Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187

I have to agree with the others above this attempt to “spike” BM’s RFC was distinctly on the cheesy side as a move. I’ve also go to ask if

WP:BEFORERFC

was followed. Finally the question is not neutrally formatted.

But addressing the question directly: yes, we need independent secondary sourcing in all of our articles as a basic way of avoiding original research and maintaining a neutral point of view, as well as avoiding hoaxes and inaccuracy. We can discuss when that needs to be established, but it needs to be there eventually. At the very least no later than a primary-facile case that it doesn’t exist has been put forward (eg by pointing out that the article sourcing includes no independent, secondary sourcing and that none appears to exist elsewhere). FOARP (talk) 18:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Yes and no - it depends on the nature of the source and what it is being used to verify. Some primary, non-independent sources are sufficient to fully verify that the subject of an article exists and is not a hoax, others are not. For example we do not need a source independent of an organisation to verify that Person X is an employee of that organisation; a book verifies it's own existence, author, date and place of publication, etc. A researcher's statement that they have discovered a room temperature superconductor verifies that they have claimed that, but an independent source is required to verify that the claim is correct. It is important to note that questions of verifiability are completely independent of questions of notability, and both are separate to and independent of questions of neutrality and balance. The three must not be confused or conflated. Thryduulf (talk) 18:43, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
• I wonder if this is the right question. As there is disagreement of what the current status quo is, a better question might be what the future consensus should be. The current question appears to try and retroactively apply a consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:32, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Bad RFC, the question is ridiculously ambiguous (are we supposed to answer that yes the status quo as described at WP:OR and at WP:N is indeed that all articles not only must have secondary sourcing but also must be based upon it, and that it is further needed to establish notability; or that yes, the expectations at AfC, NPP, and AfD broadly enforce this requirement; or that yes a topic for which no secondary sourcing can be found should be deleted?).

JoelleJay (talk) 20:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - as the creator of the section, I did not at all intend this filing as an RfC. I am asking editors for their views to assess the current community status quo about one main point - does NOR currently establish a requirement for secondary sourcing that can be used, e.g., as a grounds for mass article deletion, or would that represent a change in policy? But I am also hoping for input on more general questions, like: is
  WP:N
  , because the former is a policy and the latter a guideline, or do questions of scope also come into it?

I was really hoping for fruitful threaded discussion rather than sterile !votes, but as the old men have said, you can't always get what you want. Newimpartial (talk) 20:14, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. I think one problem that has been muddying the waters of this general debate is that different groups mean entirely different things by "secondary" and there's also considerable debate about what exactly "independent" means. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:51, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think that in general, "secondary", "independent" and "significant" are not nearly as clear-cut as a lot of us act a lot of the time.

  talk

  ) 00:32, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

[NOTE: I have edited my own text here, for better clarity, based on the discussion below.]

Hello. I would appreciate other editors' thoughts as to whether it's good practice to include, rather than omitting, surnames, when an important reference is made to a sibling of someone already mentioned, even when the surnames are the same. My perspective is that, as with spouses, sharing a surname should not be presumed just because two individuals are siblings, given all the reasons that this might not be the case, even though it's true more often than not. Beyond this, it seems just basic encyclopedic decency to identify someone by their full name at first mention. (The exception would be if the reference to the sibling were a trivial mention in passing.)

If you have a moment, please look at the reversion of my edit here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fanny_%28band%29&diff=1179379930&oldid=1179333240

and the discussion between the two parties concerned in the reversion here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Binksternet#Surnames

Thank you. Jcejhay (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I think where related folks share a surname, it's more readable if that surname is not repeated. It is understood by the common reader of English, and the addition can make things stiff and awkward. (Bob Bobbington was raised with his older brothers Freddie Bobbington and Stan Bobbington, and younger sisters Barbara Bobbington (now Barbara Bobbington-Hemsworth) and Flossie Bobbington.) And if these people are not separately notable, the surname isn't even particularly important. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 03:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler I agree, for the sort of example you're giving. That's what I'd call a "passing mention." But if you look at the instance that brought up the difference of opinion, you'll see that it's about a rock band, where the text is telling us who the band members were. The band members might not all be notable enough individually to have their own articles, but within the context of the band's article they are important figures. Jcejhay (talk) 12:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I've now revised my original text to make it clearer. Jcejhay (talk) 12:36, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, siblings may not share a surname. However, such sharing is so common that it is always assumed to be the case unless specified otherwise. You are arguing against the standard practice throughout the entire English speaking world. Passing reference or important figure doesn't matter.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Khajidha, may I ask you this: Would you make the same argument regarding the surname of the wife of a previously mentioned husband? Jcejhay (talk) 18:36, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. And for the surname of a husband if the wife was mentioned first. It's REALLY simple: family members with the same surname don't need to have that surname repeated. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:10, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

If it bothers you so much, try rearranging things so that they aren't listed one right after the other. In that case, referring to one in relation to the other becomes the clunkier formation. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:16, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the proposed text should be rewritten to put them on an equal footing. Limiting the description of the second person to "her sister, bassist Jean" casts her in a subordinate role. My preference would be to follow the model of

30 Seconds to Mars: "brothers Jared Leto (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Shannon Leto (drums, percussion)". Alternatively, if there is an insistence on not repeating the surname, "sisters June (guitar) and Jean (bass) Millington".--Trystan (talk

) 19:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Trystan Yes, well put: "casts her in a subordinate role." That ties in with my second point above, about what I called the "basic encyclopedic decency" of giving someone's full name (unless it's an incidental mention). Jcejhay (talk) 20:03, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, if June is mentioned first because she was more a driving force behind Fanny than Jean was (I don't know offhand whether or not that's the case), that doesn't seem to come across in the article. However, June was the older sister; and if rock and roll logic says that guitar is more important than bass, then perhaps these factors could explain why June is mentioned first. But I also see that in the lineup section farther down, Jean is listed first, then June, then the other two (even though both those musicians' surnames would precede "Millington" alphabetically—so it doesn't seem to be simply that Jean comes alphabetically before June). Jcejhay (talk) 20:12, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @Trystan. "The group was founded by guitarist June Millington and her sister, bassist Jean" suggests that Jean was less important to the founding. Why not "The group was founded by Jean and June Millington"? It might help to not cram quite so much information (founding, names, instruments, relationship) into the one sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

