Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 164

Users may be interested in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Redirect autopatrol#RfC on autopatrolling redirects. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 01:59, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

In WP:Consensus#Pitfalls and errors the first problem listed is "Off-wiki discussions. Consensus is reached through on-wiki discussion or by editing. Discussions elsewhere are not taken into account. In some cases, such off-wiki communication may generate suspicion and mistrust." Editors who are interested in an article will typically watch the article. However if a discussion about the article takes place on a noticeboad without a notice being left at the article talk page something happens rather like what the policy says. And it most certainly has raised suspicion and mistrust in me! Editors may come to decisions about the article without having the benefit of interested people who probably know more about the topic. This can become very like secret canvassing in some cases.

I know this is typically done in many cases and for

This is just mistaken. Discussion on a community noticeboard is not "rather like" secret off-wiki communication. This proposal looks simply unworkable. If somebody mentions (say) five articles as examples of something during a noticeboard discussion, would they be obliged to visit each of those articles' Talk pages to leave a notice? Imagine the bloat. Imagine the processology and complaints from disgruntled AfD participants if some notifications were missed. The only way something like this could work would be if every participant in an AfD was required to disclose how they became aware of that AfD - but this has its own problems and my guess for the percentage chance of the community approving this is about 0%.

talk

) 12:37, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

You're the one who said telling editors on an article talk page about a discussion on a noticeboard might needlessy escalate to

Dmcq (talk

) 12:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Not sure how that's relevant to my point but Yes, that's one factor to take into account. Minimizing dramah is a good thing.

talk

) 13:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

And you don't think that is '"rather like" secret off-wiki communication? And may generate suspicion and mistrust?

Dmcq (talk

) 13:07, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

@

talk

) 13:42, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps wise and experienced editors would be better off hearing from people who have worked on an article and don't have to be protected from 'dramah'? And we wouldn't then have wise and experienced but ignorant editors setting off as a group to give their !vote and prejudice any others coming along by stacking the start of a discussion?

Dmcq (talk

) 13:52, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

That's kind of a paranoid

talk

) 14:02, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Well it certainly helps with consensus! But I see something more akin to

Dmcq (talk

) 14:18, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

That is because you are giving this a paranoid

talk

) 14:42, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I was specifically asked to make it general and not be picky, and I agree with that. A guideline that works in general is what is wanted.

Dmcq (talk

) 14:53, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

But "works" to what end. So far no problem has been demonstrated. You are asserting problems but I shall apply

talk

) 15:20, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

As

Dmcq (talk

) 15:54, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

That is a phrase used about off-wiki communication, and is irrelevant. Back to to the point, you have produced ZERO evidence of any problem. Evidence would take the form of pointing to specific diffs, a specific AfD, or specifying something that actually happened. Without evidence of a problem this is just navel gazing. If you're saying _you_ are full of mistrust I'd suggest taking a look at

talk

) 16:29, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I'll just point at the discussion here and ask editors if they are happy with articles they contribute to being discussed at length away from the talk page by people who don't want them informed about the discussion. No need for me to get involved in the minutae of particular cases or point to anywhere in particular. You can try justifying the practice more if you like!

Dmcq (talk

) 17:17, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Re: "I will ask editors if they are happy with articles they contribute to being discussed at length away from the talk page by people who don't want them informed about the discussion" I will ask Dmcq why they want a calm reasoned discussion about accupuncture or Donald Trump to be flooded with comments by the same people who are being disruptive on the article talk page (see? two can play that game). There comes a time when the adults who are interested in fringe theories in general need to be able to calmly discuss the latest disruption at creationism without inviting a horde of creationists to join it and disrupt the noticeboard the same way they disrupted the article talk page. Some of them will find it anyway and push their POV, but do we really need to invite all of them? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

See the second point at

Dmcq (talk

) 23:09, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Getting fresh eyes from a community noticeboard is not biasing a discussion. The fact that you keep twisting the prohibitions about bad things (puppetry, secret comms) to seem as though they apply to what is actually recommended best practice, is just daft. Per

talk

) 06:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm talking about for instance notes starting a discussion about changing an article without leaving a note at the article talk page.

Dmcq (talk

) 11:13, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

• I would agree that when an article is the SUBJECT of a noticeboard discussion, good practice is to leave a note on the article’s talk page pointing to the noticeboard discussion. That said, I don’t think leaving a note should be required. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

What would you think would be a good reason not to leave a notice on an article talk page if the article is the subject of a discussion on a noticeboard?

Dmcq (talk

) 14:01, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Example: Something like "I came across article X, is this topic in scope for this noticeboard?" - why notify the article itself (especially if the answer is "no").

talk

) 14:07, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Another example... the noticeboard is discussing an issue with article A, and in the process discusses how the issue is dealt with at article B... no need to leave a note at article B. Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

The first would comes under "quick questions which are more about an application of a policy or guideline" and in the second article B would not be the subject of the discussion if it is just showing how something is done elsewhere. It would start being a subject if people then started saying they thought article B was wrong and should be changed. I guess there would be some problems with phrasing things well but that's always the case with guidelines.

Dmcq (talk

) 14:30, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• Honestly, I think the other way should be a policy: It would be very rare that it is appropriate to start a discussion at a noticeboard UNLESS extensive discussion had already occurred on the article talk page. At no time should ANY dispute be a surprise by the time it gets to the noticeboard stage. The noticeboards are for handling situations where the talk page discussion has broken down, and should never be the first recourse in solving problems. People who would be interested in a noticeboard discussion on a disputed article should already have the opportunity to be aware of the dispute. --Jayron32 13:47, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Do you think though a note should be left on an article page when it does go to a noticeboard?

Dmcq (talk

) 13:58, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I would say yes... but it does not need to be anything formal. A comment along the lines of “This needs a wider audience to resolve, I have opened a discussion at WP:Xx/N (link)” is fine. The point is to let people know where the discussion is taking place (and for future reference where it took place). Blueboar (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Well that's all I want and it is mostly done. I think it needs to be documented as good practice, some people think it is a bad idea as can be seen earlier in this discussion.

Dmcq (talk

) 14:34, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think that letting people know things is best practice. I can't imagine a situation where we would want to make such discussions a secret, or surprise people with them. --Jayron32 15:22, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• All of the above said... best practice (“should”) is not the same as mandated practice (“must”). I have always been opposed to creating “rules” that a lot of people won’t follow (because they find the rule too cumbersome or simply can’t be bothered). While I would support language ENCOURAGING editors to leave notices, I would not support language saying that they MUST do so. Phrasing it as a “must” creates unwanted drama (I can easily see the wikilawyers arguing that a noticeboard discussion is “improper” and that an obvious consensus can be ignored, simply because someone neglected to leave a note). Blueboar (talk) 17:14, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking of a guideline rather than policy, perhaps in the

Dmcq (talk

) 17:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

As long as it is phrased as encouragement (best practice) and not as a “must do” requirement, I am on board. Blueboar (talk) 19:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Right now there is no tool available to easily post a notification of an article being discussed in WP:space on an article's talkpage (unlike, for example, the way the AfD tool handles appropriate notifications). If such a tool existed, I would certainly use it. It would also help with AN/ANI notices if they could automatically inform users too. As usual, I think a lot of these sorts of cultural changes can happen if you make it easier to follow the norms through software development than to go about the old-fashioned clunky way. Just a thought. jps (talk) 17:28, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

A tool to make it easy would be great. Blueboar (talk) 19:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be much of a problem to people but I do agree a tool or template that made it easier would be nice. Not much point though having such a tool unless there is a guideline saying something like that shoud be done. What would be lovely I think is some template like {alert page|article}} at the discussion that would be processed as a subst and put a note into the discussion saying 'article' had been alerted to the discussion, and would put a note at the end of the talk page of the article giving the page and section where the alert page template was used.

Dmcq (talk

) 22:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Not much point though having such a tool unless there is a guideline saying something like that shoud be done. I think you aren't correct about that. Rules on Wikipedia are meant to be descriptive and not prescriptive. In other words, if it becomes habit then someday people write it into policy with a "everyone does it this way" note. Take the AfD notifications. Right now, it's not required that people notify the initial contributor of the AfD, but the tools do that automatically when you list an article. No one cares that this is the situation, but it certainly has increased the number of initial contributors who are notified because it is bundled in with the TW AfD tool. jps (talk) 12:33, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I rather think you will find that the Twinkle tool to nominate a page for deletion was set up after the manual procedure in

Dmcq (talk

) 13:54, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I checked, and it wasn't. While it was required to post a notice to the article itself as well as to the listing, there was no requirement to inform the article creator (there still isn't, actually). jps (talk) 17:15, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't asking that the creator of an article be explicitly informed, where did you get that from? I was asking for a notice to be put on the article page if a discussion is liable to change it - just like AfD does. If the creator is still interested they'll still have it on their watchlist, if not then they won't.

