Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss already proposed policies and guidelines and to discuss changes to existing policies and guidelines.

Please see

this FAQ page
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The use of 'infobox country' for fictitious states

It has always been my understanding that the intended purpose for infoboxes is to provide a summary of key non-controversial data for an article. It appears to me however that with regard to one particular article topic - so-called 'micronations' - this has not been the case, and that instead they have been systematically misused. Specifically, it has been common practice to use 'infobox country' for in these articles, despite the fact that the entities they describe are essentially fictitious entities, invariably lacking diplomatic recognition, and almost always lacking any property of an actual nation-state whatsoever, beyond those existing in the fertile imaginations of those promoting them. It seems to me to be self-evident that the use of an infobox otherwise reserved for real entities is liable to be misleading to our readership, many of whom may not take the time to read the entire article, and to (hopefully) discover that the 'country' being described has no basis in reality.

The 'micronations' topic has sadly been plagued for many years by promotional editing, the citation of dubious sources, dishonest representation of content from more reputable sources etc, etc, along with associated sockpuppetry, off-Wikipedia canvassing, and general abuse of the platform, and in my opinion the manner in which the use of the 'county' infobox has seemingly become standard practice appears to be a remnant of that.

To give a specific example, the Liberland 'micronation' is one of the more well-known and systematically-promoted of these supposed entities, with the consequence that the presence and/or content of the infobox in our article has been the subject of multiple ongoing disputes. Over the years, it has at various times been graced with all sorts of unsourced and/or otherwise untenable claims regarding everything from the size of the population (which is zero, as far as any credible source has ever reported) to the existence of a whole slew of self-appointed government officials (at least one of which was added by said 'official' himself), claims regarding 'official currencies' and 'official languages' and even a specific 'calling code' - the last at least labelled 'proposed' and citing a source, though the source itself fails to provide any evidence that a proposal has actually been made to anyone in a position to act upon it.

At various times, those supporting the use of the infobox in this content have made various arguments in its favour, most of which have come down to the questionable assertion that since the article describes the subject as a 'micronation', it isn't necessary to explain anything further, nor to use them for any other purpose than to present the partisan claims of those promoting the entity described. This seems to be disingenuous at best, if not outright dishonest, given that it relies on the readers careful reading and/or prior knowledge to counter the inherent bias in presenting what is essentially fiction as fact. It shouldn't be necessary to have to read an article to discover that one is being misled by the accompanying infobox.

Given the above concerns, I would have to suggest that the appropriate course of action would be for

WP:NPOV etc, etc to be properly enforced, and that the systematic abuse of infoboxes in this context be dealt with - by explicit change of policy if that is needed - and that this misrepresentation be dealt with by removing these boxes of disinformation entirely. Infoboxes for countries should describe countries, not fantasy worlds, and they don't belong in artices describing the latter. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:54, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

I completely agree. SportingFlyer T·C 15:59, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some of them aren't even real micronations. Certes (talk) 16:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just wondering… is the type of info someone would expect to see in an infobox for a micro-nation the same or different than what is standard in the country infobox we use for a recognized nation state?
I ask because I can see how having an infobox for these entities might be useful… but perhaps it should be a new, separate infobox, with different parameters. Blueboar (talk) 18:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fictional locations should use Template:Infobox fictional location. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The name of the template is almost meaningless in this discussion. It's just a name used to let other editors know what type of content it should be used on. If you look at the template's redirects you will also find
Template:Infobox micronation which has been redirecting to it since 2013. The discussion that resulted in the removal of the infobox was short sighted. If you have issues with the data entered, handle it like we do any other piece of information. Gonnym (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Normally, we deal with 'information' that violates
WP:NPOV etc by removing it entirely. Which is what I am proposing. The problem isn't the name of the infobox (I never suggested it was), the problem is the way a convention normally used for non-controversial fact is systematically being used to promote fiction. This is dishonest, and would remain so regardless of how the box of fictions was renamed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:43, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
If information added to the infobox is not verifiable or is not cited to reliable sources, that falls under policies like
WP:NPOV, etc. The name of the template of the infobox being used seems secondary. To use a parallel example, academic scholarship tends to regard the Book of Esther as being probably fictional, but the Esther (permalink)
page's use of the "infobox person" template isn't a problem since the information it contains simply provides plot-and-analysis-relevant information about her in the narrative's setting. So if reliable sources don't say what Liberland's population is (to use your example), the Liberland infobox doesn't say it; if reliable sources don't say someone is part of Liberland's self-purported-but-unrecognized government, then they don't get added to the infobox.
I'm not seeing what policy needs to be changed.
WP:NPOV seem adequate for dealing with information added to infoboxes; the infobox and its name are secondary. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Ok, here's a practical example: the infobox for Liberland stated that Vít Jedlička is 'President'. Is that verifiable? It is certainly verifiable that he describes himself thus, but should we be presenting such an unsupportable claim as if it is factual in an infobox? I'd say that it was a gross violation of WP:NPOV to present his claim that way - and that is essentially the only way these infoboxes are being used. Nothing they contain is uncontroversial fact, and given that empty boxes are useless, policy requires removal. Not endless arguments over sourcing, not endless addition of promotional BS. Removal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's verifiable (at least for 2015). Gonnym (talk) 21:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"...self-declared President Vit Jedlicka...". That doesn't make him a president. It makes him someone who calls himself one. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Micronations are not fictional, in that they're not in the domain of fiction drafted up by some writer or alt-history person. They're real claims of land, almost always completely BS. Despite their lack of recognition, micronations still have concrete claims of land area and population (haters may claim 0 isn't a population). They also have flags, insignia, mottos, anthems, etcetera. Anything that fails verification may be removed, but my opinion is that it should still have infoboxes. Liberland, in its infobox, said its status was an "unrecognized micronation", which I believe is sufficient to convey it has no diplomatic basis. The infobox should stay.
As mentioned, unverifiable information must be removed per V, RS, and NPOV. SWinxy (talk) 17:47, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But, micronations are fictional in that they are inventions of someone's imagination. Sealand did manage to create a physical (but not a legal) presence by squatting for a while on an abandoned defense tower, but micronations in general have no physical or legal existance. Our articles about micronations are not about things that exist in the real world, they are about fictitious entities, no matter what claims their proponents put forth, Donald Albury 20:23, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"But, micronations are fictional in that they are inventions of someone's imagination." Isn't that true of ALL nations? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
there are editors here who are peeved that people come from offsite to try to promote a microstate that they either like or maybe even have personal ties to, which is understandable. hitting upon the idea that the denial of a infobox somehow dilutes the legitimacy of the micronation status is just daft and petty. as long as it is clearly stated what they recognized/unrecognized status is, an infobox should be returned to the article. ValarianB (talk) 17:54, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a lot of side points people are making but I think that a dedicated Micronation infobox would smooth much of the drama out. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The other comments above have it exactly right. There seem to be a small cohort of editors who are just personally irked that a "fake" or "illegitimate" or inconsequential country can have a page of its own, let alone an infobox of its own. Of course, this is highly biased, especially when notability and reliability of sources guidelines have all been properly followed, and claims cited. Rather than recusing themselves of being editors of these articles, they're engaging in the opposite: starting proposals to remove infoboxes, etc.
Infoboxes are fundamentally summaries of basic information that one would find within the body of an article; plain and simple (it's in the name: it's a box with information that comes from the body of the article). They have no fancier or more stringent requirements than do the bodies of articles. Insofar as the body text of an article exists with properly cited sources, that same information can be summarized in an infobox, which is what is being done in every case on WP. Articles on micronations are no exception to this.
Regarding these arguments about "unsupportable claim": if the entire article is prefaced with the words "unrecognized nation" or the like, it's amply clear to anyone reading that the claims made by the entity in question in the article are disputed. This is hardly any different than the article on Taiwan claiming that it's a "country" when even the UN seemingly disagrees with them. There's variation in how much legitimacy there are to these claims, but insofar as these claims exist, what matters is whether they are notable and are verifiable (by way of secondary sources reporting on them); that's it—nothing else matters.
Finally, what's especially ridiculous is like the previous editor wrote, we're ultimately talking about a "Infobox micronation" template being used here. Why would there be a problem with a micronation article using an infobox made specifically for it? What other infoboxes should it be using if not the one tailor-made for it? Getsnoopy (talk) 20:11, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While it would be a good thing if Wikipedia articles on 'micronations' made their unrecognised (and almost always entirely fictitious) status clear in the lede, there have been consistent efforts to prevent this (see e.g. this edit, and the edit summary [1]). And in any case, as I wrote above, it shouldn't be necessary to have to read an article to discover that one is being misled by the accompanying infobox. As for comparisons between Taiwan (population 24 million) and Liberland (population zero), I'd have to suggest the numbers speak for themselves. This isn't about diplomatic recognition, this is about entirely imaginary entities which have none of the attributes of a nation state at all. No population. No infrastructure. No economy. Nothing. Objectively, almost all are little more than websites with delusions of grandeur. Describing them as 'unrecognised' anythings is of itself misleading. They aren't 'unrecognised'. They are fictitious. Taiwan isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:09, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If there are problems with editors not including the per-verifiable-reliable-sources unrecognized status of a micronation in the lede, that seems like a content dispute matter about the lede rather than a policy question about infobox use. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:27, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If people would actually address the policy question I have described here, rather than looking for ways to avoid it, we'd maybe get somewhere. I have so far seen nobody offer any sort of explanation as to why any infobox (on anything) should be allowed to present fringe and/or fictional promotional bullshit as if it is objective fact. That is what I am objecting to. Not because of the name of the infobox. And not because of the presence or absence of words elsewhere in the article. The 'information' in the infobox is misinformation. It violates core Wikipedia principles. Or if it doesn't please explain why. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:37, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't satisfactorily explained how the information is misinformation. No one would actually be misled by the claim that Vít Jedlička is the president of Liberland, for example. Micronations are "made up", but so are all nations. Removing the infobox just makes the relevant information harder for our readers to find. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto; I couldn't have phrased it better. In the same way that the article on Middle-earth has an infobox that makes a bunch of claims without every one of those claims being prefixed with Warning: this is a fictitious claim, infoboxes about nations (whether micro- or not) do the same thing. The topic of the article might be fiction per se (but then again, all nations are fictitious like you said), but that doesn't matter; what matters is within the realm of that topic, whether the claims being made are true. This applies to literally every article that is about a human construct. Getsnoopy (talk) 06:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Micronations are "made up", but so are all nations." This is exactly the facile drivel that has blighted the topic for so long. Yes, nations-states are social constructs. That doesn't make them all equivalent under Wikipedia policy. Or under common sense. Try getting through US immigration with a Liberland passport, using the same arguments. You'd probably do as well by proclaiming yourself a Sovereign Citizen and citing Admiralty Law. Social constructs become real things, when people sufficient people collectively act on them. And, in the case of nation states, when they have the power to back it up. That's what a state is. That is how one recognises one. Not something that people believe should be one, but one with the means to enforce such a belief. The United States is a social construct. The USS Nimitz isn't. If people want to concoct a fantasy world where the existence of the Nimitz doesn't come into such questions, good for them. Just don't do it on Wikipedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're flogging a straw man there. No-one is saying "Micronations are indistinguishable from internationally recognised countries". They are saying "There is no problem in stating the uncontroversial facts about a micronation using the same template as a country, provided that the infobox is clear about the status of the purported micronation". For what it's worth I wouldn't mind using Infobox: Country for Gondor or Narnia either, provided that it was entirely clear in the infobox what the status of the thing being described was. (I think it's also worth mentioning Transnistria, South Ossettia, SMOM, Northern Cyprus, even Taiwan against the idea that it's entirely clear and undisputed what is and isn't a country.) TSP (talk) 12:02, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So how exactly is the infobox here "clear about the status of the purported micronation"? [2] The only indication in the infobox is the word 'micronation'. Add 'unrecognised', it gets removed (and the same thing has happened repeatedly in the article lede for that matter). And the arguments are almost always the same 'all nations are social constructs', 'it is all sourced' (it is, to the people promoting it), 'it says micronation so that makes it clear' (which it doesn't, since expecting readers to know what 'micronation' is supposed to mean isn't appropriate in a general-purpose encyclopaedia). And round and round it goes. Any excuse to make these fictions look more credible than any legitimate application of Wikipedia policy would permit. It's been going on for years. It is systematic. And in some cases (e.g. Liberland) it is being done by people with a direct financial interest in plugging their imaginary territory, along with associate cryptocurrencies and the rest. These things matter. They aren't just concoctions for entertainment. Not while e.g. the Government of Egypt has had to put out warnings about social media posts plugging 'Liberland' as a destination for emigration. [3] Wikipedia is being used to spread disinformation, for profit. And those being profited from are in such cases the most vulnerable, and worst place to take the loss. We don't plug snake oil. We don't plug Sovereign Citizen 'Admiralty Law'. Why are we plugging 'micronations'? How are they any different? AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:42, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting that you mention "snake oil". The page for
Bates Method page. As with micronations, I don't quite see how summarizing information in an infobox constitutes "plugging", as you say. We aren't plugging books, politicians, or tropical storms by summarizing their data in infoboxes. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Then that's a totally different thing. I certainly was never against adding the word "Unrecognized" in the Infobox because it's right there in the lead of the article; it would be silly for someone to be against putting that information in the Infobox. That's an entirely separate point from whether the Infobox per se should exist, let alone on all micronation articles. This seems like a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Getsnoopy (talk) 19:01, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So pointing out on WP:VPP that policy has been systematically violated is 'battleground behaviour' is it? Nice way to shut a conversation down... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:02, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Articles cannot be exclusively sourced to self-published sources, that is entirely clear. If there are instances of that, fantastic, please propose them for deletion. But if they're being picked up by mainstream media, sorry, we follow that, even if you believe that they're just repeating press releases. I'm not clear which policy you think has been systematically violated here.
I absolutely agree that these articles need to be clear on the status of the institutions depicted, but I'm not really sure what that has to do with use of infoboxes. It kind of feels like you're trying to
WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS
here? There's no evidence in the Egyptian article you posted above that people believing Liberland is a recognised country has any connection to to do with Wikipedia - especially not English Wikipedia, as it's stated that most of the discussion is in Arabic.
On how to make status clear, This seems fine? 'Micronation' in the heading; 'Status: Unrecognized micronation' in the body; 'Area claimed' and similar in describing attributes; 'Liberland ... is an unrecognised micronation' and 'Liberland has no diplomatic recognition from any recognized nation' in the article lead. Looks good to me. TSP (talk) 14:10, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of an infobox is to quickly summarize key facts for the reader, and I agree that use of the Nation infobox results in a misleading outcome. What we include in the template listing micronations includes
aspects that are trivial in this conext, like flags, mottos, and currency, in a way that is out of step with the body of reliable sources.--Trystan (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
If infobox country was forked to infobox micronation, or if infobox fictional location was used instead of infobox country, would the reader even know it? I don't think the name of the infobox matters to readers. Levivich (talk) 16:38, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Sealand infobox below looks good to me. Using an {{
infobox micronation}} with parameters that reflect the actual key components of micronations (which are not the same as the key components of countries), and that accurately label those components ("area claimed" etc) makes sense. Levivich (talk) 03:32, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
No infobox. Using an infobox identical to that of actual countries is putting the micronation's unrecognized claims in wikivoice, which is not compliant with NPOV. Infobox country params were chosen because they are considered to be the most unifying, fundamental data and are reliably released through official government (or scholarly/NGO/tertiary) publications for all nations. They are inherently
DUE because they are expected to be reported widely in high-quality RS.
These infobox country params for micronations can NOT be expected to have the same level of robust, official/RS sourcing, and in fact most would require attribution or context when in the article body. They are no more inherently fundamental to the topic than a glossary of trivia/maps at the end of any fantasy book, and there is certainly no expectation of uniform attention or treatment from sources across all of what we call "micronations". JoelleJay (talk) 00:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I can think of nothing more fundamental to a micronation than claims of location, area, population, founder(s) and leader(s) (flag(s) are also common to both but not essential to either) - i.e. the same information as for countries. Infoboxes, whether for country or micronation, simply state in wikivoice what the verifiable claims are, not how truthful or generally accepted they are. Absolutely all of your objections can be overcome by simply noting clearly in the article lead and infobox that the subject is a micronation - and we already do that. We even wikilink the term "micronation" so that those who are unfamilar with it can learn. Thryduulf (talk) 01:04, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 2 questions (not directed at any specific editor)… 1) Which parameters currently included in the country infobox would we have to remove if we created a separate micro-nations infobox? and 2) What parameters would we have to add if we were to create a separate micro-nations infobox? Blueboar (talk) 01:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An infobox treats the micronation as if such details are always reasonable to report at all. If a given detail would simply be primary-sourced trivia that doesn't belong in the body of the article, we should not be emphasizing it in the infobox. Different micronations will have different amounts and quality of sourcing for any of their claimed attributes; even if those attributes are verifiable, they may be nothing more than fancruft with strictly in-universe relevance to the topic. And yet if a parameter can be filled it will be. The fact that "micronations" is so similar to "microstates" just makes an infobox even more misleading. JoelleJay (talk) 01:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If information isn't covered in secondary sources, aren't the policies for talking about that
WP:V? I don't really understand what's being asked for. If there isn't verifiable and due information that is due and can be summarized in an infobox, then an infobox can be foregone. If there is verifiable and due information in the body that can be summarized in an infobox, then an infobox is fine and even appropriate. Existing policies seem plenty sufficient, and I don't see a need for some explicit change in policy specifying micronation topics. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Editors very frequently see infoboxes as forms to fill in with anything remotely verifiable regardless of how relevant or BALASP it is to the topic. JoelleJay (talk) 04:58, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then the “form” should only have fields that are “relevant to the topic” for the editors to fill in. What would those fields be for a micro-nation? Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Off the top of my head and in no particular order:
  • Founder(s)
  • Location(s)
  • Capital(s)
  • Area
  • Population
  • Dates active
  • Website
  • Leaders
  • Form of government
  • Flag
  • Anthem
  • Motto
  • Official language(s)
Not every micronation has all of those things, they are all relevant (when they can be reliably sourced) for the ones that do. This is wholly a subset of the parameters of
cctld, ISO codes, international calling code, patron saint, etc) so can't be included regardless of whether the parameter exists or not. Thryduulf (talk) 13:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
In the past there has been a similar debate about the amount of detail to add to churches. From the introduction to {{Infobox church}}: Churches vary from small chapels to large cathedrals; from corrugated iron sheds to architectural masterpieces of international importance. This template has to be adaptable to the worship locations of all religious denominations and as a consequence, it has many parameters. It is therefore important that editors exercise discretion in selecting an appropriate number of parameters. If the infobox for a particular church becomes excessive WP:BOLD applies and less significant parameters should be removed. Could a similar caveat to the talk page be applied here? We don't need more templates, we need more selective use of them. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a given detail would simply be primary-sourced trivia that doesn't belong in the body of the article, we should not be emphasizing it in the infobox An infobox summarises the body of the article. If something is not in the body of the article, for whatever reason, then it shouldn't be in the infobox. Whether something is "trivia" is a matter of subjective opinion, if editors disagree then seek consensus on the talk page, seeking additional input (e.g.
WP:ABOUTSELF material (which covers most of what infoboxes cover). Secondary sources are required to demonstrate notability, but if the topic isn't notable it shouldn't have an article (with or without an infobox), if a topic is notable enough for an article then there is no reason for it not to have an infobox. Thryduulf (talk) 02:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
This is put better than I could've said it. I'm inclined to Thryduulf's sense of the matter. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:47, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am arguing that which "simple factual and ABOUTSELF" material is actually encyclopedic enough for an infobox is far too variable and inconsistently relevant for micronations. There is plenty of factual, verifiable-in-RS info available for almost all members of some groups that still doesn't make it into infobox params because editors have determined it is not vital info on that topic. Like an actor's eye or hair color. Why shouldn't the considerations that led to those facts being excluded from a particular infobox be repeated here, for a group where it is not clear if any parameters are expected to be integral details for many members? A micronation's "national anthem" could have the same broad sourcing as that of a real country, or it could exist in name only sourced to an offhand comment in an interview and not actually represent a real song. JoelleJay (talk) 04:54, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your problem is not with infoboxes, it is a content dispute with other editors. The way to resolve a content dispute regarding what should be in a specific infobox is to discuss the content with other editors at the article concerned and then abide by the consensus reached. Trying to remove infoboxes from all micronation articles because you disagree with the content of some of them is exactly the same as, and exactly as inappropriate as, trying to remove infoboxes from all articles about actors because you think eye colour and height are trivia that doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 10:47, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whether something is primary sourced or not is irrelevant - primary sources are entirely unproblematic (and sometimes desirable) for simple factual information and
WP:ASPECT or requires too much qualification and explanation to be easily summarized in an infobox field.--Trystan (talk) 15:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Everything about your comment is a matter for consensus among editors at the talk page of the individual article, because what weight is due will be different in every case (for example, location is a more important aspect of Liberland than Independent State of Rainbow Creek). It's not a reason to remove infoboxes from micronationa generally. Thryduulf (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't suoport removing infoboxes from micronation articles. As set out in my comments above, I support the creation of an infobox for micronations that has fields and labels that are generally appropriate for micronations: "Claimed by", to identify the people or group promoting its existence, "Dates claimed", for the period it was promoted, and "Area claimed", with a map.--Trystan (talk) 18:56, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the need to fork the country infobox given that fields relevant to micronations are a complete subset, and there isn't any promotion happening, no NPOV violation, or any other reason why we need to batter readers over the head at every opportunity that micronations are not countries. If they are reading an article about a micronation, that explicitly says its a micronation, that links to the article explaining micronations, etc, then its already clear enough without needing to insult their intelligence or fear that "proper" countries might get infected, or whatever other reason there is for the hate displayed here. Thryduulf (talk) 22:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How do you think infobox parameters are chosen? JoelleJay (talk) 22:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which parameters are chosen for the template or chosen to be filled in on a given article? For the former, template editors and maintainers tend to include all that are relevant for a substantial number in the relevant set. For the latter, a consensus of editors at the individual article. I don't get why you are asking that though? Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
template editors and maintainers tend to include all that are relevant for a substantial number in the relevant set. I am arguing that we have not yet determined the set of "which parameters are relevant" for micronations. If we are to have infoboxes for them at all, the parameters need to be chosen based on what has actually been treated as "fundamental" info by independent secondary RS, not what we assume would be fundamental through analogy with real countries. JoelleJay (talk) 00:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Without wading into every side argument in this, I'm going to support the notion that this template should not be used for any fictitious country or for any alleged micronation that is not treated as a real country in numerous independent reliable sources. For disputed territories, break-away republics, occupied territories that were formerly countries, etc., there should be a criterion that it have (or at the time had - some of these will be articles on historical polities/nations) an actual functional government, not just a declaration of a rebellion or whatever. It's not WP's job to "label" things as countries/nations/states that the majority of pertinent RS do not treat that way.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  00:16, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Using infobox country does not label the subject as a country, see for example
Sealand and Austenasia. Thryduulf (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
This is one of those issues where I really wish Wikipedia had some basic capacity for user testing. My strong suspicion is that a group of users shown those two infoboxes, and then asked to describe what they think those things are, would largely come away with the impression that they are real, functioning governments of places. Which would be clear evidence that the purpose of the infobox, to summarize the key features of the page's subject, is not being met.--Trystan (talk) 01:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aerial view of Sealand in 1999
Do you really believe that most readers, if shown an infobox that contains this image, with this caption, would largely come away with the impression that they are real, functioning governments of places?
If so, then I suspect that user testing for the opening paragraphs would produce equally disheartening results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Principality of Sealand
Unrecognized micronation
Aerial view of Sealand in 1999
Claimed byPaddy Roy Bates, Michael Bates
Dates claimed1967 to present
Area claimedOffshore platform off the coast of England
In that one case, the picture might well give them pause. At the same time, the presentation of the infobox is saying, "Here are the key features you need to know about this topic: this place has a flag, a coat of arms, a motto, an anthem, it's a constitutional monarchy, it's led by a prince...". By contrast, an infobox that summarizes the actual key points of the topic, as framed in the article and supported by the sources, would leave little possibity for confusion. Those fields are not the same as the available fields in Infobox Country, and that is true in general for micronation articles.--Trystan (talk) 03:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You mean the presentation of the infobox, with "Micronation" at the top equal in size to the title and titles such as "purported currency", no population figure and a size of "approximately 1 acre" might might not leave people with enough of an impression of how much disdain for the subject they should have or they might confuse it for a "real" country? I don't buy it. Remember that NPOV applies to everything, regardless of how real or important we personally think something should be. Thryduulf (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does the infobox I proposed convey disdain? I don't see how. I think a NPOV approach requires us to highlight the unrecognized status (and often complete lack of de facto existence) of these entities as their single most important defining feature, but that is to comply with
WP:ASPECT
. I personally don't feel disdain for them.
But I'm happy to turn to addressing the specific points you raise, and why I think the infobox I have proposed presents a more accurate, neutral, and clear summary of these topics than the current application of Infbox Country. "Micronation" as a term is uncommon, recent, and easily confused with microstate. Readers can't click on every link in an article, so I don't think adding the clarifying word "unrecognized" is undue. For size, yes, Sealand is small, but most micronations are not distinguishable from microstates based on size. I don't think it is reasonable for a reader to be expected to notice that population is missing from the Sealand infobox, or to make any inferences from that fact. The notion of what is meant by "population" for a micronation is inherently unclear (c.f. Glacier Republic), so I don't think that is a meaningful field for micronations generally. "Purported currency" is probably the best field label in the current application of Infobox Country, but from reviewing several micronation articles, I haven't found one where the purported currency is actually a key feature of the subject. Clarifying that the currency is "purported" is good, but then why are we not similarly qualifying the statement that the organizational structure and various other aspects are also merely "purported"?--Trystan (talk) 14:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly comes across as disdainful even if thats not what you intended. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think
WP:DUE applies here too. Putting the flag and crest of Sealand in an infobox isn't neutral. SportingFlyer T·C 14:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Agreed. I don’t necessarily disagree that an infobox could be useful on these articles, but mimicking the trade dress of legitimate country infoboxes serves to mislead. I also find it misleading to fill in the “Government” fields like “President” and “Minister of Finance”. The people self-appointed to these roles are not at all what readers will understand a president or minister to be. Words have meanings. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What about a generic "People" or "Key people" category like we use with companies? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who are we to decide who is and who isn't a legitimate holder of a title? Once we start doing that for micronations we also have to start doing it for states with limited recognition, and for "proper" countries where there are disputed claims to the legitimate government. Thryduulf (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly I don't think this is a slippery slope... Sealand is not Kosovo and this wouldn't establish any sort of consensus or precedent for those vastly different categories of articles. I don't think its a question of legitimacy, we can still have the full title in the article after all, but a question of due weight. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sealand is not Kosovo, but it is all one continuum from serious but non-notable micronations through to micronations that actually control some tiny territory (e.g. Sealand), to nations that control non-trivial territory but are unrecognised by everyone, to those that are recognised by a few, to those that are recognised by most. Then there are entities like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Holy See, that don't neatly fit anywhere on the continuum. Thryduulf (talk) 16:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is my concern as well. Much of the thread has circulated around emphasizing what is "official" and "real", but the "official" and "real" are not nearly so uncontroversial as implied. If "unrecognised micronation" in the lede isn't clarifying enough, then as another example is "Native American reservation" too unclear and unusual a term for Navajo Nation? Someone without familiarity with of U. S. history might plausibly not know what reservation means in the context of nation-state sovereignty. Should the "infobox settlement" of the Navajo Nation not resemble that of a country so much, with its capital, government, population, GDP, etc.? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 17:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Navajo Nation is a legally-defined entity whose governance and land claims are recognized by the US. There is no similarity here between it and an micronations which by definition do not have legal recognition. JoelleJay (talk) 23:01, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Except some micronations do have some legal recognition, as noted elsewhere in this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 01:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where are these examples of micronations with legal recognition? Note that diplomatic recognition is limited to sovereign states. JoelleJay (talk) 03:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Sovereign state" is not black and white. For example, Libreland has recognition from Somaliliand, which has recognition from Taiwan, which has recognition from multiple indisputably sovereign states. The
Sealand article claims "de-facto recognition" from the UK and Germany. Where do you draw the line? Thryduulf (talk) 11:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Just a note that whole Taiwan extends legal and other forms of recognition to Somaliland they do not extend diplomatic recognition. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the Navajo Nation has no diplomatic recognition but does have legal recognition. No matter how hard you try, it is not simple. Thryduulf (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I draw the line at "most recent sources call this a micronation"! It's not that hard. JoelleJay (talk) 18:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note that legal and diplomatic recognition are completely different things, take for example Taiwan which enjoys legal recognition from far more counties than it enjoys diplomatic recognition. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:27, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No it is not a continuum, the cutoff for what is a micronation is its designation as a micronation in RS. No one here is arguing about anything other than micronations, so entities that have not been widely described as micronations are irrelevant. However, the diversity you note among what have been classed as micronations is precisely why the country infobox is inappropriate to use, as there is too much variation in coverage and topic relevance of most of the parameters. JoelleJay (talk) 23:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that what is a micronation and what isn't is not black and white. There is no more variation among micronations than there is among countries and other entities that don't fit neatly into either category. Thryduulf (talk) 01:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Legal recognition as a state by sovereign states" is pretty black and white. And there certainly is far more variation among micronations in whether any particular infobox parameter can be filled and sourced to IRS coverage at all, let alone coverage demonstrating it is a fundamental aspect of the micronation. JoelleJay (talk) 03:57, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Legal recognition as a state by sovereign states is very much not black and white - see the lead of Sovereign state. Everything else is irrelevant to whether there should be an infobox and if so what it should be called as explained by multiple people multiple times in this discussion already. Thryduulf (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn’t need to be complicated. If reliable sources don’t treat it as a real country, then us treating it as a real country would be undue promotion of a fringe perspective. The existence of a continuum does not seem to prevent sources from clearly distinguishing the things at the opposite ends of the continuum. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 11:25, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, what is the objective definition of a "real country"? Secondly, explain how us including information in an infobox (but not the article) about a "non-real" country is promotion but including the same information about a "real" unrecognised country isn't. Thryduulf (talk) 12:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that a real country is whatever reliable sources treat as a real country. We don’t need to get into any deep epistemological debate here - we just need to follow the sources. The due weight of reliable sources clearly treat micronations as something quite distinct from what the majority of readers will recognise as countries, and also distinct from other types of disputed regions.
I mentioned trade dress above because even completely factual information can serve to mislead if packaged in a form with a strong association with a thing that is clearly different. This is one of the reasons we wouldn’t use Template:Chembox on Dilithium (Star Trek). Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:21, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly this. WP is not the arbiter of what is and isn't a country, let alone the extent of its legitimacy. Hence, it refers to them using neutral language and just presents the facts as they are: "hey, it's a country, but an unrecognized one according to so and so reliable sources." Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not sure why this discussion is veering toward "what will users think? will they think it's a real country?"
Just for context, Liberland has full diplomatic recognition from Somaliland, which is an unrecognized (though not micro-) nation itself but has a large land area with actual people living in it and such. It is an insult to all the people living there and their government (which, mind you, operates in basically exactly the same way as does that of Kosovo) to say that "WP doesn't think Liberland is a country, so that's what's real" when they obviously thought it is and decided to enter into relations with it. Getsnoopy (talk) 19:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No one is saying WP should decide what is or isn't a country. We are going by what the sources say, and if they designate an entity as a micronation then that means we do too. Micronations are definitionally not legally-recognized by sovereign states and thus are definitionally not classified the same as any of the other types of non-sovereign polities that have been mentioned so far. From our own article: Micronations are aspirant states that claim independence but lack legal recognition by world governments or major international organisations.[5][6] Micronations are classified separately from states with limited recognition and quasi-states, nor are they considered to be autonomous or self-governing as they lack the legal basis in international law for their existence.[7] While some are secessionist in nature, most micronations are widely regarded as sovereignty projects that instead seek to mimic a sovereign state rather than to achieve international recognition, and their activities are almost always trivial enough to be ignored rather than challenged by the established nations whose territory they claim
Sources do not treat them as "real" countries and neither should we. JoelleJay (talk) 23:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is my opinion that we will have another shouting match about the definition of a micronation if Liberand manages to get diplomatic recognition from the Javier Milei Government in Argentina, who had previously vocally supported Liberland.
Furthermore, if you search Liberland on YouTube and set it to show recent results, you will find dozens of videos of people settling Liberland starting from mid-August 2023. At the very least, one can see the Liberlanders permanently parked a houseboat on there, and selling accommodation for $100/night on said houseboat. (Check their website.) This brings the question, does Liberland really fit in the definition of a micronation presented above? 2001:4430:4141:7BBE:0:0:81D:C0A4 (talk) 03:57, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If Argentina formally recognizes Liberland and sources state it is no longer a micronation, we can revisit its classification on wikipedia. JoelleJay (talk) 04:02, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some items related to how Croatia views Liberland, for future reference:
Document UP/I-216-04-23-01/1873 (expulsion of an EU national): “[Vít Jedlička] as the creator of the idea and the project of the parastatal entity [of Liberland]… . ”
Document: NK UP/I-216-04-23-04/192 (expulsion of a non-EU national): “The given area is claimed by a Czech citizen Vít Jedlička as the state of Liberland and the proponents of the parastatal entity…” 2001:4430:4121:E806:0:0:DE5:F0AC (talk) 04:10, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following link contains the reply of the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs after a Liberlander letter-writing effort in 2023. One can say that this means that Croatia views Liberland a mere trivial project, or on the flip side that it warrants enough attention for an official reply.
https://liberland.org/en/news/522-liberland-responds-to-croatian-foreign-ministry 2001:4430:4121:E806:0:0:DE5:F0AC (talk) 04:18, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree. When an organisation/similar has a visual emblem, displaying it in the article is absolutely DUE, and the infobox is a suitable place for that where one exists. Thryduulf (talk) 16:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When the organization is fictional, using visual emblems make it look like the organization actually exists. SportingFlyer T·C 09:42, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly micronations are not fictional, but even if they were that wouldn't be a reason not to display their emblem in an infobox, see e.g.
Umbrella Corporation, S.H.I.E.L.D., Department of Extranormal Operations, H.A.M.M.E.R., SPECTRE, ... Thryduulf (talk) 11:24, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Those aren't
WP:PROFRINGE clearly applies here. SportingFlyer T·C 13:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Why would documenting the existence of an unrecognized micronation and its visual logo be promotion? It seems like a mainstream point of view that Sealand and Liberland exist as human phenomena, and they have coverage in relevant news media. The views that are fringe are their claims of sovereignty, and the pages don't promote those claims of sovereignty; the pages report that they have claimed sovereignty and report those claims have gone unrecognized. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 13:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Policies discourage this: if the only statements about a fringe theory come from the inventors or promoters of that theory, then "What Wikipedia is not" rules come into play. This would include flags and seals, I would imagine. SportingFlyer T·C 15:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the existence of a micronation is unestablished by RS, then the quoted policy applies and we shouldn't have an article about it. If RS confirm the existence of the micronation, even if it's only as a micronation, then its graphical symbols should be usable even if they are only based on the micronation's own data. Animal lover |666| 18:37, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On what grounds? WP:FRINGE explicitly disallows that. SportingFlyer T·C 18:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FRINGE does not disallow the neutral reporting of factual information about a fringe topic. Using an organisation's own symbols on an article about that organisation that explicitly puts the status of that organisation into context (and having "unrecognised micronation" in big letters does do that) is neutrally reporting the factual information about that organisation. Including such symbols in other articles will be UNDUE in almost every case I can immediately think of (List of micronations being an exception) but that's a different matter.
WP:NPOV policy to which it relates). Indeed not using an organisation's logo (where there are no venerability or copyright issues) could be argued to be contrary to NPOV. Thryduulf (talk) 19:45, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Oh come on, NAMBLA's logo is infamous and widely reported in RS. In contrast, the various details and visual paraphernalia that can be associated with micronations in general rarely get mentioned anywhere besides the micronation's own website/publications. JoelleJay (talk) 20:04, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Mentions/inclusions of the flag of Liberland in reliable sources include: CNN, The Japan Times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, EUObserver, and Vice. Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I said in general, for the full set of params, not "specifically the logo of arguably the second-most famous micronation". JoelleJay (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So what does "in general" mean then? What is the objective standard that defines when including a micronations symbols is "fringe" and when it isn't? Thryduulf (talk) 21:30, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
whoever added the infobox proposal to the right, i'd support that. restore a box, but redesign it so it doesn't copy the nation infobox style, layout, and fields. ValarianB (talk) 16:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it doesn't really matter, tbh, as long as the infobox conveys the info, the status of the entity in question. Selfstudier (talk) 17:07, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting issue, and one I had not previously considered. It appears to me that the essence of the discussion is whether the decision to use the country infobox at all is effectively a communicating non-neutral editorial viewpoint. I think that on balance I mostly fall in line with those concerned that the country infobox serves to give an inaccurrate impression of micronations. The modified box modeled on this page would be acceptable. I share the concerns voiced here that the infobox by its very nature is intended to summarize and convey the essential facts of the topic. For micronations, the most essential fact is that it lacks status recognized by any other entity and the box should instantly make this apparent to the reader. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 15:32, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It’s simpler than that … having an infobox in an WP article is simply a way to provide information about the topic in an organized format… it does not confer “legitimacy” on that topic.
That said… when it comes to micronations, while I do think having some information presented in infobox format is useful, I agree that there is a valid discussion to be had over what information should be provided in that infobox. Blueboar (talk) 15:43, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the point that several other editors that "micronation" should almost always be prefaced with "undrecognized." I don't think it's a fair expectation that a general readership inherently knows the difference between a micronation and the European microstates.