The applicable guidelines are at

WP:WAW. —Kusma (talk

) 20:10, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Hmm...unless I'm missing something, MOS:SAMESURNAME seems to cover everything except the type of scenario we're talking about. Jcejhay (talk) 20:14, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, then I don't understand the problem: is this about siblings where you don't know people's surnames? —Kusma (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Kusma Did you follow the links in my original post? That should illustrate what's at issue. Thanks. Jcejhay (talk) 21:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

That part seems covered by the Reagan examples. —Kusma (talk) 21:05, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. Jcejhay (talk) 21:14, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the Grimm example is arguably the more relevant. However, I don't think that example implies that formulation is either mandatory or advisable when introducing individuals. The more on-point advice is in

WP:WAW, to not define women by their relationships (e.g., don't reduce the person on introduction to "her sister, bassist Jean"). Compare the lead of AC/DC, which doesn't mention they are brothers until the next paragraph. Or The Carpenters, that at least puts the siblings on equal footing, rather than introducing one as an adjunct of the other.--Trystan (talk

) 23:29, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Based on some of the suggestions here, I have revised the Fanny article along the lines of "sisters June and Jean Millington." I kept June first because she's the older sister. (She's also the one whose notability level has resulted in her having her own wikilinkable article.) Jcejhay (talk) 11:39, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

There seems to me to be a wide chasm between Wikipedia having the good sense to delete the biographies of relatively unknown people who request it, and forcing them to just live with the fact Wikipedia has an article on them because they aren't deemed sufficiently non-public to be afforded this courtesy.

There appears to be a large class of people out there who are not unknown in the sense Google will return a lot of mundane biographical material as a result of a search on their name, but who are otherwise by any other definition, private individuals who are not seeking fame or fortune.

People whose presence in the digital space is merely a by product of their career. People who are not on Wikipedia for any other reason than they exist and have achieved certain things in their career. Noteworthy but not exceptional or controversial things. In context, relatively mundane things. Things that only get written about in specialist sources to do with their specific field.

It is quite understandable that a large proportion of these people, while being comfortable with having an internet presence in the form of accurate, reliable and relevant Google results, would be distresssed at the prospect of the top result on their name one day being a Wikipedia biography. A result that is by design, potentially inaccurate, unreliable and often featuring irrelevant trivia of an often deeply personal nature.

Since there seems to be a good case to make that Wikipedia would suffer if these people are arbitrarily removed simply because they request it, given that would for example make cataloging the top echelon memberships of professional bodies permanently incomplete, a sensible compromise would appear to be to keep these biographies, but fully protect them.

This would ensure changes are only accepted if they are indeed accurate and relevant. Since by definition these people are relatively unknown, this would hardly be a burden, with their biographies unlikely to see more than a handful of non-trivial edits over their careers, and perhaps none once they retire. And rather obviously, biographies of such people need to be quite comprehensive before they are even published here.

Without this compromise solution, Wikipedia seems doomed to have to continually make an unenviable choice between knowingly causing distress or knowingly damaging its integrity as an almanac. A resource where by design, achieving a certain milestone in one's career comes with it an automatic presumption you are worthy of a Wikipedia biography. Edson Makatar (talk) 07:26, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

This is covered by our Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy. Long term full protection is not a viable solution; all these articles would quickly become outdated and actually inaccurate instead of the potentially inaccurate that you wish to prevent. —Kusma (talk) 07:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

There are also possibly unreasonable degrees to which living persons would seek such protection. I can envision someone who has no real privacy concerns, or no real objection to having an article on Wikipedia, nonetheless wanting to control the content of their Wikipedia article in ways we don't permit to try and use this as a mechanism to that end. BD2412 T 01:50, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Full protection greatly impedes factual errors being corrected, or edits to bring biographies into closer compliance with relevant policies. It would lock such articles into a semi-permanent state of being potentially inaccurate, unreliable and often featuring irrelevant trivia of an often deeply personal nature. It would greatly increase the workload on administrators who would be called on to make content decisions about areas where they may lack expertise or an interest in re-writing specific content. And the number of active administrators is declining. It is the responsibility of all active editors, not just administrators, to maintain and improve BLPs. If input is desired about specific BLPs, then Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard is the place to go. Cullen328 (talk) 02:31, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm a

WP:VRT

agent. Every time I see a request from an article subject (person or company) to protect a page, it's always, without fail, a request to protect the page so that only the article subject or associates may edit it. This is neither desriable nor even technically possible. For the borderline cases, I propose the article for deletion. Otherwise, I advise the person, if they don't like what the article says, to suggest improvements on the talk page. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, or they send me a letter and I suggest improvements on their behalf, which are evaluated by others and either rejected or implemented.

That's how things work now. Someone distressed about having a Wikipedia article about them, which is not deletable due to notability, can contact VRT and get the response I described, or they can engage on the talk page to suggest improvements and corrections. I see no need to offer a "compromise" protection. If anything, the article should be semi-protected to prevent the COI editors from making unilateral substantive changes to it. ~Anachronist (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

The source of the distress this compromise seeks to abate, is the knowledge a biography exists, it is not being looked after, and anyone can make poor quality or even damaging changes to it. It says a lot that your only perceived beneficial use of protection is to protect Wikipedia from a subject. Perhaps that answers the question as to why some never even bother to engage with Wikipedia to even ask for a change. It must be difficult for a subject who has already seen Wikipedia apparently accept an edit that saw Google instantly transmit deeply personal and totally irrelevant information to the world, to then assume there is anyone here who is going to remove it on their behalf, never mind doing it quickly and without questioning the subject's motives. It was after all inserted right under the noses of all these editors who are supposedly keeping an eye on these biographies. But in reality probably don't exist and never did, because it stretches credulity to think there is anyone here who really cares about the biographies of these little known people given their biographies are rather famously only being added to Wikipedia at a very slow rate even though they are theoretically notable enough to be on Wikipedia and have been for decades. Edson Makatar (talk) 11:22, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It was of course assumed that at the time it was locked, the biography had been checked for errors and stripped of irrelevant material. I do not think Administrators here are incompetent or over-worked, given some are confident enough in their own abilities they charge consulting fees. The workload here would be limited since these are little known people whose biographies would not realistically be receiving valid updates very often. The workload is surely higher when the biographies of such people are left open, since the vast majority of edits then will either be vandalism or otherwise inappropriate, or worse, as some claim, attempts by the subject to abuse Wikipedia for their own ends. Obviously the workload is negligible if there is nobody bothering to review and correct those edits made in the open model, and it seems rather obvious that it is this historical weakness of Wikipedia that causes these kinds of subjects distress. The sheer and ever present knowledge nobody here is looking after your biography (and the ever present assumption that you as the subject are a threat to Wikipedia). Too many amateurs and vandals, not enough experienced editors. Edson Makatar (talk) 11:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Apart from the small issue that open editing is the very point of Wikipedia: Leaving editing open means that tens of thousands of Wikipedia editors can spot and fix issues. "Admin only" reduces the number to the low hundreds. We would not be able to deal with the additional workload you are proposing, which would likely turn into a several years long backlog. —Kusma (talk) 11:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