Dmcq (talk

) 01:26, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

You missed my point. The point is that the tool for AfD automatically notifies the creator of the article you bring to AfD even though there is no explicit requirement that a nominator do so. Likewise, a tool could be developed which would place talkpage notification for articles being discussed at a noticeboard even if no new policy is invented. jps (talk) 12:33, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Dmcq (talk

) 13:50, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't saying it was "brought in by the tool". I'm saying the tool does this even though there is no rule that requires it. The wording suggests that one should do it, but recommendations are not sanctionable rules, for example. The worry I have with instruction creep is bringing in Wikipedia's law enforcement regimes. I don't think anyone should deserve a sanction for failing to notify an article talkpage. Neither do I think anyone should face a sanction for notifying an article talkpage. jps (talk) 14:34, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

You know things like that are not sanctionable in themselves, it is only a pattern of behavior deliberatly and repeatedly avoiding telling people about discussions where they should obviously be informed which would attract any attention beyond a request to do it in future. Is it really more important to avoid creep than to have a guideline to point at if for instance editors repeatedly and quite obstinately refuse to post a notice on article talk pages even when discussing things like nominating them for deletion?

Dmcq (talk

) 18:14, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

It depends on how the proposed addition was worded. If worded as encouragement, then there is no problem... if worded as requirement then yes, it becomes instruction creep and is worse than leaving things as they are (because wikilawyers will cause endless disruption by complaining that it wasn’t followed.) Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

It would be phrased as 'best practice', a standard notification which is not just allowed but encouraged in WP:CANVASS.

Dmcq (talk

) 18:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose This is completely counterproductive. If an extensive discussion about improving a page is taking place anywhere other than that page's Talk page, the system is not working correctly, and it should not be encouraged by trying to attract even more editors to that other place away from the Talk page that exists precisely for this purpose. Agricolae (talk) 17:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

So you'd stop noticeboards having discussions about articles? I don't think is going to fly at all. And how does one cope with a discussion spanning say two articles or on a project page about articles in its purview? It is better to try and have discussions about an article on its talk page but this reason for opposition is just unreasonable. I also note you recently raised a point at a noticeboard about

Dmcq (talk

) 18:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, I agree it won't fly, since strawmen don't have wings. I would discourage noticeboards from having extensive discussions about improving a page without discussion on the relevant Talk page, but editors can decide for themselves when notifying a Talk page about discussion somewhere else is appropriate and helpful versus when it just encourages discussion to leave its appropriate venue. (I originally added something questioning your own integrity, as recompense for your questioning mine, but that would have been just as inappropriate.) Agricolae (talk) 21:55, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

So you now say your 'Oppose This is completely counterproductive.' was based on a strawman, and you say it was inappropriate of me to point out that you didn't do what you said in your strawman? Well I'll follow some advice from Thomas Jefferson which somehow isn't in Wikiquote. Okay. The problem with 'helpful' in what you say is that it leaves a big hole for people's own POV to stop them informing editors who are obviously interested in and have contributed to an article. That is helpful though in nudging me into thinking

Dmcq (talk

) 23:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It is in Wikiquote, once under him and once in a page about the letter with his advice. I am chastised.

Dmcq (talk

) 23:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

So you now say your 'Oppose This is completely counterproductive.' was based on a strawman. WTF? Do you even know what a strawman is? I say nothing of the sort, and you should know better. The place where editors who are obviously interested in and have contributed to an article can most conveniently see and participate in a discussion about that article is on that article's Talk page, not wherever else you want to send them to talk about it, where the discussion and any issues raised will be buried in an archive within weeks of it ending. Off with your forum shopping, then. Agricolae (talk) 01:10, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm having a bit of difficulty with understanding what you're saying, would this be about right: Any talk about changing an article should be on its talk page. Such discussions elsewhere say on a noticeboard are iffy but you will sometimes start such discussions yourself. However it would be counterproductive to infom editors of the article by putting a note on the article talk page. The reason is that any such a note might bring them to the discussion elsewhere and that would be against the aim of having all the talk on the article talk page. However if there is some good reason to bring people interested in the article into the discussion about the article then perhaps a note could be left. Is that a reasonable summary?

Dmcq (talk

) 14:55, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

No. Of course not and you know it. Again. And your argument is that any time a page is mentioned anywhere else on Wikipedia, the goal is to try to relocate all discussion of the page to that other location, because heaven forbid talk about a page should happen on it's Talk page. See, it's not that hard to do what you are doing, present a ridiculous and deceptive rendering of the other person's position, but it is rather pointless if you are interested in a serious discussion - oh, I see where the problem lies. Agricolae (talk) 17:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I am not telepathic. What exactly is wrong with what I said? And I agree that your description of what I said is ridiculous and deceptive. Now I will explain why. I have answered above and made even more clear below in the section 'appropriate notification' where I give some proposed wording that it would cover when the discussion might result in changes to the article. People do this quite routinely and I'm not asking for anything strange. That is not the same as 'if a page is mentioned anywhere else in Wikipedia'. And I never said anything about relocating all discussion to another place. And it was you not me who said all talk about a page should happen on its talk page. Now try saying what was wrong with my understanding of what you said rather than just repeating that I know it.

Dmcq (talk

) 19:01, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

BTW when you say things like I'm forum shopping or lack of integrity could you substantiate them please. I'm no saint but not knowing the particulars doesn't help with improvement. My talk page is the appropriate place for complaints like that but a quick note elsewhere won't worry me.

Dmcq (talk

) 17:13, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

The forum shopping is right up above, where after first arguing ad nauseum on FT/N, and then again here, you say you are thinking WP:Canvassing probably is the best place for it. As to questioning your integrity, I decided I wouldn't stoop to your level, and I still won't. You call me a hypocrite here, but if I have any comments about your character I really should raise them on your Talk page? Rather inconsistent and self-serving, but discussing where best to attack other editors' character would be straying excessively from the topic. Agricolae (talk) 17:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I was asked to come to this place because of objections to having what I proposed being done without it being recognized as standard practice. As requested I never once in this discussion mentioned the noticeboard. I don't believe that is forum shopping. I am sorry to have said that "you don't walk the walk" as it is quite obvious I still do not understand your position properly about having discussions on an article talk page, why didn't you just post a neutral note on the noticeboard directing people to the article talk page if you thought it so important to not discuss elsewhere? And I give you full permission to stoop to my level on any page you desire as it is hard for me to fix a problem without knowing what it is.

Dmcq (talk

) 19:01, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

This supposedly important 'gotcha' you think you have dug out of my edit history: for whatever reason - me explaining my position badly, you predisposed to read into it something else than it is, just two minds that work in different ways, or whatever - the necessary nuance to understand what I am saying seems to escape you, rending the whole discussion pointless. Agricolae (talk) 23:01, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone else could come along and put what you say it in more easily understood terms as I'm damned if I can make head or tail of your position yet you seem to feel very strongly about it.

Dmcq (talk

) 00:01, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Or alternatively, it would be nice if the person I was trying to communicate my position to wasn't seemingly being deliberately obtuse for the sake of scoring cheap debating points, because I can't make heads or tails out of what is so damned hard to understand about 'Extensive discussion of changes to a page are usually best held on that page's Talk page and not redirected to other parts of Wikipedia. Doing so seems counterproductive.' Do I have to define the long words? How about if I do it with single-syllable words, would that help: When more-than-brief talk takes place to change a page, most of the time the best place for it to take place is on the Talk page of the page that is to be changed, and if one thinks that long talk of a page at F T N should not go on (as I know you do), a note put on the Talk page will just serve to move more talk from that best place to the wrong place, and the talk in the wrong place will grow (plus this grown body of text that bears on the page change will not be saved at the Talk page where most might look for it in years to come, but will be hard to find in the depths of the large F T N file dumps), and this is not what we would want, I think. Is that better or do I still need to explain the meaning of the individual words? It may be that a 'nice' outcome is not in the cards for either of us. Agricolae (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, so basically you oppose telling editors of an article about a discussion elsewhere on changing the article and your reason is that one shouldn't normally have discussions elsewhere and people editing the article might contribute to the discussion and one wouldn't be easily able to find what they said in the future in the talk page archive. I hope I have summarized right this time and you don't get het up and start calling me names again. I'm afraid I still don't understand given your views why you start discussions elsewhere rather than leaving a note pointing to an article page so I guess I'm still missing something. You do alsorealize a note on the talk page would actually allow people to actually find the discussion in the future?