On infoboxes: like it or not, they are perceived a certain way by the general WP readership in my opinion. That perception being that it's the bare facts of a subject, and the ultimate form of wikivoice. So real care needs to be taken into consideration on what information gets included. I picked a random micronation I remember reading about, Principality of Hutt River, which also happened to be one of the more "real" ones before it was ended. I think it's overall okay at presenting information neutrally, but are things like an anthem, motto, ethnic groups, time zone essential to understanding an Australian's oddball tax evasion scheme (with apologies to the memory of HM Prince Leonard)? At best it's crufty, and at worst it adds to the presentation of the subject as "real" as the general readership perceives it. Seltaeb Eht (talk) 00:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder why the |status= parameter isn't used more in these infoboxes. Something like |status = unrecognized micronation with links, or even a plain English summary like |status = failed attempt to start a new country would likely be appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Such is stating unrecognized or generally rejected claims as fact in the voice of Wikipedia. Should not be done. Infoboxes should only (explicitly or implicitly) include undisputed facts because they are too brief to include anything that needs explanatoin, calibration or attribution. North8000 (talk) 19:07, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Use Template:Infobox fictional location for micro "nations" just like we presently do with Land of Oz, Camelot, Gotham City and 556 other fictional countries. This useful template gives information for micro nation believers and aficionados while making it clear to the general reader an article is not describing a real country. If this bothers them, said "nations" can send their navies to San Francisco to bombard Wikimedia's offices.--A. B. (talkcontribsglobal count) 19:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Micronations are not fictional though, so that would be completely inappropriate. Thryduulf (talk) 19:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@North8000 so why do the infoboxes for places like Taiwan, Northern Cyprus and Guyana present statements about the country's area that are the subject of disputes? Thryduulf (talk) 19:49, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate to use a different infobox or inappropriate to sortie their fleets and deploy their armies?
In any event, if they're real countries, they can get Interpol to arrest @AndyTheGrump for opening this libelous useful discussion. --A. B. (talkcontribsglobal count) 19:51, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is decidedly not NPOV to describe a non-fictional entity as fictional. Whether or not they are "real" countries (whatever that means) is not relevant - it is unarguable (at least in the cases I'm familiar with) that they claim to be countries and so we report those claims neutrally and report the status of those claims (i.e. who recognises them, etc) neutrally too. Thryduulf (talk) 19:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf: Agree. And if that explanation / clarficiation / context won't fit in the info box, IMO the item should be left out of the info box. North8000 (talk) 21:05, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't put the explanation of the status of claims about/by "real" countries in their infoboxes, indeed we're far more explicit about the status of micronations in the infobox than we are about places like Cook Islands, Northern Cyprus, Ingushetia, Wa State, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 21:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf: I would recommend changing all of those. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then, per List of territorial disputes you should be recommending removing the area from the majority of "real" countries. Thryduulf (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course I don't have a recommendation that would be tidy. And degree of acceptence would also be a factor. But, as a note, specifying an area of the country is not directly weighing in on the disputes which affect the area.North8000 (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So if specifying disputed facts is not weighing in on the dispute for a "real" country, why is it for micronations? It is generally accepted as fact that Taiwan claims the area controlled by the PRC even though it doesn't have de facto control over that area, it is generally accepted as fact that Liberland claims the area not claimed by either Croatia or Serbia even though it doesn't have de facto control over that area, it is generally accepted as fact that the
Hutt River Principality claimed 75km² of land on the Australian continent even though it is at best debatable whether it had any de facto control over that area, it is generally accepted as fact that Ukraine claims the area of Crimea even though it does not have de facto control over that area. The basis for the claims differ, as does who disputes them and why, but they are all disputed. Thryduulf (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I'm not pretending to have a tidy answer, I'm just discussing considerations. Let's say that somebody claims that Rhode Island is an independent country and not a part of the USA. If in the USA article it discussed the State of Rhode Island, that is a pretty clear claim that Rhode Island is a part of the USA. And if in the Rhode Island article, there is an an infobox titled "Republic of Rhode Island" that is a pretty clear implicit claim that it is a country. But if in the USA article, the the listed total area of the USA includes the area of Rhode Island, thast is not such a clear claim/statement that Rhode Island is a part of the USA. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support the idea that vanity projects do not deserve to be treated (and infoboxed) the same way as real states. The Banner talk 09:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Compare the infoboxes of Israel (a real country with recognition by most, but not all, UN members) and Principality of Hutt River (a micronation). The former has fields "Area" (with footnotes due to the territorial dispute) and "Currency", while the latter has "Area claimed" and "Purported currency". And the latter says "Micronation" at the top, which the former doesn't. Animal lover |666| 14:47, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moving forward

Based on the above discussion, it looks like there may be a consensus, but a formal RFC would be needed to test that theory. Would the options of keeping Infobox Country and adopting the micronation infobox proposed above be suitable? Does anyone have any suggested changes to the proposed infobox first?--Trystan (talk) 14:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would oppose changes, because it's simply not necessary (micronation infoboxes and articles already make everything perfectly clear while maintaining NPOV) and the proposed version is less useful - particularly the "claimed by" field makes it appear that the claimants were working in partnership whereas in reality one is the successor of the other. Thryduulf (talk) 15:37, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "claimed by" label should read "initiators", "proponents" or "founders" or something to that effect. A "claimed by" label can be read to suggest that the initiators are claiming the territory for themselves, which not all of them do. Freetown Christiania for example, one of the only two or three micronations with real and lasting cultural significance, was very emphatically not "claimed by" anyone.
Renaming "area claimed" to "location" would generally lead to shorter descriptions and easier consensus.
A "type" label of sorts describing the raison d'être might be worth considering. Freetown Christiania was an intentional community; this is the most important thing to know about the project besides its location and approximate extent in time. Kugelmugel was an art project. The Hutt River Province was a political statement. The Kingdom of Elleore is a private leisure activity. The OWK is a business venture. The raison d'être is generally the most important property of any of the handful of micronations that actually matter. (The only possible exception I can think of is Sealand, whose most important property may have been the fact that it had a colourable (if ultimately insufficient) claim to independence.)
I believe it is important to make a clear distinction, on the infobox level, between micronations with real political or cultural impact on the one hand, business enterprises that just barely meet technical notability requirements on the other. People have already pointed out that many readers absolutely will read a country box as a low-grade certificate of legitimacy and that it therefore is a stealth NPOV violation to stick normal country boxes on sleazebag affinity scams like Liberland. A dedicated micronation box will help; a type label of some sort will help further. GR Kraml (talk) 16:07, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Proponents" and "Location" sound good to me. I agree that a "Type" field would be useful, as the subjects we describe as micronations variously include failed rebellions and self-described publicity stunts. In some cases, "Type" might be difficult to determine from available sources, but it could always be left blank on a case-by-case basis. What would you suggest for what I had as "Dates claimed"? Something like "Dates promoted"? Or just "Dates", but then it is potentially unclear whether we are talking about the period during which it was promoted or the period of its de facto existence (if any).--Trystan (talk) 17:33, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that "type" would have to be left blank in some cases and I don't mind.
Either "dates claimed" or "dates promoted" should be fine. "Dates claimed" doesn't have the legal ambiguity issue that "claimed by" has, and if you're not the product of a formal claim of some sort you're probably not a micronation.
I agree that "dates" alone is bad. In micronations that have permanent residents or that come with long-lasting non-resident communities attached to them, the community as such can (and often does) start earlier and end later than the claim to sovereignty. GR Kraml (talk) 18:23, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the different types of infobox side-by-side (hopefully my bodged formatting works, please fix it if it doesn't).

Infobox country with
micronation parameter
Infobox country without
micronation parameter
Proposed custom infobox
Principality of Sealand
Micronation
Flag of Sealand
Flag
Coat of arms of Sealand
Coat of arms
Motto: E Mare Libertas (
Organizational structure
Constitutional monarchy[2]
Prince 
• 1967–2012
Paddy Roy Bates
• 2012–present
Michael Bates[3]
Establishment
• Declared
2 September 1967;
56 years ago
 (1967-09-02)[3]
Area claimed
• Total
0.004 km2 (0.0015 sq mi)
(approx. 1 acre)
Purported currencySealand dollar
Principality of Sealand
Flag of Sealand
Flag
Coat of arms of Sealand
Coat of arms
Motto: E Mare Libertas (
Government
Constitutional monarchy[2]
Prince 
• 1967–2012
Paddy Roy Bates
• 2012–present
Michael Bates[3]
Establishment
• Declared
2 September 1967;
56 years ago
 (1967-09-02)[3]
Area
• Total
0.004 km2 (0.0015 sq mi)
(approx. 1 acre)
CurrencySealand dollar
Principality of Sealand
Unrecognized micronation
Aerial view of Sealand in 1999
Claimed byPaddy Roy Bates, Michael Bates
Dates claimed1967 to present
Area claimedOffshore platform off the coast of England

Given the clear distinction between the first two, and how much clearer they are, I simply don't buy the argument that people will confuse it for a "real" country. Labels, etc. can be tweaked if necessary (I actually prefer the header presentation of the proposed box as it makes it clear "Micronation" is not part of the name), but there isn't any need for major changes or for wheels to be reinvented. Thryduulf (talk) 16:33, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No offense, but this comparison is a great illustration of why standard country boxes are out of place in micronation articles: they improperly amplify and foreground a bunch of meaningless trivia. The fact that Sealand purported to be a "constitutional monarchy" is vacuous considering that the royal family never ruled over anyone but themselves. The number of readers whose attention needs to be drawn to the fact that Sealand's purported currency was the Sealand dollar as opposed to the Sealand drachma is zero. The number of readers who will profit from being able to recognize the Sealand flag next time they see it in the wild is also zero. The list goes on.
It is objectively bad editing to needlessly front-load an article with irrelevant factlets. No infobox at all is better than an infobox whose main effect is pushing meaningful information further down the page. GR Kraml (talk) 17:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree entirely. Centering the trappings of countryhood, as in the first two examples, gives them undue weight. The flag, the anthem, the motto, the coat of arms… these are all calculated to confer legitimacy-by-association. Micronations are dressed up to look like a country, but this is essentially deceptive mimickry, and we shouldn’t participate, particularly for micronations that are enmeshed with shady cryptocurrencies. Calling the Sealand guy a “prince” is effectively taking a fringe claim at face value. Yes, I know there’s no mathematical objective definition of a prince, but just because something is a social construct doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean something. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 23:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not a micronation's claims are deceptive mimickry or are good faith assertions (that the rest of the world disagrees with) seems like a determination for reliable secondary sources, and something to be summarized on a case by case basis at each article. If reliable secondary sources report that someone is the unrecognized president or prince of an unrecognized micronation, how is it "participating" for Wikipedia to summarize that information? Or will we go through the articles for biblical figures and say it's "deceptive mimickry" to note the probably-fictional Esther is identified in the Book of Esther as queen of Persia, or to list the Tomb of Job in Job's infobox? Is the Goncharov infobox "deceptive mimickry" despite the body-text reminders that it's a meme? Is it "deceptive mimickry" to report that the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest had a government type of "consensus decision-making with daily meeting"s when it was never recognized as a "real" settlement, government, country, etc.?
I think these are fully contextualized, and it's possible for micronations to be contextualized as well. It is not Wikipedia's purpose to decide what is "real" and "not real"; Wikipedia summarizes reliable sources. If reliable sources say an unrecognized micronation has an unrecognized currency, or an unrecognized prince, etc., we summarize that. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:50, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with P-Makoto. It is not Wikipedia's job to say what is and isn't "dressed up like a country", "deceptive mimicry" or whether any given person, organisation or thing is "enmeshed with shady cryptocurrencies". We report what reliable sources say about the subject. Including a flag in the infobox at
Rojava, West Papua or Islamic State is not "participating" in anything, it's not "deceptive mimicry" or any other epithet you wish to denigrate the subject with. Anything else is a gratuitous failure of NPOV. Thryduulf (talk) 00:11, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Why do policies like WP:UNDUE exist? That's right, because the choice to include something is unavoidably a choice to give credence to it. To pretend not to understand this is to pretend to be epistemologically illiterate. The path to making Mr. Sealand's claim to princeliness "fully contextualized" begins with not investing it with misleading distinction. GR Kraml (talk) 00:12, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain what is "misleading" about presenting the facts neutrally. Thryduulf (talk) 00:17, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying you disagree with WP:UNDUE? If so, why? GR Kraml (talk) 00:21, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. I'm saying that what is and isn't DUE can only be determined at the individual article level, that including things that are due is not giving it credence, engaging in "deceptive mimicry" (or anything else of that nature), and that everything discussed here (flags, coat of arms, etc) is potentially DUE on some articles about micronations. Thryduulf (talk) 00:24, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If they're DUE for some micronations, they can be included elsewhere in the article, just like any other info that we don't put in the infobox. There is no indication any of these items is actually a core aspect for most of these topics, as evaluated by IRS sources. It is not NPOV to treat artistic endeavors or corporate promotion or cryptocurrency vehicles or protest communes or profit ventures as if we assume they all occupy a single point along the spectrum of "nationhood" and are all inherently likely to even have any of the above extra features from infobox country let alone place the same meaning on them.
Micronations are much more defined by what they are not than by what they are, which makes anything beyond a barebones infobox unacceptable. JoelleJay (talk) 02:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf remains more persuasive in making a case that hews close to Wikipedia policies. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:47, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not according to the majority of commenters here, nor the text of INFOBOXPURPOSE the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored, with exceptions noted below). The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content., nor other guideline criteria like Is the field of value? How important is the field to the articles that will use the infobox? Is it summary information, or more extended detail that may be better placed within the body of an article? and Will the field be relevant to many of the articles that will use the infobox? If the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all. and INFOBOXUSE The meaning given to each infobox part should be the same across instances of that type of infobox. Nor accessibility guidance that states Pages with excessive icons can also cause loading problems for some people. JoelleJay (talk) 03:16, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The majority of commenters here have expressed opinions that (in whole or in part) directly contradict core content policies and so the majority of their comments can and will be disregarded by whomever closes this discussion. Everything else you've written is either stating things that are not in dispute (the infobox should summarise key facts that are already in the article) or completely irrelevant (e.g. there are a grand total of zero icons across all three infoboxes). Thryduulf (talk) 03:22, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I quote directly concerns which parameters to put in an infobox template, which clearly should require some consideration beyond "if it's an important aspect for recognized countries it must be a key fact for micronations". And I'd love to know which "core content policies" mandate that infobox country or any infobox must be in certain classes of articles!
icons encompasses any small images – including logos, crests, coats of arms, seals, flags. JoelleJay (talk) 04:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I've explained many times in this discussion, NPOV requires we treat subjects neutrally, which in this instance means treating a micronation and a non-micronation with the same coverage in reliable sources equally not going out of our way to denigrate micronations based on some editors' beliefs. If we have infoboxes for countries (and we do) then we need to have the same type of infobox for all countries, including unrecognised ones, and each infobox should have the fields relevant to that subject. There is no difference between what is relevant to micronations and what is relevant other nations (as classes). What fields should be populated on a given article can only be determined at the level of the individual article, because that's the only level at which you can determine due weight.
Regarding logos and crests, either they are fine accessibility wise on articles about all countries or they are problematic on articles about all countries. There are no "small images" in either infobox, and in terms of total images from the page title to the top of the references section (including prose and infobox) there are 8 images on the
Sealand article and over 50 (plus an audio widget) on the Kosovo article. Of the two the Sealand isn't going to be the one with accessibility concerns. Thryduulf (talk) 04:27, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
You are saying NPOV requires us to structure our articles on micronations as if they were legally recognized countries and, therefore, requires us to give them the same infoboxes because there's no difference in what is relevant to them. WOW.
You don't think it's just a little bit OR to consider, automatically, the thousands of online-only micronations (like
neighborhoods that happen to also be called "micronations", as being on equal footing with each other let alone comparable to "other countries", inherently deserving the same emphases and display of regalia? All because some RS or an editor characterized them as micronations, a term that has no basis in international law or shared criteria other than "not legally recognized by sovereign states"? You think any of this supported by NPOV? Really? JoelleJay (talk) 06:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
NPOV requires we treat subjects neutrally, which in this instance means treating a micronation and a non-micronation with the same coverage in reliable sources equally I think what you’re missing is that micronations and non-micronations don’t receive the same coverage. Consider, for example, this Wired article about Liberland: [4] which takes a skeptical tone, uses “country” (their scare quotes), and describes it as a “crypto project”. Or, this paper: [5] which ends with a quote that sums up the non-Sealand projects nicely: The rest of the virtual states do not have statehood, but only exploit the myth about it. They earn by selling souvenirs and coins, and at best they are a local landmark. The legal creation of new states by private people is no longer possible, and, therefore, the problem of virtual states is finally transferred to the virtual space, becoming one of the methods of conducting an entertainment Internet business. The myth of statehood has finally become a part of the digital civilization. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:21, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Or this one: Westarctica, Sancratosia, Slowjamastan, and other fake nations may have some things to teach real ones. We can ignore the title per
WP:HEADLINE but the rest of the article does the job more than adequately: They replicate the symbols, documents, and acts of legitimate states. Micronations create flags, passports, and currency; establish constitutions; and hold elections or plan their lines of succession. and Their online citizenship applications have been known to accidentally deceive individuals who legitimately hope to immigrate. Framing micronations as the same type of thing as legitimate countries, when the sources go out of their way to explain why they are different, is not NPOV - it’s false balance. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:08, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Fine, one last time:
NPOV requires us not to take sides where there is a controversy. NPOV does not require us, and UNDUE expressly forbids us, to pretend there is a controversy where there isn't one. "Is Kosovo a country?" is a controversy. We are required to stay neutral on this. "Is the Kingdom of Elleore a country?" is not. We are required not to push the falsehood that the answer is up to meaningful debate.
In addition, as @JoelleJay has demonstrated, INFOBOXPURPOSE requires us to use infoboxes to summarize things that are key facts and to exclude any unnecessary content.
Readers come to any given article with the implicit assumption that the infobox will contain key facts, both because of the interface affordances involved and because this is what infoboxes do in every other article. They implicitly expect these key facts to be key in both senses: germane to understanding and contextualizing the subject on the one hand; well established and largely unassailable on the other. A picture of the flag of Liberland is neither: it tells you absolutely nothing useful; it's not even the flag they actually use; you would struggle to find so much as a single independent RS that clearly defines and describes it.
Actively lying to readers about the meaning and significance of what they are looking at strikes me as an NPOV violation of the first order. I mean seriously, if actively pushing all-but-unsourced random bullshit is not against the rules then what is. GR Kraml (talk) 08:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on...what do you mean "Is the Kingdom of Elleore a country?" is not. We are required not to push the falsehood that the answer is up to meaningful debate. While you might have a point about
Slowjamastan, micronations such as Liberland have been acknowledged and/or recognized by other nations (e.g., Somaliland
, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Colombia, Malawi, and even Croatia/Serbia). And what Thryduulf is referring to is that UNDUE applies at the article level, so whether the country is notable enough to be written about on WP is determined by at that level. Once you've decided that an article is DUE, then it needs to have some content in it that justifies having the article in the first place. That is exactly what's going on here. And besides, it's frankly silly to suggest that content is DUE when it's in the body, but suddenly not when it's summarized into an infobox.
I'm not sure what you mean by A picture of the flag of Liberland is neither: it tells you absolutely nothing useful; it's not even the flag they actually use; you would struggle to find so much as a single independent RS that clearly defines and describes it.. That's literally the flag that is used by Liberland, and is sourced in NYT; I'm not sure what you're on about. And if flags of countries are not useful, then we should remove them from all country articles? Getsnoopy (talk) 00:00, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...it's frankly silly to suggest that content is DUE when it's in the body, but suddenly not when it's summarized into an infobox. Why would that be silly? Per
WP:ASPECT, "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." It logically follows that aspects of a subject not treated as key facts in the body of reliable sources should not be presented as such by including them in an infobox.--Trystan (talk) 00:25, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Indeed, but what the key facts are about a given subject can only be determined at the level of the individual subject. Based on a skim of sources, the flag of Liberland seems just as important to the topic of Liberland as the flag of e.g. Myanmar is the to the topic of Myanmar and more important than e.g. the flag of the Islamic State is to the topic of the Islamic State. We have (seemingly uncontroversially) included the flags of both Myanmar and Islamic State in the infoboxes about those topics, so there is no justification for excluding the flag of Liberland in the infobox about Liberland. In contrast I'm uncertain whether the Grand Duchy of Avram even has a flag (it has a coat of arms which might also serve as the flag but that's unclear). Thryduulf (talk) 01:00, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Infoboxes are meant to hold key facts very common to a class of subjects, and which parameters to include when making a new infobox template necessarily requires looking at the class in general. The class of micronations is meaningfully distinguished, by secondary and tertiary RS, from all types of real countries.
We have numerous tertiary sources treating significant subsets of the real countries as a "complete" group (even when differences in sovereignty are noted and those members are separated from the main group), often accompanied by individual blurbs for each member of what those sources consider the most important facts for countries in general. This informs on which details are BALASP for countries in general and thus should go in the country infobox.
We do not have a solid body of RS treating substantial subsets of micronations as part of the same group as real countries. The variation among micronations is so substantial, and the appellation so informal and inconsistently applied, that any infobox aiming to represent key facts from IRS sources shared by most members of the class will be very small. JoelleJay (talk) 01:56, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so that's a nonsense interpretation of DUE that doesn't warrant further discussion.
Something being verifiable in IRS does not make it a BALASP. Something receiving substantial coverage or description in IRS (which the flag does not receive whatsoever in the NYT article) does not necessarily make it BALASP. Something actually being BALASP for a page does not mean it should be in the infobox. And it certainly does not mean that thing should be a parameter for infoboxes in all pages of a certain class.
Whichever discussion determined the items that should be in the infobox for real countries decided that flags should be in there, probably because that's one of the standard pieces of info accompanying each country in academic/tertiary RS that address both the set as a whole and some details of each member. E.g. CIA Factbook. The same is not true for micronations. We do not have a comparably large body of high-quality tertiary RS, on micronations as a set, demonstrating which aspects of a micronation are considered fundamental. Almost every recognized country will have IRS sources discussing or at least describing its flag (and most other major parameters in the infobox). The same is not true for even every notable micronation, therefore being included in an infobox cannot be supported, per INFOBOX. JoelleJay (talk) 01:31, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's literally the flag that is used by Liberland, and is sourced in NYT; I'm not sure what you're on about. As I explain in this edit, the Liberlanders use the flags of Croatia, Serbia or Hungary in places where flags have actual significance, e.g. when the boats in their "official" "state fleet" need to be equipped with ensigns. Their videos are staged and edited to hide this fact, but they do.
They are generally very careful to avoid claiming sovereignty or nationhood in any context or forum where such claim could potentially matter. As the very same NYT article shows, for example, they do not challenge the presence of Croatian cops in "their" "country", nor do they attempt to evict the Croatian civilians who (continue to) use the beach for summertime leisure activities. Their web sites and communiqués keep going on about bona vacantia and whatnot, but when they get dragged to court for criminal trespass to land they meekly plead unrelated jurisdictional issues. The fact that the purported state of Liberland never, ever, under any circumstances actually uses its purported state flag is just one of the things that tell you they do not believe what they say they do.
And if flags of countries are not useful, then we should remove them from all country articles? Flags from real countries obviously are useful, but then again you know that, and you also know that nobody claims otherwise. GR Kraml (talk) 04:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really see a clear distinction between the first two, just subtle wording differences. The side-by-side presentation convinces me that the proposed custom infobox is better for readers. Schazjmd (talk) 18:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i like the 3rd one. the flags and coats of arms aren't real, toss em. ValarianB (talk) 18:37, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What a shocking disregard for NPOV (and
WP:V). They are as "real" as any other coat of arms or flag. Thryduulf (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I think the header "Unrecognized micronation" is a good change, but all else in the third infobox seems if anything a reduction of information. Why not have the flag? Recognized nation-state status seems hardly like the hurdle we expect for whether or not a logo is pertinent and informative. We don't require companies, sports teams, or NGOs to be sovereign before we include their imagery, flags, logos, etc. Why wouldn't a reader be interested in knowing what flag an unrecognized micronation flies, if it does fly one? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, the less trivia we emphasize in an infobox, the better. If a flag or coat of arms actually has significance in secondary sources then an image of it can be put in the article, it doesn't need to be an infobox parameter. And definitely agree with everything @GR Kraml said. JoelleJay (talk) 19:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The third infobox is clearly the best and minimises the amount of trivia proponents might be able to add. SportingFlyer T·C 00:15, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Now we're getting into failures of
WP:AGF as well. We don't neuter the encyclopaedia because non-neutral editors might add things which may or may not be trivia. Thryduulf (talk) 00:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
they are not as real as the coat of arms and flag of say Great Britain or Wales, the idea that anyone would suggest they are raises issues of competence here, tbh. something that has centuries of reliably-sources tradition a and coverage has no comparison to a thing created in Photoshop in a day. retaining an infobox for these articles is a good idea, but lessening their likeness to a real nation inbobox is preferable. ValarianB (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They are not as respected and they have none of the heritage or prestige, etc. but that doesn't make them somehow not real. Unless you are claiming that the new Flag of Kyrgyzstan or Flag of Afghanistan (the Islamic Emirate one) are not real? Thryduulf (talk) 21:52, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that many people here are engaging in
WP:IDONTLIKEIT
while trying to masquerade it as legitimate WP policy.