You won't know it is impossible until you try it. The sheer irony of your comment is that the existing systems of protection were brought in precisely because it is a complete myth that tens of thousands of good people stand ready to spot and correct poor or even bad edits. After all, how many of the 3,000+ American Academy of Sciences biographies Wikipedia currently has are even on your radar? My guess is precisely zero. I could go and select one at random right now, insert something true but deeply personal and entirely irrelevant, and I would bet good money that the time it takes for anyone to notice it could be measured by days or even months, not hours or minutes. It could stay there forever. And as seen above, if the subject dares to open their mouth, much less remove it themselves, they will not be treated with kindness or respect. That is the reality of the open editing model for the people whose distress is clearly real and currently unmitigated, precisely because there is not a vast army of diligent overwatchers here anymore, if there ever even was. The subject's only recourse currently is to ask that Wikipedia delete their biographiy, but it appears this does not happen very often because wanting Wikipedia to have a comprehensive almanac of Academy members is a powerful force. I happen to agree with the goal, I just don't see why all those biographies need to be left vulnerable, when the vast majority will not be in receipt of worthwhile edits very often. We are probably talking months if not years between worthwhile encyclopedic changes. Any higher, and clearly the person is not the kind of subject I had in mind for this proposal. Edson Makatar (talk) 11:42, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

If you don't think that Wikipedia has volunteers looking at new edits, I suggest you spend some time at

WP:recent changes competing to be the first to revert a vandalism. About the only area of the project where we are seriously struggling and on a longterm decline is in getting new administrators, Only eight so far this year. Now is really not the time to try and put extra tasks onto our dwindling admin cadre. However if you were willing to accept a lesser level of protection, there have been discussions about increased protection for BLPs in the past. So you could read Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Pending_Changes_expansion_RfC#B:_PC1_protection_for_recognized,_vital,_and_BLP_articles especially the oppose arguments, and try to formulate a proposal that meats at least some of the concerns that the opposers had. Then launch a new RFC. ϢereSpiel

Chequers 15:21, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Just because something can be abused (although in this case I see little benefit to the subject in the proposed form of abuse) doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented. By that logic, Wikipedia should never have been created in the first place. Edson Makatar (talk) 10:54, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Why would the biography of a little known person quickly become outdated if open editing is disabled? By definition, for these sorts of people, there will be very little change in what Wikipedia can say about them over time. Edson Makatar (talk) 10:51, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

That excludes anybody who writes or publishes, for example academics. —Kusma (talk) 11:10, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It really doesn't. There is a long tail of little known authors and academics with biographies here whose latest book and paper can be safely ignored by Wikipedia, the encyclopedia (whose role is after all to summarize and analyse, rather than merely document). They are ironically the very people who probably try to abuse Wikipedia by using it as some kind of free CV service, updating their bibliographies whether the works were significant or not, and so end up inadvertently being subjected to the very protection that is not afforded to those for whom having a presence on Wikipedia is a source of great distress. Edson Makatar (talk) 12:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Accepting for the sake of argument that protecting BLP articles on request would be workable, do you have any evidence that there exist any BLP subjects who would prefer to see their articles fully protected but otherwise subject to normal wikipedia processes? Is there any evidence that there are any BLP subjects who would actually be helped by this proposal? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:05, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I have no such evidence. Do you have any reason to believe a subject wouldn't be happy with this as a compromise solution? If, as seems to happen a lot, they request deletion because they are a low profile individual, but many people here tell them to go jump in a lake because they are notable in a mundane sense and their presence here completes a notional set of people with X achievement in Y field. Edson Makatar (talk) 18:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm completely failing to understand what they are complaining about in the first place.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:30, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

All the time! Where information is inaccurate I will fix it quick smart. The problem is that most complaints are not about the accuracy of the information presented. The most common complaint is that the image in the article is unflattering and that they would prefer a high-quality, professional, publicity image. I tell them to upload an image that meets our requirements. However, I also get requests to remove reliably sourced information that they find embarrassing for one reason or another. For example, athletes found reports on how much money they received in grants embarrassing because it showed that some members of the team got far more than others. I have learned to treat these requests carefully, as sporting bodies will come down on the athletes like a ton of bricks if they find out about attempts to remove such information. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:47, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#CN tagging fiction for citations for basic plot points in the fiction. Most of the responses to far have basically been off-topic, trying to address whether media references/popular culture material is best included in the article in question, rather than the posed question of whether an inline citation is required that a work contains the plot point that it contains.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:24, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

The section heading is misleading. The question is whether mentions in "In popular culture" sections require citations, and the answer is "yes", even for statements that would not require citations as part of the plot section of an article about a work of fiction. —Kusma (talk) 13:36, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

More strongly, for "in popular culture" sections, I would generally require citations to independent publications, not merely citations to the fiction itself. That way we have some sourced evidence that this plot point is actually of significance to the fiction in question, not just a throwaway mention. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:47, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• The reason why most of the responses were “off topic” is because the initial challenge/question was focused on the wrong policy. The underlying problem with the article wasn’t really that the material was unverifiable… the problem was that it was TRIVIA (a common problem when it comes to “in popular culture” sections). Remember that
  Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. Material can be deemed irrelevant, trivial, or undue to mention, even if it is verifiable. Blueboar (talk
  ) 13:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
• If this is about sourcing for "in popular culture"-style items, then
  secondary sourcing. DonIago (talk
  ) 16:25, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I edit a lot of articles for various animals and by far the most common issue I come across is care guides for pets, either uncited or citing a pet store/hobbyist page. There’s undoubtedly hundreds more I haven’t found, and a lot of these stay up for years. Recommending specific enclosure sizes, humidity, diet, etc. These are often outdated or dangerous, and they are always subjective as all husbandry is. While I’m sure it wouldn’t completely fix the issue (considering these guides always lacking reliable sources anyways), I feel it might help if animal/plant care guides were explicitly mentioned in WP:NOTGUIDE. PoetaCorvi (talk) 07:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@

WT:NOT. —Kusma (talk

) 09:35, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I doubt that it would make any difference at all, because

Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 21:29, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

There is already a provision for admins to delete BLPs of barely notable individuals when closing a deletion discussion. I genuinely can't follow from your post what you are suggesting beyond noindexing BLPs on request but I would not support that. The direction of travel for a long time has been that BLPs must be properly sourced and the only real change I would make would be some kind of UNDUE protection so that BLPs don't become hit jobs simply because the only sourcing we have is something bad about the person.

