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Latest comment: 1 year ago74 comments18 people in 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 video link for 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
In re this would just raise the level instead of reducing it: Does the number of articles that individuals are permitted to create actually need to be reduced? Are there still any editors who like to masscreate articles around? If not, why should we write down a rule to ban something that nobody is doing any more?
It's not sensible to say "More than a decade ago, Lugnuts created ~100,000 articles. I think his quality was poor, so I decree that editors who want to create one thousandth as many articles as him must get special written permission first." WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 7 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes. I've been trying to compel them to request permission as required by WP:MASSCREATE, and in some cases I have been successful (with the result never being a consensus in favor of mass creation), but many ignore the requests. BilledMammal (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
MASSCREATE requires people to request permission for >50 articles per day. 100 per lifetime would be a substantial reduction from that.
I want you to imagine yourself explaining Wikipedia's processes to someone in your real life, and saying something like this:
"I want to create one article this month. Now, if I were a new editor and didn't know what I was doing, I'd just click here and do it. But I'm experienced, so have to jump through bureaucratic hoops first. I'll have to write up a description, identify my planned sources, and get written permission. By the time you consider writing the request and all the people reading and replying, applying will take more time from the community than creating the article. Of course, a newcomer wouldn't like this; we only impose this on people who have experience with creating articles."
Today, it only concerns editors who crossed the bar of 25-50 articles a day or used semi-automated tools for their article creation. The semi-automated is mainly mentioned since the 25-50 was ignored in the past. I do not believe the result of the Lugnuts and the Carlossuarez discussions is the one editors hoped for when they began editing. The Lugnuts articles were sourced well enough when they were created, but not anymore later. I believe the rules and guidelines will eventually get enforced, as it's not really informative to have heaps of unexplained, unsourced statistics and micro stubs of a few words or phrases. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Paradise Chronicle, I think you would hold a different view if you had been around back in the day. Please click this link and open, say, 10 tabs: nostalgia:Special:Random. That's what editors hoped for when they began editing. That's what they were doing. If you'd like to see some of the best, then try the equivalent of Featured Articles. Clicking through the first five, I see: one with ASCII art but no references; one with a general reference; two with suggested sources but no refs; and one with no sources mentioned at all.
If you're interested in learning more about the early days, then nostalgia:What Wikipedia is not might also be interesting. Also, if you see a page title that says /Talk at the end, that's what turned into talk pages. Before that (and even concurrently with it), editors just dumped their comments in the article page, at the bottom of the page. Namespaces weren't a thing back when Wikipedia was started. Talk pages were invented by Wikipedia.
And, more generally, when you think about saying I do not believe the result ... is the one editors hoped for when they began editing, you might want to pause and consider whether that statement should be re-written as I do not believe the result ... is the one I hoped for when I began editing. Since you started editing (your prior account) in 2018, you likely have a very different view of what's reasonable than the folks who were editing in 2003, or even in 2013. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, your reply sort of proves my point in a way that Wikipedia developed for the better. I do not believe you'll find consensus to go back to 2005 where "FAs" were able to be unsourced. In small wikis this is still possible but the English one is sort of a reference for the majority of the world which makes it one of the first hits on google and similar search engines all over the world. My suggestion is that Wikipedia develops further from quantity to quality but at the moment, consensus will not be found for that. And no, I meant what I wrote, and I believe you agree as well. Nor I, Lugnuts, Carlossuarez and the majority of other the editors partaking in the discussions were expecting that such a heap of poorly sourced content was able to exist and grow on Wikipedia when they began editing.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It actually doesn't need to be reduced if the policies were enforced, but admins find any kind of excuses in order not to apply them. 25-50 a day most of the top 10 have created so far, very likely all use semiautomated processes. To apply for permission is not meant to ban masscreation, one can create 100 a day and for as long as they want, but please masscreate informative articles, not stubs with a few phrases or full of statistics.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
How frequently did the top 10 exceed 50 articles in one day?
Why don't you ask for Semiautomated? I just believe that Wikipedia guidelines will develop towards quality instead of quantity as it did in the past. There would be also other policies that would apply, like WP:NOTMIRROR or WP:NOTPROMO for statistics mainly or only sourced to databases (not independent of the article subject). But I see the resistence of applying MASSCREATE and MEATBOT, so I guess its a matter of patience.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Proving that someone exceeded 50 article creations on the same day is easy. Proving that they used an off-wiki tool requires either mind reading or intrusive surveillance, neither of which I'm good at. Consequently, I'm asking for the thing that really could be enforced (in software, if necessary). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:23, 17 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
The top 20 article creators in that query generally have a volume of article creations (single digits of articles per day) that could easily be attained by someone hand-crafting and hand-typing individual articles rather than using any automation for these articles. That is not what MASSCREATE and MEATBOT are about. So this proposal seems to me to be missing the point. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Little update, Esculenta was now blocked for one month for using AI for article creation per MEATBOT. I have actually asked them to apply for article creation at the BRFA in March but they didn't apply. They were blocked without my direct involvement in the discussions and I would have preferred for them to apply at the BRFA instead of being blocked. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:47, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I’ve read the entire thread above a couple of times. My feeling is I’d rather wait till individual editors do something disruptive and then take action against them if it’s needed. I don’t think we need a policy to cover everything anyone might do, and I think long discussions about individuals’ editing, if they’re needed, are absolutely fine. Mccapra (talk) 08:23, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Seems to me that the problem is best solved by demanding better quality from article creators. The solution is to have a policy that a newly created article must contain a minimum text of 200 words and be footnoted with at least one reliable source.Smallchief (talk) 11:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I certainly would prefer a requirement for quality in new articles, and suggested one in the RfC on mass creation, but it was ignored. The community certainly seems to be focused on limiting quantity rather than requiring quality as an answer to dealing with mass creation of poorly sourced stubs. Donald Albury13:06, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, so many of these problems would be completely solved by requiring at least one piece of SIGCOV in SIRS for GNG-based articles to avoid draftification/userfication. Then we wouldn't even need the creator to actually write prose in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 16:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Good idea. The main problem with these stubs is that they're hard to expand, and this would begin to address that — DFlhb (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Proposed definition (MASSCREATE and MEATBOT)
As an initial draft I propose replacing the current text of WP:MASSCREATE with the following:
For the purpose of this policy the use of any tools that replace, in part or in whole, the manual work required to create an article will be considered automated or semi-automated creation. These tools include, but are not limited to, the following:For the purpose of this policy use any of the following tools will be considered automated or semi-automated creation. This list is not exhaustive and it is possible to engage in mass creation without the use of any of these tools.
When determining whether creations are done at a large scale only the cumulative number should be considered; the rate of creation is not relevant. There is no set definition of "large scale", although anything more than 25 or 50 is likely to be so. Creating articles without the use of tools, regardless of the scale or rate, is not considered mass creation, although WP:MEATBOT still applies.
All mass-created articles (except those not required to meet WP:GNG) must cite at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG, that is, which constitutes significant coverage in an independent reliable secondary source.
As defined this won't affect the average editor who is manually creating articles. Further, clarifying and enforcing the definition will benefit the community in two ways.
For mass creation that is constructive and that the community would approve of, it will provide an opportunity for the community to suggest modifications to produce better articles; it is easier to improve an entire set of mass created articles at the start of the process than it is to do so after the articles have been created.
We consider the cumulative number, not the rate, because the issues mass creation can cause are related solely to the number of articles created, not the rate they are created at. It is possible for mass creation done at a low rate to result in greater issues than mass creation done at a high rate because detecting low rates of mass creation is more difficult and thus can result in a greater number of pages that the community must deal with. BilledMammal (talk) 09:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
There are multiple problems with this. Firstly, the rate of creation is relevant. If I create 51 articles in 365 days using one of those methods that would not cause anybody any problems at all yet would be prohibited by your definition, yet creating 1000 articles in 10 days without using "tools" might or might not be covered (see below) despite being likely problematic.
I say "might or might not" because the proposal is contradictory :
Any large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation must be approved and
it is possible to engage in mass creation without the use of any of these tools., yet
Creating articles without the use of tools, regardless of the scale or rate, is not considered mass creation.
The third bullet point doesn't contradict the first two. If you aren't using any tools then you aren't engaged in automated or semi-automated creation. However, I've reworded the second bullet point.
For manual large scale creation, like your example of 1000 articles in 10 days, I don't believe we can or should address it. I don't believe we should because the issues caused are different, and because we can address those issues under other policies - the community can easily handle an editor manually creating 1000 problematic articles in 10 days under WP:DE.
I don't believe we can because any attempt to do so will make it more likely that this policy will apply to editors who have the reasonable expectation that it won't because they are not using any tools in their editing; per the discussion above, which I haven't ignored, this is something that must be avoided.
If I create 51 articles in 365 days using one of those methods that would not cause anybody any problems at all yet would be prohibited by your definition It wouldn't be prohibited; it would just require you to go through BRFA, where approval should be quick if no issues exist. However, issues can exist for even smaller levels of mass creation. For example if you want to create 51 articles with ChatGPT I think community oversight would be a very good idea.
I also think that such an example would be extremely rare or even non-existent; how many editors engage in semi-automated or automated creation of articles but stop at 51 or a similarly small number? Do you have any examples? BilledMammal (talk) 10:12, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Editors need to seek permission to upload files and create categories? I've seen some poorly thought out categorization schemes where I wish the editors creating the categories would have consulted somewhere about creating them. But requiring editors to seek permission to create more than 25 pages in their Wikipedia careers is ridiculous Are disambiguation pages and redirects included too? Plantdrew (talk) 16:31, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
That aspect is taken directly from the current WP:MASSCREATE policy. It also would only apply to automated or semi-automated activities; as most editors create categories and upload files manually it wouldn't apply to them. In line with the current policy, it wouldn't apply to redirects but it would apply to dab pages. BilledMammal (talk) 17:04, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Alternative proposal: Move MASSCREATE out of BOTPOL
As I've looked at recent discussions around WP:MASSCREATE, I've become convinced that these are being hampered by that being a part of WP:Bot policy. It seems to me that the community wants to concern itself with mass creation in general, without regard for whether it's automated, semi-automated, or fully manual. WP:MEATBOT can help there, but that can only stretch so far—if you get to the point where "boilerplate text" might include Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout, you've probably gone too far.
Additionally, the bot policy can't legitimately say much about how non-bots should go about getting approval. MEATBOT is mainly about enforcement, not approval. In the recent RFC, a proposal to require BRFAs for mass-creation approval was rejected, and BAG does not seem to want it there either.
So how about it? Should the community move WP:MASSCREATE to some other policy, or to a policy page of its own? Mass creations by bot would still also be subject to WP:BOTPOL and WP:BRFA for the bot aspect, but the new policy would be freed from having to imply that all mass creations are somehow bot activity. Anomie⚔12:17, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Anomie Don't think it is big enough to be a stand alone policy, but it certainly doesn't need to be in BOTPOL (got somewhere else it could be merged?); botpol should reference wherever it ends up as a reminder to BAG/operators that bots that want to do that not only need to be approved as a bot, but ensure they have whatever community support is needed to exempt them from that policy. — xaosfluxTalk13:31, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It might expand a bit once released from the constraint of being ostensibly about bots. But my main goal is to establish a consensus to move it out of BOTPOL since it really no longer fits there, where exactly it ends up I'm happy to leave to others to decide later. I agree that WP:Bot policy#Mass page creation should remain as a stub. Anomie⚔13:59, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A layout guide can't be boilerplate text, but apart from that I think you make a good point - even if we decide to exclude fully manual mass creation from its scope it is better for MASSCREATE to be outside BOTPOL. We would need to replace the reference to BRFA; I think instructing editors to get community consensus at VPR would be a good replacement.
The best target I can see to merge it to would be Wikipedia:Editing policy, but I think it is better off as a standalone policy; it would be one of the shorter policies we have, but there are several of comparable or lesser length such as WP:IAR and WP:STRONGPASS. If it is made a standalone policy I think the best classification for it would be as a procedural policy; the same classification as BOTPOL. BilledMammal (talk) 13:50, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
RfC on clarifying whether commonality or ties should be preferred when choosing terminology
Latest comment: 1 year ago61 comments36 people in discussion
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.
I think it is too late to change the options now, but if this RfC doesn't produce a consensus for either option I will consider a second one along the lines of what you propose. BilledMammal (talk) 17:39, 6 April 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
Oppose both. In most situations, COMMONALITY should take precedence over TIES, but I disagree with the phrase "always be used" in proposal A. That's too strong. There are a whole bunch of edge cases and sensible accommodations (such as defining a local term on first use) that can be used to reconcile both sections. Modest Geniustalk12:16, 5 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A, especially for terms such as lakh and crore. While English speakers are commonly familiar with the term spectacles, meaning glasses, the terms lakh and crore are poorly known except by those with some connection to South Asia. Moreover, a synonym such as "spectacles," the terms require speakers of global English to engage in mental conversions. Lakh and crore may be appropriate on Indian Wikipedia, but for a global audience, they are unfamiliar and raise a barrier to comprehension. Wobblygriswold (talk) 00:28, 6 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Being from the UK, on this little Isles we have such regional differences, like a bread roll. In the South where I come from its a Roll, but we have regional variations, like Barn Cake! WP:CREEP also!Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:12, 6 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A The idea we would use regionalisms that are not commonly understood amongst the English speaking populace in an encyclopedia is silly. Lulfas (talk) 16:45, 6 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
There's a subtle secondary point here though, in that the full conversion to USD may still leave a reader confused about what a crore is. The conversion from rupees to rupees makes it very clear that a crore is ten million. Loki (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Linking to crore would make sense to address potential reader confusion while respecting MOS:TIES and providing a conversion that fits MOS:COMMONALITY. For currency, the quantity isn't as important as the value (unless for some reason you're saying something like "two lakh of ₹50 notes," in which case I'd lean towards converting two lakh to 200,000 per MOS:COMMANLAITY. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:08, 7 April 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
COMMONALITY itself already allows Terms that differ between varieties of English, or that have divergent meanings, may be glossed to prevent confusion. Still, in the case where multiple levels of education are sequentially mentioned on a page, it can appear unwieldy to repeatedly gloss, given Educational stage § Comparison of American and British English and the uses of grade, year and form. —Bagumba (talk) 04:32, 8 April 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
Political orientation
Latest comment: 1 year ago24 comments21 people in discussion
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
I would just note that if you look at our thousands of articles on cricketers and pop albums and Pokemon, there is no discernible political bias. Even our thousands of articles on American state court and lower federal court judges tend to have no political dimension whatsoever. BD2412T20:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
As a global encyclopaedia we are going to struggle to cover some topics in ways that every country accepts as neutral. Just think for a second about the differing perspectives between Americans, Canadians and Brits re the war of 1812, or the contrasting views on gun control between some Americans and pretty much all Brits, Canadians, Australians, Indians, Kiwis and Irish. With US politics we have the additional problem that some of the litmus tests are ones where one party accepts the science and the other doesn't - Climate Change, Evolution and Geology being obvious examples. Of course a Young Earth Creationist Climate Change denier is going to think Wikipedia is biased against them, and such people are more common on one side of the US political spectrum than the other. But on scientific topics like those our aim is to summarise academic sources, not to try and work out where the mid point is between AOC and MTG. ϢereSpielChequers20:54, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I am so incredibly tired of hearing that Wikipedia has a left-wing bias. In oint of fact. Wikipedia has a distinct and justifiable bias towards the accurate reflection of facts and reality. It's not Wikipedia's fault that -- generally speaking -- the American right-wing seems to have completely lost its hold on reality, while the left-wing has managed to hold on to a least a vestige of it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:06, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Wikipedia absolutely has a left-wing bias. That's not necessarily a problem, one just needs to bear it in mind whilst reading. Stifle (talk) 10:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
RfC: Length and detail of tornado summaries
Latest comment: 1 year ago27 comments15 people in discussion
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)TornadoInformation12Reply
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)TornadoInformation12Reply
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)TornadoInformation12Reply
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
Massive OR and NOT issues. Articles should be summaries of what secondary independent sources say about a topic, not a deep-dive into minutiae, and especially not an editor's interpretation of primary data, which is exactly what using a "National Weather Service Raw Text Product" text file or a dynamic, real-time ARCGIS map is! An organization reporting the results of a survey or uploading data for display on a graphical interface is even more primary than a research article is, since at least an article has to go through peer review and put its data into context by discussing other studies. These sections should be removed until secondary sources can be found. JoelleJay (talk) 01:36, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It seems like there's a big difference between generating several paragraphs of text from this tool and generating several paragraphs of text from a summary like this. Using just that graphical interface to write from raw data doesn't strike me as desirable according to typical Wikipedia practice, but using it as a supplement for a few basic facts seems reasonable (fundamental aspects of the subject and/or filling in a key detail in material that has had its WP:WEIGHT established through other sources). I don't see an issue with using the NWS summaries, though, assuming it's public domain and/or basing a bunch of text on it doesn't present copyright issues, and think that should probably be handled on a case by case basis. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 11:46, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Well then technically speaking, NOAA’s Storm Event Database would qualify as a secondary source since the following occurs: (1) NWS conducts preliminary assessment. (2) Info is quality checked and signed by the lead meteorologist at each NWS office. (3) Info is sent to the National Centers for Environmental Information. (4) NCEI writes their own report (sometimes and often including other info not mentioned by NWS) in their report. Since NCEI didn’t do the prelim information, that would qualify them as a secondary source would it not? Elijahandskip (talk) 19:45, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Where does consensus stand on this statement: "WP:BURDEN can be used to force inline citations on absolutely every statement that does not currently have an inline citation"?
Latest comment: 1 year ago138 comments40 people in discussion
If there is consensus for such a statement, where the simply fact of not having a citation is grounds for removal even when the statements themselves aren't contested, why not codify that rather than leave it between the lines?
If there is not consensus for such a statement, what are the necessary conditions for someone to remove content citing WP:BURDEN?
Is there middleground? From my perspective, the middleground has traditionally been knowing that because of "The Wiki Way", nobody would try to use WP:BURDEN to try to remove statements just for lacking a citation. It would require a challenge to the content, judging it to be unverifiable, failing verification, failing NPOV, or something else which requires more than looking at the statement and seeing it lacks a citation. Over the last few years (maybe longer), I have begun to feel that my perspective may be outdated, which is to say there are more and more people who seem to view WP:BURDEN as an any-purpose tool to purge the 'pedia of unsourced content, regardless of the content. I suspect there's been an RfC about this, but I'm not seeing something conclusive. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 22:29, 8 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If there is consensus for this statement, we should write a bot and fire it up and remove every unsourced statement on this site, and delete every article with no citations.
To put a number on "every article with no citations," this would entail deleting, as of right now, 126,401 articles. Many are on high-profile subjects that are unquestionably, beyond any shadow of a doubt, notable. (Some articles I have expanded/sourced are by authors including Mark Twain, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood, and Italo Calvino.) Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:12, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Rschen7754 To challenge info per bot is a weird idea. There are four kinds of info listed under WP:BURDEN..
all quotations,
all material whose verifiability has been challenged,
As to me challenges should be made by editors and not by bots. and I support WP:BURDEN as it is for the moment. In the text editor, we are warned before every hit on the button publish that Encyclopedic content must be verifiable through citations to reliable sources.
The policy also says that if an editor thinks the text is verifiable, they should look for text. IOW, they should only remove material that they question.
So for example if you saw an article about a minor 19th century figure that had been created 20 years ago and had few edits, you could look for sources, but if chose not to, the best approach would be to leave it alone. OTOH, if someone added unsourced text to the article about Charles III, who is well covered in secondary sources and whose article is fully sourced, you might want to remove it.
Unsourced statements about a living person (WP:BLP) should be removed immediately. Statements can always be removed for lacking a citation. There is no reason in 2023 for anyone to add an unsourced statement to any article; that is automatically considered disruptive behaviour. The idea of leaving unsourced statements in is that they may eventually be sourced. (WP:PRESERVE) But the prospect of this decreases over time. There have been too many hoaxes perpetrated over the years, and too many cases of WP:Citogenesis and WP:Copyvio for leaving it alone rto be considered the best policy any more. If there is any doubt whatsoever about the factual accuracy of a statement, then it should be removed. Hawkeye7(discuss)23:13, 8 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I just added {{unreferenced}} to the article. The next step would be removing any content for which you cannot find a reliable source after a reasonable search. If it looks like the subject is not notable after a reasonable search for sources, then you can take it to AfD. I personally prefer to find reliable sources to support existing and new content in an article, but I will prod or send to AfD an article that I cannot find reliable sources for. Donald Albury00:33, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hawkeye7's interpretation of policy very strongly implies that someone seeing unsourced content is obligated to remove it. You cannot both be right, hence this discussion to see where consensus lies. Thryduulf (talk) 00:57, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The way some are interpreting BURDEN, anyone can remove any uncited statement for any reason, and anyone reverting is immediately sanctionable for disruptive behavior. And no, nobody is forced to remove content, but everybody should remove that content if they are following the logical conclusions of what Hawkeye said. Rschen775401:07, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hawkeye7 is only talking about BLP and that isn't their interpretation, its pretty much a direct quote: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—must be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:10, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
What is "contentious", "poorly sourced" and "questionable" are all subjective metrics. And even where everybody agrees that this applies, it is always better to find a (better) source if you can than to just remove it. Thryduulf (talk) 09:49, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, they're all subjective which is why AGF applies. To revert such a removal is to question the good faith or competence of the person who removed it, thats a very serious thing... And unless you can source it no you aren't allowed to restore it, that is *not* subjective. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict × 5) If there is any doubt whatsoever about the factual accuracy of a statement but not every statement that is presently unsourced is of doubtful factual accuracy. The correct reaction to seeing something unsourced should be a series of questions to yourself, starting with:
Does this need a citation? e.g. statements of a WP:SKYISBLUE nature do not need a source, if the answer is no then do nothing.
If it does need a citation, then you should always try and verify it yourself first, adding the citation if you find one removing or tagging if a thorough search failed to verify it. If for some reason you cannot definitely state it is as correct or incorrect yourself, then deal with it by tagging, moving to the talk page or, only if no other action is suitable, removing it.
If it's completely implausible then remove it without a second thought, if extremely plausible then tag it or discuss it.
If an incorrect statement would be harmless then just tag it or leave it, if it would cause significant harm then move or remove it.
If it's been tagged for years then the threshold for removal is lower than if it's never been tagged.
How important is it to the article? Statements that are key have a much higher threshold for removal than those which are only a little more than trivia (statements that are trivia should be removed regardless of sourcing circumstances).
How easy is it likely to be to find a source? Plot details of a Netflix original series are highly likely to be in an online reliable source that Google has indexed so just tagging it will lead to someone conclusively determining the veracity. Details of the traditional cultural practices of a southern African tribe as reported by an 18th century Portuguese explorer are something that is very going to require access to offline sources, probably not in English, to verify or not verify - this needs flagging somewhere that those with access to the relevant sources and subject expertise will know that verification is required. Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Of course it's about removing material. Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material may be removed and so on. The wording of the section effectively says "I can remove anything that's unsourced and the burden is on you to find a citation", in other words "I can require everything to have a citation".... unless we choose not to interpret it that way. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 02:21, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, the section says: ”…may be removed”, but that does not mean must be removed (or even should be removed). What it makes clear is: IF removed, it must be cited to return it. Blueboar (talk) 14:13, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It doesn't force it to be sourced, it just requires it to be sourced if someone wishes to restore it after its been removed in good faith. Nobody is forced to restore it, restoration is a voluntary and consensual procedure. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Force it to be sourced for it to continue existing, regardless of the reason for removing it. The question is more about whether it's appropriate to remove something just because it doesn't have a source. Once that's done, regardless of the justification, verifiability, etc., a conservative interpretation of WP:BURDEN closes the door. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 02:21, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Isn't the question whether its appropriate to add something which doesn't have a source? If the answer is no then what's the issue with removing something which was never supposed to be there in the first place? Also note that removing is challenging, you treat them separately in your OP but anything which has been removed has been challenged, removal *is* a challenge to the content. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Isn't the question whether its appropriate to add something which doesn't have a source? Not exactly. Another formulation would be "Is it appropriate to add something which doesn't have a citation". That's a fine way to approach the question, but the thing is, there's no policy that says adding a citation is required while we do have a policy that [by some interpretations] says that anything without a source can be removed just for not having a citation. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 17:02, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
These days people who go around adding volumes of unsourced content get blocked or banned, that hasn't been tolerated by the community for at least a decade (it does appear to have been highly tolerated during the first few years of the project). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:13, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I don't know about WP:BURDEN per se, and other editors have already chimed in on what that specifically covers, but I think there's how one could technically interpret it, versus how it is and is likely to be interpreted by most editors in most cases...which is to say, sure, I delete a lot of unsourced content, but not all unsourced content I come across, and it's ridiculous and unenforceable to embrace the idea that any editor is obligated to remove unsourced content.