Dmcq (talk

) 17:39, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, let's see . . . for individual Talk pages, the statistical mode is probably for them to have just one page (that is not very long). FT/N has a 67 page archive, so you do realize it is easier to glance at a short page than to pour through however many times your search term has been mentioned in 67 pages of archive, don't you? But that is really a secondary consideration - at its core, I oppose trying to encourage discussion to go other places. Full stop. As to the rest, go back and read what I wrote. Note in particular my use of words like 'usually' and 'most of the time' (not always) and 'extensive' and 'long' (not absolutely any) and 'best' (not must) and 'seems' (not is) and 'encourage' (not force). These did not just slip in when I wasn't looking. They were put there intentionally, all to convey the same thing, the exact thing you are missing every time you proudly parade out some post you dug out of my edit history as if it had any significance at all. What you are missing is nuance. I have stated my position so many different ways that if you still don't get it, you either aren't trying or you are trying too hard to make it something different. Agricolae (talk) 22:36, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Well you're definitely an oppose and I suppose others can judge for themselves the merits of your ideas.

Dmcq (talk

) 01:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I would have thought that was evident from me saying Oppose at the start, but I'm glad that finally got clarified for you. Agricolae (talk) 01:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• FWIW, from what I've seen on BLPN, although the instructions say to do it, it isn't always followed and unlike say at ANI, there's generally no real complaint when it isn't. We do get a bunch of SPAs and or just randoms and some of these are reasonable stuff, so IMO it's far more difficult to try and enforce than say ANI. Sometimes another editor will complete the requirements, but often not. I can understand there are plenty of cases where it seems pointless e.g. consider

  WP:BLPN#Alfred E SMith IV. I use to follow BLPN a lot and then stopped and came back to it more maybe 2 years ago. I don't believe we suggested notification in the past or at least not in such a regimented way.

  I bring this up because IMO something which has changed for the worse which I'm now also very guilty of is we tend to discuss the issue on the noticeboard even if it only concerns on article so can easily take place on an article talk page. While it's sometimes useful to discuss stuff on the noticeboard even if it only concerns a single article, especially when someone is mostly making more general suggestions on editing etc, I think we often create a lot of split and confusing discussions by doing it when it's mostly on content issues. Worse of course, is that later editors may not easily come across the discussion even if they search the archives of the article talk page. (In fact our current notification requirements don't really help for that even when followed.) I discourage editors discussing article content on editor talk pages too much for the same reason, and wonder if we should refocus BLPN for notification and centralised discussion affecting multiple articles, as IMO it was often in the past. IMO in that case it's less important that people are informed although I would still encourage it.

  I know this came about in part from FTN, if that board is far more focused on notification and centralised discussion, maybe this is one reason why notification is less important there although again I'd still encourage it.

  One area I would support mandatory notification is for RfCs and XfDs. While they are not votes, since the number of participants does affect things, I think for transparency and canvassing perception reasons, there should always be notification on the discussion when it was mentioned elsewhere, even if it was the hopefully neutral notification that is required.

  Nil Einne (talk

  ) 08:15, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

  Considering some of the concerns expressed in earlier discussions, I should clarify although I support mandatory notifications in RfCs and XfDs etc when they are mentioned in a noticeboard, I am opposed to any attempts to use failure to notify to invalidate that discussion. By mandatory, my main goal is that if someone does not notify, they can be asked to do so in the future and can't just say "well it's not mandatory so I won't". While such rules-lawyering is discouraged, unfortunately it does happen. Theoretically, this means someone could be blocked for

  WP:disruptive editing if they refuse to, but I find it hard to believe is likely to happen. After all, with mandatory notification for AN//I, when people make mistakes, someone else generally corrects it and the editor who made the mistake is told of the requirements and most accept and try to follow in the future. Maybe it has happened, but I'm not aware of any discussion at one of the ANs about someone persistently refusing to notify. (These closest I can think of is someone persistently refusing to sign.) It's somewhat true that failure to notify at one of the AN's has different consequences in that it can not so much invalidate the discussion, but at least require it be reopened if someone is sanctioned but has something to say and didn't because they weren't aware of the discussion and whatever they say may change people's minds. But then again, this could arise even with notification if the person is away. (Less so now with the 24 hour requirement maybe.) Nil Einne (talk

  ) 13:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• Comment If such a rule is created, I would like to recommend that the text of the rule specifically and clearly state that it's purely behavioral and should not be used to devalue or discard anyone's opinion. Deletion discussions can be contentious enough already. It would not be an improvement to add a new flavor of of rules-lawyering. ApLundell (talk) 21:48, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:CANVASS is a behavioral guideline, you want to start reiteratiung that within such a guideline? I'm told it is creep to say giving out such notices is good practice, We're supposed to describe best practice in guidelines and doing this would help greatly with a number of problems even currently being debated here. Yes it is possible that it might get used in rules lawyering if a case of canvassing is particularly bad or it is repeatedly done. What are we supposed to do in such cases? Wiki lawyers already argue that they are fine having nice cosy in-group meetings because this is not written down anywhere.

Dmcq (talk

) 10:35, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I thought I was clear, but If the proposed rule is created, I believe it should not be possible to use it as justification to invalidate deletion discussions or to discount editor's opinions and !votes. Further, if the proposed rule is created, I would like it to very clearly state whether or not it is allowable to use it as justification to invalidate deletion discussions or to discount editor's opinions and !votes. (Even if the answer to that question is not what I would wish it to be.) ApLundell (talk) 03:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

What I’ve noticed in some articles in Wikipedia is that the ‘Notes’ section usually has information that should be present in “References” instead. I believe it’s time we should revamp the meaning of the notes section in Wikipedia. These are my proposals:

We should use the Notes section in articles to let the readers know about something that otherwise wouldn’t be suitable in hatnotes, such as “This article uses both the GMT timezone in some sections and the EST time zones in others where it is suitable” etc. Although this is present in some articles, surprisingly quite a lot of articles don’t do this.

As a result of that (and bear in mind what I am about to say it is only to see the views of those that will partake in the debate on the following point I’ll be raising), we should also move the Notes section near the top of the page so the reader is aware of any information contained in the Notes section before reading the article. Neon 12:00, 30 November 2019 (UTC — Preceding unsigned comment added by OfficialNeon (talk • contribs) 12:00, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

A move like that disrupts both the format and the flow of the articles. Notes are important clarification or direction, but they are a sideshow to the main subject, and are relegated near the bottom for a reason. I do not think we should mess with a machine that works. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 11:22, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

The primary use of a Notes section that I've seen is for explanatory footnotes related to the article's subject. I'm not sure if you're suggesting to limit Notes to meta-article information. I disagree with moving its position; footnotes are usually written to be read in context. isaacl (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@

which?] in Wikipedia^[where?] is that the ‘Notes’ section usually^[when?] has information that should be present in “References” instead.^{[citation needed]} Discussing this in the abstract makes it a strawman proposal, which is pointless to discuss. What articles are you speaking of, what are their topics, how many are there that fit this pattern you describe? Then we can have an informed discussion about any changes that might need to be made to them. -- FeRDNYC (talk

) 03:22, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

E Super Maker (😲 shout) 01:33, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

For what purpose? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:37, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Things like embedding maps, adding more programming languages for bot development, etc.