Spartaz ^Humbug!

06:20, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

"I genuinely can't follow from your post what you are suggesting beyond noindexing BLPs on request" Good news! You actually are following what I'm suggesting as that's it: noindexing BLPs on request.

"the only real change I would make would be some kind of UNDUE protection" I think we already have that, but I'd be interested in hearing more. In any case, I think my proposal is more about article quality and overall project experience than anything else. In closing RfCs I've noted that a not insignificant number of these requests originate out of disagreements with the first few sentences of the lead of a BLP. I don't believe this is coincidence. Rather, some editors occasionally try to "float" the most tawdry aspects of a BLP's life to the top of an article so it will appear in search engine snippets. These disputes generally lead to inferior articles and a sometimes toxic editing environment. Providing for optional noindexing of some BLPs that, while they meet our notability standards may not be persons of urgent public concern, would mitigate that to some extent by removing the incentive without limiting content accessibility. Chetsford (talk) 21:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a NOINDEX tag is added to an article after search engines have already indexed it, doesn't that fail to have the effect of search engines removing the page from their search results? I thought once it's indexed, it's indexed. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

It depends on the exact search engine, but most respect the tag even when the content is previously indexed AFAIK. ― novov (t c) 01:24, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

At least with the larger ones (i.e. Google, Bing), that's my understanding, too. Chetsford (talk) 03:06, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

There's a discussion at

This comment serves as notice of a discussion that editors of this page may be interested in: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Interpretation of endorsement guideline re: EMILY's List/Laphonza Butler? 67.170.42.135 (talk) 01:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion,

WP:NFCC

already says:

it is the duty of users seeking to include or retain content to provide a valid rationale; those seeking to remove or delete it are not required to show that one cannot be created.

And

WP:C

says:

Images, photographs, video and sound files, like written works, are subject to copyright. Someone holds the copyright unless the work has explicitly been placed in the public domain. Images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.

In other words, it already is policy, albeit using slightly different wording. WaggersTALK 12:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Waggers: It is a bit indirect though. It doesn't directly reject any arguments unlike WP:Precautionary principle. — MATRIX! (a good person!)^{[Citation not needed at all; thank you very much!]} 13:20, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

But none of those are valid arguments under our existing policies. They wouldn't hold any water in a deletion discussion. Perhaps they should be added to

WP:AADD but I don't see a need for any policy changes. WaggersTALK

14:06, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Some of this comes down to a philosophical idea. If you are operating from a generally American context, then you might think of the policies as our equivalent of the

British constitution, then you might see them as less about the written statute, and more about the general principles. The principles hold, regardless of whether there's a single official document that declares the principle to be important. We hold these truths to be self-evident, and also to be so fundamental that we don't need to slap an official stamp of approval on every single different way that we've expressed them. We have no capital-P policy that says editors should Wikipedia:Write encyclopedia articles; this does not mean that we do not value encyclopedia articles or that we are writing news stories instead. In other words, the main idea expressed in Wikipedia:Precautionary principle is already a policy, with a lowercase 'p'. The tag at the top is not the important part. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 23:34, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It is practically redacted as a short essay. There are already policies in Wikipedia that covers this. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 20:20, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea. The copyright restrictions we abide here are already much stricter than virtually any site on the Web; I do not think it's necessary, or desirable, or benefits the project, to sit around coming up with new hypothetical ways in which we could make the rules even stricter and make illustrating the encyclopedia more difficult. jp×g🗯️ 21:41, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

• The proposition is mistaken in saying that "Someone holds the copyright unless the work has explicitly been placed in the public domain". It's wrong because copyrights are not perpetual and so expire. This has already happened for numerous historical documents and images and it will happen to everything in due course. There are also many orphan works for which it is impractical or impossible to identify the copyright holder. We should be pragmatic and proportionate rather than draconian and difficult. See also Avoid copyright paranoia. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:21, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I have just been made aware that a press release has been put out by the

• Press release by Womens Rights Party
• Jill Ovens
• Women's Rights Party
• Talk:Women's Rights Party
• Edit contributions for single IP address making favourable changes to Jill Ovens Page

PicturePerfect666 (talk) 19:07, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm as ignorant about sexual issues as one can be, but I hesitate to call anybody a name, any name, including transphobic, unless I have a reliable source (and maybe two or three sources) explicitly calling them that name. Instead, why not quote the following description of the Women's Rights Party and Jill Ovens from your Mathew Scott reference: "The [Women's Rights] party platform is mostly based around upholding binary views of sex and gender, preventing trans women from accessing female spaces and resisting language that portrays gender and sex as a continuum." If that quote about the platform of the Women's Rights Party and Jill Ovens is sustained by reliable sources, the quote is far more explanatory than is the word "transphobic."

Regarding the criticism of Wikipedia, I take it as a compliment to the importance of Wikipedia. Smallchief (talk) 20:05, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

+ North8000 (talk) 20:09, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Agree DFlhb (talk) 20:45, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Agree. FOARP (talk) 17:07, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

My two cents is that, with regard to the content, Smallchief is right. If sources don't use the word transphobic, even if the stances fit your own definition of transphobic, you can't use the specific word (and FTR I agree that the party is transphobic personally, I just can't find a source that says so).

With regard to the off-wiki campaigning that may or may not be going on, you may consider

WP:LEGAL for the guy who shouted defamation, and maybe a template on top of the article talk page as well. Fermiboson (talk

) 20:32, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

To the end claimed parties described as racist and fascist aren't typically expressly called that in sources yet Wikipedia calls them what they are. The statements are dogwhistles of transphobia 101 and should be recognised as such. The whole platform is transphobic...dedicated to the removal of trans rights and uses the language of that. No rasict is going to say they want specific things out loud they go at in couched language and inflame with common tropes of 'protecting children' and allusions to a threat to society from a certain group. This is not a place for not being honest about these parties. rthe party also being founded in support of a woman who wants to eliminate trans people also adds significant weight to it being transphobic. Just more explanation here.