But as has been said before and will inevitably be said again, a lot of peoples' time would be saved if editors would spend less time focusing on whether or not it was proper to remove unsourced content and more time focusing on simply providing sources when unsourced content is challenged. DonIago (talk) 03:58, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
But as has been said before and will inevitably be said again, a lot of peoples' time would be saved if editors would spend less time focusing on whether or not it was proper to remove unsourced content and more time focusing on simply providing sources when unsourced content is challenged.Here Here!.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:11, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think you're missing the point. I could probably remove a few hundred statements within the timespan of 1 hour, but it will take a lot longer than that to restore those statements with proper sources. It puts unreasonable pressure on those who work in that subject area, when WP:NODEADLINE - just like sending a bunch of articles to AFD puts pressure on the article creator and others to defend that article. You want to burn editors out? This is a good way to do it. --Rschen775406:19, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If there's no deadline for restoring unsourced material then why is there any pressure being put on editors? They can restore it if/when they have the time to do so and can provide sources, or not, as they see fit. DonIago (talk) 14:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
When you write articles, do you go through the history just to see what someone removed in the past because it was unsourced? I sure don't. Once material has been removed and it's been a few days (i.e. fallen off people's watchlists), it's effectively gone. --Rschen775418:12, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
On the contrary, in my years of editing on many occasions I've found that when I reverted unsourced additions that either the person who originally added the material or another editor restored it with a source.
Of course, if unsourced information is longstanding I also tag it rather than outright deleting it. Nobody should be surprised if previously-tagged unsourced information is ultimately removed at some point down the line. DonIago (talk) 23:46, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A few hundred in 1 hour? Sounds dubious, it takes about a minute to check context and sourcing or a lack thereof in all except cases of obvious vandalism. I bet you could do 60 in an hour (if of course instead of sourcing ones you found to be sourceable you abandoned instead of sourcing) but a few hundred? Hard to imagine you could do that in good faith. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It puts unreasonable pressure on those who work in that subject area, when WP:NODEADLINE - just like sending a bunch of articles to AFD puts pressure on the article creator and others to defend that article. You want to burn editors out? This is a good way to do it.
WP:NODEADLINE would be the argument in favor of removing the uncited content, because there is no deadline to add content, but we should seek to address violations of core content policies and WP:BLP immediately, because these violations cause broad issues both on and off-wiki.
In regards to burning editors out, the best way to address that would have been to prevent the issue building up, by requiring all added content, unless WP:BLUE applies, be properly sourced, and immediately removing it if it is not. This would have kept the level of removed content at a managable level, and it would have increased the chance that the editor who added the content - and who hopefully had a source for the content - would have been able to provide the source with minimal effort. Instead, we allowed a huge backlog to build up - at the very least, we should be attempting to prevent this backlog increasing by removing all new unsourced content. BilledMammal (talk) 12:13, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The OP's statement does not represent consensus. This is easy to see if we consider the current featured article. This is found on the Main page which is Wikipedia's front window. The main page contains lots of statements and, by convention, none of them have any inline citations. Then, looking at the article, we notice that it starts with two substantial paragraphs and again, by convention, they have no inline citations. There's an infobox and most of its entries have an inline citation but one of them does not – that the parent range is Garibaldi Ranges. Why is this excepted? It's not clear but doesn't appear to be a problem. Reading on, one finds more inline citations but they seem sporadic rather than systematic.
Now, if some griefer or jobsworth were to attack this featured article and remove all such uncited material in a crude way, they would not find WP:BURDEN to be a strong defence, right? The key requirement for a citation is that the statement is controversial and so likely to be challenged. Mountains are not especially controversial.
Most of our readership does not care about this issue because they mostly use the mobile interface which, by default, only shows the lead of articles. They therefore see little of the references and don't click through to them even if they do. These things are niceties not necessities and Wikipedia mostly works fine without them.
That articles shows how citations should work - that the next immediate citation covers all the material up until the last previous citation. In that case, each paragraph that has one final citation should be considered sourced to that citation. We absolutely do not want one citation per sentence, though there are cases where this is necessary, and a one citation per paragraph is as loose as we can go within policy. Masem (t) 13:21, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A griefer or jobsworth would not find burden to be a strong defence because burden is easily met. This is an example for in-line citations, which that article is chock-full of. CMD (talk) 13:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Our readership indirectly cares about this issue; they care that our articles are reliable and verifiability, including inline citations, is how we make them reliable. BilledMammal (talk) 11:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Content policies are written to help resolve disputes between good faith Wikipedians. Where you've got an editor doubting every single statement in an article, then either that editor is griefing, or the article's authors are hoaxers, or both. In other words, at the point where you're using CN on every statement, you need to move from content policy to conduct policy in order to determine what to do.—S MarshallT/C08:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Agreed, and disagree with the statement in the section head. The sad truth is that unreferenced statements are in reality not much more likely to be inaccurate than referenced ones. Frequent citation taggers tend not to worry about how "good" an article is at describing its ubject; they just like to see lots of little numbers, whose quality or appropriateness they rarely check. There are of course many exceptions, who only tag when they have reason to doubt a particular statement. But most taggers are the other sort. Johnbod (talk) 14:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I don't think being a tagger is necessarily a good thing. If you can see a problem then I'd much rather you fixed it than tagged it.—S MarshallT/C16:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
We all have our limitations; I'd rather an editor tag a problem if they can't fix it, rather than ignoring it entirely. While there's room to argue whether tagging ultimately leads to positive change, not tagging is far less likely to result in any change. DonIago (talk) 16:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Tagging is part of the fixing process, thats why tags exist and are a core part of our editing tool set. Like with all core parts of the editing tool set editors aren't required to use them, they are however required to understand how to use them in order to meet our basic competence requirements. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
IMHO, tagging should be a last resort for when someone tried to fix a problem with an article, and couldn't. It's basically a way of saying "I tried, but I need help to fix this". Given tagging the article actually degrades its quality even more, I'd argue that someone who fixes a problem with an article is doing more to build this encyclopedia than someone who tags 10 articles. Dave (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Tagging improves the quality of an article, an article with tags is higher quality than the same article without tags (both are lower quality than the same article but with appropriate sourcing). Someone who has tagged 10 articles has done more for the encyclopedia than someone who read the same ten articles but did nothing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Trouble with that mentality is, it leads people not to fix stuff. They just skim an article, slap a tag in a couple of places and move onto the next one. That's a quick, simple way of editing that leads to insurmountable backlogs everywhere in the encyclopaedia. If only there was a way to make them put the effort into adding sources and properly copyediting one article, instead of tagging ten articles, this would be a better place.—S MarshallT/C20:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It also leads people to fix stuff. Often a tag will inspire editing which wouldn't have happened otherwise, even if only because it forces people who hate tags for aesthetic reasons to put their money where their mouth is in terms of contributing positively to the project. If those ten tags from an editor with superficial experience in a topic area cause ten editors with deep experience in a topic area to either source or correct ten pages thats a major gain for the project and not something which that editor could do on their own without great effort. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It also leads people to fix stuff. Often a tag will inspire editing which wouldn't have happened otherwise
Why do you believe this? Do you have any evidence to support your belief? AFAIK nobody has ever demonstrated that maintenance tags make any significant difference in behavior, especially if you exclude simple fixes that happen as soon as the tag is added (e.g., the editors who spam in {{nocats}} as soon as a page is created, sometimes edit-conflicting with the person who's adding the cats). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The trouble with that mentality is that it discourages anyone who is not already a full-time, dyed-in-the-wool editor with full topic knowledge on any page he sees from being involved in Wikipedia at all. The goal should be for every edit to be an improvement, not for every edit to achieve perfection. Anything that moves the ball toward the goal should be considered good, and anything that stands in the way of that should be considered bad. Even those of us who put a lot of time into this project have times when we identify a problem where we may not have the time, skills, or knowledge to deal with it. A third of the page is in Portuguese? I can't translate that into English, but I can put a tag that will call attention to the problem and bring it closer to being taken care of. The amount of energy I've seen on this project misdirected by folks lecturing others on, say, bare URLs (which are a big improvement on no source) saddens me. The only thing needed to justify someone tagging a page is that it's an accurate tag. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:21, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's interesting...at one point I'd started to inquire about the possibility of enabling editors to tag an edit "for review", in cases where they lacked enough confidence that there was an issue with it to revert it (or perhaps didn't have the time/skills to dig deeper into the edit), yet still had doubts that the edit was improving the article in question. I seem to recall there was some interest in such a feature, but not enough for it to gain traction. Unfortunately, without such a feature, editors who find an edit that tickles their spidey-sense but doesn't reach the level where the editor can confidently say "this isn't right" are faced with options of: 1) doing nothing, 2) reverting and seeing what may come, and potentially looking like a fool in the process, 3) starting a Talk page discussion that might also make them look like a fool and may not get a response unless the editor is willing to escalate the matter that they weren't even sure was a legitimate concern to begin with. DonIago (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
For the first ten years I edited, I thought clicking the "watch this page" button in the edit box flagged my edit as needing scrutiny (because it's right there next to "minor edit"). By the time I discovered my watchlist I had hundreds of articles watched... JoelleJay (talk) 22:51, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
IMHO, these policies were intended for people who while reading a Wikipedia article stumble across something that sounds suspect, who then attempt to verify the claim using the given sources but can't. These policies did not anticipate people who go out looking for problems. If someone feels they are better suited to finding problems in articles than writing content, that's fine. We are all volunteers here and any help is welcome. However, policies should then clarified to encourage fixing articles over tagging or blanking content in them. IMHO blanking is appropriate for statements that are tangential or trivial details. However, for relevant details, an attempt should at least be made to find a source before blanking. IMHO, tagging should be a last resort after trying, but not succeeding, to fix an article. Someone who fixes one problem with an article adds more value to the encyclopedia than someone who tags 10. Dave (talk) 19:23, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The OP statement is really about wp:ver, not about wp:burden. It is basically a statement endorsing a potential mis-use of wp:ver which of course should not be added. Or, if they meant it as a devil's advocate statement, then it does point to am IMO needed fix with wp:ver....that a wp:ver "challenge" must include expressing a concern about the sourcability or veracity of the challenged statement. North8000 (talk) 15:16, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
How many times have we gone round-and-round on this?… Removing material IS ITSELF a statement of concern about the material. You don’t need someone to explicitly say “I think this needs a citation”… you can assume it. Blueboar (talk) 16:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
So you're saying yes, anything can be removed just for not having a citation (that "it doesn't have a citation" is a valid reason for a challenge). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 17:02, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Ultimately, yes… anything can be removed for not having a citation. That does not mean it should be removed. There are a LOT of nuances involved, and there are other options (such as tagging). But… we are allowed to remove any material we think is unverifiable.
And one thing is very clear… WHEN something is removed we both must and should provide a citation to return it. (Note… pointing out that it is covered by an existing citation counts as providing a citation). Blueboar (talk) 17:26, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Blueboar: Blueboar, yes, we've disagreed for years on this but let me argue my rationale. IMO your rationale is "when in doubt, provide a source" which in spirit I agree with. But we must look at more complex realities which a requirement to state a sincere-concern challenge would solve. That is when there is no concern about the veracity of the material and a source is provided. And with respect to the cited material, the expertise and objectivity of the source is sufficient to support the statement, but the source (as about 75% of sufficiently reliable sources are) is still wikilawyer-nitpickable as not having the trappings to 100% comply with wp:RS. And, in the example its hard to find an alternate unusually un-nitpickable source that makes the sky is blue statement, because sources usually don't make sky-is-blue statements. And so so the wikilawyer POV warrior uses the interaction of two two policies in tandem to knock out a sourced sky-is-blue statement. A requirement that the POV warrior look silly by saying "I have a concern about the veracity or sourcability of the statement that the sky is blue" would significantly reduce that type of a problem. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:27, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I have to disagree. If you are having a problem finding a reliable source that verifies a “he sky is blue” statement… then I have to doubt whether it actually qualifies as a “sky is blue” statement after all. Such statements should be easy to verify. Can you give me an example of such a statement (BLUE SKY but difficult to verify)? Blueboar (talk) 19:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The example off the top of my head is not quite SKYISBLUE but similar. The first two types of Docklands Light Railway rolling stock were named P86 and P89, they were primarily maintained at Poplar Depot. All subsequent stock, named B92, B2K, B07 and B23, have been primarily maintained at Beckton Depot. Everybody assumes that The P and B in the type codes refers to the depot, and the article makes this claim, because it makes logical sense and nothing else does (although the B92-B07 were built by Bombardier, the P86, P89 and B23 stock were/are being built by Linke-Hofmann-Busch, BREL and CAF respectively) but nowhere have I ever been able to find a reliable source stating this. Thryduulf (talk) 21:19, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A nearly identical example to that is a frequent addition to the article California State Route 49, namely that the number 49 was deliberately chosen. However, the claim is not currently in the article, I removed it a month or so ago. It is well sourced and undisputed that historians lobbied for the creation of route 49 in an effort to preserve and promote the history of the 49ers and the 1849 California gold rush. It's also documented that the route of highway 49 was deliberately chosen to connect most of the relevant locations to the 1849 California gold rush. It's also well documented that the shape of the shield used to sign route 49, and all other California state highways, is in the shape of a minors spade to honor the 1849 gold rush. So it sure seems logical that the number 49 was deliberately chosen for this highway. But unless and until some state legislature from that era publishes the conversations he had with historian lobbyists, no source that meets Wikipedia's standards as reliable that I'm aware of today makes that connection, logical and obvious as it is. Dave (talk) 21:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
That sounds like a really good thing to strike from the article. If it's so obvious that "everyone assumes" it, then it should be obvious to the reader and not need to be stated... but by stating an assumption as an unsourced fact, not only are we overlooking the fact that unsourced assumptions are often wrong (I caught today an assumption I'd been making for years), but also putting it in increases the odds that someone will find it, use it in some seemingly RS article... and then when someone really does challenge the claim, hey, there's an RS to back it up! (WP:CIRCULAR can be hard to detect and should not be encouraged.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:41, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Blueboar, BTW by "sky is blue" I meant that nobody questions the veracity of it, not that everybody already knows it. The most common examples are boring details which sources with full wp:independent secondary sources don't buther to cover. Like this: "POV warrior A" does not like the XYZ organization. The XYZ organization web site says that they have a facility on 142nd street dedicated to saving orphaned puppies. "POV warrior A" doesn't want anything about them saving orphaned puppies in the article and so they delete it saying "Not a RS". So they have just used wp:Ver in tandem with RS criteria to knock out sky is blue sourced material. North8000 (talk) 13:35, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If the website has been cited, that’s not a BURDEN issue… that’s an RS issue. Somewhat different. That said, if the org really does operate a puppy rescue, then surely there is some independent source that mentions this. If not, it is probably UNDUE for us to mention it. Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's a wp:ver issue because that's what was used to knock it out. And that's what would be solved by requiring an actual challenge in order to be considered to be a challenge. North8000 (talk) 14:56, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Well this hasn't exactly cleared anything up so far. :) I wonder if it's worth trying to come up with a simple an RfC as possible. Perhaps "Do our policies permit material to be removed because it does not include a citation, without challenging the material on the grounds of WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT, or WP:BLP? If so, does WP:BURDEN prevent restoration of material removed for lacking a citation, absent a specific policy-based challenge beyond lack of citation?" I can't think of anytime I've seen a direct question like that put to the community (which isn't to say it hasn't happened). It might be for naught, but I see a whole lot of heated disagreement on the issue such that it might be useful to try to resolve. What issues am I not foreseeing? Updated: Added the second question because of course something can be removed per WP:BOLD; the question is whether that ends the conversation (i.e. not actually WP:BOLD). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 17:07, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I actually quite often have trouble finding a clear source for statements that are so obvious and fundamental to a subject that no RS bothers to state them clearly, applying a sort of expert's blue sky approach. And yet they certainly need to be explained to our readers. A recent example was at Lithophane. The whole and entire point of these decorative pieces is that the image only reads properly when lit from behind. But as you can see from the DYK nom discussion on the talk page, I could find no RS that clearly states this, & we had to settle for a mealy-mouthed & potentially misleading hook. Johnbod (talk) 14:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This happens all the time and is beyond frustrating. A recent example I came across: Pincer (biology). I know what these are. You know what these are. Everybody who is even slightly familiar with insects knows what these are. Yet I have been unable to find a single source that discusses them in a general sense -- i.e., not the pincers of scorpions or whatnot -- and so in unreferenced it stays. Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps there are military or other academic sources that use "pincer" terminology and go into some depth to explain the origin in broad terms? JoelleJay (talk) 16:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Biology isn't a subject I studied, even at high school, so I have no expertise. It sounds correct to the non-expert, but when I searched for it nothing turned up. Instead, I found a lot of books that referred to "pincer-like" claws. Whereas, when I look for the military term, pincer movement, it immediately turns up: "a pincer movement is a variation of an envelopment but instead of a single maneuver element it has two." I would therefore conclude that the biology article is probably incorrect, that "pincer" is not the term the experts use, and the article should probably be deleted. Hawkeye7(discuss)21:35, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I had a look at this the other day and came to the same conclusion. OED defines pincer as "Either of a pair of opposed hinged claws, mandibles, etc., with which an arthropod grasps or grips; esp. a chela of a crab or other crustacean". I'm also no biologist, but this suggests to me that pincer is a synonym for mandible or chela, or for any other animal body-part that resembles pincers (tool). In this case, it appears that "what everybody knows" is wrong (non-specialists like myself might call these body-parts "pincers" due to ignorance of the correct terminology, but reliable sources express themselves more accurately), so it's not unreasonable to request citations even for "obvious" claims like this. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 06:11, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This was my gut feeling, yeah, that there is some sort of merge or redirect target (and is also why I'm hesitant to use books for children, they're certainly not going to make those distinctions). But I don't actually know for sure -- basically it comes down to absence of proof versus proof of absence. Which seems to be the overarching point of this discussion. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:13, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Just because a term is only used by non-specialists, does that really make it "wrong" or somehow non-existent? It seems like "pincer" is a non-precise grouping of appendages with a similar form and/or function that is sufficient and useful for most people in everyday life even if it isn't precise enough for specialists. Thryduulf (talk) 11:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't -- biology isn't really my lane, and with over 126,000 unsourced articles I don't want to obsess over something that's taking me a while.
This problem seems to be especially bad with common objects -- not brands or products, per se, but everyday, really common things or tools, where lots of people talk about specifics or research breakthroughs, but nobody just writes an overview of what a widget spinning machine actually is, what it's made of, and who invented it. The dream source would be something like the Object Lessons books -- in a way, this very problem is the whole reason that series exists! Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:38, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Chela is the biological term used the most for these structures. I had assumed the article on pincer was where chela redirected, I didn't realize it was an article itself. I think pincer should be merged there. JoelleJay (talk) 21:06, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If someone is going around making removals which are not policy based thats an issue with disruptive editing, not with the policies. There is no requirement to make a laundry list of applicable policies to your edit, that would impose a large burden on all editors which is massively disproportionate to the burden you claim exists due to unsourced content removal. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:18, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If you made good faith research/effort and could not verify a statement, that’s a reasonable reason to remove it. Meatbot like behaviour that simply scours random articles to remove unreferenced inline content is another story. We make an explicit exception for BLP claims, so if there’s a codified policy it’s to NOT remove content for the sake of missing inline citation.
Often missing citations can be reincluded from present sources that are used elsewhere in the body. Should all new edits include inline citations? Definitely. I know the WMF team is making improvements to prompts to remind editors to include citations for bare text additions. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Removing material and citing BURDEN in order to win the edit war is highly inappropriate. Perhaps in order to use BURDEN in this way, the removing editor needs to cite an explicit reason why they are removing (stolen From Rhododendrites' list above): 1) they don't think it's true or can be sourced 2) the tone is inappropriate/POV 3) it is tangential/irrelevant (which I would argue is an inappropriate use of BURDEN) 4) BLP. No reason given = the use of BURDEN is invalid. This disincentivizes users from running through articles and mass deleting content. --Rschen775417:54, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
But the entire point of BURDEN is to prevent edit wars from starting. If someone removes uncited information, DO NOT return it without a citation. Period. That’s core policy. Follow this and there should be no edit war to “win”. Blueboar (talk) 18:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Removing material and citing Burden as a reason not to restore it is highly appropriate. Simply saying "if this is true and important enough to include, you should be able to find a source" is a reasonable response to someone wanting to restore an unsourced claim. As for the central question of this thread, Burden is not enough for deleting every unsourced claim, as mass removal like that would require to much attention from other editors to address, and thus someone using it to delete everything unsourced is being disruptive and likely WP:POINTy. But it is enough for deleting any unsourced claim, absent WP:BLUESKY. There shouldn't be more onus on the person for removing the statement than there was for putting it in. Assuming good faith is not the same as assuming competency. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:53, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This is an extremely narrow view of BURDEN. Supposing someone were to remove entries from a notable list citing BURDEN, and saying they are unsourced? Should they not be restored when most of these lists typically have entries linking to Wikipedia articles, and usually don't use citations? Huggums537 (talk) 07:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thinking it through: a "Yes" consensus on both questions would lead to no change to WP:BURDEN, while a "No" consensus would create a requirement that someone cite a policy if they want to remove unsourced material. If they don't, they can be reverted and must go to the talk page, all to remove material that's unsourced (and potentially unverifiable/false).
To me, this "proves" that Blueboar's view is right, since any other reading of WP:BURDEN would create a bias towards keeping unsourced content, which would weaken WP:V. Besides, when someone removes stuff with edit summary “rm unsourced”, usually they do have policy-based concerns, like accuracy, even if it's not stated. DFlhb (talk) 23:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Disagree on both points, DFlhb. A clear consensus either way would lead to clarifying language. We have a conflict between a single line of WP:BURDEN and the entirety of WP:PRESERVE, so "yes" to both would likely mean adding a pointer/clarification to WP:BURDEN pointing to the latter. "No" to both doesn't requiring citing policy, it would require basing it on policy (as opposed to just because it doesn't have a citation). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:27, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Editors should not have to have policy knowledge to challenge unsourced content. That could create situations where people edit war to keep incorrect information, rather than trying to find a source and discovering it's incorrect. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Then pretend I said "cite a policy-based reason" rather than "cite a policy"; when someone removes something due to a lack of citation, I interpret that as a challenge of the statement's verifiability even if it's not said explicitly.
