocking a contributor - even a good faith one. It isn't particularly pleasant for a contributor to be told that they lack the competence to usefully edit, but it is sometimes necessary to do so. And remains so, regardless of whether such a block may be seen as a 'personal attack'. This is an online encyclopaedia (or at least, it aspires to be one) rather than a kindergarten, and it is unambiguously in the interests of our readers to make efforts to minimise the effects of demonstrable incompetence on article content, even if doing may become rather unpleasant to those who fail to recognise their own limitations. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:05, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we need to minimize the disruptions caused by incompetent writers and editors. Of course I don't dispute that, my problem is with how the essay fails to do it adequately, by failing to give an adequate positive account of competence, fixating on relatively minor requirements and missing some of the main qualifications that should be necessary for advancement - if not for initial entrance into this WP:Encyclopedia that by principled design, anyone can edit.
Therefore the essay is prone to manipulation by people whose main competence is in enforcing policy, and this comes to be valued above competencies in writing and research. Therefore I have deprecated it in all my userspace pages, and won't use it again. When the essay becomes arbitrary way of punishing political opponents, the fear of denunciation leads to groupthink, and it motivates users to pre-empt by going on the attack.
For example @AndyTheGrump and his cohorts have alleged that my questioning their competence constitutes a "personal attack" (which I think it is not, and I don't take it that way if my critics allege it of me.) Nevertheless they have undertaken to warn and punish for incivility for my having initially cited the essay without fully evaluating it. Then they have simultaneously used CIR to accuse me of incompetence in an ANI investigation, trying to have me blocked. That is incoherent and unfair. Either both parties (the senior and the junior) should both be permitted to allege it, or both forbidden. But the problem is in the essay, not in the concept or word of competence/incompetence itself - which as we all agree remains an important discriminative distinction - nor in its allegation by either of us against the other, per se.
The case against me now underway is only one example of how the essay might result in outcomes that are unjust, and therefore detrimental the encyclopedia. The essay as currently written is used to silence dissenting opinions, preventing all relevant evidences from being considered, and therefore has the paradoxical effect of stimulating groupthink, which can lead to a systemic form of incompetence. This was not my intent, therefore I publicly apologize to everyone of whose competence I questioned, per that essay. These systemic effects can only be overcome by changing policy and culture. That is why I will use WP:Competence is acquired. I could acquire more, and I think we all could acquire some more, and I encourage my critics to do so as well.
Here we go again. The same old bullshit. From someone who's only response to widespread criticism (from many experienced contributors, regarding multiple aspects of their behaviour, going back over several years) is to insist that they are being conspired against, and that their twisted interpretation of whichever policy or guideline they have run up against is the correct one, and that 'justice' demands that they are entitled to write whatever nonsense about Elon Musk as the Messiah, the Moon as the One True Clock, and Aristotle as the Final Arbiter of All Questions Philosophical they like. And pretend that they are writing coherent, neutral, properly-sourced encyclopaedic articles when they do so. This is, needless to say, one of the many forms of incompetence that Wikipedia has to defend itself against. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:24, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The moon AND the sun are the signs of the times and seasons for plants, animals, and most humans outside the imperial Roman calendar system. Many Asian cultures still retain their Lunisolar calendars, and its not POV-pushing to contribute to these articles or to feature their holidays.
I am not "lunatic charlatan" for declaring it. And yes, there is a conspiracy at WP:Academic bias - which is a very good principle, in theory - but is used to paint Asiatic persons as "lunatic charlatans". This is uncivil behavior and unsound reasoning.
Elon Musk is definitely NOT the messiah. I report what WP:Reliable sources say about the "Tesla master plan", and merely allegation of "bullshit" and "fancruft" from people like you are unreliable evaluations, because you are prejudiced, non-responsive, and refuse to answer the evidence given.
Aristotle is NOT the "final arbiter". Maimonides and Isaac Newton expanded on and corrected errors in his Metaphysics and Physics, and we should expect neo-Aristotelians to be in discourse with findings of modern science, and unlike most other so-called philsophers, they are.
The brazen mischaracterizations of your discussion partner (me), is SLANDEROUS in the context of a campaign to have me indefinitely blocked. The appeal to ridicule IS an unsound argument, and you render yourself incompetent ipso facto in so doing.