E Super Maker (😲 shout) 20:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Seems problematic in a working Wiki. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:37, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Why would it be problematic? It could be a user right. E Super Maker (😲 shout) 00:05, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikitext should be editable by others. There would need to be a concrete proposal relating to improving a specific article. Johnuniq (talk) 00:44, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@

WP:WMA. What do you mean by programming languages for bot development? Suffusion of Yellow (talk

) 01:00, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

This is a horrid idea per mw:$wgRawHtml and mw:Cross-site scripting. It will open up a massive security vulnerability. If the existing, allowed HTML tags are not enough, you should seriously reconsider the approach you're taking. Wug·a·po·des​ 03:14, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

<blink>Please, no.</blink>. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:34, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

<marquee>Oppose.</marquee> SportingFlyer T·C 13:38, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I am pretty sure those both don't work because browsers dropped support for them, not because they are arbitrary HTML. Arbitrary HTML that doesn't work includes <a> and <img>. --Izno (talk) 16:35, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

That was my point :D SportingFlyer T·C 13:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Mixing encoding formats creates complex and sometimes impossible to resolve ambiguities. We already mix percent-encoding, HTML encoding and wikitext encoding in URLs (potentially all three in the same URL) in violation of RFC 3986, it's crazy. -- GreenC 16:17, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

There's so many things I could do if I could insert my own html into Wikipedia pages! Even without Javascript I could do marvels with css. Fiendishly rubs hands together with glee. 😈 H̷̨̺͎̖͈̺̦̳͉͕̲̓̈̕͜è̶̡̠̤̫̭͖̗̗̐̀͗͂͌́́͗ ̴̜̼̖̻̲̃̑̏̽̑͠c̵̩͕̭͓̥̯͉͉̪̖̈́̽̾̉͝͝õ̷̧͓͍̺̱̋̑͜m̶̦̅ẻ̵̖̓́̉͊͐̇͜s̸̪͒̂̚ ̴̛͇̜͙͙̤̣̰͎̪͔͈̻͓̟̩̏͒̐̒͂͘͜͠ͅ ¹ ǝǝɥ ǝǝɥ ǝH So yes my full support (no not really) 12 is quite enough people with that right.

Dmcq (talk

) 16:30, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

¹ disrupting text format esacaped. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:17, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@

Dmcq: You can add CSS, with some minimal constraints. See WP:TemplateStyles. --Yair rand (talk

) 22:54, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, looks enough for me to put in a css game without risking getting blocked :-)

Dmcq (talk

) 13:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@

Dmcq: 12 is quite enough people with that right. Actually it's 11 people and 1 bot, an even more frightening notion. -- FeRDNYC (talk

) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

<blinquee>Please no.</blinquee> - David Gerard (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, how about it be an ability for template administrators? E Super Maker (😲 shout) 20:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@E Super Maker: Are you familiar with Cross-site scripting? How many editors, exactly, do you want to have full control of your account, or do all the privacy-violating stuff here, or, if your browser isn't quite up to date, install malware on your computer? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:58, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Suffusion of Yellow, in the above post it states that only template administrators would have this ability. E Super Maker (😲 shout) 21:53, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

E Super Maker, there are no "template administrators" because there is no such role. There are 9 interface administrators who were chosen for their ability & to minimise the risk to users, and 189 template editors exactly none of whom were chosen after an assessment of their raw html skills. If you want to pursue this further, can I suggest going here. Cabayi (talk) 17:45, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it is too easy for someone malicious to set up underhanded Javascript. Many people will have heard of the

Dmcq (talk

) 13:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

E Super Maker, which specific HTML tags are currently disallowed that you would like to use? Enterprisey (talk!) 19:41, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Far too many vulnerabilities to accept raw HTML onto Wikipedia, see Arbitrary code execution. dibbydib ^💬/_✏ 08:13, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

A lot of times, I've seen people break wikitext (e.g. "[[Example]"), templates, and other things while editing with the source editor. Should there be a new warning on Wikipedia for this in the style of warning templates (e.g. {{

Do we use other warnings for "typos" ? - FlightTime (open channel) 08:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see any need for a template. It's just as easy to write a few words informing an editor of the problem as it is to remember the name of a template.

Phil Bridger (talk

) 09:40, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah... in fact, leaving a non-templated (hand writing) message would be more helpful than a template, as you could explain HOW the edit “broke” the article’s formatting. Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

User:GreenMeansGo/WP:Death by template GMG^talk 20:16, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• If they're clearly editing in good faith, you could always, you know, help them rather than warning them. "Hey, when you edit a foo, remember to change the bar as well. I fixed it on example, take a look at this diff to see what I mean." How difficult is that? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Often the reason I don't bother offering any help at all is that I don't have time. I don't think it's fair to characterize all templates as warnings or rebukes. They can be but they can also be educational, informational, or welcoming. The alternative to a template can sometimes be nothing at all except but an edit summary new users aren't even aware exists, or having their talk post ignored and not knowing why. User:GreenMeansGo/WP:Death by template doesn't seem to be complaining about the existence of specialized templates, but the overuse of them. Or daring to use them at all. It's really a different issue. One of the central complaints is their generic nature. When they aren't specific to the issue, the new user is left scratching their head. Adding a specific template to match the precise issue is an improvement. And the existence of more accurate templates doesn't prevent anyone from exhorting editors to write personalized notes. I do often write personalized notes but I can't always.

My problem with having so many UW templates is finding the one I need when I need it. They're not as searchable as I'd like and the selection trees for them can be slow and clunky. Which can take so much time that I skip it altogether. But that too is not a reason not to create more accurate templates for common issues. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

But, in this case, does it really take you more than a second or two to write, "your edit to

Phil Bridger (talk

) 21:05, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but that's an example of one of those times when a short personal note is all it takes. But that can also be interpreted as terse and rude. Or "broke template" is too jargony to make sense. Or they need links to help pages explaining how the formatting is supposed to work. All this could apply to any "to template or not to template" question. This is more a question of who would create this new template, what are they working on now, and is it more important than this? Or even if adding another template is actually harmful in some way. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I prefer presupplied templates where possible, because it avoids getting stick from people who won't be told. Though they then resort to

WP:DTTR, usually in a spectacular display of thinking that's a refutation and their bad behaviour is fine - David Gerard (talk

) 22:42, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

The proposer here made it clear that this is proposed for good-faith edits that break formatting. Obviously deliberate such action is vandalism, for which we already have escalating templates. Are there really people that are capable of contributing to an English-language encyclopedia, but can't write a sentence or two on someone's talk page without a template? And I can't imagine any circumstance where a personal message would be interpreted as terse and rude, but a templated message would not.

Phil Bridger (talk

) 18:22, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• I threw together {{broken wikitext}}. Hopefully it combines the personal touch of a custom note with the usefulness of a template; I intentionally avoided making it look or feel like part of the uw-* series. Wug·a·po·des​ 21:22, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

A request for comment is in progress to determine whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. Mz7 (talk) 05:52, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi! I'd like to announce a

I noticed on the article "2016 United States presidential election in Arizona" there has been some vandalism to the number of votes in Maricopa County. This leads me to the proposal of protecting a specific section (but not the entire article). I don't think there really needs to be changes to the results by county section. I'm not perfect but I'm almost (talk) 19:29, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't seem technically feasible. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

We've wondered this before, but people can, and do, frequently edit sections (even assuming you weren't deliberately messing with them) so tracking stuff to them is tough. It's related to the difficulty that section watchlisting and some of the suggested talk page changes cause. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this for a rather long time, but I could find no simple way to implement it. The only idea I got was that we can create different subpages for each section, transclude all of them in the article, protect the article's main page (which has no text in it, just some transclusions) and protect each subpage separately, if needed. Maybe an edit filter can check the edit summary and prevent all edits that have the section's name in their summary, but that's easy to bypass. The first method takes a lot of time and effort and I find it unnecessary. Different sections are usually connected to each other, so one will most likely need to protect different subpages. I prefer a usual "article-wide" protect, as the article is likely to be vandalized again, and not necessarily in that specific section. Ahmad^talk 21:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

If a section of an article has been subject to frequent vandalism, would it not make more sense to protect the whole article? If we only protected sections, would that not invite vandals to vandalise other sections of the article in question? Vorbee (talk) 16:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

For that matter, what'll stop them from editing the entire article, and simply removing the section in question entirely, to be replaced with a different one containing the edits they want to make? "A section" is not a discrete unit in the content database, even the section-editing tools are really hacks. (They effectively open the article for editing, then just hide all the bits _outside_ the section in question. The edit is still performed page-wide, which is why it appears in the article history with a section title in the edit summary.) I don't see how it would be technically feasible to protect or otherwise manage any unit of content smaller than an article. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 03:14, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• see perennial proposals for discussion of dealing with sections separately from the article. Not entirely the same as "protection", but relevant enough to read through. — Ched (talk) 04:11, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - This would make it even harder for newcomers to figure out what can be edited. E Super Maker (😲 shout) 00:27, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I wonder whether it is worth putting in a proposal "Wikipedia: Articles for merging"? At

We already have that. See Merger Notice Board. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 08:28, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you User: GenQuest - I do not think I had seen that. Vorbee (talk) 08:51, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the requirement to notify users; there's a big box at the top of pages like

WP:ANI that states, and I quote, "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on the editor's talk page." It's in red. The word "must" is underlined. Short of broadcasting the requirement directly into people's brains using the secret government chip we've all been implanted with, I'm not sure what else should be done to let people know of such a requirement. --Jayron32

16:13, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I know about that box - was putting that box there based on a policy or guideline? If so I think the business here about articles and other transparency should probably go in the same place.