And one might argue that currently, it's WP:PRESERVE that points to WP:BURDEN, since its WP:CANTFIX subsection links to WP:V for how to handle unsourced material. This implies that BURDEN currently takes precedence, therefore, no conflict. Though this point is admittedly quite wikilawyer-y. DFlhb (talk) 20:15, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's something like eighteen years since slim virgin added this to the page and I think in all that time it's been contentious but the consensus has always fallen into the realm of rules as intended rather than rules as written. Yeah there's a burden, but there's a burden on everyone. We all have different ideas on what kind of encyclopedia Wikipedia is, and burden is one of those where we need to recognise we don't all agree and that the consensus lies on a very wide path where the ideal is that we don't remove something without working really hard to source it first. Having sat through this discussion a number of times I'm remembering how much we balance everything with WP:BITE because it might be a first edit or WP:AGF because we need to balance harm against informing and so on and so forth. I do wish uncle g could just hash it all out for us like the old days. Anyway, my two pence, hasn't changed drastically in the last 18 years. HidingT21:59, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Deleting all unsourced material would be disruptive, however if something is challenged then it shouldn't be restored without sourcing. Also we should remember that many people editing don't have in-depth knowledge of Wikipedias practices, so there shouldn't be hoops for them to jump through to challenge something. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:03, 9 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The OP's initial statement lacks context. What specific unsourced statements were removed from what specific articles that led to the reductio ad absurdum tirade in question? Unless we know which specific statements were being challenged, we don't know if they were appropriately removed. Their characterization of the meaning of WP:BURDEN is of course silly, but they want it to appear silly because they're trying to make the actions that precipitated this thread to appear controversial. As already noted, some stuff does not need direct citations immediately following every sentence. Paragraphs with multiple facts all sourced to the same source. WP:BLUESKY information. WP:PLOTSUMMARY. Things cited elsewhere in the article already. And so on. If the OP were to tell us specifically what removed text sent them rushing to WP:VPP with the tirade in question, we can assess that. The question in the general, we cannot answer. --Jayron3215:13, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Again, the policy provision that is the basis of this discussion is really (other) core parts of wp:ver not wp:burden. Burden also needs work per the 1/2 year discussion in 2022, but that is unrelated. North8000 (talk) 15:17, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think that simple answer to the OP is that there is no consensus for how you characterized it. It sort of raises questions on policy areas that might need some work but even then the result would not be the explicit guidance that, if taken literally, your comment is seeking. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:47, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
My experience has been that the great majority of editors who remove text as "uncited" or break citations by moving text, have no idea whatsoever of what material is actually in the source. They don't bother to check the source, but are reacting on a visual level fueled by their own preferences. In the real world of academia and writing, a source is needed for statements which are someone else's thought. If that is relayed in multiple sentences, one does not redundantly cite the same source for each sentence. When someone else's thought is introduced, one cites that source. We don't need to make WP rules different than how sources are typically used outside of WP, as it is a mirror and not a platform for OR. SusunW (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Don’t disagree … and WHEN something is removed that IS cited (say at the end of the paragraph or section), it is perfectly appropriate to simply revert the removal with an edit notice saying: “cited at the end of the paragraph” (or something). BURDEN is met, as is the broader requirements of WP:V. Blueboar (talk) 17:45, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Well, being cited is necessary, but not sufficient for material to be kept. Lots of material with citations is still inappropriate, and positive, active consensus is still required for inclusion, even if a citation exists. A citation is not a magic bullet that means that what precedes it may never be removed. The onus to achieve consensus to include some contested text is on those who support keeping it in the article. You can't just add something to an article with a cite, and then expect it to remain forever. --Jayron3218:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think that what you just described is that actual intended reason for ONUS ("reason" = includes why it was left in, not just why 1 person put it in) which is to say that being sourced is not a magic bullet for inclusion. This is further evidenced by where it is at..in a VERIFIABILIY sentence in a VEFIFIABILITY policy. But it backfired by getting severed in half; so not fulfilling that mission and instead we ended up with three bad things:
A widespread baseless urban legend / practice that merely being sourced is a strong argument for inclusion of that material in that place
That ONUS is a widespread argument that leans towards exclusion of material. There is no purpose for such a wide-ranging unlimited statement
ONUS often conflicts with other policies including wp:consensus
These were covered in a 1/2 year long discussion in 2022 which faded out. (partly my fault because I said I'd formulate a before-RFC and RFC but never did it) IMO all 4 problems would would be fixed by this one change: Replace ONUS with "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion." Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:52, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
In general I agree with you, but when the stated reason for removing something is only that it is unsourced then reintroducing it with a source/a note that it is already sourced is sufficient. Obviously there may be additional reasons for removal, but unless and until these reasons have been expressed somewhere appropriate and discoverable we cannot expect other editors to know what they are or take them into account in any way. The same is also true of removal of information for any other reason - other editors can only address the reasons for removal you mention, and once all of those have been addressed (objectively or in accordance with the appropriate level of consensus) then reintroduction is acceptable, regardless of any other objections anybody might or might not have. Thryduulf (talk) 20:23, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
No, because not every reason for removal can be objectively determined, for example whether something is DUE or not is frequently subjective so consensus is required for restoration. However if the removal reason is something like "premature, wait until it's actually confirmed" then once it is objectively confirmed then it can be reinstated without need for a specific consensus. Obviously editors shouldn't go against consensus but that's a different matter. Thryduulf (talk) 07:54, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I don't think that's the majority of editing, and I'm not sure that it's a majority of content disputes. I see more disputes that say something like "Sure, that source literally contains the words 'Dewey Defeats Truman', but that's a bad source and shouldn't be used". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
There will always be cases where the question of whether a source supports a specific content is subject to interpretation, and one editor may feel that the source does support the content, while another does not. The world is messy, and so are sources, even if we regard them as reliable. Consensus will often be able to resolve the question, but I can imagine cases where even a large collegium of editors will not reach a clear conensus (which, I believe, would keep said source out). Donald Albury16:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Largely agree, but with the note that describing content as "unsourced" can reasonably be used for two different situations: "there are no sources whatsoever here" and "there are sources, but this information is not in any of them". Therefore, when addressing content removed as unsourced, one should keep in mind the possibility of an editor meaning "present source fails verification irt this content", rather than "I do not see any source at all", and good practice is to check whether the source stands up to verification (or ask the editor to clarify which meaning of unsourced was intended) prior to reintroducing the content simply because a footnote did exist somewhere near the removed content. AddWittyNameHere02:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"There are sources, but this information is not in any of them", usually because it is incorrect. Because "unsourced" is justification for removal, but "incorrect" is not, since WP:FALSE is only an explanatory essay and not a guideline. I once removed an edit with my customary "rm unsourced" and another editor added a null edit just to comment: "NOT because it is unsourced but because it is BOLLOCKS". A good example is the mathematical article 0.999... where people routinely feel entitled to add "some stuff [they] believe to be true".[1] aka "bollocks". Hawkeye7(discuss)03:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Hawkeye7 This seems like a broad extrapolation from a common Internet meme to every article. I'll bring up the example I mentioned earlier -- Pincer (biology). Is there anything in here you would characterize as "incorrect"? Because while there are sources, this top-level, general information does not seem to be explicitly laid out in them, unless the source is for young children and thus unusable. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
WP:CHILDRENSLIT is an essay and not policy, but based on my experience, everything in it is 100% accurate. (I copy edit children's nonfiction and textbooks for a major publishing company. The amount of egregious shit I've seen -- on the level of claiming the American Revolution took place in the 1800s -- is enough to make me never trust anything below a college level.)
I'm not Hawkeye7, you didn't ask me that question. That example would seem to be an error I catch all the time in academic work by academics for adults, when substituting years for century and vice versa errors are really really common. For example 18th century becomes 1800s instead of 1700s. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The potential change I described handles this all in a logically clean manner. It leaves the verifiability-related stuff in wp:verifiability untouched (which is very strong including in the discussed area), fulfills the original intent of this otherwise-out-of-place wording and stops this out of place wording from conflicting with other wikipedia policies and interfering with other Wikipedia processes.North8000 (talk) 20:01, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
My first edit in regard to this controversy was 11 years ago and the argument has continued on almost exactly the same terms ad infinitum with little or no progress almost continually (generally at the WP:V talk page where it's most appropriate, but with skirmishes in other places such as WP:RS, WP:CONS, and this) with occasional lulls. It seems to me that if no consensuses have been formed in that length of time, and in light of the current discussion going nowhere in the same manner as all the previous discussions, the current discussion should be closed as "no consensus" as well. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:38, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The reason there is no consensus in this case (or any other) is that people ask for generalized statements about what a policy means rather than by asking how a policy applies to a specific event. People want to win some conflict they are in, so rather than asking "How should we apply policy to this one case" they ask the question "Is my particular understanding of this policy universal". The answer to the second question is "No one particular understanding of any policy is ever universal. Every case is unique, and unless we know the particulars, we can never know how to apply this policy the right way". All applications of policy must have specifics. So, if the OP in these discussions just said "Hey, here's a case where me and someone else are in conflict over how to apply the verifiability policy to this statement" and we could have that discussion. Instead, they say things like "Does the verifiability policy means that we must always delete every statement without a reference as soon as we see it", which is not even wrong it's such a nonsensical understanding of what policy means. Instead, we get in endless loops of people saying "Well, if this is the case, maybe you should delete it on sight, but in this case I'd probably leave it, but if you deleted it, I would say that's an over-reach..." and yada yada yada. That's why we go around in circles. If everyone stopped doing that and instead just were honest about the specific dispute that they were just involved in that precipitated the need to ask people for their opinions on the policy, we could chime in on that one application and be done with it. --Jayron3217:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
At the risk of stating the obvious, the community guidelines should strike a balance between the need to write stuff (which requires fewer barriers) and the need to write good stuff (which requires more barriers). That basic premise is roughly uncontested, and discussions about WP:V / WP:BURDEN are mostly about where to put the cursor. Some, above, argue that the current placement of the cursor makes writing hard, removing easy (and sourcing super-hard but that’s not fixable by policy), and that asymmetry discourages the "good" article creators and encourages the "bad" drive-by taggers/removers. The counter-arguments seem to focus exclusively on whether tagging/removing is in fact good, and not on the asymmetry argument. So here’s a story.
We have had an article about "Michael I. Wagner" since 2009. In 2022, an IP editor comes on the Help Desk and says the middle initial is wrong. I dutifully search the internet, find multiple instances of the "I" middle initial but nothing pre-2009. At that point, slapping one of the post-2009 sources and telling the IP user to come back with their own source would have been fine and dandy, but because yours truly fell prey to the sunk cost fallacy was not afraid of making others do grunt library work is a perfectionist, they posted a request for the original source on WP:RX. Lo and behold, two people searched for that source and others, and eventually found something corroborating what the IP editor said. I did the rest of the fixing (moving the page, changing its lead, citing the source, tagging the redirect).
What's the lesson? Well, it took at least three hours of editor time to correct the mistake, whereas avoiding it would probably have taken five minutes, at most ten, of marginal time (for someone who already has all the sources open and is writing the content, vs. someone else reading the article years later). If you go by the asymmetry argument, that means extreme measures should be taken to prevent unsourced statements, because their cleanup is hard after citogenesis sets in. So for instance, you could argue that anything unsourced should be tagged or removed by a bot, because it’s too dangerous to have unsourced statements that can create citogenesis, and it costs way too much time to correct. That would an extreme position, and well out of the current Overton window, but not one I find theoretically untenable.
The more prosaic lesson is to consider the invisible costs along the visible ones in the calculation. We shouldn’t ask every source to be precisely cited to the exact span of the statement it supports, because that would be incredibly tedious and cost lots of editor time to avoid what are flashy but rare cases where errors/hoaxes survive for a long time.
Conversely, when you get reverted or asked to provide a source, it’s annoying, I get it. Maybe 95% of the time, you can actually provide a source; so it’s either a tremendous waste of everyone’s time to arrive at the same end text just to add a shiny footnote, or you give up and the text is lost even though it’s sourceable. That's the easily-seen cost. But the remaining 5% are incredibly expensive to fix if they are not detected quickly. I would guess that in fact, those usually go unfixed, and therefore unseen. It might be difficult to make a cost-benefit calculation that takes them into account, but that’s not a reason to assume they amount to a negligible amount.
IMO Burden really isn't used in relation to wp:verifiability. WP:Ver is very strong without it. It is mostly used to to tip the balance in debates/disputes unrelated to wp:ver. North8000 (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's complicated. WP:V says that All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material. In theory, this allows someone to challenge literally every uncited sentence on Wikipedia indiscriminately. I think that doing so, though, clearly goes against the intent of the policy - if it was intended to have every statement require a citation, rather than just a subset that has been challenged or which is likely to be challenged, it wouldn't include those qualifiers! I also think that nailing down a concept of a "legitimate" challenge would be potentially harmful; being able to challenge things based on even a mere gut feeling is important (and is sort of required for WP:BURDEN to make any sense.) I think that the best takeaway is that it is generally not appropriate to challenge things completely indiscriminately, and that someone who does so is engaging in misconduct and should probably be asked to stop. (And, in particular, if they seem to be targeting a specific editor with challenges then it's likely a WP:HOUND violation.) I also think that there's a degree of reasonableness required in terms of how you go about challenging things - if you're dealing with an unexceptional, non-WP:BLP-sensitive statement that most people with even a passing familiarity with the subject would recognize as broadly true, and you still feel it needs a citation, the appropriate thing to do would be to add a citation-needed tag, not to remove it. This would be especially true if the statement is (in addition to all the above) central to the topic. But few things are so one-sided; to a certain extent the decision of how to deal with something that needs a citation is up to editorial judgment, at least provided it's not BLP-sensitive. --Aquillion (talk) 16:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Consensus can change. Today, FAC, GA, DYK, ITN and B-class all now require an article to be fully referenced. "Broadly true" no longer cuts the mustard; have a look a Template talk:Did you know if in any doubt. Adding a citation-needed tag doesn't help anybody or anything. There are millions of articles lacking citations; adding another to the list will not have any effect. It just adds to the workload of the editor who comes to resolve the issue. Uncited material adds unnecessary work at a time when we have fewer hands available to maintain the Wikipedia. It requires not only looking up the fact in question, checking that the results of the search did not take it from the Wikipedia, and then rewriting the text in question (since it assumed to be a copyvio). If, in your editorial judgment, the value of the statement does not justify the effort involved, by all means delete it. Hawkeye7(discuss)22:31, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The result would be editors battling because although the material was already cited, the cite wasn't found directly at the point of their POINTy eyeballs view, but perhaps at the end of the paragraph. A certain group of editors would demand the cite on every sentence, maybe even on key words. We'd have a constant edit war and the text would become so cluttered with cites it would alienate most readers. Blrgh. Jacona (talk) 12:32, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Jacona, I think that's a good point. The standard for FA is Wikipedia:When to cite and says that it's normally sufficient to cite a single fact one time per article. Editors might disagree over whether an article is "fully referenced" if there aren't repeated citations for the same fact, but they won't disagree over whether "An elephant is a mammal" has been cited once on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
These discussions are worded based on the mis-understanding that we're talking about uncited material. In reality, most of the questionable applications of this are for CITED material by using WP:VER in tandem with nitpicking the source. North8000 (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"WP:BURDEN can be used to force inline citations on absolutely everyany statement that does not currently have an inline citation". Fixed! I believe there is a broad but implied community consensus distinguishing individual removals from mass removals. We want an explicit policy bias in favor the person challenging unsourced content. Anyone can challenge any piece of unsourced content for any reason, and they don't even need to disclose the reason. There are even policy cases where reasons cannot or should not be disclosed, such as OUTING and BLP. The burden is on the person wanting to restore the content, they need to provide sufficient justification for inclusion. In most cases at least one ref will be needed. On the other hand, a pattern of indiscriminate or incomprehensible removals is considered a behavioral issue. Editors are expected to edit in a reasonable, competent, good faith, constructive manner, to advance the encyclopedia. Approximately no one consideres it appropriate to bulk delete content that is apparently good and sourcable content. A pattern of indiscriminate or incomprehnsible removals will surely result in explanations that such behavior is not considered constructive. I'm confident sanctions would be imposed if someone were persistent in such behavior. Alsee (talk) 05:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
That is an absolutely horrendous "fix". If we're including "absolutely any statement that does not currently have an inline citation", then we would be contradicting other policies that actually require us to leave citations off the page (such as WP:DABs) as well as other huge conflicts with sitewide current practices such as creating notable lists with entries that have Wikipedia articles, but no citations. I think Aquillion descibed it best by saying the qualifiers in BURDEN are there for a reason, and I agree with North8000 that those qualifiers are about verifiability, not about inline citations. These discussions never seem to account for the fact that not everything has to be cited, and that lots of things have no need of being cited since it would be easy to verify them. The argument that if something were easy to verify, then it would be easy to cite is a non-sequitur that doesn't make any sense when it comes to DAB's or notable lists because being easy to cite doesn't even apply. Huggums537 (talk) 08:18, 21 April 2023 (UTC) Comment modified byHuggums537 (talk) 03:16, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
P.S. Sorry so critical. I'm just really frustrated because of dealing with this before. I have no idea how the editors who have been here for years are still sane. (Maybe they aren't, and we just don't know it yet...) lol Huggums537 (talk) 08:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Also, another problem with such a broad sweeping statement has already been brought up about how people will want every single sentence with an inline source even if it has already been supported elsewhere in the article just because your proposal says "absolutely any statement" can be "forced" to have an inline citation just by using BURDEN. This could even further be abused to require talk page statements to be sourced since your very broad fix does not distinguish what kinds of statements should be cited, or where on Wikipedia to use them. These kinds of ham-fisted approaches are seldom of any benefit, and are often more harmful than good. Huggums537 (talk) 03:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Make Wikipedia:Verifiable but not false a guideline
Latest comment: 1 year ago31 comments17 people in discussion
There is no guideline that states that incorrect information should be removed. Wikipedia:Verifiable but not false is an explanatory essay. Some of us have been treating it (explicitly or implicitly) as if it were a guideline and removing or correcting incorrect information but in the absence of an actual policy or guideline it is merely an exercise of editorial judgment. (Although WP:BLP talks about "contentious" information, which is defined as "challenged or likely to be challenged", which is generally considered to include erroneous material.) This is not an RfC; as a preliminary I am surveying opinions on whether a proposal to elevate it to guideline status would receive support. Hawkeye7(discuss)00:04, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The essay feels too redundant to be a guideline. I had not read it before now, and most of the principles feel like those that would naturally stem from existing guidelines and policies. For example, it is already uncool to make claims like those given in the essay (e.g. "All Americans think Hitler was evil") because those claims cannot be reliably sourced. The other principles are little more than restatements of WP:DUE, WP:NPOV, or WP:RSAGE. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
While they may seem to stem naturally, the whole point is that we have no commitment to accuracy or correctness. WP:RSAGE is a case in point; we ignore it at MILHIST in favour of WP:FALSE. That is because of the problem of errors being propagated from one (otherwise) reliable source to the next. Hawkeye7(discuss)03:24, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If this is elevated to a guideline, then what will change at MILHIST? If the problem is how an editor (or project) chooses to handle widely accepted guidelines, then address that directly. If it is not a problem, then we're all good here. If an existing guideline is a problem, then address that. BTW, with your note about no commitment to accuracy or correctness, I think you're getting at a much deeper philosophical problem that the existing policies and guidelines address: can we ever know what is accurate or correct? If not, we need a way to leverage the world's existing body of information to arrive at a largely consensual representation of a given subject, and I continue to believe that the existing policies and guidelines do that to the best of our ability. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:45, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
What would change is that instead of edits being removed on the grounds that they are unsourced, undue or some other excuse, it will be explicitly stated that they are being removed because they are factually incorrect. Hawkeye7(discuss)02:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
How would an uninvolved editor be able to verify that the statement is factually incorrect? If there are sources that indicate that, why couldn't normal editorial judgment be followed? Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 02:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This essay is not very well written. It's far too confusing as it stands to be elevated to be a guideline. I'd focus on improving the essay first. Jahaza (talk) 00:36, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I do not think it provides anything not already in policies and guidelines. Certainly claims in sources can be removed if later sources contradict them or if we have information they are false. For example, that reliable sources show that some Americans adore Hitler disproves the claim that all Americans consider him to be evil. We could also counter with a source that said most Americans held this view.
This only becomes an issue in my experience when tendentious editors wiki-lawyer to include information they know to be false. For example, a secondary source may misstate what was said in a primary source. The solution is for editors to discuss in good faith. But if someone is determined to push their POV, more rules won't stop them. In fact, it can give them ammunition for wiki-lawyering.
The argument in these cases tends to be that while it is false, it meets our criteria for inclusion based upon widespread use in reliable sources. Hawkeye7(discuss)03:24, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It would help to see a good example of an article that has information known to be false (not merely controversial) yet editors permit the information to stand. I am familiar with some BLP cases where someone claiming to be the subject says "my age is wrong" (or whatever) contrary to all available sources, but even those cases have an established path for resolution. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 23:01, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I have handled a case just like this. An athlete approached me and asked me to fix the incorrect date of birth on her article. To her, this was a big issue, because it was tantamount to an accusation of cheating. She showed me her passport and driver's licence as proof. Unfortunately, this ran afoul of WP:BLP, particularly WP:BLPPRIMARY, which says you are not allowed to use such sources. The origin of the error was easy enough to find: it was a simple typo, but one that had been spread widely by otherwise reliable sources that relied on the original erroneous but usually authoritative one. So what I did was invoke WP:IAR and elevate WP:FALSE over WP:BLP on the grounds that the latter does not improve the encyclopedia. I simply located a site that had the correct birth date and used that as the reference instead. Hawkeye7(discuss)01:18, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This is super frustrating, yeah. Recent example I ran into was The Comfortable Chair -- pretty interesting band. (What's there in the article is a start, needs someone to go digging for the print sources.) Rob Fitzpatrick of The Guardian says Jim Morrison discovered them; he's a respected journalist and seems to be citing from aforementioned print sources. However, User:Midnight12 on the talk page, who says they are a member of the band, says this isn't true. Their contribs suggest that, at the very least, they're not a random drive-by poster. But obviously I have no way of actually verifying that they are who they say they are, or that they just weren't aware at the time. The best I could do was throw a "reportedly" into the copy since, if nothing else, it was reported. But obviously that's kind of a copout. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
As to an article with false information that has been allowed to stand, consider Albert Kesselring, footnote 1. His birth date. Somewhere along the line, a typo crept into a source, and this erroneous information was repeated by several otherwise reliable sources. (The joke among military historians is that history doesn't repeat itself nearly as often as historians do.) A long debate followed with other editors who felt strongly that the article should acknowledge both the correct and the incorrect dates since WP:FALSE is only an essay and we should adopt a neutral point of view on matters of fact. I did not believe that having two birth dates, one which we knew to be incorrect, would benefit the readers in any way. The footnote represents the resulting compromise. "Albrecht" as a first name derives from Kenneth Macksey, who erroneously believed that it was the German form of "Albert". Again, the error has been propagated to other sources. Kirsten von Lingen wrote that this was "plain wrong", but another editor felt that saying so was non-neutral, so that comment was removed. Hawkeye7(discuss)01:18, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I had a related experience in a death discussion about about Marilyn Monroe's sister Berniece Baker Miracle. As an aside, the Monroe page itself is a remarkable and featured work; related pages get special scrutiny, and rightly so. Based on less-than-reliable sources the BLP subject had died, but the only source we could present was Find-a-grave (with several photographs of her gravestone). This went on for some months and put Wikipedia in the awkward but never unique situation of hosting outdated, incorrect and potentially damaging information about a BLP. BusterD (talk) 08:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Editorial discretion along current guidelines seems better for such cases. Any guideline about truth is bait for RGW-style arguments, and we say verifiability not truth precisely to avoid those pointless quagmires. We can use editorial discretion to value more recent sources over older ones because they are more likely to be in line with what is currently accepted as correct knowledge, but that doesn't mean what we have is definitely true. CMD (talk) 03:44, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"That statement has been viewed as claiming Wikipedia is, somehow, not concerned with truth." -- Is there really a critical mass of people saying this in good faith? If not, what's the issue? Gnomingstuff (talk) 07:46, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
A very, very, very good essay. Minor grips over wording, but it's vital. For example, recently, I found one book that said Steve Wozniak used 45 chips on a circuit board; another book said 42 (a magazine said 44...) Then I found a Woz interview where he says: I got it down to 42, but it went back to 45 before it ran well. I could have just flipped a coin and picked a number, but now the discrepancy has been resolved.