You are right about the halfbrick. Thats the first thing of yours I've read that has ever made sense.
And I accept the decision of the AfD on that article - I merely reject the brutal and incoherent reasoning process, whereby you exclude the encyclopedic content elsewhere where it is relevant. And I reject the discursive violence whereby you push your decidedly not-neutral POV
Regarding compentence as an aspiration, I would think Senator Roman Hruska would rather agree with you. After all, we can't all be Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos. Mathglot (talk) 08:16, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
non-responsive to the questions asked. Unable to refute the argument presented: according to Mr. The Grump, CIR is both a personal attack against him and a necessary part of quality assurance against others. He insists on having both ways, which authoritarian double-talk.
Instead of responding (because he can't), he has simply offered an "appeal to mockery" based on a straw man that he has constructed. Compounded with threat of brute force. That is not sound argumentation. Mr. The Grump is, ipso facto, not competent at scholarly dialectic or encyclopedic WP:Discussion.
Instead he is engaging in a form of WP:Sealioning, loudly alleging "bullshit" of anything he doesn't like and flexing his influence, WP:Hounding me all over the wiki, even onto its humor pages. Any political system built on this type systemic injustice will not long endure. And any scholarly enterprise build on it will become intellectually corrupted.
Fortunately, it is contary to core Wikipedia principles of WP:Civility and WP:Reliability. The essay is not a reliable source of policy guidance, it is not accepted as such by the community.
The community should consider limiting is usage in ANI
Mr. Grump habit of mockery and loud claims of "bullshit" against propositions he refuses to read, against valid points he refuses to consider, against and sound conclusions he refuses to accept, should also no longer be accepted.
The previous was a reply to @AndyTheGrump's allegation of "same old bullshit". (unlike allegations of lacking competence, the constant allegation of "bullshit" is a personal attack, it is forbidden by our policy for good reason, and I want it to please stop.)
Another of the many forms of incompetence Wikipedia has to defend itself against is that of the inveterate forum-shopper, who has to make every discussion, on every topic, everywhere, all about themselves and their petty disputes. And then there is the pseudo-legalist, who spouts out whatever jargon he remembers from watching Judge Judy in an entirely inappropriate context, apparently under the misapprehension that this will help them win an entirely imaginary 'case'. As for scholarship, anyone can call themselves a scholar. Actual scholars, who's scholarship can be perceived from the recognition they receive from others, rather than from self-proclamation, find this unnecessary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:18, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I receive from WP:Reliable sources, and you have repeatedly demonstrate unreliability.
I WP:Verify facts, and (other than the half-brick), you haven't offered a single fact, other than incoherent slanderous fabrications unto no end other than disrupting my editing.
I'm here to discuss CIR on its own terms; you are the one who brought in tangential content disputes in an attempt to smear me - it was not me who made it so, it was you. But thank you for helping prove the original point.
CONCLUSION
CIR is a "zombie essay": was written by a de-sysopped admin who abandoned the project long ago and hasn't been heard from since. @AndyTheGrump and his cohorts are acting like mindless clones.
PROPOSAL:
1. Deprecate the essay CIR
2. stop recommending it.
3. stop allowing it to muddle discussion in ANI which should be based instead on the WP:5P
4. question the competence of anyone who quotes CIR, and give a demonstration when attacked in response.
5. Invite a wider community process to brainstorm a replacement, Starting with our existing consensus on WP:Competence is acquired
Incompetent =/= newbie and competent =/= veteran... We have a number of incompetent editors with ten or fifteen years under their belt, often their incompetent is a result of their seniority (unless you edit actively you become less competent every day because the standards and practices on wikipedia are constantly changing). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I perceived that very early on in my first 5-10 edits.
Looking through article histories, I saw many encyclopedic IP contributions, reverted simply because the managing-editor was willing to WP:PRESERVE, improve diction, or to WP:Verify facts that were unverified but obvious to anyone who knew the subject matter. (as opposed to merely knowing how to enforce policy through quoting and misquoting it). It also happens in AfD.
+1 Thank you for writing that. You are exactly IMHO about the necessity of admitting "Alternate theoretical formulations", which are distinct from "pseudo-science". And about the circularity of arguments for determining fringe vs. reliable.
WP:Verifiability is more important than widespread acceptance, IMHO.