This information is all contained in this 'manifesto' PicturePerfect666 (talk) 20:42, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, for the record there is no need to direct the virtrol towards me because I agree wih you. However, parties described as racist and fascist definitely have a source behind them - and if they don't, rest assured the RfCs will come at you like hell.

WP:V way of saying transphobic. Fermiboson (talk

) 20:48, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

What vitriol are you talking about? There is none in anything written. It is a description of the party and its positions. Not sure what you are on about with claims of 'no need to direct the virtrol towards me because I agree wih[sic] you.' PicturePerfect666 (talk) 20:52, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh, also be careful about

WP:1RR. No point in getting sanctioned for fighting dirty. Fermiboson (talk

) 20:50, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I share your frustration, but it is not for us to decode the dog whistles ourselves. Look for Reliable Sources that do the decoding for us. If we don't have an RS saying "transphobic" then the word should be removed until we do. Don't worry. Anybody with an ounce of sense can see that it is transphobic from the rest of the article's content whether we use the word or not.

As regards the Press Release: Just ignore it. Lots of people don't like what is written about them on Wikipedia. So long as what we say is true, and proportionate to their notability, then that is not something they get a veto over.

As regards legal threats,

WP:NLT applies. People who make legal threats and don't withdraw them when the policy is drawn to their attention get blocked. DanielRigal (talk

) 20:56, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we use the word "transphobic" to describe something that's transphobic? Of course we do. (Disclaimer: I saw this discussion off-wiki.) LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 20:48, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree 100% call things what they are. Wikipedia is not a place for using wording to avoid saying the obvious. That is not synthesis. Starting a party in support of a parroting a transphobe (who has saluting Nazis at an event in Melbourne show up), who wants to eliminate trans people is also not synthesis to say the obvious. PicturePerfect666 (talk) 20:58, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Dare I say

the sky is blue? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions}

) 21:00, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Considering the contentiousness of the topic, there must have been a past RfC on a similar descriptor of TERFs as transphobic hidden in some talk page. Fermiboson (talk) 21:02, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we use the word "transphobic" to describe something that's transphobic? Per

MOS:LABEL, transphobic is included with similar labels that are best avoided unless widely used in reliable sources, and then only using in-text attribution.--Trystan (talk

) 23:02, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Here is a source that uses the word transphobic to describe the activist that the party was apparently founded around (which, btw, is sourced to substack which is

WP:BLOG un-RS, so that's another thing to fix). I couldn't find a source that refers to the party itself. Fermiboson (talk

) 20:58, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

• There is a discussion on the article's talk page, though it was just started quite recently. Input would be appreciated there. I'm going to remind everyone commenting that
  WP:BLP applies everywhere on Wikipedia, so if you're going to start calling people names on here it will be noted in your block log. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits
  ) 21:05, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  Hold on. There is a point I think we've all missed here in the heat of the moment - is the subject even notable? Newsroom source is in list form so is kind of borderline passing mention. The party receives virtually no support in polls and no votes, and everything else is either self-published or a primary source. Fermiboson (talk) 21:10, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  Google search of "women's rights party" with quotations gives the party's website and several unrelated foreign or historical organisations, but no RS coverage. Fermiboson (talk) 21:12, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  Then I think in that point a deletion discussion is needed. PicturePerfect666 (talk) 21:12, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and start one. Fermiboson (talk) 21:15, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think the party and the person should be nominated together neither appear to have general notability. PicturePerfect666 (talk) 21:16, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  The person is a more borderline case, since she appears to be a former MP and the NZ Herald counts towards GNG. Fermiboson (talk) 21:20, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  If she was an MP, then it's not even borderline -- she meets

  WP:NPOL. -- Nat Gertler (talk

  ) 22:15, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  As far as I can see stood a few times and never got elected…perennial/nuisance candidate at best. PicturePerfect666 (talk) 00:34, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

  I can't figure out what the NZ parliamentary source on her is supposed to be. Did she just speak in parliament or something? Fermiboson (talk) 00:42, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

  She responded to a public consultation because she was desperately trying to keep lgbt+ conversion therapy AKA torture and pseudoscience legal in NZ PicturePerfect666 (talk) 00:49, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

   Courtesy link: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jill Ovens. Folly Mox (talk) 03:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree in general but in my experience almost all routes will have secondary sources especially international ones. For example I bet I can find coverage for every single route out of Taoyuan International Airport. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I've personally found those tables to be useful and feel it would be a waste to have them deleted. Wehwalt (talk) 16:36, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Is that what I'm agreeing with? My understanding is that Sunnya343 is opposed to the whole RfC in general hence why they voted "oppose" instead of yes or no. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm simply making my point without !voting. If you like I will outdent. Wehwalt (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

My apologies, I thought it was a direct response to me. Re-reading @Sunnya343:'s post their meaning does actually appear ambiguous and I'd like some clarification on that, so this was helpful for me regardless of whether it was intended. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:32, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, I'll change it to "No" (as in no, I don't think the tables should be included). Sunnya343 (talk) 17:37, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, I did misunderstand a bit what you were saying but I still don't think we're actually that far apart position wise... 45% and 55% are close despite one being a yes and one being a no. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:42, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Sunnya343 (talk) 01:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

@

Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean good. Wikipedia requires 100% use of reliable sources, not 100% use of secondary ones or 100% use of independent ones. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 22:54, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realize those were primary sources. I would say then that the "Airlines and destinations" section should be based mainly on reliable independent sources. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:25, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

In my (US-focused) experience, every single time an airline adds a new destination (or a new airline), it's reported in the newspaper(s) for the airport's area. I therefore expect that it would be possible to provide a citation to an independent source for every destination (at least for a US airport). But – is it actually better? I'm not sure about that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you about certain destinations, such as a new flight to a foreign city. But if we take the Indianapolis airport as an example, you'd be hard-pressed to find third-party sources for the more mundane domestic routes, e.g. American Airlines' flights to Charlotte and Phoenix. I think you have a point about newspaper articles and other independent sources perhaps not being better than non-independent sources in this context, where we only seek to reference the cities an airline flies to. What I'm arguing is that the lack of independent sources for many of the destinations is an indication that it is not notable to mention each and every one in an article. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

You will often find coverage of mundane domestic routes (even legacy ones), especially around mundane incidents. Here is Indianapolis to Charlotte[13] for example. I would also note that all of these routes were non-mundane once and almost certainly received coverage in the local paper when they launched even if that was in the 70s and it will be harder to find. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:38, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