Why does England get to have its own flag?

- Because it has centuries of heritage and tradition. So why doesn't Liberland get to have its own? - Because there are very few articles citing it. How many articles does it take for a flag to become "real"?

- ...


Maybe we should take down Somaliland's flag, and hell, even South Sudan's flag, since it's only been around since 2011, which is a mere 13 years. Getsnoopy (talk) 00:07, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. It's not centuries of tradition that bestow notability and due weight. It's not even "reality" (contestable as that is with social constructs) that bestows either; the fictional Gondor quite appropriately has its coat of arms in the infobox as a quick and way for viewers to identify the topic, and Rohan, Middle-earth has its flag. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:12, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Braun2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b "Principality of Sealand" (PDF). Amorph!03 First Summit of Micronations. Artists' Association MUU. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 October 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
  3. ^
    BBC Travel
    . BBC. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
I like the third one, with the suggested changes of "proponents" and "location" etc. JoelleJay (talk) 19:23, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So I think we have a clear question. "Should articles on micronations (a) use Infobox Country with the micronation parameter, or (b) use an infobox with the label "Unrecognized micronation" and the fields: type, proponents, dates claimed, and location?" If someone wants to start an RFC on that, I think that would be the best way to resolve this issue.--Trystan (talk) 14:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone know how many there are? Micronation infoboxes, that is. Selfstudier (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are approximately 159 articles and redirects categorised in (subcategories of)
Kickassia) so see that figure as an upper bound (unless and until there is a new notable micronation of course). Thryduulf (talk) 14:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
+1, that seems like a good way forward. Levivich (talk) 19:53, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think there should also be the option for no infobox, considering there are several that are primarily known as other things or are not called micronations in RS. JoelleJay (talk) 05:13, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arguably if an entity is not primarily described as a micronation in RS, then it wouldn’t be in scope of this RfC. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The question could be phrased as "Where articles on micronations use an infobox, should they use...".--Trystan (talk) 13:47, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1, this seems just about ideal. GR Kraml (talk) 18:59, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. JoelleJay (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Levivich (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is the RfC suggested above open yet? 211.251.171.197 (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, but feel free to participate in the discussion which may lead to an RFC. Thryduulf (talk) 23:55, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]


RfC: micronation infoboxes

Where articles on micronations use an infobox, should they use

A. infobox country (with the micronation parameter)
B. a custom infobox with the parameters type, proponents, dates claimed, and location; and image options limited to images of the country and/or its geographic location on a map
C. a different custom infobox

If C, please specify which parameters should be included. JoelleJay (talk) 00:55, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mockup of infoboxes for Sealand (refs removed):

Infobox country with
micronation parameter
Proposed custom infobox
A.
Principality of Sealand
Micronation
Flag of Sealand
Flag
Coat of arms of Sealand
Coat of arms
Motto: E Mare Libertas (
Organizational structure
Constitutional monarchy
Prince 
• 1967–2012
Paddy Roy Bates
• 2012–present
Michael Bates
Establishment
• Declared
2 September 1967;
56 years ago
 (1967-09-02)
Area claimed
• Total
0.004 km2 (0.0015 sq mi)
(approx. 1 acre)
Purported currencySealand dollar
B.
Principality of Sealand
Unrecognized micronation
Aerial view of Sealand in 1999
Claimed byPaddy Roy Bates, Michael Bates
Dates claimed1967 to present
Area claimedOffshore platform off the coast of England
Type[type determined by page consensus]

Note that parameter order and styling (e.g. font size) in B are not necessarily settled. JoelleJay (talk) 00:55, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging: @AndyTheGrump, SportingFlyer, Certes, Blueboar, InfiniteNexus, Gonnym, P-Makoto, SWinxy, Donald Albury, ValarianB, Horse Eye's Back, Getsnoopy, Elli, TSP, Thryduulf, Trystan, Levivich, Martin of Sheffield, SMcCandlish, WhatamIdoing, Barnards.tar.gz, Animal lover 666, Selfstudier, Xymmax, Seltaeb Eht, North8000, A. B., The Banner, GR Kraml, and Schazjmd: JoelleJay (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only one problem with the proposed infobox I see: "Unrecognized micronation" is redundant, micronations are unrecognized by definition. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:19, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why does one example say "Unrecognized micronation" and the other say "Micronation"? I don't think there's necessarily a problem with pointing out that it's unrecognized (it's true that it's part of the definition, but that doesn't mean that 100% of readers already know that), but I'm concerned that the comparison may not be fair as a result of this and other differences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We link it, anyone who hovers over it or click it will read "A micronation is a political entity whose representatives claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by any sovereign state." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See
MOS:NOFORCELINK. Articles should make sense to readers without requiring a link to be clicked and/or hovered over. It certainly isn't reasonable to assume that the reader knows what a 'micronation' is, and given that lack of recognition is a defining feature of the article subject, making it clear is unambiguously beneficial. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Especially since it's particularly difficult to hover over anything on a mobile device, which is two-thirds of our traffic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
NOFORCELINK is about prose... By that argument we should also be explain what "type" means... As well as area claimed... Wouldn't actually be possible to craft an infobox with that particular interpretation of MOS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Unrecognized micronation" is not redundant, since the word has multiple uses and often referrs to nations that are recongized, including the Vatican, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the individual emirates of UAE, and various historical ones that no longer exist. WP's article at
WP is not a source for the reality of English language usage.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  13:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
You are confusing micronation with microstate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:17, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly, the two are easily confused, and apparently not always used consistently. Which is why it is essential that we don't use the term in the article without making clear what we are actually describing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Within the literature I've always found their use to be consistent, at least with modern sources. If we want to make clear what we are actually describing we need a whole sentence, cherry picking a single part of that description is undue and just feels jerkish which we shouldn't be. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to propose Wikipedia:Don't be a jerk, be misleading instead as a new policy. For now, it isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:No personal attacks however is policy, and one I recommend you follow. Thryduulf (talk) 19:54, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That seems like a straw man and is rather hurtful, is that really what you think I'm arguing? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Um, you were the to first describe the position/result you don't like as jerkish. It's entirely reasonable to suggest in response that it isn't practical to not be jerk (your view not Andy's) at the specific cost of being misleading, which using confusing wording would be. No one called you a jerk. Thryduulf should have caught that as well. If the much, much more practical cost of not confusing readers (and editors using templates) is simply using cleaer wording (including perhaps some additional clarification), then that is perfectly fine; there's nothing "jerkish" about it to begin with.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  01:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"If we want to make clear what we are actually describing we need a whole sentence, cherry picking a single part of that description is undue and just feels jerkish which we shouldn't be." I'm the editor that proposed "Unrecognized micronation" as the header of the infobox, so I would like to explain my thinking in doing so. I proposed it in good faith and not with the motivation (or, I believe, the result) of being "jerkish". The main goal is clarity for the reader. Definitions of micronation tend to highlight three aspects 1) small 2) claims to be a nation and 3) unrecognized. I think the first two are evident in the term itself, while the third is not at all, so "Unrecognized micronation", while arguably somewhat redundant, better conveys the meaning. No additional wording is required to convey the core components of the definition. Because micronation is comparatively recent (only entering widespread use in the past 20 years or so), and because it is so similar to the much more common microstate, I think the additional clarification is warranted.--Trystan (talk) 01:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not confusing them at all. I'm stating that the usage of micronation overlaps with that of microstate. "I like a particular definition" does not equate to "everyone in the world uses that definition" (in this case it's very likely that a majority do, but that's immaterial). The broader use is attested enough that the term has confusion potential.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  00:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B, please. We need to be clear that Micronations are not nations in the usual sense. Donald Albury 02:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • A or C. Option B unnecessarily excludes identifying information (e. g. the flag).
A "C" option that I would support would resemble A while adding a "Proponents" parameter, since knowing who declares a given micronation tends to be of interest and part of reliable source coverage of notable micronations.
I'll add that I'm not very clear on what this RfC says will be the outcome of each potential consensus. Will a new policy page be created? Will a section be added to the Manual of Style? Something else? "Should" suggests some kind of imperative, but how and where would that imperative be articulated (if at all)? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:13, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It'll just resolve the conflict of "what infobox should we use". If someone tries to change it, they will be pointed here. SWinxy (talk) 02:23, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. I'd argue that keeping Infobox country allows for the inclusion of pertinent information that the alternative infobox leaves out. Despite being unrecognized, micronations still have claims that can be verified. I think excluding them lessens the usefulness of an alternative infobox. I prefer that the infobox include things like a flag, coat of arms, motto, etc. It's at-a-glance information that proper countries also make claims of. SWinxy (talk) 02:20, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. Per
    WP:ASPECT, "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Based on how sources typically cover micronations, Option B aligns with the governing policy and guidelines, while Option A places undue emphasis on aspects treated as minor by reliable sources.--Trystan (talk) 02:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Option B, with the additional parameter of a website, as a micronation's web presence is usually notable and a key aspect of their existence. B summarizes the actual key facts of the subject, without giving undue weight to the organization's claims. Seltaeb Eht (talk) 02:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Reporting the claims made in a neutral, factual manner is (as repeatedly explained in the pre-RFC discussion) not giving them undue weight. Thryduulf (talk) 03:32, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Reporting wildly implausible claims that are by definition fraudulent, jokes or artistic expression in a place and a manner that readers expect to be used for uncontroversial core facts absolutely is giving them undue weight. GR Kraml (talk) 07:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not neutral to call Michael or Roy Bates the Prince of Sealand in wikivoice. Most of the secondary sources in the article seem to use scare quotes ("prince") or another way of downplaying it ("so-called"). I didn't see a single one that actually called it a "constitutional monarchy" in those terms. And Sealand is the most "real" type of micronation, so should be the least able to poke holes in. I'm convinced by Trystan's citing of MOS:INFOBOX, I think it hits it on the head. Is a key fact about Sealand that it's a Constitutional Monarchy, or that its motto is E mare libertas? The second fact isn't even cited or discussed in the article. It's surely verifiable, but is it what the majority of neutral, reliable, non-primary sources would consider a key fact about Sealand, or is it trivia? Seltaeb Eht (talk) 22:38, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A (but with the heading changed to the style of the custom one) per SWinxy, per P-Makoto, per NPOV and the extensive comments I and others made in the pre-RFC discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 03:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. Because a micronation is not a country or sovereign state (unlike a microstate), articles about micronations shouldn't use {{infobox country}}. Infoboxes are for giving quick key facts about the article subject, and the key facts about micronations will be different than the key facts about countries. A custom infobox, such as B, will avoid misleading the reader into thinking that a micronation is a country, and it'll better inform the reader about the key facts of a micronation. While I think "B" is a good start for a new infobox for micronations, I would support editors' continuing to improve/discuss/adjust the particulars of parameters, etc., as I'm sure it could be further refined and developed. Levivich (talk) 04:11, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B. 1) Micronations are most definitely not a "type" of nation and do not occupy any space along the spectrum of legitimate claims to statehood. They are not included alongside real nations in even a small fraction of the high-quality IRS sources that aim to cover a large subset of nations (e.g. tertiary sources summarizing the "countries of Europe" virtually never include any micronations, even when they do include quasi-states and other legally-recognized non-sovereign polities).
    2) Micronations are far too heterogeneous in what they even are to justify more than the bare minimum of parameter options. There are essentially no defining features of micronations other than lacking legal recognition by sovereign states.(*)
    3) Our guidelines on infoboxes make it clear that fewer optional parameters is preferred and that options should not be included if they are not relevant to most of the affected articles. The availability of optional fields does not mean that all fields should be made optional and The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content. Regarding whether to create an optional field in an infobox: How important is the field to the articles that will use the infobox? Is it summary information, or more extended detail that may be better placed within the body of an article? and If the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all.
    (*)To revisit some examples I used previously regarding how extraordinarily different in basically every fundamental characteristic even the notable micronations are: they include thousands of online-only entities (like 
    neighborhoods that happen to have been called "micronations" by someone at some point. These are not inherently deserving of the same emphases and displays of regalia as real countries, not least because most of them don't even have any independent secondary RS discussing those aspects at all. And that's just the ones that are actually called "micronations" in RS as opposed to being designated a "micronation" by some editor adding categories. JoelleJay (talk) 05:01, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    In response to your point 2, that's actually an argument for more parameter options so that the one relevant to the given micronation are available where they are relevant. In regards to point 1, this argument has been refuted (multiple times) in the pre-RFC discussion - there is a single continuum from micronation to fully-recognised sovereign nation (with entities such as the Holy See not fitting neatly on it) with no objective criterion separating micronations from unrecognised nations. Thryduulf (talk) 05:07, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Uh, no, the fact that there is some number of possible parameters that would only be applicable to various small subsets of the group "micronations" is exactly why our guideline finds it necessary to explicitly discourage including options that aren't widely relevant to the group. The availability of optional fields does not mean that all fields should be made optional, nor that large numbers of rarely used fields should be added without regard for the layout and ease-of-use of the infobox template.
    And I sure don't see where micronational status has been demonstrated as being along the same continuum. If you're referring to the claim that Liberland has "diplomatic ties" with Somaliland, then a) that is not legal recognition from a sovereign state, and b) the extent of that "diplomatic recognition" was described by the BBC as:

    The "president" of the unrecognised territory of Liberland, Vit Jedlicka, has been visiting another unrecognised republic, Somaliland, for talks about mutual recognition. The Somaliland foreign ministry tweeted that the two sides had discussed how to "strengthen cooperation".

    According to Somaliland and Liberland sources, this meant they "began the mutual recognition process", which is a far cry from legal recognition by a sovereign state. And even if Liberland eventually did gain recognition, that doesn't change the definition of a micronation, and it does not suggest progression to statehood is a natural or remotely plausible outcome for micronations in general or even for a tiny minority of them. JoelleJay (talk) 05:39, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    there is a single continuum from micronation to fully-recognised sovereign nation There is a single continuum from fictional character to well-documented historical head of state and T'Challa still doesn't get an officeholder infobox. GR Kraml (talk) 07:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I learned recently that the definition of "country" is more diverse than I ever suspected. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a sovereign nation, recognized by dozens of countries, holds an observer post at the UN, issues the world's rarest passport (about 500 people hold one), and has no territory at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:56, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The page you link literally says a sovereign entity does not have to be a country, and that the Order is an example of this. JoelleJay (talk) 12:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The Sovereign Military Order actually was the ruler of Malta from 1530 until 1798 (after being kicked off Rhodes), and the order has had a continuous existence since then. Some international organizations also enter into diplomatic relations, but they have members that are themselves nations recognized by other sovereign nations. Are there any reliable sources that describe any other "sovereign entity" that is not an international organization and does not possess any territory, but is recognized by other sovereign countries? Donald Albury 17:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I dont believe that there is one currently, but the
    Phil Bridger (talk) 22:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    Arguably it still counts, as the Holy See has diplomatic relations and no territory, Vatican City has territory but no diplomatic relations. For most (all?) practical purposes they are the same thing, but they are technically different. The European Union also conducts some foreign relations activities as a single entity (see
    Kingdom of Denmark. These are not the same thing as the SMOM but does show that terms like "country" and "sovereign state" are complicated no matter how you choose to define them. Thryduulf (talk) 23:38, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    And there is deep history there, as well. The Pope was sovereign of the Papal States from the 8th century until 1870. So, we have one or two sovereign entities with deep history that have do not control any territory but engage in diplomatic relations with sovereign nations. I fail to see how that has any bearing on the topic of micronations. Donald Albury 01:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B The use of the country infobox is misleading. It gives undue prominence to the flag, coat of arms, motto and anthem; it encourages the inclusion of inappropriate parameters such as "Demonyms", "Capital" and "Official languages" (eg. at Republic of Minerva and Ladonia (micronation)); and it gives the impression that the claimants form an official government. Per Levivich above, the parameters of the new micronation infobox should be open to further discussion, to ensure it can be adapted to every use case. I like "Unrecognized micronation" despite the redundancy, because a micronation is easily confused with a microstate, and readers won't necessarily click or hover on the link to discover their mistake. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 05:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B per JoelleJay and Sojourner - the infobox country information is relevant for a real country, where currencies, flags, anthems, languages etc are actually used. Not so much for a micronation, where those are probably just words on a website. Galobtter (talk) 05:46, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. Infoboxes are intended to contain non-controversial facts only. They are not platforms for the promotion of fringe POVs regarding territorial status, sovereignty, or anything else. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Out of the two presented Option A. I don't see how excluding valid information (which will be found in the article) is controversial. If it's controversial, it shouldn't be in the article. If it isn't, then it's valid to add to the infobox. Gonnym (talk) 06:44, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is an argument for literally anything DUE in an article being valid as an infobox parameter. Our guidelines specifically discourage this. JoelleJay (talk) 07:51, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"If it's controversial, it shouldn't be in the article" is actually an argument for not having an article at all. There is nothing about micronations that doesn't constitute a minority (most often a microscopically small one) making claims for sovereign status regarding a territory. They only exist as 'controversial claims'. This in of itself doesn't necessarily prevent Wikipedia having articles, where they can be properly sourced (we have an article on Bigfoot, after all), but what it must do is present the claims as the claims of a fringe minority, rather than as fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Our guidelines do not discourage this. You small group of editors which have this unclear obsession of micronations are against it. I'm perfectly fine using {{Infobox country}} for these. Just to make it more official, {{Infobox country}} -> Option A -> Never option B. Gonnym (talk) 12:59, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. Readers come to any given article with the implicit assumption that the infobox will contain key facts, both because of the interface affordances involved and because this is what infoboxes do in every other article. They implicitly expect these key facts to be key in both senses: germane to understanding and contextualizing the subject on the one hand; well established and largely unassailable on the other. A fictitious state motto that can only be cited to one blog post or a fictitious state flag flown by one handful of investment scammers is neither. The outward effect of a country infobox on a fictitious country is front-loading the article with meaningless trivia and pushing the real information down the page, which is objectively bad editing. The inward significance is that we're actively lying to readers about the meaning and substance of what they are looking at. GR Kraml (talk) 07:28, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. It's idealistic to suppose that, with option A, information that is not DUE can be excluded from the infobox via article-by-article consensus. We know that doesn't work, already, as there are just too many editors keen to fill in each and every available parameter. If you allow a government_type parameter, trivia-lovers will come by and fill it with Constitutional monarchy, quite regardless of DUE. Then you have to argue the case repeatedly for every article. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:27, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. I concur with the arguments set out in favour of this option so far, and add:
  • An argument has been put forward along the lines of "who are we to judge what counts as a real country, because there's a continuum".
    • Firstly, it's reliable sources which have the job of judging whether something is a real country - and reliable sources that put micronations on an equal footing with countries have not been forthcoming. What we actually see in reliable sources is that micronations are clearly distinguished from countries, and also from microstates.
    • Secondly, this is a rather nihilistic argument that could be applied over-generally. There's a continuum between science and pseudoscience. There's a continuum between evidence-based medicine and faith healers. Continuums are beloved of cranks, who exploit the egalitarian instinct not to judge, in order to get their foot in the door. "Maybe it's not mainstream science, but it's a type of science, right?" they say. From there we progress to
      teach the controversy
      , then we hear "they're both just theories / they're both just social constructions / they're both valid in their own way", and eventually they end up arguing that black is white. The key point is that the existence of a notional continuum does not prevent reliable sources (and thence us) from clearly distinguishing the things at the opposite ends of the continuum.
  • Why do we care so much about this? Because we must not allow Wikipedia to become the vehicle for fringe ideas to gain unwarranted legitimacy. Gaining a hint of recognition as a real country (or even as a type of country) from Wikipedia is a big win for these little projects, and at least some of these projects are outright scams. It would be negligent for us to play along. One might argue that labelling them as "unrecognised" is enough to guard against this, but I disagree that this is enough: the country infobox, complete with flags and coats of arms, has a legitimising trade dress effect on readers, that makes the subject look a lot more official than it is. Legitimisation is the intended purpose of all the regalia. Micronations dress up to look as much like countries as possible, but the lady doth protest too much, methinks, and sources don't give this aspect of micronations anywhere near the prominence that putting it top of the infobox would confer, so ultimately including all these trappings is undue.
Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. The infobox in option B leaves of pertinent details (for basically no obvious reason), and the reasons that the others provided unsatisfactorily substantiate why they should be left out (e.g., a flag being displayed for a micronation is just as relevant as a flag being displayed for a "real" nation). Also, see the discussion above for more reasons as to why.
Getsnoopy (talk) 10:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Still, which parameters to include (and where to include them) can be amended later. The issue NOW is whether to create a separate, new micronations box or not. And THAT I support. Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But why do you think using infobox country is inappropriate? Thryduulf (talk) 14:45, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@
Danlaycock
presumably voting again to merge them, because they're basically duplicative.
For me, the bottom line seems to be a big old "Who cares?" What matters, as you say, is what gets shown to the reader. It does not matter to me what code the editor types to make that appear for the reader. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I almost feel the same… but… I think there are enough differences in which parameters are appropriate (and their presentation within the box) that a separate box makes sense. Blueboar (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that any of the options is reasonably appropriate. What I'm more concerned about is editors saying things like "Let's have a separate infobox, because I don't want to show their made-up flag", but once the separate infobox has been created, there is literally
  • no way to prevent anyone from adding a flag parameter to the new template, and
  • no way to prevent an editor from putting the flag in |image1= even if there's no specialized flag parameter.
If there is content that we do/don't want displayed, we should be talking about the content here. Instead, we're talking about details of technical implementation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option B explicitly sets out what fields should be included. If this discussion results in a consensus in favour of adopting the Option B infobox, blatant attempts to subvert that consensus would be reverted. The infobox could of course be expanded in the future, but there would need to be consensus to do so.--Trystan (talk) 16:04, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Trystan, the text says "the parameters type, proponents, dates claimed, and location; and image options limited to images of the country and/or its geographic location on a map", and the displayed infobox shows "Area claimed", which isn't in the list. Which Option B is the One True™ Option B? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:09, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As originally proposed in the discussion above, the parameters were "Claimed by" and "Area claimed". By discussion, it was proposed that those fields instead be labelled "Proponents" and "Location", respectively. That change is reflected in the wording of Option B but not the infobox presented. Because that change wasn't contentious in the discussion above, I am sure the discrepancy could be resolved by consensus if Option B is implemented.--Trystan (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A is fine, it identifies the entity as a micronation, which is the key point. No point in an additional effort to differentiate beyond that. Selfstudier (talk) 15:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B summarizes key aspects of the micronation in a way that better communicates to the reader the nature of the article topic. I showed both to three very casual readers (non-editors, only read wikipedia when it's top of their search results, had never heard of micronations, and one of them believes everything google tells them comes from wikipedia): when they viewed A, they were confident that it was a tiny country somewhere; when they viewed B, they weren't confident about what it was because people were just "claiming" it but they were pretty sure it wasn't a "real" nation (and intended to go look up "micronation" later). Anecdotal, but I found it interesting. To me, the two infoboxes are comparable to infobox_person and infobox_character. Schazjmd (talk) 15:47, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B as clearly differentiation is needed. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 16:05, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Option A also provides differentiation, why is that not sufficient? Thryduulf (talk) 17:23, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Because it's clearly confusing to the lay community. SportingFlyer T·C 23:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @JoelleJay, why is the proposed specialized infobox so much smaller than the normal country one? Is this a key feature of the proposal (e.g., make the map half the size and make the infobox narrower, so it seems less important), or just an accident? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Some of this is an effect caused by my prefs, I think. I see the first infobox with images at 300px wide, and the second has been hard-coded to 200px wide. The current default is 220px, so if you are running default prefs, you will see an image that is maybe 20% smaller for the mockup. If you are running with 300px, then it's half the size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't create these mockups, I just took them from the discussion above, but I don't think any size differences are intentional. We'll hammer out the exact technical specifications on B if it gets consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 22:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I created the first side-by-side comparison (in the
    Sealand article, I think they use default widths? The custom infobox (option B here) I copied from the one further up the page that I think @Trystan created. Thryduulf (talk) 04:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    Template:Infobox country seems to use user-specified image size, and to adjust the infobox's overall width to accommodate it. The mockup has hard-coded the image width at 200 px (=noticeably narrower than the infobox). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @WhatamIdoing and JoelleJay: I've adjusted option A to make them both the same width, see note below. Thryduulf (talk) 00:28, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B per JoelleJay. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:15, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B. It needs to be clearer that these "nations" are notional/fictive/intentional, not actual countries in the usual sense, and the wide panoply of parameters that apply in the case of recognized countries are not really applicable or encyclopedically useful for micronations (in this sense of that term). Use of them is apt to be misleading to readers, and is a PoV excercise towards legitimization.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  13:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B Micronations are a fictional constructs not countries and most of what appears in these infoboxes is simply made up by someone one day and have little independent coverage. Our presentation of these places should limit undue placement of self-proclamations and fantasy flags and only include actual key facts as reported by significant independent sources with appropriate context. Reywas92Talk 18:02, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I keep seeing editors say that micronations are "fictional". (The article on Micronation makes no such claim, describing them as "a political entity" instead, and we seem to be agreed that it's not a Fictional country.)
    So I wonder: Are political parties "fictional"? Is a Corporation "fictional"? They're not tangible, and there are debates about how "real" some intangible groups are (e.g., Corporate personhood, Juridical person). It seems to me that a micronation's claim to be a sovereign nation is actually false (not "fictional"), but its claim to be a group of people is as true and non-fictional as any other social group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B Per the excellent "silly season" observation above. That they exist and are covered by high-level sources justifies an article, but to actually go along with their claims of sovereignty is
    WP:OR. Zaathras (talk) 23:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    You might want to reconsider how compatible that comment is with
    WP:NPOV. Thryduulf (talk) 00:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    WP:NPOV violation. Zaathras (talk) 04:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    Please see the extensive discussion above about how whether something is or is not a nation is not something for Wikipedians to determine, about how use of an infobox that reports the existence of verifiable claims does not promote or otherwise present those claims in a non-neutral manner, and about how there is no single simple definition of what is and is not a "proper" country. Thryduulf (talk) 04:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yea, I see the discussion above, and your extensive contributions. I do not share your conclusion on the matter, as it most certainly is for us to determine. We do it every day when discarding fringe p.o.v.'s. Good day. Zaathras (talk) 04:39, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    When dealing with notable fringe points of view, we neutrally report what that point of view is in context without attempt to editorialise or denigrate the POV - i.e we do what existing micronation infoboxes do in the manner that they do it. Thryduulf (talk) 04:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It’s not neutral to give prominence (weight) to aspects of a subject that exceeds the prominence that reliable sources give those aspects. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 06:47, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed, but given the existing infoboxes don't do that, and nobody is proposing to do that, that's not a rebuttal to anything I've said. Unfortunately some people are proposing to give significantly less prominence to aspects of the subject than reliable sources do, which is also not neutral. Thryduulf (talk) 11:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that is the good-faith, policy-based core of the discussion: Which version of the infobox best reflects key aspects, as determined by the proportional weight in the body of reliable, published sources? It is perfectly reasonable for editors to have differing views on that question.--Trystan (talk) 13:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No article is required to have an infobox, having or not having an infobox does not make a page less neutral, and having a smaller infobox does not make a page less neutral (while having a larger one can).
    Given that a) the infobox guidelines recommend the number of options in an infobox--not the size of the infobox on a given page, but the number of parameters in the template--be limited to those that are likely to be applicable to many or most of the affected subjects; b) it is extremely unlikely that most of the subjects in the category "micronations" have DUE IRS coverage of most infobox country parameters (meaning actual secondary coverage, not simply reprinting images of flags/coats of arms without prose discussion); c) micronations are virtually never grouped alongside recognized countries in RS that are about countries in general, while RS almost always do make clear distinctions between them and recognized countries; d) the micronation designation varies wildly within our category, with attestation ranging from routine to a mention in a single source to "random editor thinks it belongs in category"; e) many micronations are promotional outfits that materially benefit from legitimization on WP, so per policy (Wikipedia articles about a person, company, or organization are not an extension of their website, press releases, or other social media marketing efforts) we must be careful that our coverage does not unduly emphasize aspects that are only reported by primary/non-independent sources; and f) most readers will not be familiar with the term "micronation" and so may be misled by option A. JoelleJay (talk) 17:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • B For those readers who don't immediately recognize the niche meaning of "micronation", presenting all the trappings of a recognized nation-state is misleading. In most infobox applications, the addition of "Unrecognised" is not an undue burden on the width. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A: Gets the job done, is descriptive, to the point and has been used for years without incident. Wikipedia AFC is good enough to prevent any fictious 'hobby nations' from escaping Microwiki confinement. Otherwise, when I'm looking at an article regarding, for example, Sealand, and I would like a brief summary before moving on, Option A's infobox does so. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And when I say 'summary' I mean a summary of what a micronation claims/aspires to be, not necessarily what it actually controls/does. I didn't look at the Sealand page 5 years ago and think 'No way! Why have I never heard of this country?', I looked at it and recognised it obviously didnt function as a state. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 20:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B: I personally find option A confusing, in approximately the same way I find it confusing when articles about, say, German citizens born in the latter half of the 20th century who have infobox:nobility: if it's possible to come away from a quick glance at the Sealand infobox with the impression that Sealand is a country in the same way that Luxembourg is, something is very wrong. --JBL (talk) 19:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A mostly per JPG. There's no reason the infobox for micronations should include less information than the infobox on countries: micronations do in fact have flags (etc etc) and saying what those flags are does not imply that we are endorsing the micronation's claims. The information to be included is largely the same in both cases. I don't find the
    Rojava, we always use the country infobox, so why cut out a special exception here? Loki (talk) 01:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    (Also @Chipmunkdavis) Should we provide coverage of micronational flags in our articles when there is zero independent coverage discussing or describing the flag? The sources below simply briefly mention in passing that the respective micronations created such symbols (Its government granted visas and driver’s licenses, issued passports and currency, produced its own stamps, flew its own flag and The principality has its own constitution, flag, national anthem, and even issues its own passports and stamps), there's no indication that these are even particularly BALASP in our article at all, let alone the most key information about the subject. Does it matter if only a tiny fraction of subjects in the micronations category have any independent sourcing on these symbols whatsoever (many are only tenuously notable in general)? What about the various neighborhoods or websites or scams or art projects that have proclaimed themselves to be sovereign states; does a single news source calling them a "micronation" justify choosing the country infobox over other applicable infoboxes and essentially announcing in wikivoice that that's what they are most known for? Is Taiwan or Rojava really inherently comparable, due to only being "partially" recognized, to thousands of online-only micronations and art projects and money laundering schemes? Note that micronations are definitionally united solely by being unrecognized aspirant entities; there's no legal understanding of the term beyond that, which means a banking fraud group described as a "micronation" in one source and described as a "virtual country", as a "ruse", and as a "phony country" in many others is just as legitimate in having this designation as Sealand or Liberland. JoelleJay (talk) 04:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    All the issues you're bringing up are solved on an article-by-article basis and are already covered by RS, among other policies. Using those issues as reasons to come up with some special policy for micronations as a whole (when there are clearly myriad other topics/categories of topics that are in firmly in the realm of fiction that apparently don't fit this bill) is clearly a straw man. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Nope, it certainly does not solve the issue that our P&Gs for infoboxes explicitly discourage having options for parameters that are not summary information that is important to many of the articles that will use the infobox. These articles are only related to each other by their meeting the single criterion of "unrecognized aspirant state"; if that criterion is enough to qualify something as "a type of country"--and especially when numerous sources specifically call these subjects fake countries, and no other category-defining sources actually meaningfully group micronations with real nations--for which the country infobox is the most relevant infobox, then it absolutely should predict wide applicability of many of the infobox parameters to most of the set. JoelleJay (talk) 04:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That doesn't seem to address anything I brought up. Almost all the summary information that is important to "real" nations is also applicable to micronations. The question is not about you or me (or anyone, for that matter) deciding what's important information for a nation and what's not (it's not even WP's place to do so); it's about whether it's verifiable or not. Insofar as there's not enough or satisfactory sourcing on certain pieces of information regarding micronations, that information can be left out. That's a decision to be made on a per-article basis, which is already covered by RS. Getsnoopy (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Almost all the summary information that is important to "real" nations is also applicable to micronations. According to what evidence?? Where are the independent RS demonstrating that flags etc. are, as a rule, key features of micronations specifically? Some micronations simply verifiably having a flag does not mean that independent secondary coverage of micronations affords it comparable cultural/political importance to that of real countries. Even if every micronation actually verifiably did consider its symbols integral parts of its identity, if independent RS do not regularly emphasize those features for either individuals or for the topic as a whole (e.g. with extensive SIGCOV of micronational flags as a topic), then they are not sufficiently integral enough to understanding a micronation to be in a infobox. Our guidelines say infobox parameters shouldn't exist--not just that they shouldn't be filled in if they aren't relevant for a particular page, but that they shouldn't be options in that infobox for any page--if they don't apply to many of the members of a group. JoelleJay (talk) 00:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Showing an image of a flag in the infobox is a similar level of coverage to that of many sources. The flags presumably shouldn't have their own articles per the lack of coverage you note, but notability isn't a limit to the use of images. A single news source likely indicated a micronation shouldn't be covered with an article, but that is also a notability question rather than an infobox question. If there are enough sources that the topic is notable, covering the symbols used is helpful. CMD (talk) 04:46, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Virtually every single recognized sovereign country has an article on its flag, and of those I briefly spot-checked all of them were sourced to several secondary/tertiary, independent sources, supporting the assumption made by our MOS on infoboxes that parameters must represent real-world importance to many of the affected subjects. This is patently not the case for any(?) of the micronations with articles, let alone micronations in general.
    Additionally, I am very skeptical that commentary-less reproductions of symbols are ever acceptable as sources of BALASP coverage. It's one thing to illustrate an article with relevant images; it's another to assert that this image is such a key feature of the subject that it is discussed significantly later in the body or is at least a core fact as established by appearance in most RS on the topic.
    And what I mean by "single news source" is "notable subjects whose designation as a "micronation" is attested by only a single news source", which I'd estimate is actually more than what the average page in that category has. JoelleJay (talk) 05:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure why you think I'm objecting to articles on notable flags, as we should have articles on notable topics. Conversely, we should probably have very few subtopic articles for micronations, be that on flags or any other topic, as the subtopics are unlikely to be independently notable. Nonetheless, information that is not notable by itself can and should be used on articles, and any infobox on micronations will contain plenty of information which doesn't have its own article. I am not sure what you mean in the last paragraph, if a subject is notable but not called a micronation outside of a single source, we probably wouldn't call it a micronation in our article would we? CMD (talk) 11:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    What I'm trying to say is that flags are demonstrably very important aspects of all recognized countries and subnational entities, which is why there is a parameter for it in the country infobox. However, no such relevance, as demonstrated through independent RS, has been established for micronations. The vast majority of our articles will only be able to source an image of a micronation's flag to primary, non-independent, unreliable sources, which means that material is likely not DUE in the article at all, let alone in its infobox. The same can be said for almost every other infobox country parameter when it comes to micronations. So I am arguing that we cannot assume, based on the relevance these symbols have to real nations, that they represent comparably fundamental enough features of micronations to justify designating them inherently encyclopedic for that class. There is also the important fact that micronations are essentially never treated as just another "type" of country in RS; they do not, as a rule, appear in general lists of countries (even when those lists do include partially-recognized states, non-sovereign subnational polities, and de facto governed breakaway regions), and this is in no small part due to their being considered, by definition, completely distinct from every category of "nation" and "government" that is meaningful. Wikipedia should not be assigning novel membership criteria to classification schemes that already have well-defined bounds and expectations in real-world RS, but this is exactly what using the same set of infobox parameters for both recognized states and micronations does.
    Re: the last paragraph: a large proportion of our articles categorized and treated as micronations either have no mention of "micronation" in their text, or their designation as a "micronation" is unsupported by any source. Many of the remainders are only described as such by one or two RS. Few micronation articles have comprehensive coverage calling their subjects "micronations", but even those that do do not usually emphasize their symbology. JoelleJay (talk) 17:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We aren’t implying legitimacy by using a commonly recognized symbol of an entity to represent that entity. Political parties have flags, companies have flags, clubs have flags, and the same goes for coats of arms— you don’t need to be a country to use them. The images are almost certainly going to be included in such an article anyway, so why bother specifically excluding them from the most obvious place? Dronebogus (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And there is ample secondary independent coverage in RS demonstrating the importance of flags in political parties, companies, sports clubs, and real countries/subnational governments. Where is the evidence the same is true for micronations as a group? It's not like IRS widely group them in with recognized states when discussing "countries", so they don't just get to inherit the presumption that certain aspects are important that we afford to other infobox country topics. And it's also certainly not the case that IRS cover individual micronations' flags to the extent that they are even worth mentioning in our articles at all, much less in the most visible spot of the page. If they are to be included in an article at all, they should appear adjacent to the text that discusses them. JoelleJay (talk) 00:54, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Mention of the symbols of state made to imitate real states are common coverage of micronations as a group. It's part of the topic, like mascots to sports. Flags are an ubiquitous symbol, see for example how often they are mentioned in Micronations: A lacuna in the law (2021) as one of the items used to define each micronation, along with currencies, athems, etc. One of that paper's authors also wrote in Cyber Micronations and Digital Sovereignty "most micronationalists invent and rewrite histories and national narratives; they design flags, medals of honour, passports, and currency...It is through the performative utterance of ‘I claim this land’ or ‘I secede from Canada’ (Austin, 1962), coupled with the sustained repetition of these mimetic acts (raising flags, singing anthems, pledging allegiance, etc.) that micronations declare their sovereignty and sustain their existence." On the overall approach, that real country articles have X and Y does not seem to be a reason to include/exclude X and Y from other types of articles. These are individual articles, not groupings. They are certainly not included on any of our country lists. CMD (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lean towards A reading the discussion above. The symbols etc. are a common part of RS coverage (eg. [6][7]), their inclusion/lack of does not imply legitimacy. That the infoboxes sometimes bloat is a way that provides undue weight to this and that is a common issue with infoboxes, not something related to micronations. Also odd to discuss potential misleadingness and use "unrecognized micronation", which heavily implies there is a category of reccognized micronations out there, providing far more legitimacy to the concept than the previous infobox. CMD (talk) 02:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps a quick definition of the term 'micronation' and said lack of recognition by sovereign states can be included in the infobox itself, if the original draft of A causes confusion for potential readers. 211.251.171.197 (talk) 02:29, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B, for the reasons above which have been (re)stated ad nauseam at this point. Theknightwho (talk) 04:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of the outcome let's make sure we have a notice and link to this conversation so this template doesn't get merged again..... mergerist love this kind of thing.Moxy🍁 02:38, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ Because I couldn't work out how to make Option B the same width as Option A)