Secondary sources routinely publish errors; citogenesis proves that. We've run into peer-reviewed papers and scholarly books that saw uncited crap on Wikipedia, and repeated it as fact! The whole point of WP:NOTTRUTH was to dumb-down WP:OR so even fringe-pushers can understand it. But we have a huge audience, and it would be irresponsible to punt the accuracy question to our sources, without exercising nuanced editorial judgment. Bad-faith editors can misuse WP:FALSE, but they can misuse anything. Tracking down and reconciling potential factual mistakes in source is what any responsible, thoughtful editor "should" do, and "should's" are what guidelines are for. DFlhb (talk) 01:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Right now we basically have three categories of this type of thing. Policies and guidelines (which in shorthand are sort of "rules") and then thousands of essays which anybody can get lost in and usually remain obscure unless they have a short catchy name to link to within sentences. We need another category of highly exclusive highly vetted pages. Some will be guiding principles, too general to be specifically invoked in disputes (as guidelines and policies are) . I think that this would contain things like 5 Pillars and this proposal. The other group would be highly vetted explanatory essays that describe how Wikipedia is and operates. North8000 (talk) 19:33, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I agree there needs to be a level between "guideline" and "essay", because "essay" at this point can either mean "this is so frequently referenced it's effectively a guideline" (e.g. WP:BLUESKY) or it can mean "this is one editor's opinion" (e.g. Wikipedia:Avoid negative claims) or it can mean anything in between (e.g. WP:POSA, which by the very fact it can find so many examples clearly has not achieved wiki-wide consensus). Loki (talk) 23:51, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Good points, but they point to more fundamental changes needed. Your essay is a good start in some of those areas. In cases where objective accuracy exists, we need to modify folklore to say that wp:ver is a means to that end, not the end. The other folklore that we need to get rid of is that editorial judgement (within the guardrails) (e.g. to resolve dilemmas like you describe) is illegitimate or banned in Wikipedia. Finally we need to establish that source reliability is context-specific, that it relates to objectivity and expertise with respect to the text which cited it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:52, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Someone asked above for examples of articles where information was verifiable but false; I can provide a couple:
A source says Fallon Fox had surgery at "Bangkok National Hospital", but if you look for more information about that hospital, most of what you'll find is about Fox (parroting that initial source) or else unreliable miscellany, because AFAICT Bangkok National Hospital doesn't exist: the original source apparently made a mistaken assumption about what the full name of the national hospital in Bangkok that's called "BNH" is — the hospital is actually named Bangkok Nursing Home hospital. In that case, after another editor raised the issue on talk, I changed the article to just say "a hospital in Bangkok" since this is verifiable and the exact hospital name is unimportant trivia, but no reliable sources have the correct name. (Possibly even the detail that Fox had surgery in Thailand is removable trivia, but that's a separate issue.)
Qasem Soleimani's article faced at least two such issues: some reliable sources said he was the first person in Iran honored with a multi-city funeral (but this is false, since other notable people were previously honored with multi-city funerals as discussed in other RS, but these other RS predate and weren't about Soleimani, so technically might be WP:SYNTH), so editorial discretion was used to drop that claim. And one US intelligence source said he was born in Qoms province, but other RS say he was born in Kerman province; he lived his early life in Kerman, and when he was buried in his birthplace, that was Kerman province, so I downgraded "Qoms" to a footnote, but the idea that he might've been born in Qoms still made its way citogenetically into some later news articles, so it might be better to just drop the wrong information.
I sympathize with the idea that it would be useful to have a note somewhere explicitly stating that Wikipedia strives to be accurate. But I share the concern expressed above that making an explicit guideline or policy besides WP:V would encourage edit wars ("sure, RS all say Trump / Xi / Kim Jong Un / Qanon / etc did X, but I know it's not true so I'm removing it per NOTFALSE!!"). -sche (talk) 22:22, 15 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I understand this concern, but the point is that in removing information simply because it is false, you are indeed removing it per WP:NOTFALSE! This is acting although WP:NOTFALSE already has guideline status. Hawkeye7(discuss)19:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's permissible to remove information simply because it's false, and if we have a rule that says otherwise, then that rule needs fixing.About a dozen years ago I fought tooth and nail to get "verifiability, not truth" removed from policy because it's important that we try to tell the truth. I also think that we block and ban people who lie. Oh sure, we have all these fig leaves about consensus and pretexts involving disruptive behaviour and advocacy and POV-pushing, but actually, underneath it all, there's a real distinction between people who're here to educate and inform on the one hand, and people who're here to propagandise, advertise and misinform on the other.—S MarshallT/C08:10, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The problem is that one person's "truth" may be another person's "lie". How then are we to determine that content that someone wants to remove because they say it is false is indeed false? If there is no citation to a reliable source, such content can be removed. But, if we allow someone to remove content that is supported by a citation to a reliable source because they say it is false, how do we know that it is indeed false, and not just a mistaken opinion of the editor who wants the content removed? That is why I supported "verifiability, not truth", because, all too often, "truth" is in the eye of the beholder. Donald Albury13:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. "Verifiability, not truth" is a powerful statement. It's the secret to avoiding a constant high-temperature flame war and has the not inconsiderable benefit of actually being better for favoring true content over false content, and honestly should be placed back on WP:V in big bold letters. Anyway, given that Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth is technically only an essay at the moment, it only seems reasonable that this kind of essay have the same status. Obviously, the truth is important, but the kind of stance suggested by NOTFALSE just gives a big bludgeon to the worst cranks & POV-peddlers who want to argue about whether their fringe theory is true or not. VNT refocuses the debate onto "fine, whatever, let's say it's true, who's actually published it in the mainstream. Nobody? I guess we can't have that on Wikipedia yet." The actually good faith editors interested in truth can work fine under both a VNT and a NOTFALSE system, but the fringe theorists tend to be deterred better by VNT and encouraged by something like NOTFALSE. SnowFire (talk) 05:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
VNT was deliberately removed from wp:ver after a gigantic RFC. Actually two gigantic RFC's with the same result. North8000 (talk) 19:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. SnowFire says it better than I could. "True" and "False" are both loaded and subjective terms that get in the way of writing a verifiable encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 10:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Don't try to ground rationales in underlying "truth". It's a problem. Truthwarriors often know full well that the article matches the sources, they want to push their POV in articles by ranting that the sources are biased or wrong. I have successfully brought peace to some of these hellholes by firmly explaining Wikipedia policy requires our content to be an accurate summary of what Reliable Sources say, explaining that they need to find sources to back up their claims, explaining that their truth-arguments simply do not work here, explaining that under policy we are required to ignore their truth-arguments. We have abundant methods for keeping bad content out. One often noted method is simple editorial discretion to leave out anything we consider not useful to the reader. An often overlooked point is that a "generally reliable" source does not imply reliability for every individual claim in that source. Even the best sources apply a lower standard of care to minor incidental details, and available evidence can be considered when evaluating the care applied on that specific point. Something that appears to be a typo or simple mistake fails our Reliability standard, regardless of whether it's "true". Alsee (talk) 07:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
RfC on a procedural community desysop
Latest comment: 1 year ago419 comments153 people in discussion
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Although rare, there are situations where the community has consensus that an administrator should be blocked indefinitely, or at least for a significant period. In those circumstances, this proposal suggests that administrators who have been blocked for more than 28 days do not hold the trust of the community and therefore the sysop userright should be removed procedurally alongside inactivity desysops. WormTT(talk) 14:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
On the first day of the month, any administrator who is blocked and has been blocked for more than 28 days will have their administrator user-right procedurally removed (alongside inactivity removals). Administrators who have their sysop user right removed in this manner are not eligible to simply request return at the bureaucrats' noticeboard, but may appeal the removal to the Arbitration Committee. The administrator may regain their administrative permissions through a successful request for adminship.
Survey (Proposal: Procedural community desysop)
Support as proposer. Recent events have brought home to me that we are still lacking in ways to handle poor behaviour by administrators. I believe that as a community, we have consensus that an indefinitely / long term blocked administrator does not hold the trust of the community. However, in those situations, the only place to remove the toolkit is Arbcom (or waiting 12 months). I see no reason why such a removal shouldn't happen more quickly, and no reason that Arbcom needs to be involved if it does. Instead, I'm suggesting that we have a 1 month period, which allows for cooling off, then removal as part of the next automatic removals, no request necessary, no fuss, no mess. WormTT(talk) 14:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I'm speaking as an admin here. If my conduct as an editor warranted any sort of long term block of a month or so, I should not be trusted with the admin tools any longer. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The reasoning here sounds straightforward to me. It seems rather easy to become an Admin these days, based on some of the pro/con discussion I have seen this year regarding length and depth of candidate editing experience. So, I can certainly understand some people getting carried away and behaving "poorly". Martindo (talk) 06:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Pointless. A blocked admin can't (since 2018) unblock themselves, and if they're blocked indefinitely, they'll just be auto-de-adminned when the time comes around. I find it difficult to think of a situation where this process would be useful. --Jayron3214:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support with revisions to clarify "blocked". In exceptional circumstances we might pblock a sysop from a small number of pages but still want them to continue as a sysop -- I feel that "blocked" in this case should mean "blocked from the entire mainspace".—S MarshallT/C14:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I'm having a hard time picturing under what circumstances we might want to pblock somebody yet still trust them enough to hold a mop. -- RoySmith(talk)14:33, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The community has rejected the idea of an admin being desysoped due to a partial ban. Don't see why a single page block should be any stronger in this context. Animal lover|666|20:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support. The choice to only desysop on the first of the month concerns me as it could lead to some controversial situations; an admin blocked for 50 days on the 5th of March will remain an admin, while an admin blocked for 30 days on the 2nd of March will not. I find it hard to justify this, as for blocks of under two months whether an admin remains an admin becomes random chance. However, this isn't enough for me to oppose this proposal as I believe it is important to have a process to address situations where admins have so clearly lost the trust of the community. BilledMammal (talk) 14:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It appears to me from Worm That Turned's vote that it would happen during the normal automatic removals, I'm assuming that means the others happen on the first of the month, so no need to create extra work. But you have a good sentiment Happy Editing--IAmChaos16:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in principle but Oppose in its current form. I don't get why this needs to be tied to a specific day on the calendar. But more than that, it allows for stealth desysops. Let's say I block bradv. He's been inactive for 9 months, so he's not going to notice. If nobody else happens to notice, come June 1st, he'll get desysopped. I assume that's not your intent, but as written, it's what would happen. This could be fixed by adding a requirement that in addition to blocking brad, I would have to post a notice to WP:AN to start the clock ticking. Then it essentially becomes WP:PROD for admins. -- RoySmith(talk)14:32, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
OK, it's been demonstrated to me that blocks do show up on watchlists, and I'm sure every admin's talk page is watchlisted by lots of people, so that satisfies my concern about stealth blocks. I still don't get why this needs to be tied to a specific day on the calendar (and if it must be, at least make it the ides) but that's not enough to me to oppose. -- RoySmith(talk)15:07, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Interestingly, I did consider putting together a proposal about blocking administrators as part of this, which included a notice to AN. But I didn't feel it was necessary. That said, I really don't like the idea that administrators get an automatic AN review if blocked, creating a "class structure" - we already have supermario issues, which is something I'm trying to address.
If you are concerned about blocking inactive admins, well, yes, it's possible, but most admins userpage's are watchlisted by multiple people - a stealth block would be noticed. Even if it wasn't, this is something that the appeals process would be quick to fix. WormTT(talk) 14:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Does watching somebody's user page generate a watchlist notice? Normally, a block is accompanied by a talk page notice, but it doesn't have to be. Could you please block User:RoySmith-testing without any explicit notice? I'm watching their user page. Let's see if I get a notice. -- RoySmith(talk)14:53, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
× Block log 14:57:29 Barkeep49 talk contribs block changed block settings for RoySmith-testing talk contribs blocking the page User:RoySmith/Three best sources with an expiration time of 2023-04-17T17:56:33 (autoblock disabled) (requested for testing purposes by User:RoySmith) (unblock | change block)
Oppose in this form. (a) it isn't clear that 28 days is enough for a good-faith unblock request in complicated cases and we shouldn't let stalling an unblock turn into a desysop (b) why not just escalate to ArbCom after the 28 days? (c) would any block trigger this? —Kusma (talk) 14:38, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I also note that no discussion is required, meaning that the mechanism is - in theory - not implementing a "community desysop" but a "single admin PROD-like desysop". I know that this will likely play out differently in practice, but there should be safeguards against the proposed mechanism. —Kusma (talk) 15:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support If editor has been blocked for more than a month, especially if that block gets confirmed by the community which I suspect it would in a majority of these cases, they shouldn't be an admin anymore. This is true even if the block is for less than an indef or a year, to address Jayron's question about why not wait for the current inactivity to desysop. I see this as an important way for the community to take some control over the deysop practice, something I have long favored. The presence of this in policy would be an important way of combatting the super mario effect as there is now some incentive for an admin to block, as they would anyone else, an admin who has breached policy rather than just go "well it's for arbcom to sort out". As to the idea that it takes someone longer than 28 days to formulate an appeal, they can still appeal the decision: by re-running for RfA. If the community wants to be able to handle some desysops on its own, and it's my fervernt hope that it does, then we need to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and support reasonable proposals like this as first steps towards building community capacity around merit based desysops and showing concerned editors that the community can handle these issues, not just arbcom. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - I'm not quite sure why it's necessary to wait for 28 days. If we're going to go in this direction, then it seems to me that a CBAN of an admin should carry with it an automatic immediate desysop, which, after all, can always be undone if necessary - but, that being said, this proposal is certainly better than the situation we have now, where there's absolutely no way for the community to desysop an admin (despite the fact that it's the community which creates the admin in the first place, via RfA). Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I don't agree. A block of an admin would be reviewed by the community. It wouldn't happen based on a single admin's view - or rather, it wouldn't stick for over a month based on a single admins view. WormTT(talk) 15:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Admins are part of the community - what's more, if you have a consensus of non-admins at say, WP:AN, we can be confident that an admin would implement it. The only way this works is with consensus, and with our current practises. WormTT(talk) 15:56, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I am rather uncomfortable with how many implicit assumptions about the functioning of the community and the current practises are part of this proposal. —Kusma (talk) 16:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
+1 - it seems unclear to me why a community desysop process does not actually require the community to weigh in, and only assumes that it will. Galobtter (talk) 19:03, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose If we wish to devise a procedure for community-instituted de-sysop, we should devise a procedure for community-instituted de-sysop (with appropriate safeguards). The proposed process will only mean that editors will be encouraged to !vote at for a month or longer block at WP:AN when they believe that the admin should be de-sysoped (irrespective of whether they believe that a block itself is necessary) since that is the only procedural loophole they have been granted to achieve the desired end. Why introduce such a de-sysoping through wink-and-a-nod process? Abecedare (talk) 15:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
All editors have safeguards if they are wrongly blocked or they wrongly lose a permission. I do not believe administrators should get extra safeguards and I do not believe that someone who has had conduct worth a 28+ day block fulfills the administrator conduct policy and thus should not be an admin. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:12, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, if I was not clear enough. My argument is not that admins with long blocks should not be desysoped (frankly, I can't imagine a scenario, except for self-requested blocks, when they shouldn't be) or that admins need extra-safeguards from being blocked (they don't!). My objection is that a >28-day block should not be a necessary intermediate step for a community-instituted desysop. If the community wishes to desyspo an admin they should !vote for it explicitly rather than be forced/encouraged to !vote for a > 28-day block with the understanding that such a block would eventually lead to the desired end, i.e., a desysop. (I think I may be repeating myself, so if you or anyone wishes to discuss this separately we can do so at my talk-page w/o taking too much space here.) Abecedare (talk) 15:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Abecedare I would absolutely support a direct community desysop proposal, but as yet, we have not found one that can gain consensus (even though mor than one have had majority support). I am not sure that opposing something you agree with because you see a potential something tangentially better is a good idea though. Is that not the definition of perfection getting in the way of good? WormTT(talk) 15:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I'm an admin. I got blocked. A lot of people asked me to appeal, so I did, apologising for bad conduct (I was going through a horrible time in my personal life, leading me to lash out completely unnecessarily in complete violation of WP:ADMINCOND) and I was unblocked, easily within a week. If you can't successfully file an appeal within 28 days, you probably shouldn't be an admin. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)15:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. Although I think this proposal does not go far enough. In practice this sounds similar to a community admin de-sysop process in two steps (Admins getting blocked - 28 day period for the procedural desysop) and I would like more discussion on a robust system based around considering it as a single process (but presumably higher thresholds to implement). That discussion does not have to be now or on this survey, but I think more community power to desysop admins is a good thing. Soni (talk) 15:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Ah, I see how I missed it. I forgot links are marked as "read" on my browser if I follow it from anywhere, not just from CENT specifically. Thanks for clarifying. Soni (talk) 15:50, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. This proposal reminds me of the one linking desysops with community restrictions, which resulted in a clear consensus against.Despite the supporters' best intentions, this worsens the "unblockable" and "Super Mario" effects, given that the proposed policy increases the consequences of blocking an administrator and further discourages it. If the proposal prevents even one administrator from being blocked when they should be, then it is not worth it: administrators must be held accountable for their actions. We elect the Arbitration Committee so that it can handle requests for removal of administrative tools. That grave responsibility should not be borne by a single editor.When Special:Block is opened, one needs to be convinced that imminent or continuing damage and disruption to Wikipedia will be prevented. That is the main concern. That decision-making process, which is already clouded by the fact that a user with social capital is being blocked, should not be impaired by secondary questions over whether an administrator is fit to continue holding that access.Administrators must be held accountable. But this is not the answer. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Not sure I agree with you on the top line but I really appreciate your well reasoned and concise argument. I think its so important that people look beyond just the question in front of us and try to fit the current proposal into the big picture. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict) Oppose This proposal allows admins to near-unilaterally desysop another one, unless a review of the block is brought up at AN/I which won't always happen even if a block is controversial. It also makes blocks of an admin greater than 28 days unnecessarily more contentious. I am willing to support a method for the community to desysop an admin, but it should unconditionally require community discussion. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 16:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Currently, a blocked admin would be subject to a standard block review. With this proposal, they will be subject to a community desysop review, a very different beast for which there is no precedent. It is quite a new ability for any single admin to initiate a community desysop review. —Kusma (talk) 16:47, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Question - Does anyone have a number for how many times an admin has been blocked >28 days and arbcom hasn't quickly and easily stepped in to remove permissions? Seems like a reasonable proposal, but has it ever been needed? — Rhododendritestalk \\ 16:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This feels a bit like a chicken and the egg. Recently, for instance, Athaenara could have been desysopped under this proposal rather than the arbcom motion which happened. One virtue of this proposal, which I didn't mention above, is that I think it would save some time and community drama - even an ArbCom case request is high on both. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I reviewed the list of current admins; the only one who this would have affected would be Smartse, who was blocked for 78 days per their own request to enforce a wikibreak. BilledMammal (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
But raises the question of whether it's sensible to de-sysop for requesting a wikibreak. Imagine someone on a military deployment: "Thank you for requesting that your account be blocked while you know you won't be able to use it. By the way, we're going to de-sysop you." Thank you for your service, indeed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I'm unsure as to whether to support the proposal as a whole, but it would need an exemption for an admin in good standing who requested to be blocked. Certes (talk) 10:01, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
...especially as an adept wikilawyer would sidestep this measure by resigning their adminship before requesting a block, then re-request sysop when they return. Certes (talk) 10:07, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Part of me wants to support this as a sorta-kinda community desysop process. Rather than "should this person be desysopped" it's "should this person be blocked for exactly 29 days? wink wink what I mean?" My concerns are (a) that the illusion of a community desysop process will lead arbcom to defer to the community for some cases, when it seems like arbcom is doing alright with the extreme cases already (such as those requiring a long block); (b) I'm not sure why it would reduce drama. Anytime someone with a lot of experience gets blocked for one day (nevermind a month or more), it leads to a ton of drama. It's the block more than the desysop, right?; (c) Isn't this easy enough to handle on a case-by-case basis? A desysop can be carried out by arbcom motion, and that should be relatively straightforward in the case of someone blocked for a month. On the other hand, requiring an action by arbcom means there's room for judgment to handle exceptional cases like a requested block. Not sure. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 12:51, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. If an admin is indef/long-term blocked and has been so for more than 28 days, I don't think it could be read in any other way than they've lost the trust of the community. An ArbCom request in such a case would be little more than a rubber stamp (as I can't see ArbCom reversing such a strong community action), so this would really just save time and effort for the same ultimate result. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Voluntary relinquishment due to taking a break or leaving Wikipedia would still allow for requesting privileges to be re-granted without a request for administrative privileges, within the bounds of the activity requirements. isaacl (talk) 15:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. The community appoints admins. If it can be trusted to do that, it can be trusted to remove them. The proposed conditions under which this would occur seem entirely reasonable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:50, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The community has been doing an absolutely terrible job at appointing admins (extremely conservative and unforgiving of small mistakes). —Kusma (talk) 16:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think that's true, yes. But I wonder if it's another side of the same thing - if theres no community way to get rid of an admin, does it make people at RfA a lot more cautious and demanding? (I really don't know, just pondering out loud.) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
We've had years of people clamouring against "admins for life" and we have recently made it harder to retain admin status, offending a few low-activity oldtimer admins. It doesn't seem to have made people less cautious. I don't think admin-PROD is going to make any difference to RfA either. —Kusma (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support If an admin needs to b e blocked, and the block sticks, they are obviously unfit to be an admin. We don't need a month-long committee case to make decisions this obvious. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:00, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - this accounts for appeals happening and so on, so is fine. For the sake of clarity, this can be taken to oppose any alternate standard that might be picked out from this discussion (obviously I'll amend if I see a good one, just to avoid missing a discussion). Nosebagbear (talk) 17:01, 17 April 2023 (UTC) Since we have broken out new ideas as they arise, !vote adjusted to just this one. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:58, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hesitant support. I have several concerns here. First, that this will raise the stakes for blocking an admin, which is already hard enough: but we don't do it very often, so perhaps it's not a concern. Second, per Abecedare above, that we're not going far enough; but I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good either. Finally I'm concerned that the ARBCOM appeal clause defangs this proposal. If the intention is that a full ARBCOM case should not be necessary step to a desysop, we're making it to easy for this to end up in ARBCOM's lap anyway. I suppose the burden is shifted from the community to the admin, so perhaps it's a shift for the better; but I'm unconvinced this is going to be a big change in that respect. Ultimately, though, yes, an admin blocked for more than 28 days should likely be desysopped. So I land here. Vanamonde (Talk)17:35, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. I'm a bit worried that this will incentivize admins/the community to make blocks that wouldn't otherwise need to be made, but I also strongly agree with what Ritchie333 is implying below: that holding out for the perfect proposal means we end up stuck with an even less desirable status quo. I believe this proposal will remove admins who need to be removed and will not remove admins who don't need to be removed, all while furthering admin accountability to the community, which is important to me. That means it's likely to be on net an improvement, and I support things that are improvements even if my ideal desysop proposal might read differently. And if this system doesn't work, I have no doubt that the community will be capable of revising or repealing it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 17:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support per nom. This doesn't seem likely to solve much since I can't imagine very many admins are blocked for a month, return to editing, and don't resign the tools. But as a few of the supporters have alluded to, even a miniscule tightening of the rules for administrators who have clearly lost community trust (and anyone remotely high-profile here who is blocked for a month has very clearly lost the community's trust) is a net-positive. Even if its only real effect is to show that we can agree on something. Ajpolino (talk) 18:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Is this really a "community" desysop process? That is, if most of the power is with admins, can it even really be called a community process? The proposal ostensibly starts with a case where "the community has consensus that an administrator should be blocked indefinitely, or at least for a significant period". But the actual proposal doesn't require any sort of community consensus that the admin be blocked. Yes, any block that's in anyway not obvious will almost certainly go to the community within 28 days, but it still gives the power to admins to start the desysop process. I also note that WP:CTOP blocks can be unilaterally imposed and require a "clear consensus" to lift, so we could have a situation where 60% of the community disagrees with a block but that still results in a desysop. Imagine also being the closer of such a discussion and having the almost unilateral power to decide if someone gets desysopped. Yes, there's the safeguard of "may appeal the removal to the Arbitration Committee" but in a proposal meant to save time I only see more drama and time being wasted in any controversial case.I also think this makes blocking admins worse, both in them not being blocked and in them being unnecessarily blocked. As Sdrqaz eloquently explains, this makes blocking admins more troublesome. But I also think this could result in admins being unnecessarily blocked just so they can be desysopped. Someone brought up Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Neelix as one case where this could be useful. But I note that Neelix was never blocked for more than a few days until well after the case, and I don't think a block should have been imposed just to cause a desysop - often times, a community restriction is all that is actually needed. I think there's a case of Goodhart's law here - I'm not and I don't think anyone is disputing that an admin blocked for more than 28 days is unfit to be an admin, but I think using that as a the only measure will cause more problems than it will solve.To be honest, I'm not convinced there's any particular need this is addressing. ArbCom has only seemed more and more willing to de-sysop over the past few years (and I've generally seen this as a good thing). The main argument seems to be that this will save a full case in obvious cases, but ArbCom literally just de-sysopped by motion without requiring a case (after a lot of hemming and hawing to be fair). And that was in a case where the community even rejected an indefinite block, so less obvious than any case this proposal addresses. I honestly think all we need is ArbCom being more willing to desysop by motion in obvious cases and the community supporting that. Galobtter (talk) 19:00, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