If you can find reliable secondary coverage for each what would be the policy grounded basis for not including some of them? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

(Responding to your two comments above) You have a point. But I would say, compare your source on the Indianapolis-Charlotte route to this one that describes the airport's first transatlantic flight. Your source is not focused on the Charlotte route itself. I think this excerpt from the essay

WP:NOTNEWS, we do not need to cover the launch of every single flight from an airport. Sunnya343 (talk

) 15:19, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Which of the four points of NOTNEWS would that be per? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:22, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm referring to #2, in particular: While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Wikipedia is not written in news style. You'll notice for example that in this table, the launch, resumption, and termination of various routes is mentioned. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:47, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

That part of 2 is about inclusion of articles on Wikipedia, that is

WP:NOTABILITY not about what to include in articles. The only part of 2 which is not about notability is "Also, while including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information." which does not support your argument that it be treated differently. Horse Eye's Back (talk

) 15:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I see your point. What I will say is that I'm focusing on the general notion of what sort of information belongs in the encyclopedia. The paragraph at the beginning of the section (

WP:NOTEVERYTHING), especially the sentence A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, addresses both the creation of articles on different subjects and the content of those articles. Do you really believe we ought to mention that Delta Air Lines is resuming flights from Indianapolis to Salt Lake City, or that Korean Air is ending service from Seoul to Tashkent? Sunnya343 (talk

) 17:34, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I struck the words above based on this excerpt from

WP:N: [These guidelines on notability] do not limit the content of an article or list... For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not,... Sunnya343 (talk

) 23:01, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, airport articles should include such tables when including a table would be due (closed airports don't need to have an empty table for example). A table should not preclude prose coverage of routes nor should prose coverage of routes preclude a table, there is room for both and both are often due. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:39, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• No comment there should not be
  WP:ONUS) should still be considered, but there is no need to prescribe a "yes" or "no" answer to this question. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk
  ) 17:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• The tables are fine if they are based in secondary sources rather than
  original research using booking systems and the like. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi}
  18:27, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• No, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. My feeling is that this is both a) sometimes impractical, b) hard to source reliably, and c) verging on a
  talk
  19:03, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• Partial A list of airlines that routinely serve the airport makes sense, but the list of cities probably does not since this is a function of the airline, not the airport, and can change regularly. That said, outside of table, one can describe in prose the general profile of cities that it serves - I can see this for small regional airports to say what cities that they link to. But this should be by the airport in general, and not because Airline X goes to one place and Airline Y goes to another. --Masem (t) 19:45, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  Let me add another notch against city listings. We're supposed to be writing content as an encyclopedia that will stand the test of time, not what is just currently the situation. A list of airlines that an airport serves will not routinely change, and if there are major departures, that will likely be a discussion in prose. But for the most part, the cities that each airline services changes year-to-year if not more frequent, so it is not very useful information in the long-term. The only arguments that are being given to keep those cities are from a

  WP:NOT#GUIDE standpoint. Masem (t

  ) 03:45, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

• No, per
  WP:NOTTRAVEL
  ; these lists are travel guides, telling people how to get from a to b, and not content that belongs on an encyclopedia.

This isn't to say that we can't include information on the airlines and destinations at an airport; to provide information that is actually beneficial to our reader and complies with our policies we can use the section to discuss how the number of airlines operating from an airport changed over time, as well as the number of destinations. For example, using prose we could show how Heathrow went from a small airfield to a global hub, including covering the impact of events like the pandemic, all of which is encyclopedic content and none of which can be done with tables. BilledMammal (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

• Yes - this is one of the key aspects of airports, namely what connections to other airports they have. If the info is only embedded in prose, the risk of outdated creep increases. --Soman (talk) 20:35, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Espresso Addict, Kusma, Soman, and Reywas92: (Replying to you all at once because I feel your arguments are similar) The same could be said of airlines - that we should have a list of the cities they currently serve because it's a key aspect of them. But there is consensus not to mantain lists of airline destinations on Wikipedia. I don't see how we can disapprove of full lists of airline destinations, and at the same time allow complete lists of each airline's destinations from an airport. Sunnya343 (talk) 22:38, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  It seems to work and not cause any problems. Airline destination lists were also separate articles. It is perfectly acceptable to have rules that allow content in one form but not in a different one. —Kusma (talk) 05:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

• Generally yes per Horse Eye Black and Soman. Obviously everything must be verifiable, and in some cases it will be better covered on a separate article to the main airport article. In some cases there should be a history of notable carriers and destinations as the goal is an encyclopaedic coverage of the airport and its history rather than a contemporary travel guide. However the current services are an encyclopaedic aspect of the airport. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: When you say "in some cases it will be better covered on a separate article to the main airport article", where else do you believe the information should go?

  One could also argue that the current destinations of an airline are encyclopedic; however, the consensus of this RfC (reaffirmed by this AfD) was that Wikipedia should not have complete lists of airline destinations. I agree with Beeblebrox when they say, There is an important distinction between information and knowledge. Wikipedia strives to provide knowledge, and is explicitly not a directory or catalog, which is just information. Sunnya343 (talk) 14:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  where else do you believe the information should go? it depends how information about the airport is covered, and how much information there is. For example a major airport that has a long history and lots of detail may need spin-off articles per

  WP:SUMMARY

  and the list of destinations may be better in (or indeed as) one of them, in other cases it may be better to have an "Air travel in X" article covering multiple airports. Basically, being overly prescriptive could cause problems.