Seeking closure for the micronation infobox RfC?

Discussion seems to have drawn down; the last new post to the RfC was some days ago. There being significantly more support for option B and against option A seems pretty apparent, but an uninvolved editor is required for closure. Is the next step to post this at

WP:CR? (and would it go in the RfC section?) P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:32, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

I'd wait until the RFC tag has expired, but then yes list it at
WP:CR in the RFC section. It definitely needs a closer to assess because (as someone pointed out) the comments indicate that not everybody supporting option B is supporting the same thing. Thryduulf (talk) 19:41, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Given attempted canvassing on the 'Liberland' Reddit subforum [8], the closer might well consider it appropriate to take a sceptical view of edits from IPs, though I doubt they will influence the decision significantly anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk)

AI-generated images

This may sound a little dystopian, but since AI-generated images aren't copyrightable, they would technically be preferred under our policy to non-free, fair-use images. Theoretically, AI could also generate images "superior" to those available on Commons, which may tempt editors to use those instead of human-produced photographs. I don't know if it is legally possibly to alter the "no free equivalent" criterion at

WP:IUP currently has no mention of "artificial intelligence". InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:32, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

"AI-generated images aren't copyrightable" Is that true enough? Also, I think I saw a discussion somewhere on a picture made with some app, and the app-terms said something like "you can not release pics made with this app under a commercial free license." I don't know how common that is. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:58, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know enough about these diffusion engines or about copyright law to answer the question, which I share. I will point out that the Commons upload process currently has toggles for saying I generated this work using an AI tool prompting a dialogue box that asks, Enter the name of the AI engine used. If someone else’s original work was used to generate this work, list them as well.—so I guess that's sort of the "guidance" that exists, not that that's supposed to be a guidance, it's just supposed to be an upload portal, but in the absence of other information... what does an editor learn from that?
I agree with InfiniteNexus's sense that there should at least be guidance to prefer human-made images over images created by diffusion engine-type programs. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 08:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fwiw, I started this discussion awhile back: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Images#WP:USERG_portraits Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:12, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ping to @SMcCandlish if you have an opinion to share on the topic of discussion. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:18, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of the copyright question is that it's unclear. Copyright laws (unsurprisingly) do not address the question and, to my knowledge, it has never been tested in court. I believe the possible options are
  1. The images are uncopyrightable, in which case they are probably legally OK to use here as a Free image (but see also below)
  2. Copyright belongs to the copyright holders of the training data. Copyright status of the output image would thus depend on the copyright status of the training data used for a model:
    • Exclusively on public domain works then the output images should be public domain too
    • Exclusively on freely-licensed works that don't require attribution (or a combination of these and public domain works). The output images would be free if a license compatible with all the licenses used on the training data is used
    • Exclusively on freely-licensed (and public domain) works. As above, but only if attribution is given to all the relevant copyright holders - I'd be surprised if this was possible in practical terms.
  3. Copyright belongs to the developer of the AI, in which case they can choose what license(s) the output may be used under.
  4. Copyright belongs to the person who gave the AI the prompt, in which case it would be identical to a human-created image from a copyright perspective.
    • It is not impossible that this will depend on the nature of the prompt, e.g. "flowers in a field" may not be eligible for copyright but "red and blue flowers, grassy upland meadow with Friesian cows, summer day with overcast sky, Alpine mountain background, style of Vincent van Gogh" might be.
  5. Copyright is shared between two or more of the above parties. If it's shared between the developers and the prompter, then its possible (at least in theory) for some AI-generated images to be Free. Any other combination would require the training data and its copyright status to be known, and the bullets under option 2 would seem to apply in addition to license used by the other party/parties.
Whether terms like you can not release pics made with this app under a commercial free license. are enforceable (and relevant) has also, afaik, never been determined. If the developers of an AI image generator have any copyright stake in the works then almost certainly they can impose non-commercial or other restrictions as they choose. If they have no claim on the copyright of the image, then I see three possibilities:
  1. They are deemed similar to restrictions claimed by art galleries on digitised public domain works (which vary in scope and validity by jurisdiction) and they would not be relevant for our purposes (which doesn't guarantee they would be free of course).
  2. They are treated as valid terms of service independent of copyright, in which case whether we regard such terms as relevant to us is for us to decide, either
    • We would treat it like we do restrictions on photography at events - i.e. it's a contractual matter between the prompter and the AI service provider that we are not party to and which does not impact copyright.
    • We would regard such restrictions as binding on whether the image was free or not.
  3. They are deemed invalid and thus unenforceable, in which case they are completely irrelevant to the nature of the work.
It is of course possible (in fact almost certain) that different jurisdictions will have different answers to the relevant questions!
Any modifications done by a human to an AI generated image will affect copyright in the same way that the same modifications would impact the copyright of a human-generated image. Thryduulf (talk) 12:06, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good overview. I'll add that IIRC it has been demonstrated that image AIs are able to spit out exact or near-exact replicas of images in their training corpus, a twist on your first #2. This isn't realistically detectable by either us or the (human) prompter (we'd have to be familiar with the entire training corpus to recognise the similarity). Would recommend we stay away from them until they become more established - DFlhb (talk) 14:23, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Appending an article on this. Quote: "any memorization that exists in the model is small, rare, and very difficult to accidentally extract". The Commons essay linked by InfiniteNexus (c:Template:PD-algorithm) mentions the same issue and frames it as something to be tackled when discovered, i.e. the same way we would treat normal uploads like photographs, rather than preemptively banning a whole technology to address this risk. More reasonable than my suggestion just above. DFlhb (talk) 00:30, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tend to agree with the broader caution, at least for the short term. Also agree with Thryduulf's excellent summary, which neatly ecapsulates the legal arguments out there so far, or at least agrees with that I've been reading on the issue).  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  00:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AI-generated images aren't images aren't real images, because they have no true subject. They can contain errors that may be misleading. We cannot use them in articles without wholly compromising any claim to reliability. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 12:37, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
they have no true subject. They can contain errors that may be misleading Some AI generated images have no true subject, others do; some AI images contain errors, others don't; some AI images are misleading, others aren't. The same statements are equally true about human generated images. These are reasons to carefully evaluate individual images, of whatever authorship, before using them in an article - especially because pretty much every image can be perfectly appropriate in one context and completely inappropriate in a different context. It is also completely irrelevant to copyright. Thryduulf (talk) 12:48, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving copyright to one side (it's an important issue, but I don't think we can comment reasonably on it until there is a body of case law or changes to statutes in major jurisdictions), what is better about original drawings and diagrams produced by a human using computer tools than those produced by AI? And what is so different about an AI-produced image from an image taken on a camera where a human chooses the lighting, the shutter speed, the focus and many other variables? There are many questions relevant to Wikipedia that we could be working on until the copyright issue is resolved. I am not trying to answer any of them yet.
Phil Bridger (talk) 13:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
A difference is that the human's intent is likely to be closer to what we seek than what the computer's intent is. A human painting a portrait of Baron von Vonvontilherdaddytakesthetbirdaway is presumably primarily to capture the likeness of the Baron, although they may have added intent (to make the Baron look handsomer than he was, or an evil countenance, whatever). To the degree that an AI engine has an intent, it would be to create something that would not be at odds with that descriptor, which is different. And the human can indicate to us beyond the images what limitations it had -- that it had to be drawn from memory, that the Baron asked her to make the hair fluffier, whatever. I've yet to see an AI output include process concerns in its output; if it has no reference images of the Baron, it's going to produce some kind of picture of a human and not tell us of its limitations in process. (Having said that, I don't have much AI experience, and for all I know, that may be an extant feature of some engines for all I know.) This does not mean that AI could not produce something that is sufficiently verifiable by a human-- if we ask AI to create a graph based on data set X, the creator can then verify the data on the graph before uploading it. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:01, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An issue yet resolved by courts is that even if AI images can't be copyrighted nor be considered as derivative works of the training material, is whether various AI generation systems violate copyrights by unauthorized use of material in their training sets which I know are claims still alive in a couple early cases. For us, while that is a level past the AI art, are we going to be comfortable in using AI images that knowing misused copyright (assuming those charges are found true in court). Until we have a clear picture on the full nature of copyright of AI art, we should tear far clear in using it save for examples of AI art on pages directly about creation of AI art. Masem (t) 00:16, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the main issue with using AI images is that there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus among authorities on whether they are copyrightable - and if so by who. And some of them might be
derivative works of other copyrighted works, without it being obvious that they are derivative. Human drawn vs AI on the other hand seems more like an aesthetic preference. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:04, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Most images are in Wikipedia because they purport to be an image of a particular thing or person. This inherently does not exist for AI generated images. Most are also photographs which are in because they are a photographic record. Again, this does not exist for AI generated images. North8000 (talk) 13:54, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whether the thing depicted is what is claimed to be depicted is something that can only be determined at the level of the individual image. Whether we prefer a photograph or other image (and there are lots of non-photogrpahic images) is again something that can only be determined in the context of the intended use. As just one example, the
tin opener we're illustrating the concept of a tin opener not a specific tin opener, which is different to illustrating say Tim Berners-Lee). Thryduulf (talk) 14:19, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Yes, all true and good points. I did not intend to indicate otherwise when I made my points above about "most" Wikipedia images. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:24, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A human-rendered version of the Mars habitat is far better than an AI because the human (likely a NASA employed person) is going to be able to use other knowledge not limited to imagery to establish how the base will be placed, and because these are generated by NASA, while they might look nothing like the final image, their release would implicitly be confirmation this is what NASA thinks it will be, and which may not be explained in other material published by NASA. An AI generated image may use all that art but cannot be able to connect other info to that and thus may generate something that looks like the habitat, but completely in an unfeasible location. For that reason alone, I cannot see any case where an AI image would be preferable to a human-rendered one. Masem (t) 01:13, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AI-generated art is not copyrightable under U.S. law and belong in the public domain. A federal judge ruled this six months ago [9] [10] [11] [12]. This was a pretty big deal, so I assumed this was common knowledge; apparently not. See also [13]. I don't know what the copyright status is in other countries, but the WMF is headquartered in San Francisco and Wikipedia is thus bound by U.S. copyright law (

WP:NUSC). Commons already has a c:Template:PD-algorithm. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:52, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Few things "settled" by a district judge are actually considered settled or remain so for long. This is apt to turn into a circuit decision (for or against the district's ruling) and eventually one at the Supreme Court, though this could take years. And that'll just be one (albeit major/influential) national juridiction.

Anyway, from my PoV, "art" ceated by "AI" isn't art at all, it's pixels arranged in a way to attempt to suit the expectations of a textual prompt. It has no (and cannot presently have any intent beyond that. Such output is notriously inaccurate as a general matter (even about really basic things, like how many fingers humans have, what facial muscles do to produce expressions like smiles, etc.), even if a few individual images from that sector might accidentally turn out not to be badly hosed. As such output is not an image (a captured photo, or an intentional attempt to represent in the case of a painting) of the subject, just an attempt to generate CGI that suits a text prompt that mentions the subject, there is no real rationale to use any such image on WP, except perhaps to illustrate an article about "AI" "art" in and of itself. An LLM image illustrating "Margaret Thatcher" or "Botswana" should be removed as pseudo-depiction, or simply falsification to put it more bluntly. Perhaps some kind of argument can be made that LLM image s could be appropriate for depicting things that can't be photographed but which can be mathematically modeled (i.e. with predicable results than can be compared acrossed models), like black holes, and molecular bond arrangements between atoms in complex polymers at the fine microscopic level. But I would expect concerns and caution in this area because of the very, very frequent accuracy problems (even about basic matters) exhibited by LLMs. Such an image would need to be reviewed by subject-matter experts. Another concern is that WP generally doesn't want human editors' own artworks (graphs and maps are often exceptions), even for bio subjects for whom we have no good-quality free-use images if any at all. There is no reason for us to reject those yet accept editors' LLM-generated output, which involves even less human judgement.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  00:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As you point out, Wikipedia is based in San Francisco, which is in federal district 9, while the ruling you're pointing to is in the DC district. To the best of my not-a-lawyerly understanding, the DC district cannot make binding precedent on the ninth, nor vice vera. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:06, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The U.S. Copyright Office has repeatedly refused to register works generated by AI. One of the applicants sued, which led us to the ruling where the district court affirmed the Copyright Office's decision. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Commons has more about this at c:Commons:AI-generated media#Can AI-generated media be lawfully hosted on Commons?: In the United States and most other jurisdictions, only works by human authors qualify for copyright protection. In 2022 and 2023, the US Copyright Office repeatedly confirmed that this means that AI-created artworks that lack human authorship are ineligible for copyright. The Commons community has rejected deletion requests that relied on such copyright claims, and tagged images generated by models such as DALL-E as {{PD-algorithm}}. Our policies are based on the current understanding and interpretation of the law, which could of course change in the future, but the current consensus within the U.S. government and court system is that AI-generated art is ineligible for copyright. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus in the court system or government. The DC District Court's ruling does not constitute the current consensus of anyone. It's not even binding in DC, nevermind the rest of the country. District Courts are trial courts and trial courts do not create binding precedent. The District Court's rulings are limited to the single case the court was ruling on and those particular parties. (Barring an injunction, which is not at issue here.)
SCOTUS declining to hear a copyright appeal also is not an endorsement of the copyright office's decision.
There won't be any binding legal precedent on this issue until appeals courts and/or the Supreme Court issues a decision. The appeals court decisions will only be binding within their circuits. Any District Court decisions only apply to their individual cases and will have no binding precedential effect.
The copyright office's interpretations are binding on applicants until/unless they're overturned by a court, but don't reflect the consensus of the entire government, just the copyright office. At most that's one branch of the three branches.
The copyright of AI is a very open question currently being addressed by multiple US courts. No binding or consensus answer yet. Levivich (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's also two different questions. I don't see the general ruling that computer generated art is not copyrightable necessarily changing, since it's long established that copyright requires human authorship. My sense is the bigger question is copyrighted material in the training data. SportingFlyer T·C 20:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm aware, it is "currently being addressed" in the sense that courts are currently addressing these cases by dismissing them on the basis that they do not explain how it's physically possible for their claims to be true. Like I said at Commons a few months ago:

If you want a reason why these models don't contain "fragments of source images", I can give one: it is physically impossible. I can't speak to what goes on with closed-source models, but checkpoints for publicly available models are a few billion bytes of neuron weights (e.g. Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 is 6.94 GB). The datasets these models are trained on constitute a few billion entire images (LAION-5B is 5.85 billion images). I would like to see someone explain how images -- fragment or otherwise -- are being compressed to a size of one byte. It is basic arithmetic.

One byte is eight bits: it is a number between 0 and 255. The binary representation of the number 255 by itself takes one full byte (11111111).

A single colored pixel (i.e. yellow-green, #9ACD32) is a triplet of three bytes (10011010, 11001101, 00110010).