Dmcq (talk

) 19:15, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It was based upon being a thing we should always do.--Jayron32 04:21, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Would't it be wonderful (or dull!) if we all agreed on things that we should always do!

Dmcq (talk

) 11:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• !votes from discussions As far as I can see there is myself, @
  Dmcq (talk
  ) 01:24, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

FYI - my “support” is marginal, at best, and hedged with caveats... I don’t object to adding a brief note in policy encouraging editors to leave notifications... but would oppose any language that would imply that doing so is required. Blueboar (talk) 15:15, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Or to state it in an equally 'neutral' manner, would you insist that discussion to change a page be intentionally diverted away from the Talk page so that it metastasizes to anywhere else on Wikipedia that the page has been mentioned, or would you prefer discussion remain focused on the Talk page of the article it concerns. Or, and here is a novel thought - we actually state it neutrally rather than only pretending to: Do you think that notification on a Talk page when that article page is being discussed in other fora be made preferred practice, or do you oppose making that policy? That is neutrally stating the question. Agricolae (talk) 02:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  Discssions about improving articles do occur on noticeboards, and often for very good reason. As far as I can make out you want to deprecate the current practice of leaving a note on an article talk page and only leave one if editors at a discussion think there is a good reason to invite editors of an article. I think it would be better you raise a proposal to that effect rather than just implementing it personally as what you say is not common practice on most noticeboards. That would give you a good opportunity too to show why there would be no consensus or canvassing issues with what you say.

  Dmcq (talk

  ) 11:12, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  And as far as I can make out, you are utterly incapable of neutrally summarizing the position of anyone with whom you disagree. It is just one absurd strawman after another. The only question that remains is whether you aren't even trying, or if you are trying hard not to. Agricolae (talk) 15:28, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  Well lets see if some more more editors can come along and give their opinion on the matter.

  Dmcq (talk

  ) 15:41, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• PLEASE - comment on the proposal, not other editors. Blueboar (talk) 15:43, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Oppose, generally on

I quite explicitly said it was not about notifying about every mention, only discussions about changing named pages. And I haven't the foggiest how informing editors who watch a page about discussions which may result in changes to it can be counted as canvassing! The notifications mentioned are the commonsense ones! The bureaucracy is needed because as you say and I believe some places have become anti-consensus lobby groups and don't do them. The effect of this RfC would be to say to them that if they start discussing changing a page they should put a notification on the associated talk page. No it won't get rid of the lobby groups - but it will expose them to some light. They probably were set up for a good reason originally and still do some good - exposure to outsiders would help reduce the

Dmcq (talk

) 20:57, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

The business about direct follow-on discussions is to help deal with forum shopping. At the moment we can complain about forum shopping - but editors who have just yesterday discussed the business should be notified if the discussion then moves elsewhere. Complaining that something is forum shopping is not enough to tell interested editors what is happening.

Dmcq (talk

) 21:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

BTW this would not affect boards where just a neutral notification is placed like the various RfC or AfD lists. They might be used to canvass editors but the problem of forming like-minded in-groups is far less when there is no discussion on the board.

Dmcq (talk

) 21:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. I agree with SMcCandlish that it just is not needed, per
  WT:CANVASS, which I think was a reasonable way to notify interested editors. --Tryptofish (talk
  ) 23:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Well I can see this RfC is starting to lose. So you came here via a short notice at WP:CANVASS which is the talk page of the page for which a change is proposed. That is exactly what this proposal describes as best practice and you say is a reasonable way to notify interested readers. There are noticeboards which engage in dscussions like this and where they quite adamantly refuse to give such a notice as standard and in fact hardly ever do. And we have discussions on this page about boards having such discussions and the effects being described as bad. But you say trying to do something which migh ameliorate the effect is creep? That what they do is fine by you? That you would have been quite happy if no note like that had been placed in WT:CANVASS and the same for for other pages you are interested in? Is CREEP really a good and sufficient reason for not trying to fix such boards instead of editors just uselessly complaining at them without any clear backup in a policy or guideline?

Dmcq (talk

) 09:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I'd have to see evidence that such possible misunderstandings of appropriate notifications are a genuine and pervasive problem, as opposed to clueless comments or comments made in bad faith that are readily dismissed. For example, are editors getting blocked for making appropriate notifications? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. SMcCandlish and Tryptofish put it well. This is
  talk
  ) 17:40, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I know your noticeboard has to deal with a lot of crap, and that's probably why you and a few others from there are opposing this proposal, in fact I see only one who isn't from there. But so do lots of other places dealing with China or Israel or Donald Trump or lots of other subjects. But your lot have gone rogue, the guideline is fine but they go far beyond it and seem to think Wikipedia should only have true things rather than being an encyclopeaedia of notable topics. I believe if they followed the norms in the rest of Wikipedia it would curb the in-group mentality characterized by talk of being adults and not having the children disrupt your conversations and having jokes disparaging the topics and the actions of going off as large group to tidy up or delete topics and practically ignoring the editors there and listing lots of policies against them without saying in what way they actually violate a policy or guideline. Saying creep is just a way of dismissing any idea of reforming the noticeboard and denying the problem.

Dmcq (talk

) 13:08, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Here's the thing. No actual evidence of any problem has been presented, just vague grumbling which seemed rooted in upset about the consensus at this AfD.

talk

) 13:23, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't expect you to disagree with all the other people who came along with you to that or see a problem with what you do there or elsewhere. I am pointing out what you do and

Dmcq (talk

) 13:47, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on a community noticeboard is not (and is not like) "off-wiki communication". Still no evidence of a problem has been presented. Evidence would take the form of specifying an instance where something problematic happened, with some supporting diffs.

talk

) 13:53, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

And you don't thingk the next point in

Dmcq (talk

) 14:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

talk

) 14:57, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

So you'd be happy if you were working on an article and then a bunch of people descened on it with fixed ideas because they'd been discussing it elsewhere without you having any straightforward way of finding out about it or contributing? You think that is perfectly okay?

Dmcq (talk

) 17:32, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

In the hypothetical case I'm being fooled into citing a shit source, I would be very happy to be told I was using shit sources. This way I could take corrective action and write based on reliable sources.

b

} 22:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

talk

) 17:42, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Now you're wanting me to raise this to ANI to prove a case before you'll acknowledge a problem. Editors from articles are kept away because the noticeboard does not want their input. How can anybody expect the editors from the noticeboard to then go along and have their minds changed by these editors at an article?

Dmcq (talk

) 17:49, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to prove a case but to provide evidence. You've not done that: no diffs, nothing.

talk

) 19:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per  SMcCandlish and Tryptofish. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 17:39, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Another couple of editors from that noticeboard opposing editors from articles being in their discussions. I raised this here and deliberately did not mention it to see what the wider opinion in Wikipedia is but a bunch of you come along and stack it with opposes.

Dmcq (talk

) 17:49, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@

Dmcq (talk

) 21:32, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Because you've been pushing this line in multiple venues for literally years with no traction - David Gerard (talk) 23:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I did push for something to be done about ten years ago when the noticeboard make a complete messof another article and not since. By your reasoining no AfD's should be done for ten years after the last one failed. I notice the article has recovered from the attentions of the noticeboard but they still try and do stupid things there which go far beyond the guidelines and try and make Wikipedia only have truth not notable things.

Dmcq (talk

) 12:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Do you disagree with me when I see a definite consensus and groupthink problem ... um, I suppose I do, because I find no solid evidence of an actual groupthink problem, just an assertion that one exists. (I am doubtless influenced on this point by the fact that a lot of my interactions on

talk

) 00:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

If you see no problem with discussing changing articles without letting the regular editors know about it and then going along with the people you discussed it with to edit the article? And despite that you think you are open to consensus on the artcle discussing it with theose editors? You really think that follows the policies outlines in

Dmcq (talk

) 12:23, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

In order to see a problem, I have to see a problem. Sweeping generalities without evidence don't cut it.

talk

) 15:13, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - a bad and querulous idea for all the reasons noted above - David Gerard (talk) 23:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It would be really nice if somebody actually gave a good reason rather than 'creep' for not documenting something that is done pretty much as standard everywhere else. Or pointed at something they thought wasn't standard or should be phrased differently.