TLDR: "If there appears to be a conflict between Fringe guidelines and the Five Pillars, WP:FRINGE should not be considered controlling."
The essay is does not propose any change to fringe guidelines. It's meant to counter some particular ways the existing guidelines tend to be misread. Sennalen (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard for me to see this essay in isolation from your comments related to disruption in the race and intelligence topic area, which are wildly out of step with community norms, as evinced for example in this RfC, this closure review, this block review, and this ArbCom case request. In some of these comments you appear to acknowledge how wildly out of step you are, e.g. describing AndewNguyen, whose indef block for disrupting the R&I topic area was overwhelmingly upheld at ANI as the defender of Wikipedia[9] and the overwhelming consensus to reblock him as proof that the fire extinguisher is on fire.[10] Further, you have described the overwhelming consensus that a genetic link between race and intelligence is FRINGE, determined by a huge SNOW-closed RfC, as a wrongful consensus that was not based on the scientific consensus, but rather on what remains of the science after an a priori decision to exclude the scientific viewpoints that don't conform to the preordained outcome.[11] Folks can of course read the evidence presented in that RfC to determine if the community was in fact misled in the manner you suggest. None of this is to say that you can't try to convert people to your reading of the FRINGE guideline by writing an essay, but I imagine that those who are asked to weigh in here might want to be aware of this context. Generalrelative (talk) 23:22, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Those matters directly inspired many points in the essay. It's something I hope the community can have more introspection about. As a point of fact though, I have not made any comment that was supposed to be a position on the 2020 RFC, only the more recent one about the Eyferth study. I didn't participate in 2020 and haven't read all the arguments there. I would agree with the consensus that a genetic link between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. However, there are some important caveats:
As the essay describes, being fringe only means reducing the weight given to the view, nothing more. Not banning every source that might support it, not to mention every user that tries to use that source.
There is valid science on the genetics of population structure and the genetics of intelligence on groups much smaller than races. Removing sources in those areas is what appeared to me to be the crux of the issue at the Eyferth RfC.
It's good to hear that at least part of this was a simple misunderstanding. When you said The wrongful consensus in this area I thought you were referring to the R&I topic area, where we've been dealing with disruption from folks unhappy with the consensus for years, rather than to the recent, parochial consensus at Eyferth study. As a point of fact, the Eyferth study is very much about *race* and not about groups much smaller than races, and the material over which we held that small RfC was very much about black/white group differences. But it's water under the bridge at this point. Generalrelative (talk) 04:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I read with the similar context of discussions regarding the COVID-19 lab leak theory and the use of WP:SBM as a source. Reading the essay, there's a lot that seems to push the edges of what seems to be the consensus on FRINGE. There's enough that's pretty typical interpretation, but I can't help but think it won't be cited for being a more thorough WP:FRINGE/ALT or WP:FRINGE/QS (redirects I added specifically hoping to clear up conflations of FRINGE and pseudoscience, something I think we all agree is inappropriate), as it will be for challenging reasonable applications of FRINGE. The length and breadth of the essay probably doesn't help, either. A more focused essay would make it easy to either get wider consensus (in essay space, it obviously doesn't need to be a majority opinion) or be critiqued. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. I definitely think /ALT was an important addition. It's not my aim to be duplicative of that, just including it as context. There is perhaps more space in the essay given context than to original thought, even after the section that I reduced to a footnote. I think the key takeaways are
A 49% minority should receive proportional, which is to say substantial, coverage in Wikipedia articles.
policy does not authorize treating fringe views in any way more prejudicial than just ignoring them.
Fringe guidelines are followed by being deferential to the mainstream, not by being hostile to the fringe.
Arguing that a fact supports hate is to concede in principle that hate can be supported by facts.