The smallest file on Wikimedia Commons, a GIF consisting of a single transparent pixel, is 26 bytes. The comment you're reading right now (check the revision history for the actual number) is 2080 bytes (minus my signature). This 186 x 200 photograph of an avocado (as a JPEG -- a highly optimized, lossily compressed file format) is eleven thousand bytes. Even if we disregard the well-documented literature concerning neural networks (and the subset of generative models that create images like these) actually work, it is not mathematically possible to achieve the compression ratios necessary to simply store training images inside the model. jp×g🗯️ 18:44, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So ... is there support for some wording on
WP:IUP to prefer human-created images to AI-generated ones, if not to ban them entirely (which would require a formal RfC)? If editors believe these images aren't in the public domain, they should voice their concerns to the Commons community, but until they regard AI-generated images as copyrighted, Wikipedia is not going to either. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I oppose banning them. If the copyright or other restrictions turn out to be problematic down the road we can deal with it then, especially as we could use such images under fair use if they can't be hosted on Commons (assuming they meet the NFCC, which can only be determined at the level of the individual image). We should always prefer the best image, and I see no reason to prohibit using an AI image if that is the best image for a particular usage (unless you want to make the encyclopaedia worse to prove a point or something?). At the current level of the technology, an AI image is pretty much guaranteed not to be inferior to a human image when representing a specific person or thing (and in many other cases too), so banning the AI image would be pointless in the same way that we don't need to ban potato paintings. The only question that arises is whether we want to prefer a human image over an AI image when all other factors (quality, relevance, license, aesthetics, etc, are equal). I don't have a reason to oppose doing that, but equally I don't have a reason to support doing that. Thryduulf (talk) 00:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support creating wording on
WP:IUP
to prefer human-created images over ones generated from diffusion engine-type programming ("AI"). As much as it's the case that there are ways human-created images introduce certain degrees of artificiality (choice of lighting in a photograph, choice of pose in a video, emphasizing or de-emphasizing certain attributes in a portrait, etc.), we are in a much better position to examine and critically consider these human made choices than the inscrutable, at times even 'black box'-esque generation process of diffusion engine-esque programs. As for a ban, for now I would tentatively support that.
And, while this is not the major thrust of my reasoning, the possibility of Wikimedia Commons becoming some kind of repository of images generated using programs that can and do, sometimes by being given such an input and sometimes just doing so without such, imitate and ape the oeuvres of living human artists, troubles me. In valuing accessibility as a project, it hasn't been our goal and it needn't become our practice to tread on the rights of others. Even now Commons' upload process asks the uploader to make sure the photograph doesn't non-incidentally include material that is the protected intellectual property of others. I find myself comparing images generated from diffusion engine-esque programs, and the way they crib from the copyrighted works of artists, kind of like photos that non-incidentally include the intellectual property of others. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should consider a hands-off approach, let people argue for inclusion case-by-case and give the community a chance to experiment rather than being risk-averse. Copyright issues are unlikely given the court decisions so far. Masem's argument (which boils down to educational/encyclopedic value) is a lot more interesting to me than the copyright angle, but it's one that would justify giving people leeway to experiment and see if they can find encyclopedic value in it.
And as a point of order - we're just talking about policy on what to transclude from Commons, right? Since AI pics go to Commons. So I'm not sure how copyright is relevant to us. If it's a problem it's for them to deal with. DFlhb (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no yet a worldwide agreement on copyrights on AI, we only have affirmation that the US will not grant AI images copyright. So no, they should not go to commons. We probably should made a new image for PD-US-AI, reflecting the copyright office's stance.
Once there's broad worldwide agreement AI images can't be copyrighted, then commons can take them. — Masem (t) 04:49, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright aside, I am having a hard time imagining a situation in which an AI-generated image being added to a Wikipedia article complies with
WP:NOR. But I suppose in theory an AI generator could be used to create some kind of chart or something that is backed up by RS. Except I don't think AI image generators are good enough to do that yet, like they don't handle text well for example. But from a Wikipedia policy perspective, I'm not concerned about the copyright aspect -- if and when the law catches up, Wikipedia will comply with whatever that law is. Until then, I'd just apply our ordinary policies. If an editor uses AI as a tool to create an image that otherwise complies with policy (i.e., it's not OR), then I don't see why it matters what tool the editor used to create the policy-compliant image, whether it's MS Paint, Photoshop, or some AI image tool. BTW for those who are not familiar, be aware that "AI image tool" is a broad category, covering everything from an AI image generator that creates an entire image, to AI tools that alter images (e.g. by removing something from the image or adding something to it), to AI tools that restore/filter images, and so on. Levivich (talk) 18:04, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Don't most photographs and other images in articles fall foul of
Phil Bridger (talk) 18:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Photographs don't as long as they don't "reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources." So if I take a picture of Buckingham Palace and my picture shows Buckingham Palace in the same way that RSes show Buckingham Palace then it's fine. Other images like charts, graphs, maps, tables, infographics, etc., may or may not fall afoul of NOR depending on their content and whether the content is novel or is just summarizing RSes. Levivich (talk) 18:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's all very well for ultra-notable things like Buckingham Palace, but most photographs on Wikipedia are of things or people that have no published (elsewhere) photographs, or, if they do, they are not in reliable sources. And people are encouraged to take such photographs.
Phil Bridger (talk) 19:27, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
They are in reliable sources, just a primary source: the thing itself. Imagine I take a picture of a document, like the US Constitution, and imagine I'm the first person to ever take a picture of this document. The document is a source for what the document looks like, a primary source, but a source nonetheless. Anyone could, in theory, verify that my photograph of the document accurately depicted the document by comparing my photograph to the document itself. Same goes with a building, or any other object one can photograph. One way of looking at "OR" is that "OR" is anything that can't be verified in the
WP:V sense. A photograph can be verified, therefore it's not necessarily OR or not always OR. Levivich (talk) 20:20, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
It's certainly possible for a human-generated photo or other image to violate NOR, but that depends on the image and how it is being used, and to a certain extent how strictly one interprets NOR.
WP:NPOV is another policy that is easier to violate with an image (choice of lighting, angle, etC), however these not things that can be determined without examining the individual image. Thryduulf (talk) 19:09, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
@]
  • On preliminary thought, assuming copyright issues are worked out: 1) Ban all images of persons, and events in the past century (within the life of anyone alive). We are not here to make, or make-up, modern history or stories about people. 2) I would require any other images to state in detail what sources were relied on to create the image. 3) The rule would be, we would have to disclose, the image is AI; and 4) We always prefer traditional photographs or paintings, such that we have a no use policy if such comparables exist (some kind of NFCC - like policy) (that's at least to start). I think there might be more issues. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:49, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why? 1) If the images are not reliable depictions of whatever they purport to depict then we shouldn't be using them regardless of whether they are AI generated or not. If they are reliable then I don't understand why we would want to ban them? Why would the subject being more or less than ~100 years old make any difference to the reliability or otherwise of an image? 2) This is a combination of copyright issues (attribution) and point 1: we just need enough information to know whether it is reliable or not - sometimes that might mean a list of all (major) sources, sometimes it will just be the AI engine and prompt. 3) Yes, but again that's a copyright thing. 4) Why would we prefer an inferior image just because it's human-generated (if it is superior there is no reason to ban alternatives)? Thryduulf (talk) 20:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    They are fictions is why. Welcome to reality. In no way should we have the product of, 'Computer: draw a picture of the Palestinian hospital being bombed', anywhere in our encyclopedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:37, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's absolutely terrible reasoning. If you want to make a valid argument, find an example where "Non-famous human: draw a picture of X" would be something we should have while "Computer: draw a picture of X" (and the AI generates good output, no copping out by pointing to "but AI sometimes makes errors like wrong numbers of fingers") would not be, based on reasoning other than "oh noes AI is bad".
    Re "we always prefer traditional photographs or paintings", anyone want to prepare an RFC calling for digital photographs to be banned in favor of traditional photographs or paintings, if that's what we prefer? We have about a month. 😀 Anomie 06:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, LOL, how droll. Your comment is the one with absolutely terrible reasoning. "Non-famous human: draw a picture of yesterday's bombing" is not what we want on our pedia, either, nor is a digital photograph not traditional photography in 2024. Most people need no rfc or dumb emojis to know to know what digital photography is in 2024. As for April Fools Day in a month, there is no reason for you to start early with such nonsense. Alanscottwalker (talk) 07:10, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I never said "Non-famous human: draw a picture of yesterday's bombing" was something we'd want, nor does anyone I've seen in this discussion. Which is exactly why I called out your comment using that as an example of an AI image we wouldn't want as bogus. Similarly, my attempt at humor was to point out that your appeal to "traditional" photography was similarly irrelevant. I'm sad to see you entirely missed both points and instead resorted to ad hominem attacks. Anomie 07:39, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So, we don't want that computer drawn picture, just I said. So not only was that good reasoning, I was correct. The only point that's being missed is by you, your not making any cogent statement in favor AI, when you agree we don't want that AI picture. Indeed, you are conceding my overarching point, controls are what's needed. And now your not making any cogent argument when you resort to false claims of ad hominem, in defense of your poor humor. Alanscottwalker (talk) 07:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We don't want bad pictures, regardless of source. If AI pictures are always as bad as you claim then there is no point in banning them, just like we don't ban bad drawings by humans. We do want good pictures. My argument is that we want good pictures regardless of source, your argument seems to be we only want good pictures produced by humans but you have not given any explanation why (ad hominems and straw men are not explanations). Thryduulf (talk) 11:19, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Come, now. I explained in my first post why we don't want some AI Pictures, and your not making much of any real point when you say you don't want bad pictures. Your hand-waving. That's not any standard editors can abide by, when they actually address pictures. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:43, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Except the only reasons you gave are (paraphrased) "AI images are bad" and "We always prefer traditional photographs or paintings". The first is not relevant because, even if all AI images are bad (and that can be debated, and in any case may change as technology develops) there is no reason to ban bad images. The second is a statement of personal preference that is not backed up by any reasoning (other than "AI images are bad").
    I'm not sure what you are trying to say with your final sentence - when selecting images editors should (hopefully obviously) always choose the best image, with "best" depending on multiple factors relating to the specific usage. If we want to change that to "editors should always choose the best image, unless the best image is AI generated when you must use an inferior one" then we need a reason why. And nobody has yet articulated any reason for doing so (assuming we can legally use the images) Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You have not read what I wrote. Your paraphrase is ludicrous. I addressed the dangers of made up history and information about living people. I addressed that we need sources, for the reasons we always need sources, so others can check, and I addressed the standard preference for types of image making that is already well known and already used to convey reality. And I addressed being upfront with the reader that the image is AI, because we should always be upfront with the reader. Your imagining of some better AI picture, is just imagining and practically meaningless - better than reality, is not reality. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    nobody has yet articulated any reason for doing so (assuming we can legally use the images) Without weighing in on Alanscottwalker's reasons, I would point out that in this overall thread, there have been articulations of reasons. For example, the possibility of Wikimedia Commons becoming some kind of repository of images generated using programs that can and do, sometimes by being given such an input and sometimes just doing so without such, imitate and ape the oeuvres of living human artists, troubles me. There are ethical dimensions to the use and creation of diffusion engine-generated images, beyond strict copyrightability. To the extent that Wikipedia exists in the world, and in the social context of humanity, wanting our project and community to be ethically responsible isn't a non-reason. It's a reason, that one can agree with or disagree with (whether on its premise, on its execution, on some other aspect of it, etc.). P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 14:42, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would argue regardless of what happens here there should be some exceptions. Fox example, assuming there is not a change in copyright status the image used in Artificial intelligence art shouldn’t be removed due to being AI generated since that wouldn’t make any sense. I believe this should also apply to notable programs such as DALL-E where I see it making sense that the article shows images that it created and is clearly identified as AI art.--67.70.103.36 (talk) 13:39, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of interest to this discussion may be one that was had a few months ago at the NOR noticeboard, Cartoon portraits. It was primarily about some very ugly and amateurish caricatures being used to adorn BLP articles, but also touches upon AI generated art and the questionable output of a project called "Wiki Unseen". Zaathras (talk) 00:33, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was primarily about some very ugly and amateurish caricatures Zarathas, you were called out in that discussion, multiple times, for that completely inappropriate characterisation of the images being discussed. It is still inappropriate now. The conduct of several editors in that discussion, including you, means that reading most of it was a complete waste of time - if you import that sort of behaviour to this discussion expect a swift trip to ANI. In as much as there was consensus for anything it was that "some illustrations are original research, others aren't" and "there are instances when illustrations are appropriate in an article, and instances when they are not" with individual images needing individual discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 02:00, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is that the one in which one of the opponents kept struggling to tell the difference between an
Picasso would have been "an amateur", as well as the whole Expressionism art movement). Or was there another depressing discussion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:11, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Thryduulf, good lord, enough with the sanctimoniousness. First the micronation debate above and now this. One of the primary movers of that debate turned out to be a now-blocked sockpuppet, and their edits reversed. My position was squarely in the right. Zaathras (talk) 03:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure which "position" you are referring to, but the NOR debate certainly did not come to the consensus that the view you were espousing was the sole correct one. The micronation discussion is completely irrelevant here, regardless of whether you needlessly personify discussions or not. Thryduulf (talk) 04:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
regardless of whether you needlessly personify discussions or not. Pot, meet kettle. Now, stick to the topic at hand, please. Zaathras (talk) 05:27, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That reminds me of the kind of technical drawings used for anatomy classes. Even though the word has millions of photographs of various body parts, Gray's Anatomy and similar works are still valued. They're valued precisely because they're not specific photographs of individual – and therefore unique – specimens. They're valued because they show "typical" or "average" in a way that is more typical and average than any individual's body will ever be. Once you learn "average", it's easy to adjust to the "specific". In this area, a "made-up" drawing is a lot more valuable than a "real" photograph.
I suspect that there are instances in which AI-generated images would be useful and non-misleading. I could image, e.g., someone saying "Computer, please look at the images in c:Category:Apples. Now make me a few images that show a dozen different kinds of apples on a plain white background." You'd look at the resulting images and decide which, if any of them, had the Pertinence and encyclopedic nature that you were looking for. The fact that you used AI instead of Photoshop would be immaterial. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yet my sense is that photographs of actual apples would be consistently more pertinent and encyclopedic. Even granting the varieties of apple kinds, and the variegations of lighting, etc., it can at least be agreed more consistently that the human-generated image of an apple does depict, and is intended to depict, an apple. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AI-generated image from the prompt "apple"
Human-generated photograph of an apple
Human-generated drawing of an apple
human-generated picture of an apple
it can at least be agreed more consistently that the human-generated image of an apple does depict, and is intended to depict, an apple I'm not sure that is true. If I showed you 100 images that were generated by AI tools with the prompt "apple", all of them will be intended to depict an apple. If I showed you 100 images generated by humans of things that look to me like apples, I cannot say that all of them were intended to depict an apple - some may have been intended as representations of a quince, pear, cake, or something completely different. Whether something does depict what it is intended to depict, and if so whether it is better or worse (by whatever metric you choose) than some other depiction of that same thing is something that cannot be judged based on whether a human or AI generated either image. In the example photos the top image is more suitable as a lead image for the "Apple" article than any of the human-generated ones. Obviously we have no shortage of images of apples, but this is not necessarily going to be the case for every subject. Thryduulf (talk) 06:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I rather would have preferred you hadn't, to try to prove a point to me, uploaded an image of an apple generated using a program trained on copyrighted works and which may itself contain major copyrightable elements of works. I don't think we as a community do right by ourselves or others by propagating material that doesn't respect the copyrightable works of others. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 06:38, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Disliking AI and/or it's methods for those reasons is not an unreasonable point of view. However, as Wikipedians we are in the business of dealing with the neutral point of view and so our personal feelings are not relevant to whether AI images are or are not suitable for an encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 12:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLP provides guidelines around propagating claims about living subjects in ways that prioritize ethics beyond what other policies would consider flatly neutral, verifiable, etc. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 03:58, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Yes, but I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. Human artists learn from studying and copying other artwork. A very typical assignment in university-level art classes is to look at all of the paintings by a great master, and then make their own versions. One of the main points is to have the students mimic the original style.
Is it ethical? AIUI scholars say it's generally ethical, within some broad limits (e.g., you don't want students producing copies so exact that they could pass for the original).
Conclusion: If humans can look at artwork and produce a new version (modulo forgeries, copyvios, etc.), it's ethical.
But: If a machine "looks" at artwork and produces a new version, even within tthe same limits, it's automatically, inherently, unreservedly, obviously not ethical?
Maybe it's not so clear cut as that. Maybe it should be okay for a machine to do what's okay for a human to do.
See also Tribute act. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:17, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we are abandoning the legal issue, or the factual dimension of whether or not it's possible to copyright the idea that an apple is red (?) and dealing entirely with issues of ethics:
    Prior to the last hundred years (give or take), the human race spent somewhere around a hundred thousand years without anything resembling modern copyright law. Even when such laws were introduced, the original terms of these protections were closer to reasonable (i.e. 14 years in the US, 14-21 years in the UK).
    Here is a scenario for you: Bonzo's Montreux is a drum solo recorded by John Bonham 48 years ago. John Bonham died 44 years ago. My dad listened to Led Zeppelin a lot when I was a kid. Nonetheless, its copyright is owned by Atlantic Records, a corporation which Led Zeppelin (of whom John Bonham was a member) signed a contract with some time in the 1960s, which means it is illegal for me to make a movie that includes me hitting a trash can with a stick if it has the same rhythm as this, unless I give a large amount of money to this corporation. It will continue to be illegal until the year 2060. How is it illegal? Laws are generally enforced by agencies that are funded with taxpayer money, so this is being paid for by everyone.
    Is it ethical for taxpayer money (i.e. the same pool of money we use to feed the hungry, clothe the sick, put out fires, and the like) to be used to enforce laws prohibiting me from humming the melodies of songs I heard as a young boy? What proportion of our childhood memories are illegal to reproduce without paying up to a million dollars? For a century?
    Of course, these things aren't really relevant to Wikipedia policy, but if you want to talk about ethics per se, I think copyright law is close to the single most morally odious institution in modern society. It seems sub-optimal to defend amoral bazillion-dollar conglomerates on the basis that their interests are aligned in a vaguely separate direction to different amoral bazillion-dollar conglomerates.
    As the esteemed Doctorow says in a voice more eloquent than my own: "Under these conditions, giving a creator more copyright is like giving a bullied schoolkid extra lunch money. It doesn't matter how much lunch money you give that kid – the bullies will take it all, and the kid will still go hungry (that's still true even if the bullies spend some of that stolen lunch money on a PR campaign urging us all to think of the hungry children and give them even more lunch money)". jp×g🗯️ 18:32, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If we're talking purely ethically, I do think copyright terms should be substantially shorter and shouldn't be able to be held by non-human incorporated entities for so long. But I don't think rolling over to diffusion engine-powered corporate interests at the expense of independent artists is the best way to stick it to Disney et al. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:18, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@P-Makoto, I don't think it matters if the image actually depicts the subject (Is It Cake?). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTJKosHxYtM looks like an apple.
The requirement is that illustrations in an article look like they depict the subject. Thryduulf's AI-generated image "looks like" a bit more Candy apple to me, so I wouldn't use it in Apple. This isn't because it's AI-generated; it's because it doesn't look like an ordinary apple. Even if it were real and came with a certificate of authenticity, I wouldn't use that image in Apple.
My point was that, depending on the needs of the article, I might prefer a drawing like File:PSM V05 D153 Section of an apple.jpg over a photo of a particular apple, or an AI-generated simulation of such a photo. Being "real" is not inherently an advantage.
(The intention is completely irrelevant; we crop images to show objects that were only incidentally present in the image all the time, and nobody minds in the least that these objects weren't intended to be in the photographs.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's no different than saying that is a terrible portrait of an apple, why because it does not look like an an apple, what's the reason for that, because of how it was produced. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:20, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How it was produced is completely irrelevant - either something is the best illustration for a given bit of encyclopaedic content or it isn't. A "terrible portrait" is terrible regardless of whether it was produced by an AI, a three-year-old human or a professional artist. Thryduulf (talk) 19:24, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No it's not, it looks terrible because of how it was produced. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:28, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are entitled to that opinion, but that still doesn't make it relevant to this discussion. There are exactly three things that matter for English Wikipedia's purposes:
  1. Can we use it the encyclopaedia? (i.e. is it freely licensed or meet the NFCC)
  2. If so, does it illustrate what we want to illustrate?
  3. If so, is it the best illustration for what we want to illustrate?
If the answer to any of those questions is "no" we do not use it. Why the answer is "no" is not relevant. Thryduulf (talk) 20:42, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. Why the answer is no (or yes) is always relevant, it's how editors actually reason through and explain the decisions they make. (Also, how something is produced is invariably significant to how it appears, so no use in quibbling that.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is some disagreement between us then, because I think it'd be misleading to knowingly, for example, replace the images in apple with images of cakes that merely look like apples. Yes, they look like apples to you or I, and perhaps the images created using diffusion engines do too, but it also seems possible that someone who knows more about apples—or more about a biographical subject, of class of topics, etc.—would be able to notice differences and errors that slip past you or I, errors that now we begin to accept as simply part of how these apples, or people, or places, or whatever is being depicted, look. A more natural image would still be more educational. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:21, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would be supportive of a full ban on AI-generated images outside of contexts where AI is the subject of the article. It has already become difficult to get Google to give you a real image of something because of all the AI-generated crap polluting search results. Wikipedia should be a place you can come to to get a real image of a thing that actually exists, not what a computer thinks something looks like. Just because an AI-generated image qualitatively looks accurate does not mean it actually is, and we should not be introducing factual errors to our articles just because an editor thinks one image looks nicer than another one. We run into
OR issues if we're then trusting editors to make judgements about whether an AI-generated image is accurate or not. Sam Walton (talk) 17:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Has anyone tried to generate an actually good image yet?


green granny smith apple on a brown tablecloth, hasselblad still life photograph --v 6.0 --style raw

Probably we could cut out a lot of the confusion if we stopped saying "AI" images are good, or bad, or whatever; this can refer to any number of hundreds of models with output ranging from random splotches of color to genuine photorealism. Some models always create slop, and some do not. Here is one from MidJourney v6, with prompt included. jp×g🗯️ 19:34, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Probably we could cut out a lot of the confusion if we stopped saying "AI" images are good, or bad, or whatever this has been my point. Some AI images are bad. Some AI images are good. We should always use whatever the best image is, regardless of whether it's AI or human-generated. Thryduulf (talk) 19:52, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why am I getting flashbacks to all the pseudoscience arguments about biotechnology and genetically modified foods, where anti-science proponents consistently tried to claim that biotech methods were relevant (and somehow harmful) in the resulting organism and needed to be explicitly noted, despite that not actually changing the resulting phenotypic or, often, genotypic resultant organism? In a similar manner, the source of the images here should be irrelevant (so long as we don't have legal copyright issues involved, which includes the human-made images), since it's the outcome that matters. I.e. what the resulting image is and whether it is visually representative of the subject it is intended to be used for. SilverserenC 19:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly the problem with AI images, though. Sure, let's say they're fine on copyright, I agree that isn't a major concern. It's the outcome that matters, and AI images simply aren't guaranteed to be representative or accurate. The fact that AI images are often close makes the problem worse, not better - it means that it's easy for problems to slip through undetected, especially to an untrained eye. Suppose we use an AI to create an image of a specific cultivar of apple that doesn't have an image currently. The AI spits out something apple-looking. Is this usable? Is it representative of this cultivar you prompted it for? How would you tell? A photograph, or a painting prepared by experts (e.g. Winter Banana (apple)'s picture from the Department of Agriculture), won't have such surprises (assuming the photographer hasn't misidentified what they're taking a picture of, of course). Even if we charitably assume that 90% of our pictures of specific apple cultivars are perfect, the damage from the 10% that aren't are not worth the minor advantage from using the AI pictures in the other cases. Just... get real pictures, instead. SnowFire (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, this quasi-demand for blind faith in what it produces is the opposite of a scientific approach, one that can be verified and if one needs to replicate it to check, how is that done. (Besides one can't imagine the scientific mind would not be interested in what and why produces the best result.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is the exactly wrong usecase for AI images. The two places they are potentially useful is generic images (e.g. "Apple" rather than a specific cultivar of apple) and situations where artists' impressions are currently useful. If say SpaceX released am image of a proposed Lunar settlement then whether we used that image or not would depend on exactly the same considerations (copyright, notability, whether it illustrates our article in a useful way) regardless of whether that image was generated by a human or an AI. Thryduulf (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, so there are definable areas of no use. You should have begun with that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are no "definable areas of no use" just areas where, with the current state of the technology, AI images are always going to be inferior to human images (it's not impossible that will change in the future, but it wont in the current generation of models). As I've repeatedly said, there is no point in banning the use of AI images where they are (currently) inferior to human images for the same reason we don't ban MS Paint drawings from illustrating BLPs (although if Jim'll Paint It ever draws a freely-licensed self-portrait we might use it on that article). Thryduulf (talk) 00:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You just said the opposite. "Wrong usecase", your words, absolutely means it is definable no use. As does, "The two places they are potentially useful is generic images (e.g. "Apple" rather than a specific cultivar of apple) and situations where artists' impressions are currently useful.") as that means they are not useful in other places. You're in bad faith.-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I assure you that I am acting in good faith, but if you do not believe that then discussion is pointless as you will not listen to arguments different to your own, regardless of merit. Thryduulf (talk) 13:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I listen. I just listened to you say two things that are directly contradictory, demonstrating bad faith. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They are neither contradictory (as explained) nor bad faith. Please stop making accusations and start engaging with the arguments. Thryduulf (talk) 14:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pointing out that you are saying directly contradictory things and that is evidence of bad faith is engaging with the substance of your arguments, it demonstrates the lack of substance in your arguments. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have explained how they are not contradictory: Noting that there are areas where AI images are currently always inferior to human artists is not the same thing as asserting that there are defined or definable areas where we need to ban the use of AI. You can disagree with either or both portions, but that doesn't make them contradictory nor is it evidence of bad faith. Now, please either provide actual evidence of bad faith contribution or stop casting aspersions. Thryduulf (talk) 14:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are just further demonstrating your bad faith, saying they are always inferior means no use, no use is all ban means. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are either not reading, not comprehending or acting in bad faith. Regardless of which it is further engagement is a waste of everybody's time. Thryduulf (talk) 15:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I read, you described large categories of AI as being no use ("wrong usecase") meaning they are functionally banned, indeed you identify only two narrow categories as usable, meaning again the rest are functionally banned. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Thryduulf on the use cases where AI images could be useful. There are many abstract concepts where an illustration is the best option. In situations where current AI images are categorically inferior to human-created images, there's still no use in a ban, since the decision is often between an AI image and no image at all. I would not feel comfortable using one until the copyright issue is more settled, but I would not support a ban. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:13, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, due to the reasons discussed above, they are rarely useful/appropriate for a Wikipedia article. But "seldom useful" doesn't mean ban. Perhaps we need a couple paragraphs saying this and describing the issues which were discussed above. North8000 (talk) 19:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the last time we tried to put together an actual policy proposal for generative AI (
WP:LLM) it took over a year and went nowhere beyond producing an essay. My reading of what happened back then was that the policy (which was already extremely restrictive, as it should have been) was shot down by people who believed it was still too permissive and who wanted basically a total ban; I feel this position was obviously self-defeating, since they weren't able to get a consensus for the ban they wanted and shooting it down resulted in no overarching LLM-specific policies or restrictions whatsoever, even though there were plenty of restrictions almost everyone agreed on. Discussion over it as it relates to images is likely to go down the same course - just glancing at the discussions above makes it clear there's no consensus for a total ban; but there's also enough people who won't accept anything short of a total ban that we're likely to end up with nothing at all. --Aquillion (talk) 01:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

My own thoughts:

  • It's important to make a distinction between AI-generated images that are used in
    WP:RSes
    (to illustrate the subject or as a topic of conversation) and AI images "generated for Wikipedia." The reality is that many promo shots of celebrities are going to be touched up using AI, for instance, and that doesn't prevent them from being used here; it would obviously be completely unacceptable for any editor to touch them up themselves, and the fact that an official image was clearly touched up might be a valid argument to raise against it when selecting it, but it shouldn't fall under the purview of the restrictions we're discussing here.
  • Similarly, it's extremely likely that in the near future there will be a scandal surrounding some deepfake AI-generated image of a celebrity; if that image is widely-published, we would have the option to include it for illustrative purposes on an article discussing the scandal. Other aspects of BLP might bar us from using it, and whether we should us it would depend on many other factors, such as the nature of the image, the decisions of high-quality RSes to publish it, the risk of harm to the subject, and so on; but it wouldn't be automatically barred just because it's AI-generated at that point provided it's well-labeled as such and just used in that context.

That said, as an absolute most basic starting point, we 100% need to bar images of

WP:BLPs that were "generated for Wikipedia" or otherwise lack the extenuating circumstances in the previous points. That much is just common sense, surely? Other situations are a bit lower-priority but this one ought to be nailed down. Even if an image seems completely innocuous, the risk of reputational harm that could arise from even tiny subtle aspects of the image mean that this needs a firm bar. Whether it's acceptable to use slightly derpy pictures of apple to illustrate Apple can wait; copyright concerns will work their way through the courts eventually. Whereas the possibility of someone generating what they consider a "good" or "representative" picture of a BLP and slapping it in their article needs to be shot down now. --Aquillion (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

I don't see that as an issue of AI vs not-AI. If the image is an accurate representation then (assuming copyright, etc. is OK) whether we use it or not should be a matter of editorial judgement at the article concerned. If the image is not an accurate representation then we obviously should not use it, but only because it's not an accurate representation not because it's AI generated. Thryduulf (talk) 03:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course, any reasonable policy would ban them from BLP's and in recreating recent human and natural events. Indeed it is asserted above that the "two places they are potentially useful is generic images (e.g. "Apple" rather than a specific cultivar of apple) and situations where artists' impressions are currently useful", so obviously that's the place to start and we should narrow it more, as need be. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's be pragmatic here. If machine-generated images are the best available illustrations, use them. If human-generated images are the best available illustrations, use them. If none of the available images are suitable, don't use any. If people try to add images that aren't suitable, revert and explain why they're not suitable. My view here is the same as my view on the proposed LLM policy – the issues raised are all already covered by existing policies, guidelines and common sense. – Teratix 09:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • While we prefer photographs, we DO allow paintings/drawings (even user generated paintings/drawings) of our subjects when a free licensed photograph is not available. Sometimes we even have to choose between several paintings/drawings, based on which is most realistic and accurate.
We can do the same with AI generated images. We can compare the image to non-free photographs, (and to hand made paintings/drawings) to decide whether it is accurate enough for our needs… replacing it with a photograph (or a more accurate painted/drawn image) if one becomes available.
In other words… there is no need to change policy… Continue to prefer photographic images, but also continue to allow other forms of imagery (including AI) when no photo is available. Go case by case, choosing the most accurate image available, and be willing to change images if something better becomes available. Blueboar (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not only did you just suggest a restriction: 'only where non-free content comparisons can be made by all editors and readers, presumably on a lay basis', but there is no way to have such a restriction without putting it in our policy or guideline. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:51, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Eh? They literally said to do what we currently do. That means either no change to policies/guidelines are required to do this with AI or we need to change the policies/guidelines to allow it to be done for non-AI images. Thryduulf (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They literally described a restrictive process one with the ability to check the AI image, so it would be Kafkaesque to not write the rule down (its not a secret process). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When someone says there is no need to change policy and that we should continue to allow other forms of imagery (including AI), we should take them at their word – they're not proposing alterations to existing practices. – Teratix 16:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Their word was to describe a restrictive process for checking AI images, the suggestion of not, or resistance to, writing it down is Kafkaesque. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is a ridiculous and tendentious way to interpret their point. – Teratix 17:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be absurd, "compare the image to non-free photographs" is as plain as day process as there is.-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed with Blueboar, worth mentioning this use case but a change isn't needed. – SJ + 17:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Obituaries