Dmcq (talk

) 12:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I know that your proposal is a good-faith one, and I know from experience how disappointing it can be to have one's proposal regarded negatively by other editors. Of course, it's nothing personal. But I honestly think that editors have given substantive reasons beyond "creep", and it doesn't help your case to badger everyone who responds to the RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@

Dmcq (talk

) 00:06, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

what about this? 2804:14C:5BB5:8076:15B7:1E14:F2A4:5174 (talk) 02:23, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi 2804... can you point to some specific examples of what you would want it to do? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Have there been any instances where a virus has affected Wikipedia, or has affected readers because of something they have downloaded from Wikipedia? Certainly the former case, and probably the latter, should be dealt with at the level of MediaWiki development rather than by a bot.

Phil Bridger (talk

) 10:04, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

(Proposed by User:Jayron32 on 26 November 2019.)

For info on what sources are deprecated and how they become that way, see Wikipedia:Deprecated sources -- Beland (talk) 16:22, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposal 1: Deprecated sources should be handled as follows

Text which is cited to deprecated sources should be not usually be treated differently than unsourced text. What that means for how to deal with them is as follows:

• No distinction is made in policy between adding a source new or keeping an existing source. For the purpose of policy, adding a source which is deprecated is treated exactly the same as keeping an existing source after it is deprecated, and
  burden
  of that person to provide their own source.
• Deprecated sources can be removed, with an edit summary "removing deprecated source".
• If a deprecated source is to be used or kept, as an exception (either IAR or because a specific exception is noted in the relevant discussion that deprecated the source), then
  WP:BURDEN
  applies to the person who wants to use or keep the deprecated source, and they should start a talk page discussion explaining their desire for the exception. Consensus is required to use or retain the deprecated source, for the specific use, and if the addition or retention of the deprecated source is contested, it is to be removed unless and until consensus explicitly allows for its use.
• Any text that is only sourced to a deprecated source is treated as though it had no source to begin with.
• Removal of deprecated sources should not be done with fully automated tools/bots.
• The person who finds a deprecated source being used in the article has several options for how to deal with the text that was cited to the source. No preference is given to ANY of these options, and no accusations of misbehavior or bad faith should be leveled against anyone who does any of the following responses.
  1. Remove the source and leave the text. The information that was formerly cited to a deprecated source just does not have that source anymore; the rest of the text is left unchanged.
  2. Tag the deprecated source with the {{
     better source
     }} tag and leave it in the article.
  3. Replace the deprecated source with a better source.
  4. Remove the deprecated source and add a {{
     cn
     }} tag.
  5. Remove the deprecated source along with the text it is citing.
• The guidance for when to tag, and when to remove text, is already given in existing policy, and text which has a deprecated source is treated no differently from any uncited text otherwise, that includes policies and guidelines such as
  WP:BURDEN
  and the like.
• The fact that an editor has taken any one of the above actions does not preclude later editors from taking other ones; for example if one editor removes a bit of text along with the source, another editor may add it back with an appropriate source. Or, for example, if one editor tags the deprecated source with the {{
  WP:BRD
  should be used, and when there is a dispute, the disputed text and source are to remain removed unless consensus exists to return it, just as with any disputed text that has no source.

Support/oppose on Proposal 1

• Support as proposer. --Jayron32 19:30, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support with changeOppose I believe proposal 3 is much more in line with what I'd like. If a deprecated source is found to be reliable for a particular citation there should be a way of marking it as such - e.g. to link to a talk page discussion where there was a consensus saying it was okay for the purpose. This is to stop people just removing things that others think are fine.
  Dmcq (talk
  ) 19:39, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support I can add nothing really to the OP.Slatersteven (talk) 19:40, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support proposal 1 - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• Opposed - there is no such thing as a “non-source”... just limits to a source’s use. While deprecated sources are GENERALLY not reliable, there are SPECIFIC circumstances where they are. As an example, the RFC that deprecated the Daily Mail noted that it was reliable in the past, and so historical usage might be an exception. Hell, even Mein Kamph is reliable in very limited situations. If nothing else, deprecated sources are reliable for direct quotes taken from the source (ie when used as a primary source). Blueboar (talk) 20:35, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support, but should be summarized more effectively.

Unless special circumstances applies (such as

WP:ABOUTSELF

), a statement backed by a deprecated source should be treated as no different than a statement backed with no source.

b

} 21:31, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• Tentative support - I think this proposal is thorough, well-written, and well thought out. The only reason I hesitate to fully embrace it is because there are some scenarios where a 'bad' source might be acceptable. For example, there is some debate about whether a Daily Mail article is valid as a source for a topic closely related to the Daily Mail (e.g. "XXX is the new chief editor of the DM"). Michepman (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support if and only if editors who find untagged text cited to deprecated sources are not allowed to remove the source or the text themselves solely on the ground that the source is deprecated (1 or 5 in the list above). No objections to 2, 3 or 4 on the list as these either improve the encyclopedia, or give other editors the chance to improve the encyclopedia before removal. Text cited to deprecated sources is NOT unsourced and shouldn't be treated as such. Iffy★Chat -- 18:53, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - (5) is, in my opinion, just leaves the current problem present so we still end up with the same edit wars as we have been seeing on this subject. I think we need a solution that gives a strong preference to content staying on Wikipedia at least for a time when the only problem with it is a previously non-deprecated source becoming deprecated. I do not like givining editors authority to do mass deletions of content (which is the current modus operandi of some editors) that other users have taken time to craft when the content was not originally problematic. (1) is _effectively_ the same as (5) since an editor can simply remove the citation, then come back a day or two later and remove the content for having no citation. For the same reason as I dislike (5), I dislike (1). We should not be deleting content without strong reasons, and using a previously fine source that has since been deprecated is not a legitimate reason for summary deletion of content. I have created Proposal 3 to try to address these issues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MicahZoltu (talk • contribs) 08:12, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support, although I feel automated removal should be allowed when there's a clear pre-existing consensus for it. This is in-line with the current meaning of depreciation and would fit our normal editing procedures. Individual removals can be tweaked by people who are watching the article (eg. by replacing the content using a better source, if it was removed); if there are not enough people watching the article who care, it is better to err on the side of caution and stick with removal of content with an unreliable source anyway, since articles without many people watching them can become dumping-grounds for nonsense if we're not careful. --Aquillion (talk) 14:07, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose of no benefit to the readers of the encyclopedia, in many cases useful material is being completely lost or incorrectly modified during mass rapid edit sprees. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:17, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose This gist of this seems to be that statements supported by deprecated sources are worse than having no source at all. Maybe true sometimes, but I suspect that if I were to make a large number of edits removing uncited material I would be quickly told to slow down, use some judgement, and engage on the talk page despite
  eric
  19:44, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support. I would suggest three changes, however:

1. Introduction of a new tag: {{deprecated kept}}, where the rationale for keeping a deprecated source can be documented.
2. Allowing for a source to be kept without TP discussion if an editor reviewed it, tagged it and provided a Policy-based justification within the tag for keeping it.
3. Guiding editors toward deletion + tagging instead of just deletion, and towards {{
   cn}}. François Robere (talk
   ) 20:17, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support in general. Obviously there should never be any bar to simply replacing a poor source with a better one, whether or not the poorer source is deprecated. Even if this has consensus it would not change my current practice of tagging rather than removing in the first instance if the content is probably encyclopaedic and unlikely to be controversial. It would allow for bot removal at some later date, which is an interesting idea. Guy (help!) 01:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Strong oppose number 1 and 4 are dumb ideas. They are almost never going to make an article any better but will instead make it worse, making it harder to find an actual source. I have no objections to 2, 3 and 5, although of course we need to take consider carefully how their interact with our other norms on challenging uncited content including mass removals etc. I'm also unsure why this proposal doesn't consider the use of templates like {{deprecated inline}} or even new tags to better emphasise it's a better source. As I've remarked before, if editors are really that worried about readers being confused even by tagging, we could always remove the link, or completely hide the source to readers without messing around with editors by making it difficult for them to fix an article, for no apparent reason. Whatever the case, it would be better if this doesn't pass if it's going to suggest 1 and 4 is okay when they're clearly not, and have never been supported by any policy or guideline, or simple common sense. Nil Einne (talk) 16:47, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Because it is unclear, in particular it doesn't account for timescales. "Deprecated sources can be removed, with an edit summary "removing deprecated source". could be interpreted in two distinct ways (at least): either "Careful consideration of the source and the article is made by an editor, doing some editing. If nothing better can be achieved (which then raises the question of why we'd keep content which is not merely unsourced, but unsourceable.) then remove it. Maybe remove the content too. But this proposal, and that statement can also be interpreted as "Run a 'bot across the whole corpus, and just strip the lot immediately. (With
  WP:MEATBOT if there's a proscription against literal automation.) Because one editor thinks they don't like a particular domain name, or the string /blog/ in a URL. That's unacceptable. Andy Dingley (talk
  ) 20:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support in principle, but I would rearrange the five recommendations in order of preference, ie 3,5,2,4,1. Reyk _YO! 06:57, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The concept of deprecated sources is fundamentally flawed because our citation of sources is context-dependent and so each case has to be judged on its merits. Also, it is our general policy that Wikipedia is itself not reliable and so a
  🐉(talk
  ) 08:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support, mostly. In general, deprecated sources should be removed immediately, on sight. I'm not sure whether it's better to leave the unsourced text or not. I would support some sort of automated removal, with a proper scope and protections in place. – Levivich 03:12, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support -ish? Only insofar as this is kind of a do-nothing proposal (in a good way), in that it hews pretty close to
  Impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, could have a half-life of minutes, deleting unsourced material after one quick search. Problematic parts of an article on an obscure, slow-developing topic in the distant past or in a fictional universe could wait years for each tick of the editing clock to advance. If you're interpreting this proposal in a way that contradicts editing policy, the no, no support for that from me. Follow editing policy; it's a good policy that has stood the test of time because it is robust and flexible. --Dennis Bratland (talk
  ) 17:29, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Everything in this proposal is already covered by existing policy, since
  reliable source, then #1 is the preferred option. I've described the process that I personally use for removing citations of unreliable sources at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 61 § Removal of sources. — Newslinger talk
  01:55, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support, the proposal is spot on and covers all possibilities. The deprecated sources need to be removed, but whether to retain or delete the associated text depends on what reliable sources say about the text cited, and is a matter of editor consensus already covered by policy. It is rare to find reliable sources that back text typically cited to deprecated sources, and the BURDEN should be on the editor wanting to retain the text to produce a reliable source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:20, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. I tend to agree with Andrew Davidson's opinion above about the concept of deprecated sources being flawed. A nutty incident I came across was a source being removed on the grounds that it was deprecated, when its author was the topic of the article. I have also seen sources with embedded videos allowing television news broadcasts to be viewed being similarly deleted.     ←   ZScarpia   02:29, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support. As is usual for these discussions, comments along the lines of "sometimes a deprecated source should be used" are already accounted for because deprecation does not prevent a source from being used, as described in detail at
  WP:DEPS
  . In fact, this proposal specifically (re)states that use of a deprecated source is permitted whenever consensus supports it. It may also be useful to reiterate, in response to objections based on disagreement with deprecation as a general concept, that the practice has been repeatedly endorsed by consensus across multiple discussions.

I also think it’s important to note that even if the outcome here is inconclusive, it's likely that much of it would be supported by consensus regardless (e.g. some of the opposing arguments are focused on objections to specific points rather than the proposal as a whole). I would especially point out the implications of the apparent consensus against proposal 3 below: given the rationales, there appears to be consensus against any restriction that makes removing deprecated sources more difficult than removing any other source (or, as some have put it, giving them "protection"), which is a key point because of its relation to the issue that originally led to this discussion being opened. Sunrise (talk) 05:12, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

If it weren't for the fact that

Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, and that people on a righteous mission don't always slow down to consider details, like whether a specific deprecated source should be used, I might agree with you. What do you say to User:ZScarpia's example? Just someone not following the directions, so nothing to worry about? WhatamIdoing (talk

) 06:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Linking my belated response on user talk after this discussion was archived. Sunrise (talk) 05:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support We have people removing predatory journal articles from WP and replacing them with {{CN}} tags. These predatory journals are generally still more reliable than what we are discussing removing here. We of course want to allow a small number of exceptions such as we do for withdrawn journal articles like Wakefield's paper when we are discussing said paper. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:10, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I saw an instance of that recently. It was the Journal of Pakistan Nutrition, which is now hosted by the less-than-stellar academic publishing house SciAlert. It was cited to support some numbers (e.g., the amount of
    Wikipedia:Text-source integrity and makes the article worse. But apparently their fear of being seen citing a mediocre academic journal is bigger than their fear of having uncited material in articles. I'd feel a lot more respect for the removal if the editors who want to remove mediocre journals made any significant effort to replace the sources with ones they approve of, rather than leaving the rest of us with a bunch of unsourced text and no idea where it originated from. (Hope we don't accidentally cite the same source that was just removed, because they're not leaving future editors any information about what they've deemed unacceptable.) WhatamIdoing (talk
    ) 06:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• I suggest the discussion should happen at the
  WP:LOCALCONSENSUS on a talk page means they can keep a deprecated source, and then it goes to the RSN and their sourcing is rapidly shown to be terrible, e.g. this discussion. To overcome a broad general consensus achieved at RFC, we need an equivalently general countervailing level of consensus - e.g., four people on a talk page shouldn't be able to override two RFCs deprecating the Daily Mail. But that's a minor modification, and broadly it's a good proposal - David Gerard (talk
  ) 19:44, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I left a notice at

WP:RSN for the discussion to happen here. I wanted to have it here to specifically avoid issues with "local consensus" matters; this is a page with a broader reach than RSN, and is better as a "neutral ground" where the discussion would not be colored or influenced by existing discussions at RSN. That is why I considered this venue the best option. --Jayron32

19:49, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Oh, you mean the discussion on the deprecated source usage specifically; I think the article talk page is the best place to house it because it should be in close proximity to where the source is being used; that way people who are unaware of the discussion can find it easier. I would not be averse to leaving a notice at

WP:RSN pointing to the discussion, but a specific usage of a specific source SHOULD be discussed on the article talk page (different from the use of a source in general) RSN should be used for notifications rather than for discussions in those instances. --Jayron32

19:51, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Talk page discussion, with notification to RSN, works for me 100%. And yes, this is the very best place for broad general consensus on this issue - David Gerard (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• Blueboar's objection seems covered by the provisions to allow deprecated sources by consensus - David Gerard (talk) 20:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• @Blueboar:: (edit conflict) I believe you may have missed some of the text in the proposal; your specific objection to it has already been addressed in the bullet point that begins with the text "If a deprecated sources is to be used or kept..." The proposal already assumes that even deprecated sources will have appropriate uses, and allows for such use. Can you please elaborate where you think that bullet point is lacking in addressing uses you may have in mind? --Jayron32 20:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
• On the bot restriction - if this includes AWB, then the proposal would discriminate against editors with physical disabilities. e.g., for JzG, AWB is needed for an accessibility issue related to physical disability, per [1]: I use AWB, largely because the regex makes it vastly easier but also because I have C7 radiculopathy and it maximises the ability to work by keyboard rather than mouse. This strikes me as 100% a reason to use a given tool for editing - and, of course, an editor using AWB accepts all responsiblity for every click of the "save" button in any case - David Gerard (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@

b

} 21:35, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

My only concern would not be for the use of tools such as AWB per se but on the writing of routines and bots for the blind removal of sources. If AWB is being used in a way that makes it clear the user is considering each usage, and responding accordingly, that's fine. If they are just blindly setting up a routine to mass remove all uses, that's a problem. It's the automated nature of removing sources without considering each use, and the use of tools to do it so rapidly that quality control cannot be checked, that is the issue. Otherwise, I would think there wouldn't be a problem. --Jayron32 21:00, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• I would tweak the "fully automated" bit to add "without prior consensus." There are cases where fully-automated removal might be required (especially in the case of spam or if a
  WP:RSN can't allow such edits based on the consensus for this proposal being broader and prohibiting it. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 16:46, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Suggestion -
  The Daily Mail Michepman (talk
  ) 02:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Would that be covered by the case-by-case exception mechanism, or are you after something broader? - David Gerard (talk) 08:42, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Michepman, I think we already know how deprecation works (via RfC at RSN). It's legitimate to ask whether such discussions should also be advertised via CENT. I would not be opposed to that. The Sunday Mail is an edge case and not particularly informative in forming a wider consensus - I don't know of any other instances where two sources of differing reliability share the same website, though I am sure it happens. My view there would be a qualified exception for the print edition of the MoS, but that's just me. Guy (help!) 11:17, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