WeakSupportOppose"Support" reasons are those given by the nom and because it's something."Weak" Oppose because this we need stronger more routine community reviews rather than focusing on desysop, and this one is for even rarer cases when they blew it as an editor rather than aqs an admin. We need to strengthen WP:Administrative action review and take the "poison pills" out of it. And add to it more admin conduct issues. And the most common results would be mere findings and guidance and maybe a few trouts. North8000 (talk) 20:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"Safe" but so specialized/ unlikely to get used that it's not worth the diversion and complexity of creating. North8000 (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The next admin block/unblock will be a de facto desysop discussion, and we have no rules at all how to deal with these, so we'll just make the rules up as we go along on ANI. That is a terrible way to make sound policies. —Kusma (talk) 21:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. I disagree with Sdrqaz that this will make the WP:SUPERMARIO effect worse. To the contrary, I believe it will help by linking the "normal" way of dealing with conduct issues (blocks) with the loss of tools. Otherwise, this is a sensible, if imperfect, proposal. I think Tamzin's concern can and should be easily solved by specifying the block must be non-voluntary. And I would rather have a clause delaying the removal of the bit if there is an appeal ongoing: there shouldn't be a race-against-the-clock to form consensus within the next 24 hours at AN before a new RfA is required to regain the mop. I also think it would be cleaner to simply specify that losing the tools in this way counts as losing them under a cloud, instead of separately explaining how one can regain the tools after losing them in this way. But perfect cannot be the enemy of progress. HouseBlastertalk21:45, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Just after I hit publish, I realized the significance of something WTT said above: "(or waiting 12 months)". One off-the-rails admin can already issue a block that will eventually result in the removal of the bit. Heck, anyone can hop over to ANI and seek consensus for an indef ban, which would result in them losing the tools after a year. All this proposal does is lower the amount of time it takes before the tools are removed. Do you think someone who is blocked for more than 28 days but less than a year deserves access to the tools? I don't think so. HouseBlastertalk21:54, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support Without reservations. This has been desperately needed for 20 years. The process itself can be amended later if needed but we need SOMETHING here. The idea the community can elect admins but never remove them without appealing to ArbCom is backwards and always has been. - Who is John Galt?✉21:47, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose - I support the idea of a process for community desysop. But this isn't it. First, 28 days is way too short a time period. This should be a year at least, and only in the case of a ban. Second, as we have shown through adding things like partial blocks, what an editor does in one place may not disqualify them from being able to positively help out in other ways. And so, just being blocked for reason A, should necessarily mean that the admin tools should be removed. Due to the idea of escalation blocks, should someone who receives a 30-day block suddenly lost the tools? Also, there's a difference between a block and a ban - and this is intentional. So no, we should not be removing tools merely due to an arbitrary time period of a block. To be clear, I think I might have supported this if the time period was "a year and a day", and if it was a "community ban", not merely a block. - jc3722:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Jc37 If an admin doesn't edit for a year, say, because they're blocked - they already have their admin rights removed. But I can guarantee, that there would be community uproar and an arbcom case before that happened. This simply gives a procedural option, shortening the time period, meaning that Arbcom need not be involved. WormTT(talk) 07:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@WTT - 28 days is way too short. It needs to be at least longer than the 6 months of the Wikipedia:Standard offer. To do otherwise is just inherently wrong. And, in practice (based upon actual requests I've seen), longer than a year is what's more likely, if the community is willing. Hence my "a year and a day". If you think there would be an uproar and this needs encoding, then let's please have that discussion. And what everone's been saying here about a single admin essentially making this happen - that really just sounds like a bad idea. And setting aside the act itself, I think adding this to the mix will rachet up the drama. That's a time sink that we can avoid, I think, by making this a community ban rather than merely a block. - jc3707:48, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Jc37, I understand where you're coming from, as I say, we already remove for inactivity after a year, block or ban. So, in my eyes, your suggestion is moving further away from the goal of a community desysop without Arbcom. Why is (at least) 28 days too short? It allows for absence, cooling off, negotiation, self imposed / community imposed sanctions or any other dispute resolution. A month is considered a reasonable period for discussion at almost every venue I can think of. WormTT(talk) 07:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If that's all true, why then do we wait 6 months for the Standard offer? I think that community has already set the absolute minimum length of time there, and really, even there, it suggests longer. What does it say about us if we say: "It's been 30 days - you've done your time and now are unblocked, but we don't trust you any more." ? Useight (below) was very right that this just screams punitive. Where's the fire? - jc3708:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support per Ritchie333 and Beeblebrox. In the extremely unlikely event that someone was blocked for >28 days, and was not unblocked before that period elapsed, but did still have the trust of the community then they could demonstrate this trust to arbcom who would grant the appeal and/or they would easily pass a new RFA. Thryduulf (talk) 23:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think that's a bit of circular reasoning. That could be said of anyone for any reason. For example: "If they have the community's trust then they would easily pass a new RFA, so we should have daily RfAs for admins."... - jc3723:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Well daily is hyperbole, but I fully support having reconfirmation RFAs when someone figures out how to get community consensus for a scalable process. Thryduulf (talk) 00:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Supportwith caveats. An admin who has been blocked in good faith for more than 28 days should just not be an admin. If they haven't been able to appeal their block in that time, then they don't have the support of the community, and they should be demopped until they can demonstrate support in a reconfirmation RFA. What we're proposing here is a desysop related to clear misconduct; WP:CLOUD should apply. These shouldn't be procedural with the right to regain the tools upon request, like inactivity desysops are. If I block someone and take away their pagemover userright for out-of-process moves, they don't just get it back when the block expires, they have to make a new WP:PERM request and demonstrate suitability all over again. There's no way admins should be held to a lesser standard than that. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:30, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Ivanvector, the proposal already covers this with Administrators who have their sysop user-right removed in this manner are not eligible to simply request return at bureaucrat's noticeboard, right? Or is there something else you'd prefer? Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:35, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose just because I think this is going to end in wheel wars. I would support automatic removal of sysop on a successful community ban that was widely participated in, however. It should also be made clear that ArbCom is still an option to result in a desysop. --Rschen775400:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I'm not surprised to see an editor, like yourself, who was around for the wild west days bring this up but it strikes me as not part of our current culture. The last time we had a true wheel war was Fred Bauder, no? I feel WHEEL is properly understood to be a brightline desysop offense these days and so admins just don't do it. In this situation the third mover would be someone reinstating a block so losing your admin bits to try to make sure someone else loses theirs would be a choice. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
We have strong procedures for wheel wars and actually, we haven't seen them in years. Maybe the odd Wheel skirmish, but nothing of the like from Wikipedia's early days. Yes, this proposal risks pushing those procedures, but I think that's worth it. WormTT(talk) 07:32, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose While it might seem intuitive to say that an admin blocked for a month shouldn't be an admin, a block can be instituted by any admin or cabal of admins and I don't agree their decision should overturn the results of an RfA. I don't have that much faith in the sort of admins we have on this website. Chris Troutman (talk)03:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The purpose of a block is to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia. Assuming the block was done properly, then the block is performing that function (that is to say, the user is blocked and therefore cannot damage/disrupt Wikipedia). Having the block do something more is not within the intended scope of a block. I would go so far as to say that this proposal would make 28-day blocks punitive instead of (or in addition to) being preventative. It's unclear to me how removing the bit prevents something that the block doesn't. Useight (talk) 03:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I support a community-based desysop procedure, but only one that has a clearly defined and equally community-based resysop procedure. The proposal as written tries to address potential objections around resysop by splitting the baby and having ArbCom oversee an undefined appeals procedure.Ultimately it comes down to this: if this is procedural and linked to inactivity desysops as the proposal is hinting at, then an individual should be able to request it back at BN. If it is actually a community-based disciplinary procedure, +sysop should only be able to be restored via RfA, not by ArbCom.Worm, I'm assuming you wrote this proposal as something that would address potential objections and could pass (i.e. the objection that there's no procedural protection, so leaving the option of an appeal on one hand, and then the objection that if it is procedural it can just be re-requested on the other.) The problem is that the resysop provisions try to have it both ways, and the real crux of any desysop proposal is the resysop provisions (removing the flags are easy; the question is who can get them back.)I would support some version of this with resysop provisions that are clearly defined and aren't ambiguous and subject to a relatively opaque ArbCom appeal process - whether that be requiring RfA, or allowing restoration at BN. But the current language will cause drama when someone is desysoped after 28 days, is unblocked on day 29, and then goes to ARCA or even emails the mailing list. If this is going to be community based, resysop must be community based too. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I accept that the Arbcom appeal process is opaque, and you are right, I put it in to address potential concerns. The point of the committee is to deliberate, and I'm sure the group could make a decision on whether the procedural removal should have happened - which will go back to whether the block was valid in the first place. I'd also welcome expansion of that clause to whatever the community wished (from ability to raise a full case to only appeal in absolute obvious circumstances, eg bad block that somehow stuck) - or indeed the complete removal of the clause. I am against allowing restoration at BN, but RfA being the only option here would be fine by me. WormTT(talk) 07:30, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Blocks are a technical measure to prevent imminent or likely damage to Wikipedia. This proposal would turn them into a proxy for a high-stakes disciplinary process. That is not the purpose of the block feature. It is ArbCom's job to desysop users, and in the rare cases in which the community keeps an admin blocked for more than a month I find it difficult to imagine that ArbCom would not take up an appropriate motion, as they recently did in the Dbachmann case. Sandstein 11:32, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I originally thought I would oppose this, but ultimately an action serious enough to warrant a 4 week block is one that would have led me to oppose at an RFA, and by extension should be enough to indicate that the user shouldn't be an admin. I understand that mistakes happen, but at this length it isn't a minor infraction or one-off issue, and there's been time for appeals and considerations. So yes, I'm ok with this, and oddly enough I'm more ok with this than some of the issues that I've seen result in a desysop via Arbcom. That said, if it is easier to remove admin rights I wish it was also easier to grant them, but perhaps one needs to be modified to fix the other. - Bilby (talk) 11:45, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support with perhaps an exception that a self-imposed block should not trigger the desysop. But if an admin is blocked for cause and can't find an unblock from any other admin in a month, that's prima facie evidence of having lost the community's trust. Courcelles (talk) 13:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - First choice as compared to the alternate proposal below. There's nothing I can really add that hasn't already been said. Other than Fnord. --⛵ WaltClipper-(talk)15:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak Oppose per Jayron32. This seems more like a solution in search of a problem than an actual need. If someone can show me a need, i.e. where an admin really needed to be de-sysopped and existing procedure failed to do it, I could be convinced to support. Dave (talk) 16:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support This proposal won't really solve the problem of unaccountable admins or the need for a community desysop procedure, and will in practice probably never be used. But it's something, and really, it should work this way regardless. Writ Keeper⚇♔17:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support per above. If an editor with admin rights gets blocked for a month, they're clearly not fit to be an admin -FASTILY19:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose This is prescribing punishment without due process, and would incentivize wheel warring. We need to come up with more than just the outcome. We need a set, agreed upon way of removing adminship in the first place. Just because someone has been in jail for a month does not make them guilty. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓20:30, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose mainly per Sandstein. This proposal is outside the traditional use of the block tools. It seems like a method for reducing Arb's workload, which isn't really that high anyway. I think if you are going to desysop someone, some kind of process needs to take place. Since desysopping via Arb really isn't that difficult, it needs to stay there. Arb has virtually unlimited tools, from full cases, suspend and desysop, hear and keep the bit, admonish, or sanction. Arb has shown they can do it in less than 28 days. Pushing it off onto the blocking admin and a calendar seems to be a cheap substitute for fair process, and frankly, seems a bit lazy. Dennis Brown - 2¢20:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Upon reading the proposal my inital reaction was to support, but then I read the opposes here and changed my mind. The main argument that convinced me was Useight's point about WP:BLOCKNOTPUNITIVE. This seems like it would expand the block function into something punitive. I do think admins should be held to a higher standard than the average user, but I don't think an expansion of the block is the proper way to bring that about. Patr2016 (talk) 21:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. An admin who is successfully blocked for an extended period almost certainly does not have the trust of the community that is supposed to be the basis for adminship. Contra the "blocks should not be punitive" argument, as User:HouseBlaster points out above, a long enough block could already result in a desysop for inactivity. This is exposing the same result in a shorter timeframe, which is justified for the reason I stated initially. --RL0919 (talk) 06:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The words "could" and "same" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. I have quickly sketched out this process and the inactivity process (apologies if I missed some details) here. There is a scenario in which the result is the same (defined as an administrator being desysopped and requiring a new RFA to get the bit back), but not necessarily (hence the "could"), but it would essentially have to be a two-year block with talkpage access revoked in order to force the same result as this 28-day proposal could do. To be clear, I'm not arguing the merits of this proposal here (as I already have done above), nor the merits of the inactivity policy, as that is not relevant here. I'm asserting that insinuating that this proposal is more or less the same as the inactivity policy applying to a blocked admin, only shorter, is a disingenuous argument. Useight (talk) 15:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose as unnecessary and potentially harmful as a strict policy. Long-term or indefinite blocks of admins are fortunately very rare. The situations where they do happen, and the proposed policy would apply, are already drama-filled, and it is precisely for that reason that it is helpful to have someone like Arbcom reflect on whether continued admin permissions are warranted. I see lots of potential for additional drama from a policy like this one (e.g. keeping a user blocked past the time a block is needed to prevent disruption so that deadminning is triggered). I would support the community validating to Arbcom that admins engaging in behaviour that gets and keeps them blocked long-term is conduct unbecoming and grounds for desysopping, but given this is a rare occurrence I think the additional step of Arbcom weighing the desysop is beneficial and hardly a horrible additional workload. Bottom line: the *behaviour* that leads to a long-term block of an admin is likely grounds for desysopping, but that should be through normal channels for a conduct-related desysop (Arbcom) rather than "procedural". Martinp (talk) 17:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose in it's current form. This seems overly bureaucratic, and makes no mention of specifically being blocked for misconduct as opposed to something like a self-block to enforce a wikibreak or a circumstance where an appeal is ongoing (controversial ones can last longer than 28 days). I'll review the alternates below, but in general I'm opposed to this sort of "automatic" process for anything but housekeeping. The WordsmithTalk to me18:26, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - Recent months have highlighted again the need for some kind of community desysop procedure; while this proposal would not work for all situations, it is an improvement on the current situation. Fundamentally, an admin who has been and remains blocked for 28+ days is not a suitable person to be an admin. The worries about rogue blocks leading to desysops without community input do not worry me - I cannot imagine that one admin blocking another, especially for 28 days, would not makes its way to ANI almost immediately. I would be very happy to add a condition that if the community later overturns the block (as a bad block, rather than a "you've apologised and learned your lesson"), then admin rights can be restored. Equally, I would be happy to put in a hold condition that would pause the process if there is an active, ongoing review of the block. And waiving the procedure for non-bad behaviour blocks (self-requested, for example) would be fine too. WJ94 (talk) 09:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose a rare occurrence like this can be handle by ArbCom. Such a rule would encourage gaming the system (get a long block on an admin you don’t like to end them for good). JehochmanTalk12:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in cases where someone is blocked for that long they should almost certainly be desysopped. Any block like this would be subject to lots of community review anyway and I highly doubt it would be used just to desysop someone. Hut 8.518:20, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose as needless bureaucratic bullsnot to control the flow of power. Rules, restrictions, and more rules on top of more restrictions... This whole site creeps me the bleep out! Huggums537 (talk) 05:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose as pointless - blocking an admin for this period of time happens very rarely, and the one time it did happen (Athaenara) it wouldn't have helped as Arbcom was already pursuing a desysop long before it would have triggered. * Pppery *it has begun...21:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose as I really like the sentiment of the proposal, but I think it would have the opposite of the intended effect. I'm really not worried about wheel warring or covert blocking, since any block of an admin is inevitably going to garner a lot of scrutiny. What I do worry about though is the impact this has on blocking admins. Either the potential desysop consequence is a factor in blocking a sysop, in which case the wonderfully uncontroversial question "have they done something desysoppable" would be introduced to the decision making process behind the block (and you can imagine how many admins want to make unilateral decisions on that). Or, the desysop sanction is not a factor, in which case a) said sanction is punitive, not preventative, and b) any admin that feels compelled to block another admin is opened up to immense drama and inevitable speculation over their motives. The drama that would likely come with a blocked sysop today is already big, and I don't think raising the stakes and adding a timer and an ultimatum on whether to unblock would be an improvement. Giraffer(talk·contribs)14:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose There's too many potential negatives to this, and the reality is the number of cases it could possibly address are vanishingly small, if they exist at all. I don't see a need for more instruction creep to deal with a non-existent problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support My first thought was 'oh, what if it was a bad block?' and some protection needs to exist for that. Also, my second thought was 'let's just block someone for 28 days and there they go, desysopped!' with the intention being the secondary and not the primary...'oh look, 28 days? Desysop!!'. Nonetheless, I hope common sense will be applied to this proposal, as it will make desysopping quicker in some cases when it needs to be. Obviously, an indef block of an admin means goodbye admin rights. That's pretty clear cut. talk to !dave12:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak Oppose - kill the "On the first day of the month" part, if this is going to happen it shouldn't be pegged to a specific day of the month, should just be rolling like everything else in the admin policy. (Now, if it in practice happens a bit late sometimes - no big deal, but if the processor is late and the block has already lapsed then it shouldn't be done either....). In short, this sets up yet another pile of bad timing issues that like to find their way in to the admin policy, cause headaches, and need to eventually be repaired. Try again, — xaosfluxTalk22:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per Stifle who beat me to it. This is a solution in search of a problem. I have confidence that if an admin has been blocked for good cause that the matter will be handled by ARBCOM where they would also have at least an opportunity to present their side rather than being automatically punished in contravention of the community's blocking policy. See also WP:CREEP. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Per Seraphimblade. A month gives plenty of time for Arbcom to sort things out, and if they can't handle desyops in that time, why do we have an Arbcom again? Jclemens (talk) 04:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose both per WP:BLOCKNOTPUNITIVE and per CaptainEek's "just because someone's been in jail for a month doesn't mean they're guilty" argument. I'd support a separate community desysop procedure, but would not support automatically tying it to a block. Loki (talk) 23:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Classic solution in search of a problem. What problem are we trying to solve here? How many times has an administrator been legitimately blocked for 1+ months and didn't subsequently lose the tools? More needs to be done to better define the problem to be solved by this proposed policy change, so that we can gauge whether this is the best solution to that problem. As it stands, the proposed solution is somewhat bizarre, e.g. having it tied to the first day of the month. —ScottyWong— 04:50, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose; the ArbCom exists to deal with these matters. The proposal as written fails to exclude no-cause self-blocks and self-requested blocks. The proposed process could easily be gamed. Sending desysop proposals though the ArbCom avoids gaming and less-than-desirable behavior like pile-ons and partisan !votes at dramah boards. See also WP:CREEP. Baffle☿gab05:46, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose; sounds good on paper, but it just means that admins are able to desysop each other, and given ArbCom exists to deal with these sorts of matters, why don’t we just leave desysops to them. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:16, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose: I've worked at CAT:RFU and introduced a category for idle unblock requests because of the overwhelming amount of unblock requests in the queue that needed some kind of sorting. Even with these, currently 31, idle unblock requests taken out of the main category, there remain 96 open unblock requests as of now. A noticeable amount of these won't reach a decision within the next 28 days, so I'm not sure which allegedly reasonable source that number of days comes from. I'm unhappy with the assumption that an admin's unblock request will surely be handled quicker than the others, skipping the queue as an implicit necessity codified into the desysop procedure. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 06:51, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose we already elect Arbcom to desysop admins when necessary. Re this specific proposal, the only admin who would have been caught by this in recent years was someone requesting a block to enforce a wikibreak. I don't think that we should discourage such wikibreaks in this way, or more likely create huge ANI debates about the blocking of admins who could be more quickly, fairly and less dramatically reviewed and if necessarily desysoped by Arbcom. I'm also concerned that this raises the stakes when blocking admins, especially thirty day blocks in the last couple of days of the month. I think that if anything we should try to reduce the stakes re the blocking of admins, an admin should be blocked in a situation where a non admin would be blocked. ϢereSpielChequers06:57, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. A solution in search of a problem. There is absolutely no evidence that we have a significant number of admins who get blocked for an extended period of time without being desysopped by Arbcom. Moreover, as noted above, this proposal, if implemented, would significantly raise the stakes for blocking an admin. That would increase the amount of drama and gamesmanship surrounding such blocks and likely make such blocks more difficult to impose in practice. Nsk92 (talk) 08:23, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support We say that being an administrator is "no big deal," but as soon as a proposal comes up to remove administrators, it suddenly is a very big deal and administrators circle the wagons. This is a very reasonable idea. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose, at least in current form. I think there's an unacceptable level of arbitrariness in this design. First, based on the votes, I now understand that "has been blocked for 28 days" refers to the the number of days the admin has been blocked as of the first of the month, not the total length of the block, as the buffer is meant to ensure an appeal is possible. But—and I concede it's possible I'm missing something big about how block timing works—doesn't that create chaos? Consider a user blocked for 1 month (or, hey, 30 days) at any point between April 3–29. By the first of the month, that user will not have been blocked for 28 days. Even if the user is blocked for 5 weeks on April 10th, they will not be subject to this sanction. But a user blocked for 1 month on, say October 2nd will have privileges stripped, because, by November 1, the user will have been blocked for 28 days.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 13:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support per Ritchie333. Inevitably, this procedure will have growing pains and problems. However, refinement requires testing and this is a very reasonable proposal. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:49, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. This is a solution looking for a problem. If an administrator truly needs to be blocked longer than a couple days, I would expect an WP:ARC request to be filed well before the 28-day period is up. Recent examples have demonstrated that ArbCom is perfectly capable of expeditiously desysopping administrators in less than 28 days where necessary. For example, see
Essentially, with the threshold set at 28 days, this will result in no tangible change to the current process, which is already quite efficient. Mz7 (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support Though i don't care for the bureaucratic portion of it ~ on the first, twentyeight days... ~ which seem somewhat open to misinterpretation or abuse, it is a positive step towards a proper community de-admin process, and very clearly any admin who's been blocked for that long has lost the trust of enough of us that they shouldn't be adminning any longer. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello21:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support- if an admin is blocked for that long, it means they must have done something very wrong. Admins who get such a long block should not be admins after all as they have broken Wikipedia policies to a serious extent. 747pilot (talk) 01:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support as a stopgap between leaving problematic admins with the tools and having to wait months for ArbCom to handle the matter. Anarchyte (talk) 12:40, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose The fact that an editor is blocked, does not automatically mean that he is not fit to be an admin. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Therefore, this must be decided on a case-to-case basis, without any fixed procedures. Debresser (talk) 12:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose as written. Firstly, per Jayron32, there seems to be no actual problem that this would address. Secondly, the block tool is preventative and used to prevent ongoing disruption. This is mostly unrelated to reasons why an admin should be deadminned, and would muddy the waters — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:47, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support – I note that some opposing arguments state that blocking doesn't automatically mean that removing the bit is necessary. I concede that point, but I also note the length of block required for this to become relevant. ANYONE who has been blocked for 28 consecutive days has shown to this community that their trustworthiness is questionable at best. While beyond the scope of this RfC, I would also support that, in addition to Administrators, all extended permissions – viz. CheckUser, Oversight, Bureaucrat, and anything granted at WP:PERM – should be automatically rescinded if that user has been blocked for 28 consecutive days. I've seen rather egregious conduct be met with blocks of only a few days, so for a 28-day block to be levied then someone really WP:DONTGETIT. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk)20:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I appreciate the intention in the proposal but I'm concerned with the aspect for creating higher level drama among individuals rather than solving an apparent, existing structural problem. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 23:32, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The intent is good, but the procedure is poor. It creates unnecessary tensions among administrators and we have a regular procedure for desysopping via Arbcom which should be respected. In addition, 28 days may just be too short a period to appeal. --TadejMmy talk16:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. Just about any proposal that makes it easier to get admin tools out of the hands of those who abuse them gets my support. The scenarios suggested in the oppose !votes where this causes problems are largely implausible. —swpbT • beyond • mutual17:47, 27 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support. I am not sure how often administrators block each other. If an administrator gets blocked, it should be serious enough to not only warrant a block but to warrant removal of administrator privileges. Samuel R Jenkins (talk) 04:32, 28 April 2023 (UTC) Blocked sock. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 03:43, 1 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I agree that the community needs a de-sysop procedure, but this is not it. This could make block of less than 50 days become somewhat of a Russian Roulette for whether they stay an admin. Furthermore, this is hardly a "community procedure" since only other admins can block admins. We need a system, but not this one. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support per Beeblebrox and Ritchie. Admins must have the confidence of the community, so it makes sense for their bit to be subject to community consensus, rather than needing to rely on ArbCom. Also agree with others that the risk of stealth desysops is very low; and anyway, that would itself be an ADMINCOND issue. DFlhb (talk) 19:24, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per QuicoleJR. And WP:CREEP. This adds more procedural layers, while lacking clarity for implementation E.g., the faulty 1st of the month element. Something much simpler might find consensus. Pechmerle (talk) 05:53, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support I have concerns around mobbing but also if someone has that kind of ban they shouldn't be an admin UNLESS there is some sort of reasonable reason. Dr vulpes(💬 • 📝)06:03, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose. It just seems like a lot of clean up when they should've had their admin rights removed as part of the block. I do agree with the proposal but not the process. Any admin who's worthy of a block should be desysopped automatically, and if they want their rights back, a community review should be conducted. Callmemirela 🍁 talk14:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose too much of a catch all such as admins blocked for a wiki break. Also desysops should not be automatic in my view, each one needs proper consideration, Atlantic306 (talk) 20:03, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak Oppose In theory this could be good (say, someone gets radicalized into being a QAnoner or Anti Vaxxer on YouTube and that becomes their new activist cause for the site). However, I worry ArbCom in the end will value civility over all else and this will heighten demographic disparities in administrators. People of color, women, and queer people are more likely to be seen as incivil and I can easily conceptualize perma-bans from administration resulting in an even higher proportion of straight white men determining who is write or wrong at ArbCom, which already has documented troubles with arbitrating contentious topics related to race, gender, and sexuality.Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 12:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, but what is who is blocked and has been blocked for more than 28 days? What happens if your block lasted more than 28 days but expired on say 5th of the month? Then you escape removal in the current cycle because it is not yet 28+ days, but in the next cycle, you won't fulfil is blocked requirement and won't be removed despite being blocked for 28+ days. I think is blocked is unnecessary. If you were blocked for 28+ between previous and current cycle, you should be desysoped. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta)16:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The proposal is plausible enough on its face. But having read through all of the arguments above, nobody seems able to articulate an actually-existing problem that this would solve. Further, quite a few people have noted problems that this proposal would be likely to create. This is a narrow enough circumstance that the impacts would be limited, but given the risk of harm to the project and the lack of any clear benefit, it seems best to leave this sort of rare edge case to be handled on a case-by-case basis. -- Visviva (talk) 23:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Discussion (Proposal: Procedural community desysop)