Number 4 is the one I think needs to be spun out. The others could maybe be made to shine through more, but I think they also might be taken less seriously without the superstructure of policy links. Sennalen (talk) 00:42, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They've also written essays then immediately tried to cite those essays as relevant to discussions on their talk page [12] - so I wouldn't take their work to be entirely based on good will and positive, well meaning motivations. Sennalen has had a lot of questionable interactions during their short time as a "clean start" account. 220.235.229.216 (talk) 01:45, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been very careful to follow the suggestions at WP:SELFQUOTE, only using my own essays to save time rearticulating the same thoughts, not to imply authority. Also, you can start leaving me alone any time, mate. Sennalen (talk) 02:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have good and important new thoughts in there on about 10 different topics and so you are doing much needed and important work. The problem is that it covers about 10 different topics. :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:56, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A good essay - thanks for writing it. The points seem sound. I guess the two things I get the most frustrated about when reading fringe BLPs has been a tendency to use WP:PARITY to justify criticism of a living person because of their fringe views using sources taht would normally fail BLP, and problems with WP:DUE where fringe views are emphasised over other aspects of a person's life. The latter I think you cover well; perhaps the former is a bit out of scope. btw, I liked the "Describing acceptance" section - that's something that I think editors have a tendency to handle badly, so it is good to have a clear statement about how it should be managed. - Bilby (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Outside of the context of Sennalen's particular views (in which I basically echo Generalrelative above), I like this essay a lot. One particular problem I've noticed with the existing state of WP:FRINGE is when some hypothesis is pretty clearly scientific consensus BUT a minority of experts (and to be clear these are actual experts) regard it as pseudoscientific and say so. WP:FRINGE/QS does account for this but it's extremely short and frankly not super clear about when it applies or what to do if it applies. And what happens when you run into such a situation is that supporters of labeling such a topic as fringe will look at the sources who say it's pseudoscientific, ask opponents to produce sources that say it's not pseudoscientific, and when the opponents say "well all these big organizations wouldn't endorse it if they thought it was pseudoscientific" they'll say "that's irrelevant, where are your sources saying directly that it's not pseudoscientific?" despite the fact that there are very few sources directly saying anything is not pseudoscientific.
Another one that seems opposite but which I think is closely related is when a hypothesis has a few strong supporters, who are overall not really engaged with by the scientific community at large because they're outside of consensus. The example that springs immediately to mind here is Blanchard's typology, which aside from WPATH saying it's not useful has not really gotten much direct commentary outside the handful of supportive sexologists who directly do research into or about it. But we do have plenty of sources that indirectly contradict it by saying the motivation for trans people to transition is something else that's not consistent with Blanchard's typology. Historically, it's been very easy for a few supportive editors to make a glowing article out of all the research by supportive sexologists, while saying that the obvious consensus of the field is irrelevant and that drawing the obvious conclusion that Blanchard's typology isn't commonly supported is WP:SYNTH.
I guess that means that the locus of my complaint here is cases where we have a few sources with a strong viewpoint that are inconsistent with a broader overall consensus, but never contradicted directly. I feel like this is a major blind spot in policy right now. Loki (talk) 23:56, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Much of that discourse is based on people simply finding the research insulting, which by itself doesn't do much do advance the scientific consensus. Looking at the article, Moser and Nuttbrock could feasibly be introduced much earlier. Sennalen (talk) 00:28, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All these big organizations wouldn't endorse it if they thought it was pseudoscientific" is WP:OR, as has been pointed out to you many times. In the case you're alluding to (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), these 'big organizations' you referenced have a history of carelessly supporting quackery. Your experience is less about failings in WP:FRINGE or how it is applied and more about your tendency to use WP:OR to support a preconceived position. - MrOllie (talk) 01:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At first glance it looks like that article follows the guidelines well. It doesn't simply say the therapy is pseudoscience, but that it has been described as such, and names some specific people who describe it that way. Allegedly there have been some counter-claims to the purple hat therapy allegation summarized here although I don't know what the quality of those sources is. Sennalen (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MrOllie, you really don't have to follow me to every unrelated part of Wikipedia to comment on one particular comment dispute. I'm not denying that that particular content dispute is part of what I'm talking about there but it's not the only time I've seen similar things.
(But while we're here I do want to say specifically that "those big organizations have endorsed quackery before" is absolutely WP:OR on your part and directly against policy, specifically WP:MEDORG.) Loki (talk) 01:50, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is the Village pump, It's been on my watchlist for a long, long time. No one is following you. And I've cited my sources about those orgs supporting quackery. You can look that up in the noticeboard discussion about it if you've forgotten. MrOllie (talk) 02:03, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter whether it's on your watchlist. There's no exception to WP:HOUNDING for "I only brought up this content dispute whenever I saw them comment on a page that I was already watching".