As I've worked on a draft, I've noticed that Wikipedia doesn't have a policy covering those as sources. Should obituaries be used as sources? Ominateu (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Obituaries are fine as long as they are reliable, published secondary sources, which excludes the vast majority of published obituaries, but includes obituaries written by major publications about notable people. SportingFlyer T·C 19:27, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ominateu There's an essay at Wikipedia:Obituaries as sources. Some obits are pretty much ordinary newspaper articles, some are written by family, and so not independent, but can still be considered for simple facts like "had siblings", "grew up in" etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? Obituaries are among the few things published by newspapers that are genuine secondary sources, describing a person's whole life rather than just a news event. Of course they need to be distinguished from death notices (classified ads taken out by the family of the deceased) and news reports of a person's death.
Phil Bridger (talk) 20:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
At least you're working on a draft. My concern with obituaries is using them on an existing page. Too often, obits repeat unsourced content from Wikipedia, causing a
citogenesis.—Bagumba (talk) 04:19, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Per Sporting Flyer above, whether an obituary should be considered reliable or not depends very much on the publisher. A well-researched obituary from a top-tier newspaper etc can often be one of the best biographical sources available, when looking for the sort of background information (upbringing, schooling etc) that a well-rounded biography may need. Obituaries from lesser sources should always be treated with a great deal of caution though. As Begumba notes, it isn't that unusual to come across obituaries that appear to have been lifted almost wholesale from Wikipedia, and both neutrality and independence are very often compromised. Sadly, as a consequence, obituaries of less-notable individuals, who tend not to get covered by the major media sources we'd most trust, are often the least useful to us. I'd be inclined to treat a typical local newspaper obituary as worth citing for date of death, and little more. Certainly not for anything potentially controversial without further verification. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:59, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also be fine using them like other primary sources, as a supplementary source to support or give context something that already has a secondary source. Definitely not as the sole source for controversial information, except like you mentioned with the case of a top tier major newspaper. For the smaller or regional ones, a lot of them fail to make clear distinctions between paid obits and original journalism. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:57, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then the rule should be "you need to be able to tell whether it's a real obit or a paid death notice", not "don't use anything from regional papers". (Regional newspapers are often quite large. See some examples at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)/Audience requirement. You probably don't want to exclude them.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I might have been unclear in my comment, but I mostly agree with you. I'm not suggesting we should ban regional newspapers, some of which are quite good. Maybe something like "If it isn't obvious that the obit is original journalism rather than paid content, it should probably be treated like a
non-independent source". They can be used to support other things that already have secondary sources, or fill in certain non-controversial details like birth/death dates, but not anything controversial or speaking to notability. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:21, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I'm not sure I'd specify "original" journalism, because we don't need any more fights about editors claiming that they magically know that the biggest newspaper in that country got the death date from the family, which would make it "not original", but otherwise I agree with you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Citogenesis from WP is not a concern if the obit was published before WP had an article about the person, although other caveats would still apply. Donald Albury 15:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, I also try to source uncited statements with sources from before the specific content in question was added to WP. —Bagumba (talk) 15:43, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, it appears that the OP has won a CU block. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:14, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a worthwhile topic, nonetheless. —Bagumba (talk) 02:35, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One problem that we have with such discussions is that we have no commonly accepted definition of what a "regional newspaper" is.
Regional newspaper goes to an unreferenced, poorly written section of Newspaper, and the term is used in various places but never explained. As an example, I believe that the San Francisco Chronicle is a regional newspaper, but other editors call it a local newspaper and I have actually heard the argument that each US state can only have one regional newspaper, applying the same standard to California with 39,000,000 people as to Wyoming with less than 600,000 people. Cullen328 (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
See Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)/Audience requirement, which I wrote last year because I got tired of typing it all out for each new person trying to disqualify a source (and in my experience, they're always trying to disqualify a source, not to identify the best ones). There's a longer version at User:WhatamIdoing/Audience requirement if that's not enough to bore you to tears. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
San Diego Union-Tribune are not regional newspapers. Only the Los Angeles Times qualifies. That cannot possibly be correct. All the California newspapers I mentioned have large circulation areas, great credibility and journalistic accolades. I am sure that the same can be said of several newspapers in Texas and Florida, though I am less intimately familiar with them. Cullen328 (talk) 04:10, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Do you think the part "Examples of US regions that are bigger than local but smaller than a US state include:" from the longer version would be helpful? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're going off on a tangent. The main issue is being able to distinguish between paid and non-paid. In the US at least, I think an obit attributed to a writer can assumed to not be paid (otherwise there would be an advertorial-like disclosure). I think someone skilled might be able to tell a paid obit by the content and style (which we could try to capture with objective criteria). —Bagumba (talk) 04:16, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm doubtful about being able to identify all paid obits from the writing style, though some of them are obvious enough.
Do editors generally struggle with this? I have never had trouble telling which was which, but my experience is only with US newspapers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, it's generally a huge improvement if a page was just cited, even if to a paid obit. It's a higher layer of refinement to then debate if it's verifiable by a better source, or just plain unreliable.—Bagumba (talk) 04:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fresno Bee for example. Surely not the most influential newspaper in California, but on the other hand, Fresno is a city of well over a half a million people that is larger than Sacramento, the state capital, and that newspaper is widely circulated throughout the southern Central Valley (California), which produces over half of the fruits, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States. And massive production of rice to the north. Plus producing most of the moderately priced table wine sold in the US. So, if a major agriculture business gets in-depth coverage in the Fresno Bee, which has been published for 102 years, are are we going to say, "Nope. Local paper. Doesn't count any more than a local pennysaver in a Kansas town of 1240 people." Why can't I ask this question, because I have never gotten a good answer? Cullen328 (talk) 07:55, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Hi Cullen328. I indented by comment under yours, but I wasn't intending to make a personal criticism. What I was trying to say is that it seems reliable to me if the San Francisco Chronicle has an obituary attibuted to staff, regardless if one considers it a regional or local paper.—Bagumba (talk) 08:05, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for agreeing on the narrowest of my points, Bagumba. But your response does not address my main point, which is, how does an editor or a group of editors at an AfD for example, determine whether a given newspaper is local or regional? Back to the question of reporter written obituaries: I think that we both may agree that a detailed, well researched reporter written obituary of a local businessman in a local newspaper contributes less to notability than a similar reporter written obituary in a truly regional newspaper. If you disagree with that, please let me know. If you agree, then please explain how a good faith, thoughtful but inexperienced editor can determine whether a newspaper like the Fresno Bee, as just one of many examples, is local or regional? Cullen328 (talk) 08:47, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the Sydney Morning Herald or Washington Post write an article about someone or something from Sydney or Washington, respectively, I always work from the presumption that it's a local paper. SportingFlyer T·C 09:34, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cullen328: I've admitedly just been semi-skimming responses here, so I missed that the issue of establishing notability popped up here as well. I've only been speaking to reliability to this point. Apologies for any confusion. —Bagumba (talk) 09:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the difference is that smaller publications or online-first "new media" type places have been making the distinction between paid content and original reporting less obvious in recent years. It isn't just limited to small local papers, some of the biggest offenders are Forbes and Times of India. This doesn't just apply to Obituaries, but that's one area where paid content is most common.
It might be better to distinguish between Obits and newspaper articles about a person's death. I remember learning how to write an obituary in Journalism school; the details were often given by the family/funeral director to a reporter who assembled it. They're very formulaic, which can be good for recognizing them. They generally start with "John Smith, (occupation) died on (date) after a long illness. He was 62", describe their education, career, hobbies, include phrases like "He is survived by" with a description of family, and finish with giving details on the wake/funeral. Articles about the death of someone usually go into much more depth about the circumstances of the death, why they are famous, and what a reader would want to know about them. It might be better to say that articles about a death can be used as secondary sources independent of the subject and contribute to notability, while obits cannot. The WordsmithTalk to me 16:28, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note: I write a lot of articles on 19th-century and early 20th-century political figures, and obituaries are priceless for this. Be careful to distinguish obituaries from earlier periods from those published following the great democratization of knowledge of the Internet age. Cheers! BD2412 T 20:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is a problem with the way the word "obituary" is understood in different places and among different age groups. As a 65-year-old Brit the word has always meant to me the description of a notable person's life that was kept on file and regularly updated by broadsheet newspapers and published after a person has died. It was always understood that it might have been written years beforehand. It was nothing like what The Wordsmith describes - that was a death notice, something completely different.
Phil Bridger (talk) 21:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

How to word G5 expansion/G15 new criteria

Continuing talk from Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion:

I am repeating this issue here because we appear to be deadlocked on how to exactly phrase an expansion of the CSD there is consensus for at

The two options there is consensus for is either expanding G5 to include violations of general sanction restrictions like

WP:ARBECR
or to establish a new criteria G15 that includes pages created in violation of a general sanction.

Here are some of the options that have been proposed for such a wording:

For a new criteria:

  • Topics under a contentious topic
    extended confirmed restriction
    may not be created in mainspace by editors who do not possess the extended confirmed permission.
  • Pages that are created by users in violation of an arbitration- or community-authorized contentious topic restriction or other topic-specific general sanction, with no significant edits from others. This does not apply if the user is explicitly banned from the topic area (see
    WP:CSD#G5
    ), nor does it apply if a user not subject to the restriction takes responsibility for the content.

For an expansion of existing criteria:

The question is which one of these would be preferable? Perhaps some other wording would be preferable? We can +1/-1 to express support or dissatisfaction for the various wordings. Awesome Aasim 22:34, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ECR restriction does not constitute a
WP:BAN
. Therefore G5 doesn’t apply.
ECR violations, a non extended confirmation editor writing on a forbidden topic, is not necessarily object, and therefore does not fit with CSD. ArbCom of course May deleting things, but to authorise any admin to use their discretion to delete things in any namespace on the subjective judgement that it touches a forbidden topic, is incompatible with the notion that Wikipedia is a community managed project.
ECR violating material in mainspace can be speedily userfied or draftified. ECR violating material in other namespaces can be responded to with a sticky PROD, seven days of consideration as to whether it really is a violation, and seven days for an extended confirmation editor to take ownership.
There is no need for ECR enforcement to be written into CSD, let alone in a way that trashes the limited scope of CSD, for details read
WP:NEWCSD
.
Only one non-article went to MfD, and it was not deleted. Obviously, CSD is not suitable for non articles. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ARBECR. Is that genuinely so? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:17, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
A formal prohibition is not a WP:BAN. A formal prohibition applied to an entire class of editors, who receive no message about it, is a chilling barrier, and enforcement is WP:BITING of newcomers. I get it that in most cases the account is an ABF non-new editor, but that is not a good reason to treat any genuine new user so badly. Userfication and a message is appropriate for AGF mainspace violations, Sticky-PROD for any other namespace. Speedy Deletion is unnecessary, and fails WP:NEWCSD. ArbCom should be ashamed if they intended their words to override CSD policy.
The word "Ban" is important. In CSD, of all policies, accuracy and precise word use is important. It needs to be accurate and uncontestable. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:01, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Technically speaking an expansion of G5 is the simplest to put into effect, as it doesn't require any changes to tools like Twinkle that would be necessary after the creation of G15. An expansion of G5 also represents how admins are already in practice handling deletion of ARBECR and the GS equivalents. A quarry on this shows that there have been at least 16 deletions using G5 in this manner for ARBECR, GS/RUSUKR, and GS/AA violations since August 2023. I say at least, as there's no standardised log entries for this type of deletion yet, and I may have missed some in my quarry search terms.
Ultimately though I don't really care whether it's G5 or G15. All I care about is seeing the consensus from the recently closed RfC, that we either expand G5 or create a new CSD, is implemented. It's been over a month since that RfC closed, and I found it quite bizarre that it hadn't yet been implemented in some way. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We do not do what is easiest, we do what is right. What is right is discussing matters until there is consensus, not ignoring the ongoing discussion because your preferred outcome doesn't have consensus (yet). Thryduulf (talk) 22:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We already have admins enforcing this through G5, amending the wording of G5 to match its use in practice seems like the most straightforward option based on current editorial practice. Again though, I don't really have a preferred outcome other than implementing the consensus from the recent RfC. If it's G5, great, let's do that. If it's G15, great, let's do that. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it would be the most straightforward option, but that doesn't automatically make it the right option. Just because admins are currently abusing the G5 criterion does not mean that the right way forward is to legitimise that abuse, the right way forwards is to teach those admins what the correct course of action is. Thryduulf (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just because admins are currently abusing the G5 criterion does not mean that the right way forward is to legitimise that abuse Really? Because
WP:NOTBURO states that Although some rules may be enforced, the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. (emphasis mine) If the currently accepted practice goes against the written letter of the guideline or policy, then the policy or guideline likely needs updating to reflect the consensus in practice. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:53, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I agree that it should not apply to non-articles like talk pages, drafts, or userspace. But I think we can extend G5 to cover article creations. An admin should be able to speedy delete it if it is inappropriate and created by non-ECP person. The main situations I see here are very biased pages being created. If someone (an admin or ECP person) does want to keep the page then remove speedy delete tagging and do not delete, and take responsibility. Such pages should not be retagged with G5. Also unilateral deletes by admins with not G5 tag should be avoided. THat will give others a chance to consider and take responsibility. On the topic of wording, the second proposal is too long and confusing. The first is too strict. Only an ECP user should be tagging these kinds of articles for deletion, otherwise they too are violating the restriction. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:58, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't want it to apply to every namespace then G5 is the wrong criterion for this. If you want it to be articles only it needs to be an A series criterion (A12), if you want some non-articles then it needs to be a new G-series criterion (G15) that lists what is and is not in scope. Thryduulf (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is the topic "inappropriate"-ness objective and uncontestable? If not, Sticky-Prod should be used. If yes, A12 is a better fit. In either case, userfication is a solution that doesn't violate deletion policy.
G5 should never be used where you can't link to an individual block/ban or SPI archive. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:18, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ARBECR already specifies that only edit requests are allowed. How do you think admins would be able to enforce stuff like non-EC nominations at XfD? Also, what if a non-article topic, for example RfA, is specified as a contentious topic with ARBECR applied? Keeping it "general" solves all of these issues. It's future proofing as well. Awesome Aasim 05:31, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
WP:ARBECR is pretty clumsy. It appears to only consider mainspace and talkspace. It appears oblivious to userspace and draftspace.
Non EC nominations at XfD? By speedy closing, and warning. No need for deletion, let alone a CSD.
You don’t seem to know much about speedy deletion. Why do you not have a CSD log?
You seem to think that future proofing is done by removing rules. Do you have a model where this has worked before? SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's because I don't log my CSD nominations. Sure some of my speedies get declined but not all of them. And with regard to thinking You seem to think that future proofing is done by removing rules, not entirely true. Future proofing is done by making sure the rules can apply in all areas, so in case a general sanction prevents the creation of XfD pages or RfA pages or etc. by specific users, there won't need to be a whole other hassle to this. Am I still learning? Yes, but so is everyone else here, as we figure out what works and what doesn't. Awesome Aasim 14:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a future sanction prohibits the creation of those sorts of pages, and there is a consensus that deletion is the most appropriate way to handle those pages then would be the time to write a criterion that allows for deletion of those (and only those) pages. We don't allow the speedy deletion of pages on the offchance that in future there might be a consensus to delete some of them in specific circumstances. Speedy deletion is the very limited exception to the rule that pages are only deleted with consensus, and that exception is granted only to pages where discussion will almost always end in a consensus for deletion. So far, none of the discussions about non-article pages have resulted in a consensus to delete. Thryduulf (talk) 15:02, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't care about unintended consequences, going back to 2001 policy is simplest. Admins may deleted things at their discretion. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That was not at all the 2001 policy actually. Deletion was always heavily controversial, and in those days it was only page titles that were inappropriate for ever becoming a legitimate encyclopedia article with equally unsuitable content that could be deleted, and even then only by Jimbo, lms, and maybe one or two others; just because you had the sysop password didn't mean you could do whatever you wanted with it and yes there was just one shared sysop password prior to Phase II. For example this was the first revision of Ant. Today, completely unacceptable, but back then fine. Unsourced poorly written sub-stubs as a starting point were actually accepted for years. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 17:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) SmokeyJoe is correct that there is very clearly no consensus to delete non-article pages, let alone speedily delete. Awesame Aasim's summary is additionally incorrect in that there are more than two options - A12 (which with some workshopping could be compatible with NEWCSD, unlike G5 and probably unlike G15), (sticky) prod (which both meets the spirit of the RFC outcome and is compatible with the deletion policy), XfD only (compatible with deletion policy but not the RFC result, although consensus can change of course) or do nothing (not ideal). Please read the discussion at WT:CSD for all the arguments for and against the various options rather than the biased summary provided in the OP here. Thryduulf (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The text of ARBECR and its derivatives prevent non-extended-confirmed editors from doing any action other than make edit requests on already existing articles, for the topics covered by these sanctions. To quote a comment by an arb that all other arbs responding found convincing from the recent ARCA the restriction interacts with AfD: AfDs are not in talk space and AfD participation is not an edit request. Therefore non-ECR may not participate in any manner in those discussions. That same logic would clearly apply here: page creations are not in the talk space, nor are they an edit request. Therefore non-ECR may not participate in page creations in the relevant content areas. Following that logic through, a G criteria is the only one that allows for full enforcement of the restriction. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That assumes that speedy deletion is the correct outcome for all page creation but 100% of MfD discussions disagree. Thryduulf (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is speedy deletion the correct outcome for 100% of all articles created by banned editors per G5? No. Sometimes editors in good standing are quite happy to take a G5 tagged article and take responsibility for it. Hell we even see that behaviour in AfD for other contested CSD tags. That doesn't mean that tagging them with G5 or deleting them when no-one wants to take responsibility is incorrect however. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:32, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please re-read
WP:NEWCSD point 2: It must be the case that almost all pages that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to consensus. (emphasis in the original). The proposed expansion of G5 would include many pages where the demonstrated consensus is that they should not be deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 23:35, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I think though perhaps the real question is, does NEWCSD have consensus to be used in this manner? It's a talk page banner and edit notice on
ignore the rule. It seems that logic would also hold for any other rule within it, assuming the banner has the weight of policy or guideline. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
On that note, that talk page header has been there forever and is primarily aimed at new users who frequently suggest new criteria that fail (see
WP:CSDNOT). So it would be wise not to refer to the header when an experienced editor with already the workings and understandings of the deletion policy proposes a new criteria or an expansion of an existing criteria. I don't get the reason for all this drama treating a talk page header like it's prescriptive when it is at best like an essay or an information page. Awesome Aasim 15:04, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I don't know what the origin of the header is, but dismissing it as "just an essay" or similar is grossly misstating the level of consensus it has. Not a single new or changed criterion has been approved that doesn't meet the requirements listed there in many years. The reason it's such a big deal is that many editors feel that speedy deletion should be restricted only to pages that have explicit consensus to be speedily deleted because we do not like the idea of admins being able to delete things just because they personally don't like it.
See also Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RHaworth where the titular admin was desysopped for repeated failures to follow the speedy deletion policy as written. Thryduulf (talk) 15:12, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this. CSD have to be as objective as possible so there aren't borderline deletions, which there are a lot of. The subjective part might be the "no significant edits by others", because what counts as significant could vary from admin to admin. There is nothing else subjective about G5, either the page was created while the user was banned (or restricted), or not. There is no in between, unless if you talk about a user adding information to sections they are topic banned from, in which case the appropriate action would be to blank those sections. Awesome Aasim 15:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
where was the consensus decided that all proposed CSDs must meet those criteria to the letter? I'm not aware of a formal discussion, but it's been many years since any change to the speedy deletion criteria that didn't meet those criteria has been approved. I'm very surprised you're picking at rule #4 as that's one that the proposed criteria indisputably do meet. It's #1 and esepcially #2 where the problems lie. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of a formal discussion Cool, so it's a talk page notice then. One that holds some weight, but one that consensus can form around ignoring.
I'm very surprised you're picking at rule #4 I'm not picking at rule 4. I'm using the logic of the editor who said that if a rule (in the case of that editor it was rule 4, but the general principle holds for all of them) prevents us from implementing a criteria, we can
ignore that rule. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
(sticky) prod (which both meets the spirit of the RFC outcome and is compatible with the deletion policy), XfD only (compatible with deletion policy but not the RFC result, although consensus can change of course) or do nothing (not ideal). The RFC close was The consensus falls somewhere between option 2 and option 3, and those two options are both about CSD. So I think PROD and XFD and "do nothing" are probably off the table, and that we should focus on CSD. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I said the spirit of the RFC close for a reason. (Sticky) prod was not brought up in that discussion, it only emerged as an idea later, so there was not consensus against it. Given the difficulty people are having in writing a CSD criterion that is compatible with NEWCSD (which is why we haven't got consensus for one yet) it's right that we don't rule out other options arbitrarily. Thryduulf (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully disagree. We went to the trouble of having an RFC. We should follow the close of the RFC. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:23, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Generally yes, but where implementing the closure of an RFC is proving significantly harder than anticipated it's right to take a step back and see whether, in the light of this new information, it is still the consensus of the community. This was done with, for example, the ordering of candidates on ArbCom election pages when the consensus of the RFC proved very difficult to implement technically, and with one of the RFCs following the deletion related editing arb case when it turned out that despite getting consensus for something high level, when it came to the detail it proved impossible to get consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree 100% @Novem Linguae. The idea of a sticky PROD like BLPPROD to replace G5 is off the table for now. I do like the idea though as it is a reasonable compromise between those who outright want to speedy ARBECR violations and those who want to send them to XfD. Banned means banned. "Not permitted" means "not permitted"; it does not mean that you can only if the creation is good or good faith. Awesome Aasim 23:57, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To add on, to have a sticky PROD will require a whole other RfC. Not implementing the consensus there. Awesome Aasim 23:59, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It took three RfCs to create BLPPROD to solve a more serious problem, along with an Arbcom motion, dramaboard threads, and wheel war. You really don't want a repeat of the process to create a new type of deletion. I helped create it, the process was ugly. Better to stick to the existing deletion methods for all but the most urgent crises which this isn't. Keeping it within CSD will be much easier. The WordsmithTalk to me 06:36, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, though the above hints otherwise. I wonder though since the committee said deletion was optional in these cases, if most of the time it would be best to just draftify + ECP a page as a standard CT/DS action. At that point if an EC editor wants to take responsibility for it and move it back they can, otherwise the 6-month draft clock acts similar to a PROD. All of that should require only a change in practice rather than policy, might bloat the CT logs a little though. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 17:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fundamentally,
WP:ARBECR specifies that just because an edit is allowed to be reverted/deleted does not mean that an edit must be reverted or deleted. If we want that to apply then we need to add a word about that in the speedy deletion policy under G5. Awesome Aasim 17:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
if most of the time it would be best to just draftify + ECP a page as a standard CT/DS action Would that not go against
WP:ATD-I which states that Incubation must not be used as a "backdoor to deletion"? Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:24, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Only if the page is older than 90 days, but I don't think that is likely to come up very often. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 17:31, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So it's not the 90 day limit on draftifying that I'm concerned about. Most of the time when ARBECR violating articles appear, they're spotted and handled in some way pretty quickly. It's using the "6-month no editing draft auto-delete" timer as a backdoor to PROD or some other deletion reason. That to me seems like it would be contraindicated by ATD-I. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll quote the policy in full:
Incubation must not be used as a "backdoor to deletion". Because abandoned drafts are deleted after six months, moving articles to draft space should generally be done only for newly created articles (typically as part of new page review) or as the result of a deletion discussion. Older articles—as a rule of thumb those older than 90 days—should not be draftified without prior consensus at AfD
The way I read that in context is that the prohibition applies only to newly created articles.
That said if it we were only using this with the intent the pages be deleted that would still be disingenuous, and its important to be open and honest on exactly what we are doing. The intent however is to give ECP editors a chance to take responsibility for the page, if they do, even if only to move the page back then no move-warring should happen and the page can be treated as though created by an ECP editor, if not they get deleted. Arguably this can already be done by patrolling
CAT:SD, but this is far less time sensitive. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 17:46, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Unfortunately, draftification does not resolve the fact that the page was created in violation of an arbitration or community remedy. The only resolve would be for a user not subject to the sanction to remove the tag or to request undeletion (and take responsibility for any problems). As soon as that happens G5 no longer would apply. Awesome Aasim 17:36, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is that the arbitration remedy specifically says the pages may be deleted, but not that they must be deleted. The idea here is to try to find compromise between the two positions since draftification is not prohibited. In a sense this is a minimalist solution that requires no change in policy only a change in practice which I thought should be on the table for that reason alone. There may be an even better option that fits within those parameters. Personally I kind of lean in favor of a new A12 with a C1 style hold as described below but that will require more work. If you have any better ideas feel free to propose them; we're still in the brainstorming phase and I don't claim that either of the two I've thrown out there are perfect. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 19:49, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
may be deleted, but not that they must be deleted. Sure, but tagging a page with a relevant CSD is not a sign that it must be deleted either. In almost all cases it's a judgement call on the part of the processing admin whether or not the page meets the nominated criteria. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:06, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In almost all cases a page either meets the criteria or it doesn't, because the criteria are as objective as possible. If a page does meet the criterion it should only exceptionally not be deleted. Together this means there is almost no subjective judgement required from a CSD patroller - especially as if it is not clear whether a page meets a criterion it does not ("Administrators should take care not to speedily delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases.").
This is why the speedy deletion criteria are written as they are and why they are intended to be interpreted narrowly. The point of the NEWCSD requirements 1 and 2 are to ensure that new and expanded criteria are compatible with this (3 is partly to avoid speedy deletion when there is no benefit, and partly to ensure that there is enough precent to ensure that there really is a consensus that [type of page] should always be deleted; 4 is about avoiding unnecessary redundancy, avoiding possible conflict between criteria and keeping the whole thing manageable). Thryduulf (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've already explained how I believe G5 or G15 meet NEWCSD. I've also made the point elsewhere in this discussion that there's no policy or guideline specific reason for why we have to follow NEWCSD to the letter. It's at best an edit notice and has all the weight of an essay behind it.
WP:NOTBURO
applies.
Respectfully, you've made it crystal clear that you oppose adding this as a G5 or G15, and why you think NEWCSD should be followed. That's fair, even if I disagree with your reasoning for both. But you don't need to keep making the same point, over and over again towards me. Your repetition of the same arguments isn't going to convince me to change my mind, any more than my repeating of my arguments is likely to convince you. Thankfully
consensus doesn't require unanimity, we don't have to agree for either of our respective positions on this to find consensus. Let's let other people talk, and see what they think. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:06, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
My previous comment was not in reference to the proposed criteria, but noting that your comment that Sure, but tagging a page with a relevant CSD is not a sign that it must be deleted either. is incorrect, and explaining why it is incorrect.
You keep denigrating
WP:NEWCSD
as just a talk page notice, but if it was just that then it would be trivial for you to find multiple examples in the past decade and a half where consensus has been not to apply it - I've been active at WT:CSD for much of that time, and I don't recall a single instance.
You have indeed asserted your opinion about how NEWCSD is met, but every single one of those reasons has been rebutted (usually multiple times) by multiple people. Consensus is determined by the strength of the arguments, which is why I sometimes feel it beneficial to make the same point from multiple angles to reinforce the strength of the argument. Thryduulf (talk) 00:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
is incorrect, and explaining why it is incorrect If that was the case, then every CSD tagged page would be deleted. However many get rejected. Sometimes they're placed in good faith but for the wrong reasons per the criteria. Sometimes they're contested by other editors who have the page on their watchlist (and in some of these cases the page is later brought to the relevant
WP:XFD
where it may or may not be deleted). Hell, sometimes disruptive editors even place them in bad faith, and they're later rejected by an admin patrolling the relevant CSD category. Like any deletion process on enwiki, CSD has an element of subjectivity behind it.
I've been active at WT:CSD for much of that time, and I don't recall a single instance The recent RfC on the status of G5, that lead to this discussion is one such example. Two editors, SmokeyJoe and Crouch, Swale, raised NEWCSD as a reason to not modify G5, but no-one seemed to support or otherwise remark on those assertions. As the closer of the RfC remarked the consensus was somewhere between option 2 (adding ARBECR/GS violations to G5) and option 3 (adding a new ARBECR/GS speedy criterion), so there is already an inherent consensus there that NEWCSD isn't the final word. Others have taken the same position I have in the post-RfC discussion, that NEWCSD shouldn't be seen as an obstacle or hindrance to implementing a consensus. Even in this discussion, the only editors seeing NEWCSD as being prohibitive are you and SmokeyJoe. No-one else other than myself, in direct replies to you, have even mentioned it.
If strict NEWCSD compliance was a bigger issue here, I'd expect more editors to be remarking on it.
but every single one of those reasons has been rebutted (usually multiple times) by multiple people Examples? I know you've disputed it, and that SmokeyJoe agrees with one of those points. But I don't recall reading any other editors disputing it, much less multiple times. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:08, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no conflict between the RFC close and NEWCSD, because the RFC close did not specify how either of the options should be worded - it is implicit that the exact wording would need to be agreed and that that wording would need to be compatible with NEWCSD (because all new and expanded CSD criteria are). It's not impossible I suppose that some of those voicing support of making ECR violations speedy-deletable were doing so with the attitude that was so vitally important that it should be shoehorned in as soon as possible without regards to the potential consequences, but it certainly isn't reasonable to regard every comment as meaning that when not a single person mentioned it. The post-RFC discussion at WT:CSD failed to come to a consensus (which is why we are here), and this discussion has not reached one yet, so it is clearly not an example of a consensus not to apply NEWCSD.
Given that your last comment was a complaint about my repeating things unnecessarily, I shall refrain from unnecessarily repeating the rebuttals to your points. Thryduulf (talk) 03:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given that your last comment was a complaint about my repeating things unnecessarily, I shall refrain from unnecessarily repeating the rebuttals to your points. Fair enough. Though will you please strike the sentence where you said but every single one of those reasons has been rebutted (usually multiple times) by multiple people? Because as far as I can tell, that has not happened. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:54, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rebutted, and "rebutted in a way that will
WP:SATISFY you personally or that will make you change your own mind" are importantly different. His opinion is that every reason you've given has been rebutted. Editors should not strike their opinions just because you happen to hold a different opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
@Sideswipe9th: Regarding tagging a page with a relevant CSD is not a sign that it must be deleted either yes I agree with that. Speedy deletions are routinely declined and they are supposed to be for uncontroversial deletion only. We even have for example {{g8-exempt}} that says yes this does meet the criteria but I believe it should be kept barring an MfD, which is honored unless placed by the page creator.
I was simple responding to Awesome Aasim's statement that it didn't resolve the issue by pointing out there's no issue that must be resolved. The pages don't have to be deleted so no violation occurs by draftifying. There are other issues, compared to hypothetical delayed CSD I believe drafts would be less likely to receive attention. Compare for example the percentage of drafts moved to main as the deletion looms vs percentage of declined PRODs, but I'll admit it's speculative.
I remain hopeful that some way will be found to balance the concerns as expressed that this will result in deletion of pages that formerly would've been kept just because they meet the specific criteria even if the pages are well-written and compliant with policy, with the concerns that without a clear formal process the pages created in violation of ECR will not receive the screening they should, but as is so often the case that's easier said than done. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is judgement needed when dealing with CSD, but almost all of it is in determining whether the page meets the criteria or not rather than determining whether a page that does meet the criteria should be deleted. {{G8-exempt}} is not saying the page meets the G8 criteria but shouldn't be deleted, it's saying it is covered by the clause which states This criterion excludes any page that is useful to Wikipedia and thus does not meet the criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 03:37, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's fair I should have explained that less clumsily. I guess the better way to put it would be that the judgement of any independent good-faith contributor as to the non-applicability of a CSD is honored as a matter of course. Thus for example, if you placed {{G8-exempt}} on a talk page consisting of a completely random out of place comment, I'd still be compelled to send the page to MfD even if I thought it was useless. And after all it might be something that the community needs to examine for reasons not at all obvious to someone casually inspecting the page. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If keeping it within CSD is vitally important, another potential compromise might be a hold period such as the one for C1 or the old T3. So articles tagged with the hypothetical A12 could be deleted after some specified period of time has passed. Use of ECP following tagging could also prevent removal except by those authorized. As with the other ideas this too has its issues, just trying to put other options on the table. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 19:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is essentially the sticky prod idea, that some are rejecting out of hand but which I feel is the best of all worlds. Thryduulf (talk) 20:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that was the main objection I foresaw, sticky PROD by another name, but there is precedent for it. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 20:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deleting pages for no other reason than this "restriction" is ridiculous. Bans are for dealing with experienced users who have caused problems and it is in the interest of the project and the user to have such bans. They aren't for new users. I'm fine though with deleting borderline cases but not for no other reason than the "ban". Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • My preference is for Attempt 2 (link) and so keep it is part of G5. Keeping it as part of G5 keeps things simple and also reflects which I expect is current practice. Attempt 2 provides that if there are substantial edits by other (non-prohibited) edits than the criteria doesn't apply. It also includes a dot point that gives some more detail on deletions under the criterion. Callanecc (talkcontribslogs) 08:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None - pages created in violation of
WP:ECR should be draftified, not deleted. They should only be deleted if they meet one of the existing CSD criteria. G5 shouldn't be expanded to include ECR violations. Levivich (talk) 17:49, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Also, per
WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Editors who think G5 should be changed need to start an RFC and widely advertise it. Levivich (talk) 17:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
@Levivich Yapperbot was down and I don't think anyone put the thing on centralized discussion. It was on [14], which should have gotten people watchings' opinions. Otherwise we would have had more participation. In any case, we can have a more thorough RfC below to truly determine consensus. I'd phrase it the same way with the options being the same, but I would probably add different wordings rather than just deciding how to actually implement it. Awesome Aasim 18:14, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm usually not one to question the legitimacy of an RfC, but that attracted less than 25 people from my quick count. Something as important as a new CSD criteria should be advertised at
WP:AN too. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:46, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
(edit conflict) Another RFC with options that are just vague desires for some sort of change would be a complete waste of time as we'd just be back where we are now. Any RFC options should be presented something like:
  • All pages (including articles, talk pages, drafts, and pages in userspace) created in violation of ECR restrictions should be speedily deletable. This should be achieved by rewording G5 to read [proposed wording]
  • All pages (including articles, talk pages, drafts, and pages in userspace) created in violation of ECR restrictions should be speedily deletable. This should be achieved by a new criterion (G15) [proposed wording]
  • Articles, but not other types of page, created in violation of ECR restrictions should be speedily deletable according to the following new criterion (A12) [proposed wording]
  • Pages created in violation of ECR restrictions may not be speedily deleted but should be subject to a (sticky) PROD-like process. [proposed wording]
  • Pages created in violation of ECR restrictions may not be speedily deleted and should not be subject to a (sticky) PROD-like process.
Thryduulf (talk) 18:47, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest we draft up very specific wordings for each of those options (basically have the diff to add it to WP:CSD ready to go), then have an informal survey of those options in a subsection below (
WP:RFCBEFORE). Then whichever one ends up being the strongest in the judgment of whoever wants to open the final RFC, RFC the strongest option in a binary yes/no way. "Shall a CSD XX criteria with this exact wording be adopted?" or "Shall the following exact wording changes be made to G5?" Anything less binary and specific I suspect would just become too messy an RFC to achieve consensus, since there are so many different ideas being mentioned. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:05, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I was thinking something along the lines of "ranked choice" because it allows for better evaluation of consensus. Awesome Aasim 22:45, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I think that's a good idea, historically once more than three options are on the table the chance of a no consensus close rises dramatically unless we do something like that. Might also want to try a quick informal survey to see how far apart people's positions are right now to see if additional compromise options can be found. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 02:39, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a ranked choice !vote were to be held now between the 5 options above, my strong preference would be sticky prod > nothing > A12. I might be able to support a G15 in a pinch but the exact wording would be critical, I cannot think of any way in which expanding G5 could be better than G15. I'd put draftification equal with sticky prod if that were added as an option. Thryduulf (talk) 03:31, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I proposed exactly this just above, and if my analysis is right this doesn't require any changes to policy at all. Just move+ECP, as there is no requirement to delete only a discretionary ability to do so. Then EC editors have 6-months to either take responsibility for the page by either moving it directly back, or improving the starting point to a version they are comfortable taking responsibility for. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 19:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
pages created in violation of
WP:ECR
should be draftified
. Agree. As a draft, allegedly in violation of ECR, a week at MfD is appropriate. A series of MfD will show whether a CSD is justified.
A week allows for the newcomer to learn what the problem was. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I understand where this is coming from, and as an experiment/trial it should in theory work to give us much more data both on what the typical ECR violating page creation looks like and what the community consensus on deletion is for those pages. But MFD is usually quite low-volume, I'd be reluctant to dump a bunch of new pages on the MfD regulars and yes I know you are one, or at least used to be one unless we have an idea of the numbers likely to be in place first.
Furthermore what's the scope? Only drafts? Some proposals extend to talk and userspace which would add for example non-EC users creating userpages that have pro-Palestine or pro-Israel userboxes on them or talk pages created with say {{WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration}} on top off the drafts. I'm not sure how many that would add but it would add.
The page creator will be prohibited from participating in the MfD, which doesn't mean they can't read it but we might get just as much educational value from just explaining things on their talk page.
Finally if people start objecting to the trial we will need yet another RfC. Again it's not a bad idea, but not without its pitfalls. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 03:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MfD has a robust structure, and when important things go there, a lot more than the regulars turn up. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:46, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, I'd still prefer to see some numbers, but I trust your judgement. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a super clever user could list the top MfD discussions by number of participants? And if a test is in play, test cases can be pointed to from WP:CENT. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:22, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MFDing a draft created in violation of ECR would be a waste of time. MFDing drafts in general is a waste of time. If a draft isn't eligible for CSD (e.g., it's not an attack page, etc.) there is almost no reason to delete it. Levivich (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point is to run an experiment. Are these pages typically something that the community believes should be deleted or not? Are their any patterns that would allow for the crafting of a more refined G15 or A12? MfDs allow for a more concrete examination. And I suspect that with enough contrivance I could come up with some pathological counterexample that does not meet any of the other CSD that you would nonetheless !vote to delete at MfD. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 03:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure the answer would be "not." The community will not delete a promising draft just because the editor who made the promising draft wasn't ECR.
If anybody wants to look at ECR-violating creations, at least in the IP topic area, there is edit filter 1276. What you'll notice from scanning the page is that "good" (notable, policy-compliant) ECR-violating articles are kept and the bad ones are deleted, but nobody is going around even trying to delete (or draftify) all ECR-violating articles. Examples from last week: Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, Killing of Sidra Hassouna (the creator of this one is blocked, the article is marginally notable [possible merge candidate], and yet still CSD's get challenged).
This is so for the obvious reason that all editors must always keep in mind: We are here to build an encyclopedia. We are not here to make up a set of rules and enforce them. We are not going to delete promising work just because the editor who made the promising work didn't meet some qualification requirement that we set. The purpose of the qualification requirement is to make it easy to filter out the crap -- to revert disruptive editors -- it's not to filter out everything, the good with the bad. We will filter out the bad and keep the good. That's why a CSD for ECR violations is never going to get consensus IMO.
I'll tell you as an editor who works on this topic area: I am not going to write every damn article in this topic area and neither is any other editor. If somebody comes by and writes something good, even if they're not ECR, I'm going to preserve it (even if it's in draftspace), and if somebody else tries to delete good work, it's going to piss me off (and lots of other editors, too) and I'm going to fight it because it just adds more work for the rest of us.
Unless I'm mistaken, there are only two topic areas with ARBECR in effect: Antisemitism-in-Poland and Israel/Palestine. Those are two topic areas where governments (Poland and Israel) have made efforts to rewrite history on Wikipedia, and where there are (perhaps as a consequence) some of the largest and most active sock-farms. Sometimes the dragnet we use to keep out this volume of disruption also catches some good-faith but new editors. In those cases, we let them through. There is no point in stopping it.
Folks, I don't usually say this as everyone is welcome to edit everywhere and nobody owns articles, but I'm looking at the list of pings at the top of this thread and what I don't see is the names of people who actually edit in the Holocaust or Israel/Palestine topic areas. And I'll say: if you don't have a lot of experience editing in ARBECR-protected areas, you maybe shouldn't involve yourself in CSDing ECR-violating articles. If ECR-violating articles were such a problem that we needed to CSD them, the regulars in the topic areas would be calling for that. I don't speak for them, but I don't think they'd be in favor of CSD or PROD just because the article creator wasn't ECR. Levivich (talk) 04:22, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still reckon discussing CSD for ECR violations is premature while ECR violations are not listed at
WP:DEL-REASON. It’s as wrong as ArbCom taking a leading role in deletion policy applied to content, as opposed to being a last resort. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:25, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I appreciate you writing such a long a thoughtful comment; summarized then, you aver the following:
  • No experiment is needed because we already know the community's views and they are strongly against deletion
  • A CSD for ECR violations is never going to get consensus
 please do correct me if I'm wrong on either point
However the following counterpoints must be contended with:
  • There are editors who dispute that claim and believe the community is in favor of deletions as clearly evidenced since
  • There are editors in this very thread who believe there is already a community consensus to add a CSD for or modify G5s wording to explicitly cover ECR violations
An experiment would allow a better assessment of the merits of these competing appraisals. That is not to say there aren't other reasons to refrain from starting it. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 04:45, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah you got me. And the other counterpoint is, according to the preceding discussion, there apparently is "extensive" use of G5 to enforce ARBECR already. As a non-admin, I can't see how many "good" articles we've been deleting, but for all I know, I have it all ass backwards.
To your other two counterpoints, my explanation is that the editors in this discussion and the preceding one by and large are not very involved in the affected topic areas. Once this "issue" is advertised and the "regulars" in the affected topic areas see it, I predict most of those editors will be most concerned with
WP:ATD, far more than anything else, far more than they care about "banned means banned" or what Arbcom's jurisdiction is. Levivich (talk) 04:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
To be sure there is more than one way to skin this cat, and an experiment isn't needed to run a follow-on RfC so the main concern is to balance the desire for additional data with the need to limit the draw on volunteer time. And that later point will carry a lot of weight if it turns out an RfC is needed just to run the experiment.
I nonetheless remain hopeful there is a solution out there that everyone can accept, at least for a time anyway. Let's face it, this is Wikipedia, problems here never get solved, they just metamorphosize into new and even more chronic and intractable problems. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 05:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was heavily involved in the NEWCSD G13 and U5. For both, the driving rationale was the history of SNOW deletions at MfD. Arguments and theory were not driving. MfD is well capable of handling test cases. If it’s A12 that’s wanted, send half a dozen or so to AfD and see if they get SNOW deleted. If it’s a new G, or a G5 expansion, Draftify and send to mfd. It will generate real data. SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:41, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The other places that
WP:ARBECR has been authorized by either ArbCom or the community. Why should it be controversial for community authorized areas? Awesome Aasim 16:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I stand corrected, I hadn't thought of the GS areas. I don't think we should treat the GS and CT areas differently; everything I wrote above about IP and APL applies equally to AA, RUSUKR and KURDS. Levivich (talk) 16:40, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Levivich "normal" G5's (for sockpuppets and the like) are also declined all the time. Indeed, with the exception of copyvio's (and probably attack pages), there's no punishment or even social expectation against an uninvolved user declining the speedy, even if they say they believe the criteria are met (but want to keep the page for other reasons). Mach61 03:21, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we are wrapping ourselves too much in rules that we forget that the spirit of the rules are more important than their actual wording. The whole purpose of