The concern I have with Arbcom is that it is such a long-drawn out process, that it burns out the people who are participants in a admin conduct related case, that they'd rather quit Wikipedia than stick it out. So we not only lose an admin, we lose an editor. Kudpung and RexxS are the most obvious cases I could think of, and it's just possible, perhaps, that a 48 hour civility block on either could have stopped them from quitting, addressed the complainants' concerns somewhat (for example, it's not a WP:SUPERMARIO if they get blocked, and a block removes immediate disruption and defuses situations in a way a long Arbcom case can't) and allowed them to hold on to their admin bit. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)15:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"Administrators must be held accountable. But this is not the answer." This is pretty much why we don't have enough accountability, because too many people oppose the specific proposal over supporting the general concept. So nothing ever happens. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)16:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
(Since I'm being quoted) Ritchie, this isn't an enemy-of-the-good situation for me. If I thought the proposal would have a neutral effect, or a tiny positive one, or maybe even a negligible negative one, I wouldn't have opposed. My issue with the proposal is that it makes things worse, and that we are choosing to do something because it is something rather than because it's a positive change. As I explain above, I believe that it worsens accountability. Sdrqaz (talk) 02:02, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I somewhat like this idea, but don't think I can support without a distinction between "for-cause" blocks and other ones. While it's rare for an admin to be blocked at length as a not-for-cause matter, I recall someone self-blocking a few years ago due to a family emergency, although I can't recall who at the moment. I would suggest adding for misconduct after the words who is blocked; I think it will be pretty straightforward for the bureaucrats to sort out the difference between "admin X is indeffed for repeated copyright violations" and "admin Y is indeffed with summary 'requested some time away from Wikipedia'". I also would rather this say something to the effect of and has no pending on-wiki appeals, although I tend to agree with Ritchie that after 28 to 59 days, things have probably shaken out. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)16:32, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
For self-requested blocks, I think it would reasonable to relinquish administrative privileges at the same time. As a voluntary removal of permissions, the editor would be able to request to have them returned without having to go through a request for administrative privileges discussion. isaacl (talk) 18:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
One general issue is that our desysopping methods are already working better than our sysopping methods, so making additional desysopping methods (with no evidence that the current ones are insufficient) looks to me like working on the wrong problem. —Kusma (talk) 16:56, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I choose to take that remark as a compliment. However, I don't think it is as much a matter of being insufficient as it is being unnecessary. Again and again when wayward admins are brought before the committee, they simply shut down and refuse to present a defense. So, the committee has been doing things like opening cases but suspending them for a few months, with the admin in question being temporarily desysopped unless and until they indicate a desire to open the case. To date, no admin has chosen the option of a full case when presented with such a choice. So, those admins do get removed, after 3-6 months, providing somebody remembers to actually close the case when it is supposed to close, which failed to happen at least twice in the last few years. This is simpler, faster, and presents pretty much the same choice to the admin: show up and present a cogent defense, or don't and let your admin tools go. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I would note that as of this edit, among current or past arbs 5 support and 1 opposes. It's possible that "our desysopping methods are already working better than our sysopping methods" can be true but more because our sysopping methods are so broke that the desysopping looks good by comparison. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Recent for-cause desysops were handled quickly and with a comparably low amount of noise. I expect that there will be more noise under the proposed system, just less paperwork for ArbCom. —Kusma (talk) 18:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I don't know. I feel like all of the recent admin arb cases, minus Jimmy's, had lots of community noise before and after it reached the case request stage. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:02, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
In the Athaenara case, probably the desysop under this proposal would have gone through, but the block/unblock chaos might have been worse with blocks automatically meaning desysops. In the Geschichte case, if the community had had the tool of desysop-via-60-day block, it is anyone's guess how the epic ANI discussion would have played out, but I do think we'd have had more noise. —Kusma (talk) 21:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"A blocked admin can't (since 2018) unblock themselves, and if they're blocked indefinitely, they'll just be auto-de-adminned when the time comes around." They are still able to edit their talk page and file an unblock request. This'll probably result in an ANI thread like this: "Hi, I just blocked admin X for edit warring and personal attacks, they're not admitting fault and threatening to block the other party in the dispute, can we review the block?" Or even, "Hi, I've indeffed Jimbo Wales as they've just blocked 3 arbs indefinitely; it clearly looks like their account is compromised". It'll get a response. If they're not prepared to file an unblock request, either they've got ANI flu and given up, or they think blocking is for the "little people" and not them, in which case they shouldn't be an admin. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)17:45, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Question: So, I have been doing some thinking on this beyond my initial oppose vote. What I want to know is what existing ongoing problem is this supposed to solve? Which is to say, what are some examples of blocked admins who got to keep their tools after being unblocked, and for which this process would have taken the tools away? It feels like a solution in search of a problem, at this point. I mean, unless someone can actually point to this being a problem (and I don't mean "one isolated case", I mean "an ongoing issue that keeps biting us in the ass"), then I really fail to see why we're going through the trouble to create a new policy. Can anyone in support of the policy provide evidence that this is a problem that needs new policy to fix? Examples, evidence, etc? --Jayron3217:40, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The principal problem, as Beeblebrox said, it is it stops putting an unnecessary workload on Arbcom. It's a bit of an old example, but Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Neelix comes to mind. After the mass-creation of puerile redirects were discovered, he could have been blocked (to prevent any more being created) until the community could work out what to do. The community could have decided to site ban Neelix. But he was an admin, so Arbcom had to get involved, wasting everyone's time as I think there was near unanimity that Neelix should have been sanctioned. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)17:49, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
You've asserted that it is "unnecessary workload". If your only example is a singular 8-year-old arbcom case, that's pretty flimsy in terms of necessitating a new policy. I think ArbCom can handle one such case every decade or so. Doesn't seem to me like "unnecessary workload". I ask again, what is the evidence this is needed? --Jayron3217:53, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Also, I note that your best example was an ArbCom case that was resolved in 3 days. Replacing a process that takes 3 days with one that takes 28 days is somehow more efficient? --Jayron3217:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It was the first example I could think of, and one of the most memorable, but by no means the only one. For example, Carlossuarez46 could have been blocked for personal attacks, or Athaenara could have just been indeffed for hate speech and left as is. Also, it might be worth comparing the 3 days with the amount of text that was generated, and from how many users - also, it's worth remembering that it only took 3 days because Neelix resigned his tools with a pledge he would not get them back with a new RfA. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)17:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Again, hardly a major issue. The memorable cases are memorable because they are so rare. We don't need to write new policy for cases spaced out over several years. You claim to be saving ArbCom work; have they asked the community for this help? Also, people are free to contribute to discussions as they see fit. I could equally claim that the amount of text this discussion has generated is out-of-proportion for the magnitude of the problem it proports to solve, which makes it worse than the problem it is trying to solve. I'm just saying that if you want more support for a proposed overhaul of policy, you've not shown how it is needed. A few isolated, weird cases have been shown. We don't have an epidemic of blocked-but-still-can-use-their-tools admins now, do we? If this were happening 3 times every 8 weeks or even 8 months, I'd think we have a problem. 3 times in 8 years seems hardly worth creating a policy over. --Jayron3218:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If in practice the community has considered being blocked incompatible with having administrative privileges, then codifying this shifts discussion from the majority of cases where this view is held to those where exceptional circumstances may alter the community's opinion. This should be a net reduction in discussion (of course provided the initial inference on the community's view on blocked admins is true, which this RfC seeks to establish). isaacl (talk) 18:07, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Sure, I often agree with that view. We'll see if the community thinks it's a net positive to explicitly state the incompatibility versus handling it each time it comes up. isaacl (talk) 18:41, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's rather hard to query, because the database doesn't give an easy way to check whether user X was an admin at time Y, but for a mostly-complete set, combine quarry:history/65830/669690/650357 for current admins who've been blocked (mostly accidents/testing, with false positives for users like me who were blocked pre-adminship), the "Blocked or locked" sections of WP:FORCAUSE, Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/resigned for past admins who are currently blocked (with false positives for post-desysop blocks), and Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/compromised and "compromise" entries in WP:RESYSOPS (where I think everyone is or was once blocked); these miss most cases of blocked-then-deysopped-then-unblocked (but there's only one of those every few years) and blocked-then-unblocked-then-desysopped (but those are likewise mostly accidents/testing, with unrelated desysops). To my knowledge, prior to Athaenara, the last admin to be indeffed for cause as a regular admin action (i.e. not CUblock/ArbComBlock) and then get desysopped was Craigy144 in 2010—copyvio block, desysopped as unresponsive to ArbCom. There's several more recent blocks-then-desysops for compromise, with or without later unblock and/or resysop. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)19:01, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Jayron32:, you are right. This would probably apply about once every 5 years and won't affect Arbcom workload. But it's safe. Sort of like saying that if it it's found that somebody can't do basic addition (2 + 2 = ?) that we take away their math teaching position. North8000 (talk) 20:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Kusma: Good question. My guess is that that wouldn't happen. Basically a complex effort of a group of people mis-using the system to "get" an admin. But maybe a reason to avoid enacting something like this that really isn't going to serve a purpose. North8000 (talk) 13:39, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Regarding the concern that the proposal allows a single admin to block another, triggering a community discussion that may lead to the removal of administrative privileges: note unilateral blocks can only be enacted for edits related to contentious topics, enforcing specific arbitration remedies that authorize blocks, or for flagrant policy violations. An appeal of a block not meeting these conditions should be upheld, and the community can then decide if any further discussion of the situation is warranted. In essence, the same discussions that would occur today would still occur under the proposed change, with an added implication that being blocked is incompatible with holding administrative privileges. isaacl (talk) 17:50, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It might be a good idea to have someone set up a bot to notify WP:AN whenever an administrator is blocked. Obviously it's pretty unlikely that such a block would slip under the radar for 28+ days, but if that notification would help reässure anyone that this proposal wouldn't be desysopping people under cover of darkness, it'd be a positive. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note the actual removal of privileges would not happen in the dark, and any unwarranted stealth blocks is going to be noticed when the list of blocked admins is prepared. So while it may be a good idea to have a bot update a page with a query of the list of blocked admins that can be transcluded elsewhere (or some other implementation), I don't think it's critical for this proposal. isaacl (talk) 18:38, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This proposal does not require the community to weigh in in any way - it does not require the block to be reviewed or upheld. This is for obvious reasons: blocking an admin should in theory not be any different than a non-admin. But it at the same time relies implicitly on, and quoting the proposer himself, the assumption that "A block of an admin would be reviewed by the community". So I think it threads the needle of not explicitly making blocking admins different but in practice requiring community review of every long block of an admin (with the caveat that this will probably happen regardless of this proposal). In short, I'm not sure a proposal that explicitly required community review of the block would pass, but this proposal is functionally that. Galobtter (talk) 19:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If blocking an admin results in de-adminship, then we will stop even pretending to treat blocks of admins the same as blocks of non-admins. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@WhatamIdoing FWIW, from a technical standpoint it effectively does.
But that "de-adminship" is automatically temporary. If you were blocked, you would still be an admin when the block expired. This is not what's proposed here. This proposal says: If you can get an admin blocked on January 3rd, for any reason, and it's not lifted before February 1st, then that admin will be permanently de-sysopped, even if the block is set to expire on February 2nd. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I am not sure if this has been considered. But since I found a discussion on desysopping, I bring it on. In the past I have observed two desysops not so much related with their sysop activity but with their views. I'd support a process where a sysop can be desysopped for their actions not so much for their views (they expressed some years ago). To desysop one for a few phrases in a little venue, when they had a tenure for several years...Have you considered to bring the desysop process before the community like the RfA?Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Clarification sought, in three scenarios:
Admin A is blocked for 50 days on 10 July. On 1 August they haven't been blocked for 30 days yet so retain the mop. On 1 September they're no longer blocked, so retain the mop. Correct? That would seem to go against the proponents who argue that a 30-day block is a bad enough sign that the comunity no longer trusts A.
Admin B is blocked for 40 days on 2 October. Drama ensues and a friendly (to B, anyway) Admin C unblocks Admin B in good faith, as C feels the block was inappropriate. A scant 23 minutes later after some testy posts at AN/I, Admin D reinstates the block, which holds. On 1 November, the review shows that B was not blocked 30 days and so retains the mop.
Admin F is blocked for 30 days on 1 May. On 1 June, F is no longer blocked and so retains the mop. (The obvious "lucky timing" case.)
Tweak based on comments made: "On the first day of the month, any administrator who is blocked and has been blocked [for cause] for more than 28 days [in the preceding two months] will have their administrator user-right procedurally removed (alongside inactivity removals)." SilkTork (talk) 08:39, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The convenience of routine software "housekeeping" functions does make this proposal seem awkward to implement. I suggest a shorter time limit, say 17 days of *consecutive* block, regardless of what happens between day 17 and the start of the subsequent month. I recommend 17 because it includes 3 full weekends, allowing for variations in time zone. Martindo (talk) 07:03, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Alternate proposal (Procedural community desysop)
Let's simplify this, and align it with current policy and process.
If an editor is banned by the community (not merely blocked), their granted permissions - including but not limited to admin tools - are removed. And even if the editor successfully appeals the ban and returns to editing, they will need to re-apply through the typical processes (such as WP:RFA) to regain any removed granted permissions.
(This is for an indefinite, full ban only, not a limited, topical, or partial one.)
In the rare instance where the ban is reversed due to a mistake by the community (but not merely due to a successful appeal of the ban), then said removals are reversed as well. - jc3708:28, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Survey (alternate community desysop proposal)
Support I see no reason that this is mutually exclusive from the other proposal, but I do support this. If a site ban passes on an admin, they should no longer be an admin. WormTT(talk) 08:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I support this. It is reasonable and a step even further in the right direction, with respect to having community say in desysops without forcing Arbcom involvement. I would like to also see non-ban related proposals for desysops, but those can wait for a more future time Soni (talk) 08:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, that is fine (assuming ban means "site ban" and doesn't include any interaction bans). This would have worked in the Athaenara situation and would not have been discussed in the Geschichte case. —Kusma (talk) 09:28, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support Seems much more reasonable than the first proposal. If someone has lost the community trust to the point where a community discussion has led to a community ban, that should implicitly imply that such a person has lost enough trust to lose the tools. The first proposal leaves too much on a single, possibly time-limited block, it puts too much in the hands of a single individual. --Jayron3211:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - this is probably the only community decision which is so extreme that it would never occur unless the community has lost trust completely. Users may demand a temporary block or a partial ban to an admin who ruled against them on some issue, but not a permanent site ban; a small number of highly vindictive users may demand that, but the community won't support it. Animal lover|666|12:48, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
"Their granted permissions - including but not limited to admin tools" - this will overturn the consensus determined in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User rights of (site) banned users. Also, for the proposal itself: (1) I am personally against it citing WP:CREEP and current ArbCom is sufficient to handle such cases; (2) I suggest we should explicit mention that such actions may still be appealed to ArbCom.--GZWDer (talk) 13:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
My understanding is that ultimately (after community paths have been trod) any community action may be appealed to arbcom. So that would presumably include this. - jc3714:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Consensus can change; no state of consensus is permanent, and no discussion can bind any future state of the community at Wikipedia from discussing an idea and reaching a new consensus. It is a good data point to know what the existing consensus is on a topic when discussing it, but that existing consensus only lasts until it isn't consensus anymore. This very discussion is the way we are change that consensus. --Jayron3214:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support - I think the wording here will still favor de-sysop requests being taken to ArbCom rather than a community de-sysop process, for the reason that a site ban would be considered an action with greater scope and severity than a de-sysop. I don't think this is a sufficient remedy, but it's better than nothing. --⛵ WaltClipper-(talk)14:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support introducing this consensus-oriented method of removing bits. As worded, this proposal would allow for the community to de-crat, de-CU, and de-OS; I believe that these are features of this proposal, not bugs. I would also suggest that whenever a unban discussion takes place, people should be advised to make it clear if they are supporting an unban as "User:Example should not have been banned in the first place" (in which case the tools should be restored) or as "no longer required to prevent disruption" (in which case they should not). I would also like it if we specified that any CBAN discussion that results in the bit being removed should be closed by a 'crat. That is, it should function like RfA closure does: anyone can WP:SNOW/WP:NOTNOW close, but only a 'crat can close as successful. (For the avoidance of doubt, I am not advocating that we institute 'crat chats or a "discretionary range" for CBAN discussions.) HouseBlastertalk15:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support as duh. If an admin is site banned by the community, then obviously they lose their rights. Sending it to ArbCom would be, in my opinion, a waste of time as ArbCom would pretty much rubberstamp the desysop. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. I don't see this as mutually exclusive with the above, and I don't see it being used often, but I agree with the principle. Vanamonde (Talk)16:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I opposed the original proposal but this is of course very reasonable and something I think we can all get behind. I think the amount of instances covered by the original proposal but not by this proposal is vanishingly few. (As a minor and moot point, I'm not sure if we can technically de-CU or de-OS a user, since WP:ARBPOL gives those duties to ARBCOM, but of course ArbCom will remove the permissions from a site-banned user.) Galobtter (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support This proposal won't really solve the problem of unaccountable admins or the need for a community desysop procedure, and will in practice probably never be used. But it's something, and really, it should work this way regardless.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Writ Keeper (talk • contribs) 17:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, noting that in the Athaenara case several arbs implied they would do this anyways if it came to it. It's a little odd how this interacts with non-admin-tier rights, but at the same time not really an issue, since most of those can all be restored at any admin's discretion; the exceptions are EFM and EFH, but that's probably a good thing. I know I'd have no problem giving rollback back to a recently-unbanned user if the ban didn't involve rollback abuse or edit-warring, for instance. As to desysopping and decratting, I agree with HouseBlaster that this should follow the default rule that a discussion should only be closed by someone with the tools to enact it (or in the case of decratting, the authority to request a steward enact it). With de-CU and de-OS, a 'crat could close as "banned and referred to ArbCom regarding CU and OS" and start a pro forma case request. Like Galobtter, I very much doubt any committee will hesitate to remove rights in that situation. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)18:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support regardless of whether the original proposal passes. Of course, 99% of admins who do something even remotely sitebannable are going to be desysopped by the Committee (whether by level 1, level 2, or motion) well before the ban discussion is closed, and I hope arbitrators continue doing that without feeling that they need to defer to the community: the last thing I want to do is slow down the desysop process in straightforward and/or urgent cases. But in general I think the proposal does move us (very marginally) in the right direction toward additional admin accountability to the community, so I'm happy to support. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support regardless of whether the original proposal passes; makes sense. Editors holding rights are expected to hold the trust of the community; if the editor is banned it is very clear that they have lost that trust. BilledMammal (talk) 19:58, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per my above oppose. I don't see what problem this fixes. What terrible thing happened that this will prevent? Lowering the workload for Arb? I don't see the workload as a problem. Dennis Brown - 2¢20:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
What terrible result will come from this passing? As far as I can tell, this should have nearly 0 effect in a century of Wikipedia but that nil effect would be good. Animal lover|666|12:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. It hopefully won't be needed often, but this does look like a process that the community can handle without needing an Arbcom case. - Donald Albury20:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support It takes an awful lot of misbehavior to earn a site ban, & most admins are very visible folk. Further, some of admins gained the bit back when standards weren't as high, & even if this never implemented, it'll serve as a sword of Damocles to check admins from being too enthusiastic with the bit. -- llywrch (talk) 21:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose It's like saying that a person who can't do basic addition isn't allowed to teach math in a university. No argument with that, but it's something that will never get used and so not worth messing with. North8000 (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in addition to supporting the original proposal above. An admin who draws a CBAN is even more obviously not trusted by the community. --RL0919 (talk) 06:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose - this isn't a logical extension of the original proposal, which was to procedurally remove the tools from admins blocked for a significant term, considering that blocks are to prevent editing disruption. There's generally no consensus that blocks can be used to respond to administrative misconduct, that's why we have WP:LEVEL1. Any admin who blocks another admin because of an administrative action is likely to be the first mover in a wheel war, and we should not introduce ambiguity to that policy. An administrator who is banned by the community is likely to be blocked anyway, and would have their permissions removed after 28 days if the above proposal passes or after a year under current policy; I don't see why this is necessary. However, the extension is a backdoor to create a community desysop process by which the only way for the community to remove admin rights is to ban the admin, even if their edit history is spotless. That's too heavy-handed, and it's absolutely going to be abused by bad actors to intimidate or eliminate administrators that get in the way of their tendentious agendas. It's a step too far, especially considering it's a first step. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support as a start. If you mess us enough to get yourself community banned, then you're clearly not suitable to hold advanced user rights. SkyWarrior17:50, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose based on the current wording. I think this is a solid idea, but I'd like to see it clarified that if an appeal finds that the original close was improper (incorrect reading of consensus, involved admin, wheel warring, things of that nature) rather than an appeal determining that the ban was valid but should now be lifted, then permissions should be restored. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC) Switching to Support as I had missed part of the proposal. It seems like a good idea and a fairly obvious change to be made. The WordsmithTalk to me20:38, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