  Whether airlines do or should have complete destination lists is not relevant to coverage of airports. I'm sorry I didn't comment in that RFC, but as should have been easily predictable based on other contemporary discussions the consensus is being over-applied to excise encyclopaedic related content. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

• No per
  WP:NOTDB. These are things that change all the time. There are websites which do an admirable job of tracking all this stuff. Our job is to be an encyclopedia, not a airline database. RoySmith (talk)
  21:17, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• I feel these tables semi-duplicate list of airline destinations, something long described as
  WP:DUE. If they are going to be included they need to be properly referenced with something better than a ticket system that needs to work through to see if the route is currently nrunning or not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords
  ° 21:28, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, generally this is relevant and encyclopedic information, and it should be included if you can source it (including to the airport's own website, which is reliable despite not being independent). I arrived at this general conclusion by thinking about how important it is to understanding the subject of the article (i.e., the airport). If you want to understand the airport in context, you need to know some basic, objective/universal facts. These include: Is there scheduled passenger service at all? How many passengers use this airport? How many airports does it connect to? Are those connected airports nearby, or does it have long-distance/international flights? There is a big difference between "one daily flight to the next city" and "direct flights from ten countries", and providing the lists makes it easy to see whatever level of granularity the reader is interested in (e.g., how many destinations, how many countries, whether they're all short flights, etc.). Similarly, you can't understand an airport unless you understand whether one airline holds a monopoly there. On the other hand, does it need to be presented in the exact form of a table? Meh, I don't think that matters. A table is a perfectly fine form for this, if there are more than about three airlines or destinations to be presented, but a bulleted list is also fine, and if the list is very small, then plain old prose text is good, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  Is there scheduled passenger service at all? How many passengers use this airport? How many airports does it connect to? Are those connected airports nearby, or does it have long-distance/international flights? These questions are all better answered with prose; take Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations for an example. It doesn't answer the question "How many passengers use this airport", and while theory it could provide answer to the questions of "How many airports does it connect to" and "Are those connected airports nearby, or does it have long-distance/international flights", in practice it does not - we can't expect our readers to count the airports listed, and nor can we expect them to carefully analyze which airports the flights go to to assess what types of flights that leave the airport. It does answer the question "Is there scheduled passenger service at all", but it would be hard to include information on the airlines and destinations serviced by the airport without doing so.

  What would be better for the reader is to say something like In 2022, 35,000,000 people used the airport, with flights to 200 airports in 90 countries. On the average day 120 flights departed; 40% of the flights were shorthaul, 20% were medium haul, 30% were long haul, and 10% were ultra-long haul. British airways accounted for 60% of all flights. - and that's just what I threw together in 30 seconds. An editor working to improve the article could provide far more benefit to the reader than that. BilledMammal (talk) 00:34, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  I would expect some of these questions to be answered elsewhere in the article, e.g., in Heathrow Airport#Air traffic and statistics, which begins with a description of its passenger traffic. (Note that you have quoted from a list of "some basic, objective/universal facts" that IMO readers need to know to understand the subject, and not from a list of things that I think belongs specifically in a list of destinations served.)

  Statements like "40% of the flights were shorthaul" and "British airways accounted for 60% of all flights" are good, but not necessarily what the reader wants to know, especially if the flight pattern is weird ("40% are shorthaul, and none of them go to the neighboring region that the governor is touting in his plan for promoting business in your state"). I think that a both/and approach would be better than an either/or approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. The tables give a clear view of many encyclopedic aspects of airports, in particular their connectivity, that would be unacceptably vague if relegated to a prose "description." While some of the data may be sourced from databases, it is definitely verifiable, and no one seems to be suggesting that it cannot be kept accurate. CapitalSasha ~ talk 22:46, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

  @CapitalSasha: Here's an example of (what I consider to be) the difficulties of using databases as references. This is an excerpt from the table in the Los Angeles airport article:

  Airlines	Destinations	Refs
  Delta Air Lines	Atlanta, Auckland (begins October 28, 2023),[1] Austin, Boston, Cancún, Cincinnati, Dallas/Fort Worth, Dallas–Love	[2]

  When the flight to Auckland begins, should I remove the reference attached to it, since the timetable is already cited in the "References" column? But on what grounds can I remove a valid reference? If I leave it there, then I don't see what's stopping an editor from adding references to all the other destinations:

An example of the above can be seen in the Flydubai row of the Dubai airport table.

@Sunnya343: What's the problem with just using the timetable when the Auckland flight starts? CapitalSasha ~ talk 22:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I suppose it would be OK. But pretty much all articles on Wikipedia include information that is supported by more than one reference. I can't think of any other place in this encyclopedia where you can remove one of two references - and in this case, what would the justification be, to make the table look better? Sunnya343 (talk) 23:11, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that if a reference is really redundant or out of date then there is no issue with removing it.... CapitalSasha ~ talk 23:22, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you. But by removing those references, we are prioritizing the timetables over third-party sources. It's true that the timetables are only being used to support basic facts, but articles are supposed to be based on independent sources. And as WhatamIdoing pointed out, both the timetables and the newspaper articles describing new routes are all primary sources, and I don't believe we should be including such large amounts of information supported only by primary sources.

Another issue is that the timetable reference above has an access-date of April 7, 2018. But we just included a destination that began after that date. So I guess I have to check all the other destinations in the timetable, make sure Delta still flies to them, and change the access-date. Who is really going to do this, and is this how a Wikipedia article should be? This might seem like a minor critique, but I believe it helps shows the problem with having these tables and trying to keep them up-to-date. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:32, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, a newspaper article describing a new route is not a primary source. For example, this recent local news piece about new international routes is a secondary source. Primary sources may be the airport's press release and the airline's press release. But there's nothing wrong with using the non-independent sources - while an article as a whole needs secondary sources for notability and some interpretations, to suggest they can't be used for this type of section is simply false. If anything, these could be more accurate than a secondary source because it's straight from the horse's mouth. We sometimes avoid

WP:PRIMARY sources because they may require WP writers' original research to interpret or summarize, but none of what's cautioned about there is happening for this, or even a timetable. Things change and may not always be perfectly up-to-date, but so what? This is a wiki, and there are a lot of interested users who actually seem to be doing a pretty good job on these to stay current, there aren't daily changes on most pages. Everything is still perfectly verifiable, even if the accessdate in the reference is old. Reywas92^Talk

01:38, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

@

WP:LINKSINACHAIN. A newspaper article that repeats someone else's information, without adding its own analysis, means the newspaper article is still a primary source. As the article Secondary source puts it, "Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation

of the original information." It's not enough to merely be the second link in a chain.