WP:ARBECR has been authorized have been subject to a lot of propaganda efforts (by Israel/Palestine/Iran/Middle Eastern powers/right-wing media, by Poland, by Turkey, by Armenia/Azerbajan, by Russia/Ukraine) as rightfully stated by User:Levivich and having these reasons as speedy criteria helps assist with large scale cleanup. Maybe what needs to be added to G5 is the page must also be believed not to survive a deletion discussion. Awesome Aasim 18:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Hence the idea for the experiment to see how the purpose of avoiding counterproductive discussions can best be achieved. In the short term it may lead to excess discussions, the existence of which as SmokeyJoe pointed out was the driving force in CSD expansion. In the long-term though it should help to tailor the specifics in a way that meets both the desire to add well-written content and to avoid wasting any more time on dealing with disruption.
I understand what you are attempting with the proposed text, but the issue is that some may find it insufficiently precise and objective. This is why I think the earlier discussion focused on keeping it simple with verbiage that said any EC editor could remove the tag and take responsibility. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 21:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about this wording for G5:

G5: Creations in violation of bans, blocks or general sanctions
This criteria applies to any page created in violation of a ban or block, or in violation of a general sanction, with no substantial edits by others not subject to the sanction, and that is unlikely to survive an XfD. If an editor not subject to the sanction removes the speedy deletion tag or requests undeletion at

WP:RFUD
, it should imply that the editor is willing to take responsibility for the violating edits; thus G5 would no longer apply.

To address the elephant in the room regarding the proposing guidelines:
  1. Objective: This is about as objective as we can make it. The "substantial" automatically excludes minor edits, whether flagged as such or not, and the third part is in the spirit of the use of arbitration and community sanctions to remove problematic material, leaving it at administrator discretion.
  2. Uncontestable: This is about as uncontestable as we can make it. The community has authorized the Arbitration Committee to assist in the addressing of disruptive conduct in specific topic areas by setting specific administrative policies. The letter and spirit of the banning policy states A ban is not merely a request to avoid editing "unless they behave". The measure of a ban is that even if the editor were to make good or good-faith edits, permitting them to edit in those areas is perceived to pose enough risk of disruption, issues, or harm, to the page or to the project, that they may not edit at all, even if the edits seem good.. Also, This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor (changes that are obviously helpful, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.. In other words, it can be agreed a high quality page that follows all of our policies and guidelines should not be deleted simply because it was created by a banned/blocked/restricted/sanctioned editor.
  3. Frequent: We frequently (and semi-frequently) deal with disruptive page creations in violations of sanctions. Unfortunately there is no other reasonable enforcement measure that can address this. Blanking the page is unacceptable, and draftification does not fix the "created in violation of" part. At the best, draftification should only be used if a non-sanctioned editor is willing to help edit the content to make it comply with Wikipedia policies.
  4. Nonredundant: G5 is already de facto being used by enforcing administrators (if you see the
    WP:GS/KURD
    ). And even then, some are citing "arbitration enforcement".
I don't think there is anything that can be more objective than this. Awesome Aasim 23:54, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking the time to write a lengthy explanation. For a minimalist change, that is not bad. I forsee a few objections
  • The portion that states unlikely to survive an XfD is going to draw complaints because there is siginficant room for interpretation This is also true for existing CSD but people want to avoid writing stuff like that ever again
  • It is distinct enough that it would be better spun out as a separate CSD (G15) for the same reason that we don't merge A7 and A9 yes G6 is already a grab bag but there is strong opposition to ever doing that again.
  • Consensus only exists to delete articles so it must be spun out as A12 with corresponding rewording
  • There is not in fact any consensus for this CSD see comments by other participants in this thread above and so any addition is inappropriate.
  • Draftification is a fix for "created in violation of" since if an EC editor is willing to remove the CSD request they surely have the ability to subsequently draftify it as a normal editing action and request ECP at RFP under CT or DS as a normal editor action
  • It is contestable because the from the data we've gathered from the filter on ARBPIA ECR violations shows such pages are often retained
Nonetheless I think its a reasonable starting point for discussion on a proposed wording regardless of whether it ends up being a new criteria, which once workshopped could be an option in the ranked choice RFC. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 00:20, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The
Israel and Judah
will also be triggered by the filter.
That said, I looked at some of the pages related to the topic and there is a lot of ban and block evasion and more than several articles tagged with notability problems that I can see why ArbCom imposed ECR in the topic area. Only a couple of pages were actually expanded on by other editors and then ECP'd. One example is
WP:GNG. I found a third page creation (redirect) that I tagged with G5, Muslim–Israeli conflict, and it is clear that ban and block evasion as well as POV pushing, etc. are rampant in these topic areas. People want to push their cause onto Wikipedia but this is not the place for it. Yes, deletion is not cleanup, but having very low quality pages on very complex and contentious issues is worse than having nothing at all. Awesome Aasim 02:03, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
@
Wikipedia:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. The spirit of that rule certainly doesn't align with there being no exceptions to "not permitted". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:34, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I said "banned means banned" lol
But yeah. This. If an edit is detrimental to the encyclopedia we should obviously revert it, but if it is obviously good we should keep it, regardless on whether the user is banned or not. That does not mean the banned user gets a free pass though. Awesome Aasim 03:39, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And following that logic to the obvious conclusion:
  • If an article created on a subject that normally requires extended-confirmed to edit is detrimental to Wikipedia, then we should obviously delete it, but
  • if that same article is obviously good, we should keep it, regardless of whether the user who is extended-confirmed or not.
Given that, why would you try to expand G5 to include articles that ought to be kept? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:28, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A bigger question to be asked is why do we have G5 to include articles created by banned or blocked users? Which is why I think we need an expansion about not being able to survive XfD. It should capture the letter and spirit of the banning policy. Awesome Aasim 20:16, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Draft RfC started

User:Awesome Aasim/Wikipedia:Requests for comment/G5 expansion

Please feel free to add more options before we actually start the RfC. Awesome Aasim 03:14, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the draft RfC into Project: space under
Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deletion_policy_expansion_2024. However, it is not open for comments yet. I want to see if there is any other changes that need to be made. If there are no objections to the current format I will just start the RfC. Awesome Aasim 19:14, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Tennis statistics

(here). As this was my suggestion to bring the conversation over here regarding Tennis statistics used on wikipedia. With the conversation breaking down into various personal attacks and becoming unconstructive, I am seeking to bring this discussion over here to avoid the current line of dialogue and open us up to more opinions regarding the value of the tables being discussed.

The topic has previously been discussed in the project, but I believe specifically "Records against top 10 players" to be mostly

WP:OR and cannot be properly sourced. I am very interested to hear a wider point of view and hopefully some improvements can be made to the current articles. @User:Fyunck(click) @User:Sashona @User:Qwerty284651 @User:Tvx1 @User:Unnamelessness @User:BundesBerti YellowStahh (talk) 23:05, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

  • Things we need Village Pump specific help with:
  1. Record Against Top 10 players. We had decided by consensus to remove this chart per original research and trivial. A few now feel it's a good chart worthy of inclusion. Note that these players were not necessarily in the top 10 when they actually played each other, just at some point in their careers. Do we bring this chart back?
  2. Wins over top 10 players and Wins/Losses over top 10 players. These have been deemed ok by Tennis Project since they show only players in the top 10 when the two met. Each individual match should be sourced but have not been in this example. We are having trouble deciding what is a better choice without too much detail for an encyclopedia. There is some debate about whether "wins only" is consensus here.
  3. Looking at an article that has most things, like Novak Djokovic Career Statistics, starting about ATP ranking and downward, is there any advice others can give about what charts could be trivial or original research? We don't want to keep coming back here. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to point 2, claiming that the project consumers these ok is a bit of an oversimplification. There are people in the discussion questioning those too. You can include myself in that group too as notability has not been demonstrated. Tvx1 01:03, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That could be true, but both wins and win/losses have had discussions where they both came out as ok. Swiatek's and a couple other articles came out out as win/loss at the time, and the project was latest at only win at the time. So I hated to say either was the majority choice. This is a village pump on "policy" only (as the title says) and No. 2 is a content issue so I doubt anyone will say anything about that here. I just wanted editors here to know that Tennis project isnt clear on whether to use one or the other all of the time or in specific instances. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a regular sports editor, but not tennis, are these particular groupings even directly avaliable on stats sites, or require queries and procuring? Is the grouping regular discussed in prose in muliple independent reliable sources, with some mention of other members as well? That would go a ways towards ruling out

WP:UNDUE.—Bagumba (talk) 04:31, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

They probably are on stats sites, but Wikipedia isn’t such site. They certainly aren’t regularly discussed in prose in independent reliable sources.Tvx1 09:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whether information is typically found in sources is helpful to know so that we can decide whether we think that information should appear in Wikipedia. For example, if tennis were famous for having a "Top 5" system, then we'd almost certainly not want a "Top 10" here. If "Top 10" is normal, then we have to consider other factors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:31, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe its an undeveloped part of Wikipedia, but I feel your more likely to hear about competitive eras such as the Big Four/Big Three, Four Musketeers and rivalries such as Evert–Navratilova or Lendl–McEnroe than you are about Top 5s or 10s in a given era. But otherwise you'll have articles like this "Stat of the Day: Stan Wawrinka records 60th Top 10 win" from Tennis.com and it does list "Most Career Top 10 wins" for all players in the Open era, but it's hardly a comprehensive source for all players. YellowStahh (talk) 14:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A source with a "Most Career Top 10 wins" list is quite different than having a per opponent breakdown of even more niche stats. —Bagumba (talk) 15:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's sort of what I was getting at, an achievement would also be winning after losing the first two sets. it's certainly talked about, but it's maybe best left to a statement in his own article rather than an explanatory table. YellowStahh (talk) 19:33, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What you may see is the simple stat of 62-43 against top 10 players, and nothing more. That is very common on most stats websites including on the WTA and ATP governing bodies websites. Finding an actual chart that lists each of those wins and losses would be very rare, even at stat websites. However there is one sports site that puts the win-loss chart out, Tennis Abstract with Elena Rybakina as an example. I don't know if any others do, certainly not any tennis magazines or places like ESPN. I think it was the formation of the Tennis Abstract website that started the frenzy of including these many charts on the Wikipedia articles. I have never seen any site (stat or prose) even discuss the old "record against top 10 players" chart (#1 above). update In searching I found one other site that gives the exact same top 10 (at the time the match was played) match-by-match breakdown (so #2 above), but it only does the men, not women. So these are stats only websites. The sites are probably as reliable as you're going to find for modern players. As far as prose like magazines or news, I don't think you would find a single player ever discussed in that detail. I'd be surprised if a book on Federer shows a match by match vs top 10. However you will find some prose that says a player has a 62-43 record vs the top 10. Probably need to be fairly well-known players though. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:30, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We shouldn't be creating metrics that haven't already been discussed in RS. If sources don't have a detailed breakdown on X games against top X players, neither should we. JoelleJay (talk) 05:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JoelleJay: As I said and linked above, we have one reliable source that does a detailed top 10 win/loss chart for men and women (at the time the match was played). We have one other reliable source that only does the men. I assume that is how these tennis charts are made... from those two sources. We have no reliable sources that have charts for every player that was ever in the top 10. None that we could find. That is why that chart was removed, but some editors keep adding it back, and is mainly why we are here. To make sure we got it right in removing them. The wins and/or wins-losses top 10 (at the time) charts we also wanted advice as to whether they are appropriate. They are not original research since one reliable source has them (two if it's the men). But there could be some other reason not to include them that you could give advise on? Are they too trivial with only two sources that print them? Would wins only be better? Would none be better? Are they 100% breaking some wikipedia rule we don't know of? Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:39, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's against the spirit of
WP:OR to come up with the bulk of this from stats databases.—Bagumba (talk) 12:51, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

@JoelleJay, @Bagumba We can see all head-to-heads vs Top 10 players readily available at live-tennis [15] and [16]

Records against top 10 players are discussed on official sites like WTATennis.com [17] or Tennis.com [18]. Sashona (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Stats databases dont establish notability of the list topic. WTATennis is not an independent source, so should not count towards notability. The Tennis.com list is a list of players w/ most top-10 wins, which can count towards establishing a list of that type per
WP:LISTN, but not for a list with a detailed per opponent breakdown. —Bagumba (talk) 03:53, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
WTATennis.com and ATPTour.com are the websites of the Tennis Governing bodies, the ATP and WTA which maintain all the tennis match data and records. Those are definitely primary reliable sources. Sashona (talk) 08:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyones denying their reliability, it's the fact that they are primary sources.
WP:PSTS is whats being applied here as Wikipedia should be based on reliable secondary and to some extent tertiary sources. YellowStahh (talk) 14:19, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
This is true... they are reliable sources. But they don't show the chart in full for all these players and that's an issue here. So they are reliable for the actual record of 32-22. They don't show the chart with all the details we have, except in a few instances. I do disagree with editor "Bagumba" about the WTA or ATP not counting towards notability. They do count... certainly not as heavily as a secondary source, but they are a valuable notable source. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:34, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WTA and ATP are governing sports orgs and so are not independent sources. JoelleJay (talk) 18:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But it's an iffy term. We can use sources from a player's autobiography but that is not an independent source either by that definition. Secondary sources are best, but not exclusive. The Olympics put out all kinds of details that we use, and that simply gets parroted by the news verbatim. We use tertiary sources as well... they simply are not the best source. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:47, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can use non-independent and non-secondary sources in articles, they just absolutely do not contribute to notability, per GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would not personally consider "independent sources" an iffy term as we have our definitions to work with (
WP:IS). However I would ask the difference between this list and say listing every single match a person ever played, and this goes for all players and I understand Federer has articles for all of the seasons he played, but those matches receive more coverage than any breakdown of wins against the Top 10. YellowStahh (talk) 19:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
What is "iffy" is what is considered independent. GNG says "excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent." That does not include the governing bodies of tennis. They do not work for the subject, and they write independent notable articles and stats on many players. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How are governing bodies not "affiliated with" the members they govern? And anyway we have a guideline that explicitly says "Team sites and governing sports bodies are not considered independent of their players" so there is absolutely no iffiness regarding this topic. JoelleJay (talk) 20:32, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just because they enforce rules doesn't mean they are affiliated with the player. There is certainly iffiness on that issue, no question about it. But it's probably off topic as we are simply determining original research on point 1... which has been done, and whether there is an issue with charts 2 and 3... no OR but likely trivial since the vast majority of sources don't go into that detail. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The question of governing body affiliation/independence is long settled in our P&Gs and is reflected at AfD. JoelleJay (talk) 01:23, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No it is not, and I see no policy on it. Goodness, a newspaper writer who is a member of the democratic party wouldn't be able to print on politics and have it sourced here with that narrow of view. And the wording of GNG doesn't agree with you either. We take all of these sources together to come up with whether something is notable. Not one thing only, and we don't throw others out because they are rule-makers of independent tournaments. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've quoted NSPORT guideline two times in this thread: Team sites and governing sports bodies are not considered independent of their players. Although statistics sites may be reliable sources, they are not sufficient by themselves to establish notability. This has been affirmed multiple times. Sources that have a vested interest in the subject are not independent, so governing bodies/teams/tournaments do not count towards GNG. And a source has to be all of independent, secondary, and SIGCOV to count towards GNG, as should be evident from thousands of AfDs. JoelleJay (talk) 01:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nor is an independent source like a newspaper alone enough to establish notability. That's what I said. It requires multiple instances to prove notability.... but you don't throw it away like a used napkin. It's part of the whole. We do not exclude it, we use it with other sources to show notability. You are reading into the "guideline" something that was never intended. Secondary sources are the best, but we also use tertiary and other sources to come to an agreement as editors as to whether something is notable. I have no idea how we even got on the tangent of a roller coaster. We aren't even talking about notability but rather OR and trivia. They have nothing to do with one another. Your quote is specifically used for showing notability of a person and whether an article should be created.... not on content. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You do throw away sources that are non-independent, non-secondary, or non-SIGCOV when evaluating GNG. Those sources contribute nothing to notability. There's no other way to interpret multiple published[3] non-trivial[4] secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent,[5] and independent of the subject than "multiple sources, each of which is non-trivial, secondary, reliable, and independent". JoelleJay (talk) 03:11, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your NSPORT quote does not say to throw them away by any stretch of reading it. You do not throw it away. But again it does not matter at all here since we are not talking about notability of a person but rather the content of a notable person's article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You throw it away when it comes to determining notability. That's the whole point those sentences are in the guideline. JoelleJay (talk) 06:06, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have to agree to disagree with what the wording says, but it's a non sequitur in this discussion anyways. We aren't talking about a person's notability here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The fact is that chart has turned into

WP:NOTSTAT is where it ends. Unnamelessness (talk) 11:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Petition to amend ARBPOL making it clear they have jurisdiction over crats

As has been noted in the

WP:AN#Nihonjoe and COI
thread, it's not clear what the process is to remove a bureaucrat. In practice, it seems to be accepted that arbcom has the authority to decrat somebody, just like they have the authority to desysop somebody. By way of examples:

  • In Special:Permalink/296240244#Nichalp (2009), arbcom voted to remove Nichalp's crat tools by motion (it's not clear to me if there was ever a formal case page for this).
  • In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Andrevan (2018), arbcom overwhelmingly voted to accept a case to remove crat tools. The decision itself was rendered moot by a resignation under a cloud.
  • In the current case request, there's no outcome yet, but the 7/0/1 vote so far to accept the case makes it clear that arbcom considers removal of crat tools within their purview.

The problem is that the current

WP:ARBPOL#Scope and responsibilities
, item 3, be amended to read:

To handle requests (other than self-requests) for removal of administrator or bureaucrat tools;[note 2]

Note: this shouldn't have any bearing on the current case, but it should be clarified for the future. I'll publicize this on

WT:AC
; please feel free to list it elsewhere if there's other places it should be.