That should be inherent in the last line of the proposal. Reversal due to "Community mistake". There are many ways in which mistakes could be made in a discussion. From the proposing, through to the closure. I don't think we could list them all. But should it be determined that the ban was done in error, then the granted tools should be restored. Essentially undoing a "miscarriage of justice". - jc3719:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support this is better than nothing, but it is vastly inferior to the original proposal. The bar for admin accountability on this site is still way too high. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:56, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. I do not see the practical need for this instruction creep (WP:CREEP). Community bans of admins are hopefully very rare (has there ever been a case?), and there is no reason to believe that ArbCom would not promptly desysop an admin who has been properly banned by the community (if only because they can no longer legitimately use their tools). The problem with this proposal is that it would incentivize people to use ban discussions as a proxy for a desysop by community consensus, which so far the community has declined to institute for what I think are good reasons. Sandstein 07:20, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Suppport noting that this doesn't conflict with the primary proposal here so, despite the title, it's not in any meaningful sense an "alternative". I'm supporting it as a complementary idea.—S MarshallT/C08:01, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in parallel to the primary proposal. As WTT said, If a site ban passes on an admin, they should no longer be an admin.firefly ( t · c ) 08:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - Seems straightforward that if a user does not have the trust of the community to edit Wikipedia, they don't have the requisite trust to be an admin. Compatible with WTT's proposal above. WJ94 (talk) 09:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose a rare occurrence like this can be handle by ArbCom. Such a rule would encourage even more gaming of the system (campaign for a long block on an admin you don’t like to end them for good). JehochmanTalk12:18, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Same logic, different terminology. (I did copy and paste.) This proposal is even more unnecessary because it addresses an extremely rare situation. If an administrator gets sitebanned, ArbCom should definitely be looking into it to understand what happened (compromised account, etc.). JehochmanTalk19:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, but I can't believe this is even a question. You mean to tell me that a banning doesn't mean you lose your privileges? Ok, so if I get banned you are telling me I still get to keep my autoconfirmed, rollbacker, and pending changes reviewer status rights, or is it only admins that get to keep tools? That is ridiculous. Huggums537 (talk) 05:46, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose as pointless instruction creep, per Dennis Brown, Jehochman, Sandstein. If an admin gets cbanned, I would imagine they would be pretty uncontroversially and with minimum additional drama be de-adminned by Arbcom using their Level II procedures. This situation is fortunately sufficiently rare that we don't need additional policy to sidestap that existing solution. I'm opposing this variant only weakly, as opposed to original proposal, since by applying simply to cbans and not imposing arbitrary timelines, the instruction creep is more manageable. But it's still unnecessary. Martinp (talk) 15:05, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, provided that an amendment is made to indicate that it must be an indefinite site ban, so that we don't see silly things like a five-minute site ban being proposed as a "backdoor desysop". SeraphimbladeTalk to me15:44, 22 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Although of course tomorrow the community could invent a fixed-duration site ban, with the historical concept of a site ban, it's always indefinite. Editors are site banned when they are no longer welcome to be participate at all in the English Wikipedia community. It's not a situation that times out without an appeal. isaacl (talk) 04:03, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support While I acknowledge that the cases where this could apply are likely small which gives me reason to oppose, I think this is the best possible way to handle community based desysop proposals. We've been trying to untie this gordian knot for almost 20 years without success. It's been clear for a long time now that we need such a process. I can see how this process could have problems; a single administrator closing the discussion to CBAN? Hmm. Gang mentality polluting the results? Hmm. Sockpuppeters coming out of the woodwork after their favorite target? Hmm. I think the process can weather that. I would like to see one caveat applied though; CBAN "discussion must be kept open for 72 hours except in cases where there is limited opposition and the outcome is obvious after 24 hours". The 24 hour statement shouldn't apply in this case, instead requiring 72 hours. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:23, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support I don't think this is needed, as it is rare and there are existing venues to deal with this situation, but it may avoid needless redundant paperwork. — xaosfluxTalk23:00, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in that it's 1) a higher threshold, 2) consistent across permissions, such that, if I remember correctly, it would have been useful--even if just as a principle--in some of the old bot operator/automated editing conduct issues. Jclemens (talk) 04:25, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, as reaching a consensus for an indefinite siteban is a clear, existing way for the community to express a complete loss of trust. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Neutral. I'm not substantively opposed to this proposal as I believe it reflects common sense: obviously a site-banned administrator has lost the confidence of the community and should be desysopped. However, like the original proposal, I see this as a bit of a solution looking for a problem, and I do not foresee that it will produce any tangible improvement to current process. We site-ban administrators exceedingly rarely—the threshold for a desysop is much lower than the threshold for a site-ban. If an administrator is under discussion for a site-ban, I would expect that a request at WP:ARC will have already been filed in parallel, and as I mentioned earlier, recent examples have shown that ArbCom is perfectly capable of expeditiously desysopping administrators where necessary. Mz7 (talk) 21:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Just wanted to add a bit to this to explain why I am "neutral" on this alternative proposal and "oppose" on the main proposal. I am more sympathetic to this alternative proposal because a site ban is a higher bar to clear than a block. A site ban requires clear community consensus at an administrative noticeboard, whereas a block can be imposed unilaterally. The consensus for a site ban can become clear pretty efficiently: I've seen cases at WP:AN where we've site-banned editors within a day or two (although because of the invention of WP:3X, site ban discussions are quite rare nowadays). This is in contrast to the required 28-day window from the main proposal. If we pass this alternative proposal, I can see cases where if an administrator does something so egregious that they need to be blocked indefinitely, the community would then have two avenues to desysop the admin: (1) start a site-ban discussion, or (2) request a desysop at WP:ARC. The reason I am "neutral" and not "support" is because I believe the existing process of requesting the desysop at WP:ARC already works as efficiently as a site-ban discussion (and may even be preferable because ArbCom is generally more evidence-focused and deliberative than the free-for-all style of WP:AN). Also, I am worried that this will lead to situations where we go for a site-ban on a blocked administrator where a simple indefinite block would have sufficed, just so that we can desysop them (a block can be overturned unilaterally whereas a ban requires community consensus to overturn). Mz7 (talk) 21:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose at the moment any admin who was community banned would likely be desysopped by motion from arbcom. So if this went through there would either be no meaningful change, or we'd have a bunch of attempts to ban particular admins, with some people supporting the ban as the most effective way to desysop that admin, and others saying that they hope arbcom does a desysop but they don't think a ban is merited. If there is any scope for a community desysop it is to deal with people who arbcom would not desysop, but where the people who elect arbcom want to be harsher than arbcom. That group won't overlap with the people who merit a ban. ϢereSpielChequers14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose; redundant proposal as the ArbCom can order an emergency desysop if needed. I agree site-banned users should not hold advanced rights but this proposal could be gamed, would create much dramah and become unworkable. Baffle☿gab21:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per WP:CREEP. Still a solution in search of a problem. Passing more rules just for the sake of passing more rules is something I typically associate with politicians and (some) civil servants who need to justify their paycheck. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in combination with the primary proposal. Long blocks and bans should mean de-sysoping, and a successful ban appeal should not mean an automatic restoration of the bit. Way too much abuse of the tools goes on, and anything that curbs that would have to have some pretty enormous downsides to lose my support. —swpbT • beyond • mutual17:50, 27 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support as better than nothing, even if it's only used rarely. Hard to think of any case where an admin is banned, yet still trusted enough to keep the tools. DFlhb (talk) 16:47, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Neutral Makes sense, but it seems unlikely that existing processes (i.e. an ArbCom motion) wouldn't already handle this. Anomie⚔14:56, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Strong support per my comment in the original proposal. Removing admin rights should be done automatically when such user is blocked or banned. RFA is the venue to regain their rights. Callmemirela 🍁 18:03, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support as superior to the original proposal. If an admin is site-banned by the community, then their privileges should be immediately revoked, full stop. I don't see a reason why this should need to be sent to ArbCom.-- Aervanath (talk) 10:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Discussion (alternate community desysop proposal)
There's a couple suggestions above that the discussion should be closed by a crat. Since the desysopping would be a consequence of the ban by policy but not explicitly part of it, I don't think this needs to be the case. I feel like this is a case where the admin closing could simply leave a note at WP:BN, as is done with ArbCom desysops. Galobtter (talk) 18:21, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If this were likely to be relevant soon for a specific admin, it may have required a bureaucrat; however, since this is clearly not the case, admin closure should sefice. Animal lover|666|13:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I am somewhat concerned that this might end up (to a greater degree than the slow 28 day process) be used in some cases to force a desysop through banning someone, when their actions would not otherwise have led to a CBAN. I'm not sure whether mitigation with stressed clarity that a !vote seemingly acting to ban only as a means to desysop. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I hope the community isn't so cruel as to site ban just to cause a desysop, but I agree there is a perverse incentive here - but I feel like that equally applies to the original proposal. Galobtter (talk) 02:52, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Alternate proposal (Arbcom Level II desysop of long-term blocked admins)
Let's address the issue without gameable instruction creep and with minimum changes to existing policies for what are very rare cases. Arbcom can already desysop an admin under WP:LEVEL2 if "(a) the account's behavior is inconsistent with the level of trust required for its associated advanced permissions, and (b) no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming." Doing so doesn't take the weeks or months of an active or suspended arbcom case, just a vote by Arbcom. Therefore, if there is any ambiguity, let's just resolve the situation by affirming the statement in the next paragraph. Then in the rare cases an admin ends up in this situation, sua sponte or on request any arbitrator can propose a Level II desysopping and the Committee can effect it by voting. They will presumably do this with a minimum of fuss, but with a bit of consideration/deliberation as to whether there are any exceptional circumstances, and whether sufficient time has passed for it to become clear that the user in question will remain blocked for some time.
Statement: The community affirms that engaging in behaviour that leads to an admin becoming and remaining long-term blocked (or banned), for cause, is generally inconsistent with the level of trust required for retaining administrator permissions. Arbcom is empowered (alternative: directed?) to act per its existing policies (currently WP:LEVEL2) to deal with such situations.
Survey (alternate proposal for Arbcom Level II desysop of long-term blocked admins)
Oppose For pure WP:BURO reasons. I do not see anything this proposal does that Arbcom does not already do, via their string of measures. A "please do this" from the community to Arbcom isn't enough. And the biggest draw of the other proposals for me was simply "Having more community measures to desysop" instead of putting even more things strictly at Arbcom alone.
In fact, I cannot imagine a single scenario where Arbcom would block or ban someone without de-adminning, making this even more of a rules creep. At least the others were explicitly "community decision" instead Soni (talk) 02:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support in the event no other proposals here gain consensus (in which case I oppose this as redundant). ArbCom issues "community reminders" all the time; why can't we do the same to ArbCom? HouseBlastertalk03:01, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose, instruction creep. ArbCom is elected and can be trusted to make this (rather obvious) determination on a case-by-case basis. Sandstein 07:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Doesn't ArbCom already have the power to desysop people? Why are we just reconfirming what they already do? --Jayron3212:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Neutral: I agree with the statement above but it is already the case the ArbCom removes admin rights from banned users. The statement is not a proposal for a community-based desysop process. Baffle☿gab21:09, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support-ish This doesn't really do anything other than restating the obvious: someone long-term blocked or banned probably has lost the trust of the community, and WP:LEVEL2 exists allowing ArbCom to remove the bit if they want. Anomie⚔14:56, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose The more I read these proposals the more I see unintended outcomes and I'm beginning to wonder if I misunderstand the true purpose behind additional, unnecessary rules. Chris Troutman (talk)18:37, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Discussion (alternate proposal Arbcom Level II desysop of long-term blocked admins)
Since my proposal is garnering quite a lot of opposition, let me explain my thinking. In my view, yes this changes very little. I view it as uncontroversial that in many (most?) circumstances, being blocked long-term for cause is clearly incompatible with the level of trust needed to continue holding adminship. So I would like to think that if some admin ends up in that circumstance, Arbcom could just de-admin them for conduct unbecoming. However, there is significant functionary (including Arb) support for the present "community procedural de-admin" proposal, with specific bright line criteria. This support presents as the alternative being avoided a "long, drawn out arbitration case". So I'm proposing to explicitly just say, "yeah, Arbcom, go ahead and pull the bit using L2 without too much fuss where warranted" as a less bureaucratic solution to a rare problem then a convoluted "community procedural" process, one where we're needing to wordsmith ahead of time exactly what the block age and duration should be, what kind of block counts, etc. Basically, I feel we actually don't need more rules to solve a rare problem. However, since Arbcom members seem (implicitly) unsure if they have the authority to desysop someone just because the community has decided to block them for a long time, reassure them that they already do. Martinp (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Alternate proposal: the community supports development of a de-sysop process
Let's stop beating around the bush and just propose this:
The community supports the development of a community based process for removing administrator rights for cause outside of the current arbitration committee procedures. If this proposal closes with consensus, the community directs that a binding RfC be opened within 30 days where community members may submit proposals to determine the process.
Survey (Alternate proposal: the community supports development of a de-sysop process)
Support determines the actual consensus on the principle of the matter, and establishes a procedure to determine how to implement the consensus on the principle if it exists. Much better than picking around the edges. If there is a community consensus on the principle, let us establish that and then determine what the method of implementing it should be. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:10, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I've long assumed this first part describes the community's desire (though I suppose we'll see here). It's the second part, actually finding details of such a process, that folks seem to struggle with. But another RfC is certainly worth a try. Ajpolino (talk) 02:27, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support This is most in line with what I would like to see. I worry that this structure guarantees another no consensus (being too similar to the last N failed RFA reforms, and apparently the other DESYSOP proposals). But I would like community desysop to happen, and supporting this is more preferable than standing in the way. Soni (talk) 02:46, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. I think where the earlier proposals fail is in trying to make this work within the existing block framework, when what is actually required is a concrete mechanism by which sysops who have lost the confidence and trust of the community can be de-sysoped. Patr2016 (talk) 02:57, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support. I agree with the principle, and while I reserve the right to say "I told you so" when the RfC ends up with too many proposals, too few participants, and no consensus, I agree with Soni that supporting this is more preferable than standing in the way. An oppose !vote certainly wouldn't make community desysop more likely to happen. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. I frankly don't see the practical need for yet another drama-laden process. From what I can tell, the ArbCom process works rather well, as in the recent Dbachmann case. If and when we have a specific case where ArbCom declines to desysop a person who's obviously unfit for the job, then we can and should have this discussion. Sandstein 07:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Theoretical support, actual oppose. I support community desysop but for the reasons I mention here I find this proposal to get there not to be fully thought out or practical. Barkeep49 (talk) 07:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Per Barkeep and S Marshall. I support in theory, but not in practise. We have a couple of small step solutions here that are thought out. Scrapping the work above and hoping that a binding RfC which has failed twice in recent years is not a solution. WormTT(talk) 08:09, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per Barkeep et al. This is a fine idea in theory, but I fear it won't actually result in any real change. IMHO - best to take iterative steps toward a solution than start a(nother) large discussion. firefly ( t · c ) 08:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support, this is much better than the original proposal where we would just make up the rules as we go along the next time an admin is blocked. I do think we can usually leave things to ArbCom, though; a slow and deliberative process is likely better than things like Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin/original. —Kusma (talk) 08:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose at the moment. If either of the first two proposals on this page get consensus this will be redundant to them, if they don't then I can't see the point in spending more time developing a more complicated and drama-laden version of the same thing. Also per WTT et al. Thryduulf (talk) 09:16, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I mostly support because I hope the new process will be less drama-laden than turning every discussion about the block of an admin into a desysop discussion happening in an undefined location (the user's talk page? ANI?) under undefined rules. —Kusma (talk) 09:33, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose, essentially per Barkeep49, S Marshall, Worm That Turned, though support in principle for a future time and place. Every proposal for a fully worked-out community desysop has failed. Part of the problem is that all sorts of alternative proposals come up, and we get lots of partial support for them. But with everyone tugging in a different way, nothing gets done. Every single time - absolutely nothing. So, while we have a couple of clear and simple proposals going here, please let's not derail things yet again. I say let's see how the simple proposals here work out, and then revisit a full community desysop proposal at a future time. Ideally, I'd like us to have a full community desysop. But if we try it here and now, I think it's almost certain that the only achievement will, yet again, be nothing at all. We've tried running too many times. We need to walk first, one step at a time. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose - it's not like it's been eons since the last time we went through this. So oppose per Worm et al. Also, functionally all RfCs are intended to be binding, so not sure what that was intended to add. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support - a simple statement with the backing of consensus, affirming at a high level that the community desires a community desysop process. We always start with a proposal, then figure out what problems it solves, then ask if we actually want to solve those problems. Of course they fail, we're doing it entirely backwards. We need a discussion or process to flesh out what the problems are that the community wants to solve, and really only then can we constructively discuss how to solve them. But the first step of all is to determine whether or not the community actually wants such a process at all. I mean, I think it's pretty clear from the years and years of discussions and proposals, but I don't think we've ever really formally asked. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose perversely because it's to easy to oppose. Making a swiping change that gets a majority agreement is extremely hard, because different groups will oppose different parts. Maybe if the community was split into two simple groups (as some editors appear to beleive it is) then it would be possible to get a 51% majority victory. But realistically getting a majority of editors to agree on such a big change is like herding cats. Incremental changes like those already suggested are much more likely to succeed. The recent inactivity requirements are a good example. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose as pointless. The community has the power already to start such an RFC. No need to re-affirm what we could already do. If an editor or group of editors wishes to workshop an idea that might have a chance of gaining widespread consensus, they can just do so. They don't need a special RFC to empower them to do so. The barrier is not that proposals aren't made; the barrier is that no such proposal has gained consensus. --Jayron3212:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I sympathize with those who object that this will preempt the proposals above, but realistically the only proposal above likely to pass is the one about desysopping a sitebanned admin, and that's honestly a pretty redundant proposal since a desysop in that case would be inevitable anyway. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 13:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose in this context, where it is presented an alternative to the more specific process changes that are already under discussion. --RL0919 (talk) 15:40, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hesitant conditional support. Contra several respected colleagues above, I don't see why this would derail the above proposals, which I also support: but for the sake of clarity, my support is conditional to this proposal not overturning consensus on the previous two. As to the rest, I'm hesitant about the "binding" bit; I don't want us to end up stuck with a bad proposal because nothing better reached consensus in a binding RfC; but I suppose I trust that our general opposition to change that is not fully thought through will handle that. Vanamonde (Talk)16:26, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose this is somewhat pointless, since there is nothing stopping anybody from starting an RfC or making a proposal on the subject anyway. Unless it's supposed to mean that we have to establish a community desysop process and the RfC is just to establish what it will look like, but I don't think that's a good idea. While community desysop is a good idea in theory a lot of the proposals end up being rather susceptible to lynch mobs and will probably make things worse. Hut 8.518:35, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The lack of consensus in previous discussions about this, combined with flare-ups in drama in some high profile admin misconduct cases, lead me to believe it is best to leave desysopping for cause to Arbcom. That's a process that we've shown works reasonably well in cases of egregious misconduct. I would be much more inclined to support term limits on all admins in some way (e.g. reconfirmations after x years), with some sort of protection against grudge-bearing etc., since that would work better against the (perceived) issue of out-of-touch admins throwing their weight around on the boundaries of what they can get away with. Martinp (talk) 12:17, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per Sandstein and Boing!. I'm not sure what problem we are really solving and it seems unlikely that another RfC would actually lead to anything useful. Galobtter (talk) 21:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose: I'm fine with "the development of a community based process for removing administrator rights for cause outside of the current arbitration committee procedures", but the RfC the proposal asks for is happening here already. I'd especially not want one to be held if one of the above proposals already passes. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 07:31, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak support It would be better to focus the effort on giving more routine review and feedback such as tuning up and taking the poison pills out of WP:Administrative action review. Arbcom can handle the rarer severe desysop cases. But I 'spose it would be good to have some community route in place. And also to methodically decide on and float optimum proposal in order to resolve this question. North8000 (talk) 12:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support I don't see why this has to be an alternative, but yes it is a good idea. I can't think of a reasonable reason to oppose this, as clearly there needs to be an easier way to put the brakes on misbehaving and unfit administrators. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. My view is that the current process works sufficiently well. In other words, there is no need to develop "a community based process for removing administrator rights for cause outside of the current arbitration committee procedures". The proposal is not clear in describing what ways the current process is deficient, other than merely saying we want an alternative. Mz7 (talk) 21:33, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. As others have noted, it's not clear that there is any actual pressing problem (or any consensus that there is a problem) that we need to find a solution to. People should certainly continue to feel free to propose any bright new ideas that they have, but if there isn't a consensus for any of these proposals it's hard to see the point of an additional binding RfC. We'd just be progressing from one round of policy churn to another. -- Visviva (talk) 22:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose, as unnecessary, a solution in search of a problem. There is precisely zero evidence that the current arbcom desysop for cause process is insufficient and somehow fails to remove admins who should be removed because of abuse/misuse of admin tools. I would support some version of term limits for admins, requiring a reconfirmation RfA to retain the tools, but that's very different from a community desysop for cause. Nsk92 (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Support, iff it includes Extraordinary Writ's option. Make it binding that the most supported option gets a six-month trial. Otherwise, this proposal is just the status quo, per Jayron32. DFlhb (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Strong support. Desysops should need not be taken all the way up to ArbCom. Even if the 2nd RfC doesn't develop consensus, change should still hopefully come per WP:BARTENDER. I support EW's option, but that should be discussed in the 2nd RfC. CLYDETALK TO ME/STUFF DONE21:56, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose You don't need an RFC about having an RFC. If you have a proposal that you think might actually get support, just propose it. If you want to workshop it first with like-minded people (good idea), go ahead and do it. The problem in the past is that no one has been able to come up with something that actually gets consensus, not lack of will to talk about it. Anomie⚔14:56, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose as it's unclear as to what process the proposal is referring. Does it involve the community as a whole or established users? Furthermore, what "cause" would require for the community's input to desysop an admin? I feel desysop as part of a block then reaching to RFA to restore rights is the right process. I find this proposal unclear and vague, so I oppose for now as per Anomie above. Callmemirela 🍁 18:11, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Strong support - This is a proposal I can get around. I'm an advocate for a community-based desysop process without the explicit need for arbcom and this is a great start to initiate such a policy. The community should absolutely have a say and an opinion on site administrators who get to stay or go. — ThatCopticGuyping me! (talk) (contribs) 20:44, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I have limited confidence, that an abstract RfC will actually lead to a clear outcome. I would rather ratify specific/limited recall processes, regardless of whether they're a step in the right direction or not, and shift the goal post to improving those policies instead of...inevitably...waiting for another perfect RfC proposal to come along. This is our chance and we should seize it. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Discussion (Alternate proposal: the community supports development of a de-sysop process)
Yep, I thought we already reached this "consensus in principle" in DESYSOP2019. Personally I think the only way to break the logjam would be to add "if there is no consensus in the binding RfC for any one proposal, the proposal closest to gaining consensus will be implemented for a six-month trial" to the end of Tony's proposal above, but I'm well aware that there'd be plenty of resistance to that. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:36, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Not really - a 4 year old consensus doesn't establish ground for acting now. I see this more in line with WP:RESYSOP 2019 and the initial principles RfC that established it. The method I proposed for DESYSOP2021 was me one person (me) coming up with a proposal. This would establish the principle, and then direct a RESYSOP2019 style RfC be held to implement. Re-establishing the consensus as a whole is useful, and then directing that a multi-proposal RfC is to be held paves the way. The multi-proposal/statement method tends to work better in these type of cases. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think WP:RFA2021 shows why that doesn't work, though: everyone puts forward their pet proposals, the discussion gets so long that nobody but the diehard policy wonks will take the time to wade through it, and we end up with no consensus. I don't really know what the solution is (maybe it's a brainstorming RfC followed by two or three well-thought-out proposals?), but I just find it hard to see a large multi-proposal discussion getting us any closer to consensus. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, but the craziest proposals tend to not get enough support to have consensus, and are usually the later ones proposed. RFA2021 also had the problem (imo) of being about too many principles rather than a single one, and of being an RfC where some people (myself included) didn't participate because no one thought that substantive changes to things that were not RfA would be proposed there.The differing statements method works well when you have a clearly defined controversial issue that there's agreement something should be done about but no one proposal has received consensus in the past. Things surrounding removal and return of permission is one of them where its worked in the past, imo. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:45, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Resysop 2019 worked because once the first consensus was found, that it should be tightened, there was a somewhat limited number of ways so consensus could be found. I absolutely agree with EW that this is far more likely to turn into RFA21 where people opposed to community desysop will find flaws with every proposal, not in bad faith but because they genuinely have issues with the concept, as will people who are actually concerned about some specific of that proposal. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 07:37, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
And there'll be people who don't participate in this RfC, who will then turn out to obstruct anything that by some miracle passes. If WP:RFA2021 didn't teach us that this format doesn't work, WP:ACAS should have. – Joe (talk) 04:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yeah that's a second reason Resysop 2019 worked: It didn't require on consensus to implement. Rather it empowered (required) a specific group of people to act so people who were unhappy with the result couldn't create a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS during implementation. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
I wrote up WP:RRA awhile back. It's a process for the community to review an admin's actions and potentially remove the tools. It was designed to reflect and work with all the current policies/processes. If there's interest, I'm happy to start an RfC on it. - jc3704:49, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If finding a good process were as easy as telling the community to come up with a process, we would already have come up with a process.... Dekimasuよ!13:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
What is this meant to actually achieve? Say there is consensus for this proposal: what then? I don't see how this gets us any closer to coming up with an actual workable implementation of community-based desysop which can in fact gain consensus. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:28, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Admin block history
I was curious how often admins get blocked, so I did a little data mining. I parsed all the per-year subpages of WP:Successful requests for adminship for account names and pulled all their blocks from the logs. I'm sure there's edge cases I didn't handle correctly; any admin who was renamed won't be handled correctly, for example. And I made no attempt to figure out of the blocks happened while the user held the sysop flag. But it should give you some idea of how often it happens. See User:RoySmith/admin-blocks. -- RoySmith(talk)18:09, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@RoySmith Your list currently makes no distinction of blocks vs unblocks, just if it was in the log. Is there a way to check that? Or at least, note the change properly instead of marking unblocks as "indef" Soni (talk) 18:14, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for this great data. I know it took time, and I appreciate it. How many of these are mistakes? Many admins have accidentally blocked themselves. In the admin interface a block link appears next to every username, including one's own. What about mistaken blocks like this bonehead move which I reversed? Clicked wrong link. What about admin accounts that get blocked after the account no longer has admin rights (the unfortunate downward spiral some have experienced). I think the number of long blocks on current admins is so small that it can be handled bespoke by ArbCom. JehochmanTalk19:27, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@RoySmith thanks for that, but would it be possible to get it in a table format so it can be sorted by other things than just username? Maybe also filter out blocks with a duration of less than 1 day (most likely tests) or which were reversed after less than a day (more likely errors)? Thryduulf (talk) 19:36, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
RoySmith As Thryduulf says, you'll want to ignore admins blocking themselves. It's unlikely to happen these days as Special:Block is far more user-friendly, but it used to be embarrassingly easy to make that mistake, as I have ... twice. Black Kite (talk)20:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I was "this close" to writing the perfect Quarry Query for this, except my query both started sputtering in the middle bad, as well as having no clear way to handle short term blocks (like 30d etc).