Also, your counterclaim is kinda bizarre frankly? If you encountered someone claiming the NYT was unreliable because they published some particular falsehood, and you said "that's WP:OR, you can't say they're unreliable because of that", it's not a defense at all for them to say "but I have a source that this thing they published was false". It's still WP:OR because the thing you're sourcing (the source was incorrect in a particular case) is different from the thing you're claiming (the source is unreliable in general). Loki (talk) 02:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since WP:HOUNDING doesn't remotely apply, that's fine. I don't need any exception. And that's a nice strawman argument you're destroying there, but it doesn't bear much resemblance to what I've been saying. MrOllie (talk) 02:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Loki and MrOllie, this is just to say that I haven't been following the disagreement you've been having so I cannot comment on the substance, but I think you're both fantastic, super valuable contributors to this project. That is all. Generalrelative (talk) 04:06, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I like that essay. I've noticed that in many contentious articles, we tend to get the POV far more often than we get then tone right. That's a problem because if readers think an article sounds biased, they'll assume it is, and they'll close it and not learn anything from it. That fails our core purpose. Our articles should read like they were written by Vulcans. I read Donald Trump and handshakes this morning, and was shocked at how well-written and dispassionate it was. I doubt even ardent Trump supporters would have major issues with it. If it were up to me, I'd create a new one-line policy (just like WP:IAR), that says: When writing content, maintain a dispassionate tone at all cost. Just imagine all the talk page arguments that would avoid! That's what WP:NPOV was meant to enshrine (especially WP:YESPOV #4), but compliance is rather low. DFlhb (talk) 01:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the general principle, but we cannot let readers do tone-policing. Here’s an example with three possible wordings:
acupuncture is a pseudoscience. All properly-conducted metastudies have led to the conclusion that it does not work.
acupuncture is a pseudoscience. Its practitioners are charlatans, its followers are fools, its defenders are trolls.
While practitioners of acupuncture say it works, metastudies such as those by Cochrane say it doesn’t work.
I think everyone agrees that we should stay away from #2 (that’s probably already covered by WP:NPOV).
However, many people will think that #1 is "not a good tone", "shows we have an agenda", etc. (Well, yes, we have an agenda - WP:MEDRS.) They think the correct solution is #3 instead of #1, but that is false balance. You can find many small articles about pseudoscientific concepts using a version of #3. Here’s an example; that’s clear pseudoscience, not a fringe/minority viewpoint (the full theory violates the second principle of thermodynamics).
I want to echo @Tigraan's point here. I would disagree with the idea that hyper-neutral tone also means treating the proportionality of the scientific literature (and the words they use) as all equivalent. Vulcans would, undoubtedly, say #1, not #3. They would, in this analogy, treat the opinions of acupuncturists as relatively unimportant compared to the scientific consensus, given that the consensus is that they are wrong. Wikipedia treats the scientific consensus as the truth, since on wikipedia, verifiability is king and these are the most verifiable trustworthy sources. So when science says that acupuncture doesn't work and is pseudoscience, we also say that. We don't hedge our bets. That's not dispassionate, it's overly charitable to fringe perspectives. — Shibbolethink(♔♕)16:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is this even being discussed here? This noticeboard is explicitly "to discuss already proposed policies and guidelines" and discussing user essays here plays into the current burgeoning confusion about people citing essays as policy. Note this has also been raised at WP:FT/N. Bon courage (talk) 05:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's right. It's inappropriate here. I think it was a good faith attempt by Sennalen to discuss it, but a mistake. I don't think it would be a good idea to enlarge the focus of this board. Doug Wellertalk07:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. I can't find it now, but I'm sure that some information page I read when I was writing my first essay suggested asking for feedback here. I do think there will be potential for this to evolve into a "supplement", but only in the much longer term, not with the present text or vetting by the present discussion. As a reminder, the essay has a talk page. :) Sennalen (talk) 12:37, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The WP:PAGs are over-long so the last thing that's needed in general are supplements. If you think there is any impact whatsoever on WP:FRINGE from what you're writing, it would be better proposed as a change to the guideline itself. Bon courage (talk) 13:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bon courage wants me to rewrite the FRINGE guideline. You heard it here first! j/k
After the essay is revised based on feedback already given here, and has been free in the wild for several months, only at that point would it make sense to consider whether there's anything to propose. Sennalen (talk) 14:00, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions a guidelineThis is a failed proposal
! Red Slash 23:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