RoySmith (talk) 17:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Signatories

  1. As proposer RoySmith (talk) 17:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agreed, but perhaps "rights" is better than "tools". Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Hopefully this is to all intents and purposes a codification, but it's good to have a belt and braces approach. There have been a couple of recent examples of the committee using—or almost using—this authority, noted by Roy, so whether they should have abrogated this right to themselves is moot: the community has clearly accepted that they already do. ——Serial 17:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:19, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I suppose it's a yes, but is this needed? Has anyone seriously questioned ARBCOM's right to so this?
    Phil Bridger (talk) 18:26, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  6. I'd prefer it just to say that Arbcom has jurisdiction to remove any advanced permission granted by the community, but failing that, this is also okay.—S Marshall T/C 19:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. I have no strong feelings over the current contreversey, and agree that ArbCom can already do this, but I still see this as worth supporting. Mach61 02:56, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. I don't agree that bureaucrat tools are administrative tools; there is no requirement to be an admin to become a bureaucrat, for instance, and I think one of the bureaucrats removed their own administrator rights for a while. So I wouldn't assume that bureaucrat functions are subsumed under administrator ones. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. starship.paint (RUN) 14:17, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. I agree generally with the moot camp and Risker in the comments: "administrative" in ordinary English is no synonym for "administrator" -- so ARBPOL already covers this;
    WP:CRAT#Removal of permissions also covers it; and the committee's power to "bind" any user, covers it thrice over, but as a sitting Arb seems rather confused, touching off this petition, I'll go along, as a show of you really should not be confused about it, already (although yes, it should be permissions (all advanced permissions), if implemented by the committee). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:27, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  11. One more for "all advanced permissions" per Alanscottwalker et al.--GRuban (talk) 17:34, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  12. There shouldn't be uncertainty at present, but it is best to rule out any remaining uncertainty. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  13. I agree with the spirit but would recommend a slight change to the verbiage. Perhaps we could replace administrative tools with en-wiki advanced permissions. This would also cover CU/OS permissions, even though Stewards actually activate/deactivate those bits. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 18:33, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support rewording to en-wiki advanced permissions per Jkudlick. Pinguinn 🐧 10:09, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Whilst I think the committee already has this power, there is no disbenefit in codifying it. Stifle (talk) 09:04, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The way this proposal is worded, there is disbenefit as explained below. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  16. I will support as crat rights can only be removed by stewards on request from the Committee (in addition to self or emergency cases). Toadette (Let's discuss together!) 22:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moot point

  1. Creating a new section as I don't support or oppose this because, as far as I'm concerned, ArbCom already have this authority; it's merely rarely used because bureaucrat numbers are vastly lower than the administrator count. If I or any other bureaucrat engaged in misconduct worthy of desysopping an admin, then I'd expect the committee to remove our bureaucrat permissions, too. Acalamari 18:36, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. "adminstrative tools" coverts cratship. Galobtter (talk) 22:26, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 This. "Administrative tools" refers to any advanced permissions typically only given to administrators like CheckUser, Oversight, and yes Bureaucrat. Awesome Aasim 23:16, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. "Administrative tools" includes filemover, rollbacker as well as any local advanced administrative tools that Arb decides should be removed, via a case or motion. Not just sysop, crat, OS and CU bits. I'm not getting how there could be confusion here. Dennis Brown - 06:00, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Per everyone above me in this section and Risker in the section below. Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 3 March 2024 (UTC) moved to oppose. Thryduulf (talk) 21:42, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Administrative tools is not the same thing as administrator tools. Checkuser and oversight are not administrator tools, but they are administrative tools. The same is true of bureaucrat tools. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. They already do. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Queen of Hearts she/theytalk/stalk 20:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (ARBPOL petition)

  1. My opinion lines with Risker's below. I'd go further, though. "Administrative" clearly includes any advanced rights. Including additional categories makes the list seem like an enumerated list of userrights, which it should not be. There are other administrative user rights (BAG, EFM) that don't have a strong precedent for removal discussions by the community, although I see no reason why the community by consensus could not remove them. But in some unlikely future where the community thinks it cannot act in these cases (or any other future userrights), then I think that clearly falls under ArbCom. Otherwise we'd end up in a scenario where no body is able to remove the rights. So in summary: my view is that the provision caters for the removal of all administrative userrights which the community, by consensus, believes it cannot revoke. I think trying to enumerate specific technical userrights in the policy, rather than using a descriptive phrase like "administrative tools", is a mistake. I also think this proposal isn't useful, because it doesn't resolve any real controversy. There's no dispute that ArbCom can remove 'crat rights.
    Obviously, I know opposes don't mean anything in this petition, but the section header was created so here's my opinion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per my comments below and ProcrastinatingReader above. First this is not needed, as ArbCom already can remove 'crat tools - by precedent, by clear community consensus and also by policy as they are covered by "administrative tools", but that's not on it's own a reason to oppose. The reason to oppose is the change from "administrative" to "administrator", which reduces the scope of the committee's possible actions by removing their ability to remove rights that are not part of the admin toolkit, for example rollback and edit filter manager - these can (or might be) removed by the community but there is no reason why the committee shouldn't (also) be able to remove them (there is precedent for removing EFM). Thryduulf (talk) 21:42, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. There is no serious doubt that ArbCom already has this authority, so the amendment is not necessary, and therefore this is not a good use of the community's time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Per my above comment. Dennis Brown - 03:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. "Adminstrative" tools is a wider power grant than "administrator and bureaucrat"; for instance the committee would be (and has) within their power to prohibit someone from using rollback, or from using edit filter manager abilities, etc. No one is seriously questioning the ability of Arbcom to de-crat if they decide it necessary, after all, but with this passed the question of "could Arbcom order EFM removed" becomes an open question, and right now it is really not -- yes, they can. Courcelles (talk) 14:20, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Per Thryduulf, this proposed amendment appears to reduce ArbCom's authority in an attempt to further codify a power it has already wielded. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 06:30, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. "Administrative tools" is not equivalent to "sysop user group"; it covers any tools used for back room work on the project. ArbCom could (and should) yank pagemover if someone is found to be misusing it, things usually just don't get to that point because ArbCom's jurisdiction to remove pagemover overlaps with sysops'. More realistically, take Edit Filter Manager. This isn't granted automatically to sysops, you don't have to be a sysop to hold it, and removal generally requires a discussion. If an admin grants themselves EFM and is desysoped, would ArbCom let them keep EFM? Currently they could yank EFM along with sysop (both being "administrative tools"), but under the proposal ArbCom would be prohibited from removing EFM (being neither "adminitrator or bureacrat tools"). Obviously someone would IAR and revoke EFM, but why should we even create that situation in the first place when the current text already handles the situation effectively? The proposal significantly narrows the jurisdictional scope of the committee while weakening the Committee's ability to respond to diverse kinds of disruption. Wug·a·po·des 21:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments (ARBPOL petition)

  • Nichalp's permissions were removed under Level II procedures due to a failure to respond to the Committee's concerns over socking and UPE, and in theory a case could have been requested but was not the account had also been inactive for some time. Andrevan isn't the only case where resignation ended a case; in the aftermath of the infamous VfD deletion mess, the case against Ed Poor was also dropped following his resignation of the 'crat bit even though he retained the sysop flag long enough ago that some might not consider it relevant. During the WMF/Fram mess it was also implicitly assumed the committee could review 'crat actions and potentially remove the flag, though that entire situation was such a gross outlier all interpretations should be cautious. The current policy also says that 'crats can request stewards remove the right as a result of a ruling by the committee, though that wording is recent [19]. Finally, the Committee unquestionably has the power to ban someone which would result in the flag being removed eventually simply through inactivity. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 19:18, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • A few notes. First, the correct term is "permissions", not "rights" or "tools". Second, if it is going to be amended, it should be "remove any advanced permission" rather than focusing just on 'crat tools. Third, there are several other aspects of the policy that could use updating, and doing it piecemeal is a really, really poor use of community time.
    Finally, on Wikipedia, policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. It is the expectation that the things mentioned in the policy will be done, but it does not restrict other things from being done as well. There's no reason to think that removing the bureaucrat tool is outside of the scope of Arbcom; the policy actually says "administrative tools", not "administrator tools", so the interpretation has always been "tools that are administrative in nature". The very name of the permission "bureaucrat" points directly to an administrative nature to the tools. Propose closing this, as there's no real doubt that Arbcom can remove 'crat tools. Risker (talk) 20:24, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Should they be managing Stewards or Researchers, though? Surely it should be any advanced permission granted by the en.wiki community.—S Marshall T/C 21:50, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I would think it is implied that the enwiki ArbCom only has jurisdiction over enwiki matters. Giraffer (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • +1 to everything you said. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction covers the permissions outside of enwiki/granted by the WMF. Galobtter (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Risker on all points. I don't think there's any question that reviewing bureaucrat permissions are within Arbcom's scope. This goes all the way back to the first Ed Poor case in 2005: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor. True, Ed resigned before it came to that, but there was no sense at the time that Arbcom couldn't have done it. Mackensen (talk) 00:58, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • You've made the points that I would have. I'd only add as counterpoint that people do microparse policy sometimes. In addition, one current arbitrator has stated this to be "a grey area policywise", so maybe policy should do a better job of describing things if said description doesn't match the historical reality. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 02:24, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have removed the "oppose" section, as it is meaningless at this stage. Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Ratification and amendment, the petition needs one hundred signatures to move to ratification vote, regardless of how many people oppose the change. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 22:19, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I renamed support to "signatories". Galobtter (talk) 22:26, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Several people in the signatories section are supporting substantively different wordings to that proposed - I don't think we can assume that everyone supporting changing "removal of administrative tools" to "removal of administrator or bureaucrat tools" necessarily supports a change to "all advanced permissions" (or similar) unless over 100 editors explicitly support that in their vote ("tools" vs "rights" is probably not significant enough to have an impact).
    WP:ARBPOL#Ratification and amendment suggests that would require either a new petition by the community before ratification or a different (possibly competing) proposed amendment supported by a majority of the Committee. Thryduulf (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Thinking a bit more, I would probably oppose this as worded now because changing "administrative tools" to "administrator tools" runs the risk of ARBCOM not being able to remove any tools not part of (or unbundled from) the admin toolkit - for example rollback and edit filter manager (the latter was done in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man). Thryduulf (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll add a couple of comments based on the responses above. The biggest objection here seems to be that "it's obvious that arbcom can do that". As Alanscottwalker pointed out, we've got a sitting arb who's not sure about that, but that's not actually what got me going on this. In the WP:AN thread I cited above, it came up several times that there wasn't a process to remove an arb a bureaucrat. Nobody jumped up (that I'm aware of) and said, "Of course there is, that's arbcom's job", let alone a link to a policy statement that says it is. So I don't think it's as obvious as people seem to think. On the topic of additional modifications such as changing "tools" to (for example) "rights", I don't disagree that those would be improvements. But I deliberately proposed the smallest possible change, in the hopes that it would be non-controversial. In retrospect, it was silly of me to think "non controversial" could apply to anything on enwiki :-) RoySmith (talk) 15:58, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    ...it came up several times that there wasn't a process to remove an arb. And yet, Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 51#Suspension of Beeblebrox. There are precedents, if not a policy. Donald Albury 16:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Donald Albury: Ugh, I wrote "arb" but meant to write "bureaucrat". My apologies for the confusion. RoySmith (talk) 16:58, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    All that is required to remove a bureaucrat is a request at m:Steward requests/Permissions#Removal of access that includes a link to a discussion demonstrating community consensus, a brief explanation of the reason, and summary of the results of the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thryduulf I pinged a local friendly steward to ask about this. The gist of their response was that a steward would need to see not just a link to the discussion but also a link to the local policy that says that's how it works on enwiki. RoySmith (talk) 02:52, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a policy:
    WP:ARBPOL#Conduct of arbitrators Any arbitrator who repeatedly or grossly fails to meet the expectations outlined above may be suspended or removed by Committee resolution supported by two-thirds of all arbitrators. Thryduulf (talk) 16:59, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Seems to me we can fix this with much less, ahem, bureaucracy by amending
    Cryptic 17:36, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    It is theoretically possible for a non-admin to be elected as a crat. It's also possible for a 'crat to resign adminship but not 'cratship . A amendment would need to deal with those scenarios, but that's hardly a blocker. Thryduulf (talk) 18:19, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah for me I think it's entirely possible to imagine a scenario where a crat loses their trust as a crat - it requires more trust than admin for a reason - but not so much trust so as to require loss of adminship. The most likely scenario for this would be some kind of poor judgement with the crat tools. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the point that "administrative tools" includes bureaucrats is a valid one. Perhaps, then, it might be helpful to instead just explicitly determine (via consensus) that bureaucrats are included in that definition, rather than amending the text. Frostly (talk) 19:07, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added to
    WP:CENT. I'm not familiar with past practice concerning amendments so if this goes against best/common practice, feel free to revert. Also a bit clunky, so please reword if possible. Sincerely, Novo TapeMy Talk Page 17:59, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Based on the above discussion (and the point that other groups like checkusers are also potentially subject to this power), I feel like perhaps something like "advanced user rights, including administrative tools" might be a bit clearer than either the existing or proposed language. -- Visviva (talk) 19:35, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should we purge all transport articles of service information?

For a long time there's been a consensus against including service information on pages about airports and airlines. But I can't see any policy-based reason why such a policy shouldn't be applied to articles about other transport. Now don't get me wrong - this would mean losing a lot of valuable information that has no obvious place to go, and I would be strongly against such an action. But I can't actually see a policy argument for keeping it. Eldomtom2 (talk) 23:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PRESERVE policy. -- GreenC 23:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
WP:NOTHOW. — Masem (t) 01:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
@Eldomtom2, could you give an example of "service information" that is excluded from airports, but is included for, say, trains? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See, for instance Avanti West Coast/Services and Euston railway station/National Rail services. My general impression is that while many airport and airline articles have similar sections, when such sections have been challenged and the attention of the wider Wikipedia community brought to them the consensus has been for removal.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 12:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any problem with those myself, and there's not really consensus around things like airline destination tables. Bus routes yes. SportingFlyer T·C 14:47, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem with that either. Yes, the section for very major stations such as Euston do appear somewhat excessive. But given that railway lines are fixed, it is useful (and not trivial) to have information about which services run through there and what the previous and next stations are. It's effectively geographical data. This differs from airports; a plane can fly anywhere (subject to fuel, obviously) from an airport, and airline schedules change very quickly. Conversely the fact that "Station X is served by Service 123, the previous and next stations are Y and Z" is pretty much fixed for most cases. Black Kite (talk) 15:16, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But it isn't geographical data. It is not listing the physical lines from Euston but rather the services which operate on them, which can and do change at least every year or so.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:36, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While the timetables change twice yearly, the routes are much longer-lasting than that with most tending to change only on the order of decades (although there are obviously some exceptions to that), and precise stopping patterns are between the extremes, the information as a whole is sufficiently static that there are no reliability concerns. Thryduulf (talk) 15:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems discriminate enough to me. jp×g🗯️ 10:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:NOTTIMETABLE to define exactly what is okay and what's not okay. For airports, it's airlines and destinations tables, for now at least - this argument is evergreen, and stupid (it's clearly encyclopaedic.) For trains, it's either a list of stations served by the line, or a list of lines served by the station. I think even including trains per hour is probably fine. Ports may be able to list current or former destinations. Buses are harder because bus lines are more fly by night. But at the end of the day, I'm not really sure what information the OP suggests to remove here... SportingFlyer T·C 10:37, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
I'm not suggesting we remove anything. I'm bringing up a potential issue I see and asking what other people think. --Eldomtom2 (talk) 12:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Er, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles, we just had this to say that that airlines and destinations are not appropriate unless DUE (backed by third-party sourcing) Masem (t) 13:23, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That was an incredibly contentious discussion, with no consensus on whether it was correctly decided after a review. SportingFlyer T·C 14:45, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen no one challenging the close, so that RFC stands. Masem (t) 14:52, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive359#Closure review request for the RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles found "no consensus to overturn" with the closer (theleekycauldron) stating the arguments for and against were roughly equal in number and strength, so it stands but the consensus is a lot weaker than just reading the bold words in the close would imply. Whether you have personally seen someone challenging the close is always irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 15:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: While we are not a travel guide (we are an encyclopedia), service patterns at a station are very encyclopedic. What I would be fine with is removing those pseudo-tables on station layout as they are an HTML mess to navigate, etc. and replacing them with SVGs. For example, the
BART is not much different: daily service between 6am-9pm, and daily service 9pm-12am. Awesome Aasim 20:11, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
If by pseudo-tables on station layout you mean those showing the physical layout of the station platforms, then there have been multiple consensuses at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains to remove them. I'll hunt down some links if that is what you are talking about (and would find them useful). Thryduulf (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
oppose routes and next stations are really useful (to me anyway)Secretlondon (talk) 13:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § RfC: enacting X3. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 17:38, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes for biographies

There's currently a

MOS:INFOBOXES that effects infoboxes for a variety of different articles. Please feel free to comment. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 01:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Better link: ]

Italics in song article titles

Hi. Can you provide me with a policy or consensus on not italicising song titles? e.g. Training Season -> Training Season. Sditor (talk) 02:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:MINORWORK. This sort of question would be good for the WP:Help desk. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Links in an infobox policy wording

Richard Wagner
Wagner in 1871
Born(1813-05-22)22 May 1813
Died13 February 1883(1883-02-13) (aged 69)
Works
Signature

A recent discussion at the MoS talk for Infoboxes (see

MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE
.

From this discussion, I will be opening an RfC to modify the wording of

MOS:INFOBOX
to provide some guidelines for including links to other articles in infoboxes. The proposals below are what I currently have: any suggestions or comments about the wording would be much appreciated. Thank you!

MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 18:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments are still appreciated, but I will wait for the RfC on infobox use to be resolved before opening this one. MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 22:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to the
Due Weight policy

The due weight policy received criticism for favoring mainstream points of view over alternative ones, which is especially hamrful for creative works where the reception between media outlets and the franchise's fandom differ. Here's an overview of the change I want:

As long as the niche view is not a contested theory (e.g. Flat Earth), it can have as much coverage as the mainstream views, provided that they are marked as niche views 179.105.130.76 (talk) 19:47, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although I do think due weight can prove a problem in terms of source quality (for example when there is a general ignorance or bias in media sources compared with academic ones on a particular topic, but the sheer number of media means those perspectives enjoy prominence) (I actually think scholarship should be favoured over media sources in all possible instances), there is a huge danger in misrepresenting the balance of consensus with the way you propose. Which articles are causing you bother on this? Yr Enw (talk) 19:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Giving as much coverage to a niche or fringe view as to the mainstream is entirely antithetical to the purpose of the due weight policy. And where do you get that Flat Earth is not a contested theory? Donald Albury 20:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think they meant that’s an example where it obviously is contested and so it wouldn’t applicable to Yr Enw (talk) 21:12, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Watchers of this page may be interested in joining the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes Wug·a·po·des 20:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Article series: when is it too broad?

Poking around Wikipedia, I came across an article in the Template:Alternative medicine sidebar. The right side of the article is entirely blanketed with the template, "Fringe medicine and science" when expanded by default is literally as tall as my Chromebook screen.

It got me wondering, is there a point to this? Does someone in one of these articles need to know about the other? Acupuncture, COVID conspiracies, scientific racism, and camel urine seem so divergent as to be irrelevant to each other. Article series are for continuous things (the history of [country]) or discreet things explored in great detail (the life of a US president). -- Zanimum (talk) 13:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

COI and the evolution of Wikipedia

Anyone here feel like we're moving towards a time where we require all users to post a

WP:COI
statement on their userpages? Like, I feel a little peer pressure to write one right now even as it would potentially make some of the IDing stuff a little more annoying. Does anyone else see this sort of trend happening?

This is pure VP speculation. I'm just taking the temperature of the community. jps (talk) 21:48, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. It would be an utterly unnecessary invasion of privacy for folks to declare every possible conflict they would have if they were to edit every article. We only require a conflict statement when one is involved in conflicted editing, and that is best placed in association with the edit and the page, not the user. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with NatGertler, you should only disclose a COI if you edit or intend to edit the associated topic. The best practice as I understand it is when in doubt to avoid the topic, there are after all more pages on wikipedia than one could edit in a lifetime outside of one's significant COIs. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have wondered recently how strictly COI will be interpreted. I have declared (informally) when I have edited articles about people related to me (my first wife and a first cousin, once removed). But, should I have declared a COI when I edited articles about the high school I attended, the high school my son attended, the high school where my wife worked, the professor who was my advisor when I was a sophomore (and who later published an article I wrote in a journal he edited), the base where I was stationed when I was in the Army, the places I have lived, or the places I have visited? Donald Albury 23:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would see those as potential biases rather than conflicts of interest, and whether to disclose would basically come down to your judgement on whether they arise to actual biases. – Teratix 03:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given how much we struggle to recruit and retain new editors, I’m deeply concerned about well-intentioned policies having broad chilling effects. This website is intimidating enough! Ghosts of Europa (talk) 04:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You reminded me of this thread: Talk:Donald_Trump/Archive_38#conflict_of_interest. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
After seeing one of the recent acrimonious discussions (with opaque history due to large amounts of oversighting for "potential outing"), I'm feeling like Donald Albury and what Gråbergs Gråa Sång linked on this one. Although my feeling is more "if someone takes a disliking to you and they can dredge up any tenuous connection to use COI as a bludgeon..." Anomie 13:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to remove requirement for consistent inline citation style in
WP:CITEVAR
, and other related pages

We have two inline citation styles: short and full. Looking at the examples in Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Short_and_full_citations:

Current policies say we should be consistent in inline citation format. However, it might be more optimal to use both. For example, for book sources that get cited multiple times in an article with different page numbers, it's better to use the short format. It's better for verifiability to make it easier that different page numbers are added for lengthy sources. Using the above example:

  • Better: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.<ref>Miller 2005, p. 23.</ref> Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.<ref>Miller 2005, p. 39.</ref>
  • Worse: No page numbers, or repeating full citation with different page numbers. Page numbers for full inline citation without repeating them, such as in the example here Help:References_and_page_numbers#Inline_page_numbers, do not look good. They look too lengthy.

For sources that get cited only once in an article, like a newspaper article, it's easier to use the full format and be done with it. For articles that use both formats, it could be tedious for editors to switch citations formats (unless there is a bot for this) Bogazicili (talk) 14:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC) Withdrawn, see below. I should have asked this in a talk page first Bogazicili (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

  • Support as nominator Bogazicili (talk) 15:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, I don't like it, for example, when we have to redo a news source used once, to use sfn/harv format. I can't see any reason not to have more than one citation style on a page if that works and doesn't confuse. Selfstudier (talk) 14:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't required and the suggested changes below would cause a lot of issues unrelated to this specific question. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Practical/procedural question: aren't these kind of proposals usually discussed on the relevant talkpage? Peter Isotalo 15:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do they? I already posted links to this discussion in Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources and Wikipedia talk:Inline citation btw. Bogazicili (talk) 15:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC) also now mentioned in Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria Bogazicili (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I supposed that depends on which of the guidelines that should be changed. I'm not sure, which is why I asked.
But I think Nikki is making a good point below: help the discussion to move along quicker by specifying what changes you think might be necessary. Peter Isotalo 15:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify what your actual proposal is here? What language do you disagree with at CITE and what would you replace it with? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My proposal: mixed inline citations (both short and long format) should be allowed.
Note that there already seems to be an Arbitration decision (Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sortan#Preferred_styles). However, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates seem subject to footnote consistency [20]
There are multiple references to this in multiple policies. Some examples:
  • 1) Remove this sentence in the lead of Wikipedia:Citing_sources: "If an article already has citations, preserve consistency by using that method or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it (the principle is reviewed at § Variation in citation methods)."
  • 2) Update wording here as necessary: Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Variation_in_citation_methods
  • 3) Remove this sentence in Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Short_and_full_citations: "(Note that templates should not be added without consensus to an article that already uses a consistent referencing style.)"
  • 4) Remove this sentence in Wikipedia:Inline_citation: 'presented by "consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes"'
  • 5) Update 2c here Wikipedia:Featured article criteria
  • And other such references in relevant policies. This can be replaced with something like "both short and long format inline citations are allowed". You do not need to change existing citation format of existing citations, but there shouldn't be a requirement to only use the existing format, or to just use one format. Bogazicili (talk) 16:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Mixed short and long citations are already allowed. The WIAFA requirement that formatting be consistent is satisfied as long as there is a consistent approach to doing that, rather than a random mix. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:40, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with what Nikkimaria is saying. As far as I'm aware, there's no rule against having some short citations and some long. All of the rules mentioned here touch on some other aspect of citation style. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Bogazicili, this table shows three common approaches. Which one(s) of these are you trying to get accepted?

Short and long mixed Short and long separated Re-used
The Sun is big.[1] The Sun is really big.[2]
References
  1. ^ Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun. Academic Press. p. 23.
  2. ^ Miller 2005, p. 23.
The Sun is big.[1] The Sun is really big.[1]
Notes
  1. ^ a b Miller 2005, p. 23.
References
  • Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun. Academic Press.
The Sun is big.[1] The Sun is really big.[1]
References
  1. ^ a b Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun. Academic Press. p. 23.

Also, did someone tell you that one of these are not allowed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing: First column is what I mean by "Short and long mixed":
Short and long mixed This doesn't look good
The Sun is big.[1] The Sun is really big.[2] Don't look at sun with naked eyes.[3] The sun is really big and this is coming from a big book.[4]
References
.
  1. ^ Miller 2005, p. 45.
  2. ^ Miller 2005, p. 23.
  3. ^ Last, First (2024). "Newspaper article you only cite once". Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  4. ^ Miller 2005, pp. 107–110.
Sources
  • Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun. Academic Press.
The Sun is big.[1]: 45  The Sun is really big.[1]: 23  Don't look at sun with naked eyes.[2] The sun is really big and this is coming from a big book.[1]: 107–110 
References
  1. ^ a b c Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun. Academic Press.
  2. ^ Last, First (2024). "Newspaper article you only cite once". Retrieved 2024-03-17.
Is the first column allowed and is it considered "consistent"? Bogazicili (talk) 19:12, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Both of them are. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bogazicili, anything that is used throughout the article (=that one article) is considered consistent and is permitted. For example, your first style with "Miller 2005" and "Last, First" is consistent because all the books (e.g., Miller 2005) have short cites in the ==References== section and long cites in the ==Sources== section, and all the newspapers (e.g., Last, First's article) have long cites in the ==References== section. Since "all" (of that type) are in the same place, it's consistent. (Whether it looks good is irrelevant to the question of consistency, but it's a good question for editors to consider in terms of what we agree to do in this particular article.)
If you put "Miller 2005, p.45" in ==Notes== but "Miller 2005, p. 23" in ==References==, that would be considered inconsistent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria and WhatamIdoing, thank you! I was confused after the convo here Talk:Causes_of_climate_change#Reference_style. This proposal is then redundant. But maybe we can use a table example like this so what is meant by "consistent" is clear. Bogazicili (talk) 19:29, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would note that article has a lot of referencing issues caused by this edit[21], which copied short form references from another article without including the required cites. With so many errors making the style consistent while correcting thre errors would be allowable. If you can't see the error messages that's because they are off by default, details of how to see them can be found here Category:Harv and Sfn template errors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, now that you guys here, what do you think about deprecating page number usage in the second column? It looks too long and distracting to me? Bogazicili (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that the English Wikipedia has only twice deprecated any citation style. The first was
Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing. It is extremely unlikely that we will deprecate any basically functional system for identifying page numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
The citation style at that article is inconsistent, but not because it mixes short and long citations - rather because it does so randomly (apparently because some content was copied from elsewhere?). If editors there arrived at a consensus to do what you propose in your first column here, that would be fine; it looks like they've arrived at an alternative which is also fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, everything is much more clear with the table examples above. That's why I suggested adding another table example to the policy. "Consistency" can be understood as only using long inline citations for example. Or maybe it was just me that got confused lol Bogazicili (talk) 20:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(I believe that article's style is inconsistent at the moment because they're partway through converting the style.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Both of these are allowed (at least from my understanding), they only need to be consistent and any mass change should be discussed first. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was confused by what they meant by "consistent". Also got confused by "(Note that templates should not be added without consensus to an article that already uses a consistent referencing style.)" in Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Short_and_full_citations. Bogazicili (talk) 19:38, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That parenthetical is not related to what you're asking about above - both short and long citations can be done with or without templates. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible that a little history will help here. Back when these rules were created, almost no articles used Wikipedia:Citation templates like {{cite web}}. Templates like {{sfn}} didn't even exist. A substantial fraction of articles were 100% unsourced. It wasn't until June 2007 that even Wikipedia:Featured articles were required to have consistently formatted citations. Before then, FAs were encouraged to follow the "suggestions" at Wikipedia:Citing sources. This is what the FA for that day looked like at the time it was promoted (the red error messages aren't their fault; we've changed the templates since then).
At the time, the biggest citation fights were over whether we should prefer the style guide for "my" academic field. The historians said we need to follow The Chicago Manual of Style. The psychologists wanted all the articles to follow APA style. The editors in scientists wanted us to follow Council of Science Editors, and so forth. The most obvious difference was around ref tags.
You see, when Wikipedia started, we didn't even have talk pages, much less fancy things like templates and ref tags. So if you wanted to indicate that a particular fact came from a particular source, your only realistic options were:
  • The Sun is really big.[22]
  • The Sun is really big (Alice 1994).
Then we built ref tags, and editors started converting these into little blue clicky numbers. People who didn't want to learn the newfangled thing complained, and we ultimately agreed that the rule was you could do anything you wanted, so long as the whole article did the same thing. Specifically, we said you couldn't mix the traditional parenthetical citations with the newfangled little blue clicky numbers. Each article could choose, but only use one. You could not have (Alice 1994) next to [1]; you had to pick one or the other, by consensus on that article's talk page.
After that, we had the same fight all over again, except about whether these complicated new citation templates should be permitted, and especially whether someone else can force those contraptions onto my article. This led to another rule in favor of in-article consistency and what, in 2011, I turned into the modern version of
WP:CITEVAR
.
The main point behind all of these rules was to avoid the massive fight that would be required to set a single house style that must be used consistently across all articles, while also reducing the fights over each individual article. We might someday impose a single style, just like we are slowly creeping towards a day in which infoboxes are gently recommended in many articles rather than the guideline being scrupulously neutral. (Join the RFC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes if you care about that issue.)
You should never worry that we're breaking some rule that requires this article to match something else. We have a rule saying an article can have any ref style you want, so long as the whole article uses that style. The citation style used through an entire article can't be "wrong"; it can at most be "unusual".
And: Per
WP:CITEVAR, consensus is the path to changing the style at a given article. If you set up a style with citation templates and little blue clicky numbers, and the talk page unexpectedly forms a consensus to use emojis instead of little blue clicky numbers, then that's ...well, it'd be unusual, but it'd be "legal". What matters is that editors have a shared agreement about what they want to do. It does not matter whether any other article does the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Second all this strongly. There are always more important things to be doing than arguing of which style of referencing is best. As long as they allow
verification they're good. The only time to be worrying about such things is if you are writing / rewriting an article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
And third. Even a well-meaning attempt to force an article over to a "better" citation method can be
Rjjiii (talk) 05:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Fourth. I would support a choice of maybe 2-3 standard citation formats, but then I would expect the community to also develop a superior technical solution for them.
What we have currently requires way too much tech-savvy tinkering from users, even with the Visual Editor. Some sets of templates, like the harvnb and harvnc aren't fully compatible with each other and requires a lot of tedious manual work. Peter Isotalo 16:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A bot would also be useful. For example something that would convert all {{cite book}} ones into long or short versions. Although not sure if that would be a priority. Or maybe a bot that would auto populate when short inline citations are copied from another Wiki page (and you just need to specify which page you copied from). Bogazicili (talk) 21:16, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please see subject discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:37, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]