Otherwise I would have just done some form of "Sum of unblock timestamp - Sum of block timestamp" to figure out how long people stayed blocked for. (probably like Now - Unblock timestamp or something using DATEDIFF).
Anyway, I pasted the query link, just in case someone optimises the final bits enough to make it consistently work below 10 mins. Then we can get a CSV of everything we need + summaries (block/unblock times for each admin etc). Soni (talk) 21:39, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Ha! I was literally blocked one time, for one minute, in 2009, just to get my attention when I was on an AWB run. I imagine this was in the days before AWB would automatically stop when you got a talk page message. BD2412T21:49, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Gathering the data was a good idea, but unfortunately not filtering for whether the user was an admin at the time is an issue also. There are users with multiple blocks after they were desysopped. --RL0919 (talk) 23:16, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
That's not really an accurate figure. Circa 277 are explicitly tests (include the word "test"), another circa 35 are for wikibreaks and the data also includes errors and blocks from before and after the blockee was an admin. Even then as the data goes back to December 2004, and almost all of them were over a decade ago:
Year
Blocks
2004
10
2005
324
2006
376
2007
299
2008
195
2009
122
2010
112
2011
76
2012
37
2013
38
2014
27
2015
51
2016
31
2017
32
2018
47
2019
33
2020
18
2021
27
2022
26
2023
1
Figures found using find and replace, so may not be completely accurate. The one block this year was Barkeep49 partially blocking Geometry guy from WP:BN for 31 hours, after they were desysopped for inactivity. There is no easy way to see how many others were partial blocks. Thryduulf (talk) 09:49, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I've now looked at all the entries on that list from 2022:
9 were of former administrators (7 different blocks)
6 were testing (3 editors)
5 were mistakes (3 editors, Materialscientist managed to accidentally block themselves 3 times)
1 was a compromised account, subsequently resolved
details of blocks of (former) administrators made in 2022
Former administrators:
1 72-hour partial block for edit warring (William M. Connolley, desysopped by arbcom in 2009)
1 self-requested block after resigning as an admin (AustralianRupert)
1 block (2 entries) indef ("WP:BLOCKNAZIS"), followed by community ban (Bedford desysopped by Jimbo in 2008)
1 block (2 entries) for 12 hours for violating a community sanction, talk page access subsequently revoked (BrownHairedGirl, Desysopped by arbcom in 2020)
1 indef partial block from 1 page, overturned at ANI after ~3 hours (Fram, desysopped in 2019)
1 indef partial blcok from article and draft namespaces for copyvios (Gryffindor, resigned adminship in 2018)
1 24-hour block for edit warring (Kwamikagami, desysopped by arbcom in 2012)
Testing blocks:
3 1-minute self-blocks for testing purposes by Cryptic
2 blocks of own alt-account (that was the former main account) for testing purposes (1 indef unblocked after 2 minutes, 1 24-hours unblocked after ~90 minutes), AmandaNP/DeltaQuad
@Thryduulf: I'm not sure what of my actions is being questioned or talked about here. If you need some sort of response from me, please ping again with some additional clarity. Thanks, -- Amanda (she/her)22:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@AmandaNP: none of your actions are being questioned. This is just a factual list of all the times an account that has or had the admin bit was blocked in 2022 (I've improved the formatting to hopefully make that clearer). Your testing blocks (like the other testing blocks) were completely unproblematic. Thryduulf (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Next time you might use the "noping" template as it links to the username without actually pinging them, since a ping could indeed be considered equivalent to "explain yourself." ⛵ WaltClipper-(talk)17:46, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
If you do get the information to exclude test, self, and AFD blocks, it would be interested to see which admins placed the most such blocks. Jclemens (talk) 04:33, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I've looked through the list above and the following is a summary of all the blocks of then-current administrators since 2019 (I've run out of time to look further now, I may do more later if there is interest). Reason is a breif summary, the block log usually contains more detail.
The list excludes: partial blocks, errors, testing, and self-requested blocks.
It includes: blocks that occurred at approximately the same time as a desysop, and blocks that were subsequently reversed (for any reason).
Latest comment: 1 year ago8 comments7 people in discussion
If Village Pump (policy) is the wrong forum to ask this question, please tell me where to ask it. I have been asked to mediate a dispute at DRN involving the lede sentence of an article about an artist who was born in Kyiv in 1879. Where is the guideline on what should be the designation of his nationality? I have advised the editors that this is a contentious topic. In this case, blood is being shed in Eastern Europe essentially over that question as I write this. So where is the policy or guideline on what to say, in the introductory sentence, was the nationality of the subject? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:19, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think that the insistence on stating nationality in the opening sentence of an article causes many problems. What's wrong with simply saying what city the person was born in, if that is what reliable sources say? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The lead of the article in question currently says he "...was a Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist, whose pioneering work and writing influenced the development of abstract art in the 20th century. Born in Kiev to an ethnic Polish family..."
I think rewording it as "...was an artist and art theorist of the Russian avant-garde" would make it much more clear that "Russian" here means association with a named group or movement, rather than personal ethnicity or nationality. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
For the Kurds we had a similar issue. I now tend to leave the nationality out as in the lead there will very likely be some Kurd or Non-turk who then will create an instability in the article. Good example is Hamdi Ulukaya. I now prefer to mention the nationality and citizenship separately in the Infobox. The country of birth is the acknowledged one like (born ...Batman, Turkey).Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:01, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
On a second thought, it also depends a bit if the bio is on a politician or of a writer. One can be mentioned as a Kurdish writer if s/he wrote in the Kurdish language or in Kurdish plays/history. But for Kurdish politicians legislating in the Turkish parliament or mayors in Turkey I do not oppose Turkish politician of Kurdish descent. In both cases, citizenship and nationality can be mentioned separately in the infobox. Maybe this helps in your case at the DRN.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:09, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
That biography’s lead needs a little rewriting, but I would actually remove both Turkish and Kurdish from the first sentence (per MOS:ETHNICITY). I would mention that he emigrated from his native Turkey and is Kurdish in that second paragraph, as that puts it better into context within his business and personal story, especially when his primary business is American. — HTGS (talk)03:20, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Notable fans Sections
Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Is it right to use Amazon cited references. For example, on the List of Doctor Who audio releases on Ref 17, the citation references cites it as effectively an Amazon production when in actual fact, a BBC Audio production. Is that correct. To me, that feels like a group of UPE or paid editors gaming the system somehow or subverting it at the very least. More so, when you look at some some citation templates, it has as "ASIN" number, which is a Amazon reference number. Is that right and proper to have property like that. Why is that even on there, or even on Wikipedia? For christ sake. To me that looks like Amazon is trying to WP:OWN us and seems completely wrong. There is something fundamentally and seriously wrong here. scope_creepTalk16:18, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Citing Amazon or using ASINs is often discouraged but not generally outlawed, and is sometimes useful. See WP:AMAZON and discussions linked from there. I don't see a need to assume bad faith here. —Kusma (talk) 17:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago16 comments9 people in discussion
I apologize if I have placed this in the wrong area. I welcome anyone to move it, if they wish to do so.
I think that the Globalize template is of very little value to Wikipedia and is in some ways a negative influence. I am not trying to antagonize anyone who has placed Globalize templates. Unless other edits show otherwise, I believe that they all acted in good faith and that they were genuinely trying to help. I have never found anyone who was acting in bad faith in regard to this template, or any template that does not deal with article deletion. However, in all of my time on Wikipedia, I cannot remember a single time when the person who placed the globalize template actually did work on the article to help with globalizing the article. I can remember them doing some minor edits, sometimes (a couple of wording changes to the document that indicate that the article refers to how things are done in a specific country, not the world), but not anything else. It is possible that many of the "taggers" did substantial work on the article, and I have just missed it (taggers is not meant to be a derogatory term, here, it is just easier than "editor who placed a globalize template" and I use it to describe all templates, and I call them all "tags" for short). Although, I always check to see if they have done additional work, and I also check to see if they posted on the talk page to explain why the globalize template is there. From my experience (anecdotal evidence, the worst type of evidence because it is so prone to bias of the person, as well as sampling bias, and the huge problem of relying on human memory), I would say that over 90% of the tags were placed with no explanation on the talk page or the edit summary* about why it was placed and no change made to the article besides the tag, and I think that is a very conservative estimate (I do not count putting the word "globalize" or "globalization" in the edit summary to be an explanation). However, the articles I read and edit may be unrepresentative of the use of the tag as a whole. Again, in my personal experience, I would say that perhaps half of the users of the templates put "globalize", or something to that effect, in the edit summary, while the rest were blank. In my opinion, that is insufficient unless the state of the article and the subject matter is such that the need for globalization is essentially self-evident. I believe that globalization tags have been added to articles inappropriately in some cases. If one cannot voice how an article should be globalized on the talk page, I do not think that the tag should be placed.
In addition, true globalization in an article is a completely ridiculous standard, if one thinks about it. There are close to 200 countries in the world (the precise amount varies with what one is willing to call a country, personally I do not think Monaco, Andorra, The Vatican, and other micronations count, unless you have a separate micronations category, but that is another issue). It is completely impossible to come up with articles that cover even simple issues in every country, let alone complex ones. There are also regional variations within countries to consider for some topics. To write such an article would be a monumental task. It might be something that a college could do with all of its majors in one subject making a contribution, but that would be a single article. There are thousands of articles with the globalize tag. Even if one such article were written, it would be far too long. Then, even if it were not too long, it would be impossible to keep such an article up to date, with fast-moving topics being a dozen times more impossible.
Another problem is that some topics are not covered by developing nations, as they are currently having problems with things like extreme poverty, natural disasters, rampant corruption, murder squads, impoverished locals selling drugs to rich nations and drug cartels murdering anyone who gets in the way. Their nations do not have people documenting the use of braille by their citizens, and even when they do, they usually only publish the books and articles in their own languages.
In my opinion, Wikipedia should come up with a more reasonable standard for presenting an international view of topics. As an English language encyclopedia, I suggest that we try to get the situation in English speaking countries first (U.S., UK, IR, CA, NZ, AU, IN – I think those are the right codes for Ireland, Canada, Australia, and India) and to make some more sweeping generalizations for certain areas, like regional things – Latin America, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia… and so on. I mean no offense to the non-English speaking world. I am just trying to be realistic. No one would like an article that actually covers a topic on a global scale more than I would, even if it is twenty pages long. My perfectionist heart is currently breaking, but this task is simply impossible. There are over 5,000 articles with the globalize template on them. It would require the effort of many times the number of editors that we currently have to handle such a project. You would have to assign a scholar to a couple of topics, and depending on the nature of each topic, have him or her be assisted by students, as I suggested. For some topics, you could go 10 to 40 years without needing to do it again. However, some would have to be done every three to five years. If something is on the three year side, it is essentially a never ending project.
I have not been able to express things as elegantly as I would have liked. However, I hope that my issues have been understood despite that. I will try to get back here in case anything needs clarification, but I pretty much said what I wanted to say. I warn you that it can be days before I am able to come back to Wikipedia, sometimes longer. If that is the case, I hope that you can be patient with me and I apologize for the delay in advance. -- Kjkolb (talk) 03:02, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Globalize doesn't mean "cover every aspect of the topic in every country". It means "don't present the U.S. aspects as if they're universal or the only ones that matter". Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:45, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This issue is exactly the one we had with {{Expert needed}}, namely editors tagging articles without providing any context or reason, leaving it to others to work out what the problem is and to put in the effort to fix it. Following a 2021 TFD, it was agreed to formally deprecate {{Expert needed}} if the reason= parameter was not filled in. Something similar might help here, as it would make it clearer that unexplained Globalize tags either need to be expanded or can be removed without the removing editor needing to get into arguments about whether the (unstated) reason was 'evident'.
The meaning of the tag also needs clarification. Many editors think it means "please add information about other regions or countries", unsurprisingly given the tag name and the wording "this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject". But that's not an easy thing to do, with the result that many such tags languish for years. Better might be to change (or clarify) the meaning to "this article includes information that is wrongly stated or implied to be universal or applicable over an excessively wide geographical area. Please either provide additional examples covering other countries or regions, or clarify the geographical area to which the text applies." That's much easier for later editors to deal with, very often by adding some sort of limiting text such as "In the United States, ...". MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:53, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The globalize template can already be removed if no reason is provided. From Template:Globalize:
Please explain your concerns on the article's talk page and link to the section title of the discussion you initiate. Otherwise, other editors may remove this tag without further notice.
This [template]...assumes that you will promptly explain your concerns on that article's talk page in a new section titled "Globalize." (specifically referring to use of the syntax {{Globalize|date=April 2023}})
If you do not explain your concerns on the article's talk page, you may expect this tag to be promptly and justifiably removed as "unexplained" by the first editor who happens to not understand why you added this tag.
I think the meaning of the template is pretty clear. It is as User:Thebiguglyalien says above. If an article only covers one or a few countries then that should simply be made clear. As with most templates that are put on articles the reason for placing it is simply that an editor has seen the issue but doesn't have the time or the ability or the inclination (we are all volunteers) to fix it. If the issue is not clear then people who remove templates should not be treated any worse than people who place them. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:29, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, if it isn't clear to you why an article has a particular template then, unless it's clearly incorrect (e.g. [4]), the best thing to do in most circumstances is ask on the talk page and/or ask the editor who placed the template. If other editors can explain the issue then all is good, if they can't then that's very likely consensus to remove it. Of course in some situations some aspect of the topic does apply only to one part of the world (despite a non-expert's gut feeling that it is more widespread than that) and it can't be globalised. In that case the section should be reworded to make that clear that it's a local issue and/or spun off into it's own article. Thryduulf (talk) Thryduulf (talk) 19:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Just to refocus this. Providing a "global perspective" doesn't mean "provide 200 different individual perspectives". It means provide a more general and universally applicable perspective rather than one focused on individual geographies. The main way should write is "Here's the basic idea (and here's a some representative places where some differences from the basic idea vary)." That's the correct way to write an article. It shouldn't be "Here's what happens in country 1. Here's what happens in country 2. Here's what happens in country 3." That's bad writing. --Jayron3219:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
And besides there being no such thing as true globalization, often it should not be expected (such as on inherently local topics) I think that the good use of the template is when the article has a particularly narrow (e.g. single country) perspective and is on a topic where such should not be the case. Maybe the template could be tweaked along those lines. North8000 (talk) 20:26, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I've suggested some wording above. Is the tweaking you suggest the same, or something different? Trying to find an actionable suggestion here. MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:21, 26 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Assuming your suggestion is the green text, that doesn't cover all the uses of the template. See for example Bus stop#Regulation where the geographical scope of the content we have couldn't be clearer, but it relates to only part of one country while the topic (regulation of bus stops) is much wider. Thryduulf (talk) 00:18, 27 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I can give an example from the world of cars (where this comes up a lot). Sales of the Toyota FJ Cruiser was discontinued in the US at the end of their 2014 model year but it continued being sold in other markets. Their local news sources almost universally reported it as "discontinued", not "discontinued in the US". Therefore, for years yanks would come along and change the article text and its infobox to say that production finished in 2014 - with no qualification. And this was in spite of hidden comments in the article explicitly warning that it was still being sold in other countries. This was a prime example of Americans writing what was true for them but not realising that it was not true for many other countries. Stepho talk01:15, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Well, then you fix the problem. People who don't read policies also don't read policies when you change them. You can't do anything to stop this from happening, you can only clean up when it does. Sorry for the bad news, but "being diligent and fixing mistakes other people make yourself" is the only reasonable solution. Everything else is meaningless and will have no effect on the problem. --Jayron3212:25, 2 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Examples
Whether one is dealing with a country by country situation or whether you need to take a wider look would seem to depend on the topic. For example, how would you handle topics like the following. Just come up with what your very basic plan for the article would be in a few words. Also, no need to do them all, just pick a couple:
Bioterrorism (getting sources from many countries will be impossible and many countries do not do research on bioterrorism, which is the part of the article tagged)
Door (standard door size subdivision is tagged. do standard door sizes outside of North America and Europe even exist and where do you get references?)
Dominatrix (good luck getting reliable sources for Latin America, Africa, Middle East, China)
History of science and technology (unless you say that it is the United States or the Western World in the title, this one is asking for problems)
For "appellate court" and similar articles, like Supreme Court, it seems like the only solution is a country by country article, with some grouping by type, like common and civil law, just as the article does.
The following is not sarcastic, despite how it might seem. I suggest that examples of previous success stories of the globalize tag could be given to prove that it is more useful than a regular, general tag. They would also give guidance on how to properly address the issues in the articles that have yet to be fixed. The globalize template has been around in some form since 2004, which is more than enough time for it to have some successes. We could see which articles that it has been removed from and exclude the articles that should not have been tagged in the first place. At least a few of the rest should be success stories. If there are slim to no success stories, then perhaps the tag should not be added to more articles until we decide what we are going to do with the ones that are currently tagged.
If a global view exists, describe the global view. If multitudes of highly different individual views exist, the main article should be a DAB page (or nearly so) and the bulk of the information should be in their own articles. Borough could be done a lot better with a simple dictionary definition, then it could be broken out into separate articles on each type of Borough, for example. --Jayron3212:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago7 comments6 people in discussion
This popped up because of a recent edit and I realized that this has been sitting as a draft for a very long time. There has been no substantive discussion of it in a while either, so I would like to propose that it be made a guideline as is. Mangoe (talk) 03:43, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
This seems like a very specific circumstance to have its own guideline. If this is a recurring problem (which apparently it is), the best approach might just be to enforce existing policies like WP:BLP and WP:NBIO, which seem to cover this. Things like WP:PRODIGY work better as essays that interpret policy rather than becoming P&G in their own right. WP:NEXTBIGTHING comes to mind as a similar example. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:37, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Meh. I'm not sure it's particularly needed. Wikipedia covers articles on children who meet the same guidance as adults. There are dozens of articles about children Edward V of England, Tad Lincoln, Nandi Bushell, Gavin Warren, etc. and I'm not sure we need special rules for "child prodigies" vs. other children. Why does one need special protection because one was a prodigy? --Jayron3216:17, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Child prodigies need special protection because of the publicity hype about them often generated by the media and by ambitious and unscrupulous parents. There have been several examples in the last ten years. I should like to see this as a guideline or an essay. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:12, 1 May 2023 (UTC).Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago7 comments5 people in discussion
We have discussion elsewhere about capitalizing of "Draft" in "NFL Draft" in titles, and some argue that it's a trademark, so MOS:TM applies. But that word mark seems to be only applicable to clothing items such as hats and tee shirts. There's also a logo with those words (in all caps) that's a trademark for the draft event, but it's described as a shield drawing, etc., not just words. Not seeking legal advice here, but maybe someone who is more familiar with trademarks could chime in to help us understand how to style this in WP, that is, whether MOS:TM applies. Dicklyon (talk) 10:38, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
The third bullet under {{Section link}}: required section parameter(s) missing says Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization practices, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", as long as this is a style already in widespread use..., which aligns with the statement in the lead: When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should examine styles already in use by independent reliable sources. From among those, choose the style that most closely resembles standard English – regardless of the preference of the trademark owner. Personally I think it comes down to what it says in the lead: see what independent, reliable sources use. isaacl (talk) 16:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I agree, but at least one editor has argued that it should be capped because of MOS:TM, even though the trademark NFL Draft is registered for use on clothing items such as caps and tee shirts; or that it should be capped because the logo trademark for the Player Selection Meeting has the words NFL and DRAFT in its description. Thanks for acknowledging that it's a red herring. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Personally it wouldn't even have crossed my mind to capitalise "draft", the case seeming obvious to me, but it seems that more and more words are capitalised these days even when they are not part of proper names. I agree that it is not a trademark in most cases. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:52, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Pushing back on over-capitalization is something that takes a lot of work, because there's so much of it. There appear to be lots of cases where over-capitalization in the press follows over-capitalization on Wikipedia, so it's going to keep getting worse if we don't work to contain it. That's my take on Wikipedia's unreasonably extreme effectiveness or influence. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
What is and isn't part of a country on Wikipedia?
Latest comment: 1 year ago9 comments8 people in discussion
The stance of the UN is one factor that might be considered, but it's not a deciding factor. We go by what the mainstream position is in WP:reliable sources. If you look at the footnote next to "is a country", it lists several reliable sources that describe Taiwan as a country. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:06, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
I suspect that if you looked for Chinese-language sources, the opposite would be the consensus. You might understand what I mean? Synotia (moan) 17:07, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Because other stuff exists, and WP:CONSENSUS. Each situation is determined individually, and there have been discussions on both individually have led to the current texts on Wikipedia. If you wish for one to be consider as another for either one, it is best to open a discussion on talk page of the article of the one you want to change. – robertsky (talk) 17:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Because you can't backdoor your way into overriding consensus by trying to invent a rule. If you think the wording of an article should be changed, get your evidence together, go to the article talk page, lay out your evidence, and let others do the same. If other people have stronger evidence than you do, there's no rule or policy that should change that. --Jayron3218:35, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
As others have pointed out, this is a really complicated question, with no universally correct answer. I used to work for a network management company. Our product was the kind of thing that put up a big world map showing the status of all your data centers, communication links, etc. We had multiple versions of the base map, showing countries labeled in whatever way was not going to offend a particular customer. -- RoySmith(talk)16:36, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
Toponymy is the politics of naming and often different state/actors have competing interests. Wikipedia doesn’t take a position but tries to summarise different non-fringe/authoritative sources. Happy editing! ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:45, 1 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
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.
This is the primary document that cost Diane Abbott the loss of the Labour Party whip job. Should this be included as a reference, or just have news articles talking about it?
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.
Support. It seems like a waste of ArbCom's time when there is a snowball's chance in hell that a blocked editor deserves to be an administrator. — Freoh 12:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