Having said that, I agree with you that this kind of basic information isn't really what we need either a secondary or an independent source for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

• Sort of. I don't see why it's needful to have a complete list, but to me, it seems appropriate and encyclopaedic to provide some indication of which areas an airport serves.—S Marshall T/C 23:05, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, this information is encyclopedic and as WhatamIdoing writes very important to understanding the nature of the airport. Sourcing to the airport website is sufficiently reliable. Agree that the list need not be exhaustive and need not necessarily be tabulated. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:29, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• No the fact that these are not easily found and sourced to independent or secondary sources demonstrates that as a general rule they are run afoul of DIRECTORY and NOTGUIDE. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 02:08, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  @David Fuchs: is that a fact? It doesn't appear to be true so it doesn't seem like it could possibly be factual. The vast majority of these are easily sourced to secondary independent sources, on what basis do you draw your unique conclusion? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

• Allow destination lists. They are central to what airports do, and generally well maintained and up to date. Old Britannicas feature this type of information about seaports, so there is some precedent for calling it "encyclopedic". We also don't have to delete information only because it is useful to have. —Kusma (talk) 02:12, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
• Allow, again This is getting tiresome, already recently at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_167#RfC:_Ariport_destination_tables and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Archive_19#RFC_on_Maps_and_Airline_&_Destination_Tables. That an airport is a gateway to numerous destinations –and which airports – is obviously highly relevant to the airport, and it is perfectly acceptable and informative to include this content in the articles. It is risible to say this is indiscriminate or original research to include information that is easily verified in airline timetables and other sites. I have yet to see an example of users fighting over someone making up routes because there are in fact ways to look this up. These are not travel guides because they are not instructions, unencyclopedic details, or a guide at all! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reywas92 (talk • contribs) 03:27, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  Just because data is easily available doesn't mean it isn't indiscriminate - although based on the sparsity of sources at Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations I'm not convinced it is easily accessible.

  That an airport is a gateway to numerous destinations –and which airports – is obviously highly relevant to the airport, and it is perfectly acceptable and informative to include this content in the articles. Why are the specific airports that Heathrow is a gateway to highly relevant? As an experiment, I tried to find sources that discuss that the connection between Zakynthos International Airport and Heathrow Airport; Google news returns nothing, and while Google books returns a few dozen sources that mention both none of them even mention a connection between the two. Similarly, Google scholar returns five sources, but again there is no mention of a connection.

  If reliable sources don't consider this relevant, why should we?

  Based on this, I also support this proposal on the grounds of

  WP:BALASP; we are giving undue weight to an aspect of the topic that reliable sources give no weight to. BilledMammal (talk

  ) 03:49, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  While there's not always in-depth coverage of individual routes – though the introduction or cancelletion of routes are often covered in travel media (and it's disingenuous to search academic article) – that's downright false to say sources "give no weight to" an airport's destinations. Some for Heathrow include [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. That's just risible to say no one cares about the entire point of an airport – getting to specific other places. How can this possibly be indiscriminate? Simple inclusion standard: Can you fly from one airport to another? There's no unrelated overlapping criteria, subjectivity, or excessive number of items for this objective, narrowly defined, and finite concept. Reywas92^Talk 23:57, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  Websites like flightsfrom.com, directline-flights.co.uk, and the blog London Air Travel are not the type of source we should be using on Wikipedia. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:33, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  it's disingenuous to search academic article Why? In any case, I searched academic articles, news articles, and books.

  While there's not always in-depth coverage of individual routes ... that's downright false to say sources "give no weight to" an airport's destinations You've constructed a bit of a strawman here; you argued that the specific airports that an airport is a "gateway" to are highly relevant. I demonstrated that they weren't, by providing an example of a pairing - picked at random - that sources give no weight to. I'm not sure how you can claim that my comment is "downright false".

  How can this possibly be indiscriminate? Indiscriminate; done without careful judgement. Including every route, regardless of whether sources consider that route relevant or irrelevant, is done without careful judgement. BilledMammal (talk) 23:04, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

  When I go to the airport, there's a big board with all the flights and destinations – that's what the purpose of the place is and what people are often interested in when they come to these articles. Is going after London_King's_Cross_railway_station#Services and Union_Station_(Los_Angeles)#Services next? I don't think Google Scholar talks much about Amtrak's Texas Eagle... Is the real complaint just that air routes aren't as permanent as train tracks so some change more frequently? Reywas92^Talk 00:30, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

  that's what the purpose of the place is and what people are often interested in when they come to these articles.[

  WP:NOTDIRECTORY, which says Listings to be avoided include .... services), rather than an encyclopedic long-term summary. BilledMammal (talk

  ) 23:14, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. This is not indiscriminate info, as there's a very specific inclusion criteria. And being primary sourced is not disqualifying. Primary sources are perfectly acceptable for establishing matters of uncontroversial fact. oknazevad (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with you that the tables are discriminate - they list all the destinations currently operating. But airport articles are not supposed to be

  directories that note each and every destination, no matter how trivial. Sunnya343 (talk

  ) 02:16, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  Your comment is

  Consensus can change, and arguing that the new consensus doesn't comply with older guidelines is without merit as an argument. oknazevad (talk

  ) 23:29, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

  How else am I supposed to justify my point of view that the lists are not appropriate for Wikipedia articles, if I am not allowed to cite existing Wikipedia policies? Is this not what you yourself are doing when you make references to

  WP:PG says, Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages describe its principles and agreed-upon best practices. I am trying to make an argument based on those principles and best practices. If you have a concern with a policy itself, you should start a separate discussion (example). Sunnya343 (talk

  ) 02:27, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

  Since the discussion is about the scope and content of the guideline itself, saying what the guideline contains doesn't actually contribute to the discussion of what it should be. Saying you think the guideline is fine as is and why does. oknazevad (talk) 22:41, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

  On second thought, I concur with

  Wikipedia is not news. Sunnya343 (talk

  ) 02:34, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

• No, per @BilledMammal, @RoySmith, and @David Fuchs. I cannot see how these lists/tables of the airlines/destinations serviced by an airport provide so much utility and encyclopedic value as to override our policies on indiscriminate info, NOTDB, BALANCE, NOTNEWS, and OR. Items on these lists may be ephemeral and quickly out of date, and if their only sourcing is non-independent or primary then having such detailed tables for them arguably violates the Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. policy in PRIMARY. Of course any routes that have enough coverage to be part of a BALANCED article can be discussed, but creating exhaustive lists or tables simply for completion's sake, or for needless consistency between articles, regardless of how well the entries are sourced, should not be normalized. JoelleJay (talk) 18:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
• Sort of We should provided enough details on destinations to allow readers to have a good understanding of the airports reach. For smaller regional airports this will likely be the complete list, whereas for large international airports perhaps condensing it into countries served would be more useful. As an aside, another thing to consider is to remove what destinations a particular airline serves, this starts intruding into making a product guide and introduces duplication if multiple airlines serve a single destination. Jumpytoo Talk 19:34, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, the tables should stay – from a user standpoint, I've found them very helpful. At very least, if the tables are removed from Wikipedia, they should be moved elsewhere (Wikivoyage perhaps?) Codeofdusk (talk) 21:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)