David Gerard, JzG - OK thanks for clarifying. I am comfortable with tbe current process and don't have any suggestions for changes on my end. In terms of the Daily Mail issue I wasnt sure how widespread of an issue it was but if you're confident that it's an edge case then I think we can leave it as is. Michepman (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• I'm a bit worried about fleshy bots going around deleting stuff based on this, I'd like to make certain editors at an article got a decent chance to do any work needed first. A bot could go around and put a note on the talk page and give some decent timeout for them to mark the use as okay or replace before open season was declared.
  Dmcq (talk
  ) 11:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• Many deprecated sources are used on thousands or even tens of thousands of pages at the time of depreciation, partially because depreciation is an extreme step reserved for cases where a source that is clearly generally unreliable is being used constantly and widely in an unworkable manner. It is simply unreasonable to expect a discussion to occur before every single removal, or to give that sort of chance on so many pages when the usages are often obviously and clearly against the broader consensus - even a bot like you describe would often be tagging simply unworkable numbers of pages. And, after all, the nature of Wikipedia means that even if they go for completely removing the cited text, anyone watching the page can immediately restore it with a better source anyway. --Aquillion (talk) 16:40, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not certain what you're objecting to. Bots are quite good at going around the whole of Wikipedia marking things, surely it is a good idea for them to mark deprecated sources as deprecated? And if they can do that they can for instance put a time on and if that time is expired put a tag on showing no-one has attempted to fix the problem in a reasonable time? And then wikignomes can look around for those tags if they want to and do what they think is fit knowing that the normal editors haven't bothered to deal with the problem..

Dmcq (talk

) 18:35, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm also a bit worried about this opposition to "give that sort of chance on so many pages when the usages are often obviously and clearly against the broader consensus". I believe we should treat the editors of articles with more respect and this is very much against

Dmcq (talk

) 21:25, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Think of it more as "we have 23,000 references that look like they're to a source readers can trust, but actually it's the Daily Mail." Keeping the little blue number when it's deceptive to the reader is bad. Taking out bad sources we literally can't trust does not in any way imply bad faith in the editor who put them there - but they're still bad sources that should be removed forthwith - there is no reason to deliberately leave a bad source in. There is especially no reason to make an assumption of

WP:OWNed and editable as any other edit covered in the edit notice - David Gerard (talk

) 22:08, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

You can't automatically remove all the dependent text using a bot. But you can mark all the citations as deprecated. And that is far better than just removing the citation because it shows the status of the reason for the text. What I'm suggesting would cut down the work involved in checking the citations - the text may have another citation, and editor there may give a good reason why the citation is okay in that context, any number of things. What is the sense in trying to do all that oneself if editors on the articles can do it? And involving editors is a good thing, ignoring them is bad.

Dmcq (talk

) 23:11, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Nothing I've said there implies using a bot, and nothing in your proposal implies using a bot - "fleshy bot" appears to be a term for removals you don't like - David Gerard (talk) 12:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• It should be clarified that the rule would only apply when the source has been disallowed for the specific usage in question. The word "deprecation" gets thrown around a lot as if it has some sort of meaning, but I'm unaware of any formal policy or guideline that defines the term; the exact restriction is written in the closing of each source's RfC and common practices are outlined at the
  WP:ABOUTSELF. –dlthewave ☎
  13:11, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  Dlthewave, yes, and where there is clear consensus to retain a source we could create a template called something like {{deprecated source exception}} to avoid any bot or semi-automated removal. Guy (help!) 11:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• Might I make a suggestion, if there is a concern about people not being given enough time. We only do this to source over (say) six months old, when there has been plenty of time to find a better source.Slatersteven (talk) 17:49, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

We still get a flood of incoming Daily Mail and Sun cites in new and recent articles. I would recommend against a requirement to keep these around for six months, rather than just removing them, pointing out that these sources are deprecated - David Gerard (talk) 18:37, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Six months does seem too long to me, I'd say one month in case an interested editor is on holiday, and the cite should be marked as deprecated as soon as possible. However I think it very important to allow editors at an article time to fix problems themselves to encourage participation in Wikipedia rather than have editors with no interest except cleaning Wikipedia come along and blast at the article without anything more than a templated comment. It shows disrespect.

Dmcq (talk

) 21:35, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

It has the danger of being bitey, but I've found it works quite well if I link them to

WP:RSP - so they know there's a reason. (Also, TV editors are delighted to find that Digital Spy has been considered actually quite a good source for TV stuff.) - David Gerard (talk

) 22:02, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why Remove the source and leave the text is on the list of possible, generally acceptable courses of action (and in the first position, at that). I would expect that in pretty much any circumstance, it would be better to replace a deprecated source with one of our famous {{
  talk
  ) 22:33, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  Removing a deprecated source while leaving the text intact is appropriate when there is at least one reliable source that fully supports the affected text. For example, if [1] were a deprecated source and [2] were a reliable source that supports the entire sentence, both The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.^[1][2] and The quick brown fox^[1] jumps over the lazy dog.^[2] would be reduced to The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.^[2] — Newslinger talk 00:36, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

• I could probably be talked into supporting 1 - 4. 5 is a tough one for me though. — Ched (talk) 23:31, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• The reason for leaving the text should be stated on the talk page, and the Cn tag should have Reason=See item xxx on talk page. This would avoid the need to search for (sometimes fruitlessly) a replacement for a good source which has simply disappeared from the interweb, and would tend to reduce instances where the substituted source is on topic but does not address the specific text adequately. Downsize43 (talk) 23:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
• I like François Robere's suggestions, though he may mean {{deprecated inline}} :-) - David Gerard (talk) 00:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Corrected, thanks. François Robere (talk) 11:24, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support with revision - "Text which is cited to deprecated sources should be not usually be treated differently than unsourced text." should be, "Text which is cited to deprecated sources should be treated similarly to unsourced text." In which case I would support. EllenCT (talk) 10:30, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposal 2 - create a “Deprecated sources review board”

Proposal 3

1. A bot automatically marks all deprecated sources as {{
   better source
   }} (with a note/timestamp in the template that this was a deprecation removal, so we can track it).
2. 6 months after deprecation a bot updates all instances of {{
   cn
   }} (with a note/timestamp in the template that this was a deprecation removal, so we can track it).
3. 12 months after deprecation editors are free to remove content that is only supported by a {{
   cn
   }} with the appropriate tracking note in it. This can be done without discussion and with a an edit reason of "Unreliable Source" or "Deprecation Cleanup".
4. During those 12 months, an editor may replace the source with a better source.
5. During those 12 months, an editor may remove the content for normal editing reasons other than "Unreliable Sources" (e.g., if the content doesn't fit within the article, or the article is being rewritten in a way that doesn't include the content).
6. During those 12 months, concensus on the talk page for the article can agree on removing the content.
7. During those 12 months, concensus on the talk page for the article can agree to re-add the original source because
   WP:CONTEXTMATTERS
   .
8. During those 12 months, reverts without discussion and only citing a reason of "Unreliable Source" would be treated as vandalism (same as deleting any other content without discussion or valid reason).
9. From the time of deprecation, no new content can be added that references a deprecated source without prior talk page discussion and concensus.
10. From the time of deprecation up to 12 months after deprecation, if content referencing a deprecated source is removed by vandalism (see above), it can be re-added as part of normal vandalism reversion process (this is not considered adding new content).
11. After the 12 month window, a deprecated source effectively becomes a blacklisted source by nature of the ban on adding new content, and the fact that all old content should have been removed by now outside of limited
    WP:CONTEXTMATTERS
    cases.

Support/Oppose on Proposal 3

• Support as proposer.
  talk
  ) 08:03, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I believe the above strategy aligns with the connotative meaning of deprecated, and doesn't result in deprecated just being another word for blacklisted. It also gives very clear guidelines for what is acceptable editor behavior so there should be minimal edit warring outside of outright vandalism (which Wikipedia already has ways of dealing with). The fixed timelines make it so everyone has plenty of time to address the issues, and changes do not come as a surprise to any users.

The 6/12 month timelines could be adjusted if that is desired. I don't personally believe that deprecated sources are so intrinsictly bad for Wikipedia that they need to be immediately removed (that is what blacklisted sources are for) and I think that the editing process should tend to favor the assumption that other editors are acting in good faith and the content that was added is generally reasonable. I also think that bot-like deleting of content other users took time and energy to add to the site is very hostile, especially to newbies, and should be avoided/limited/telegraphed as much as possible. Deletion of content added by others should generally be a last resort, and we should strive to always give the author plenty of opportunity to improve before we delete their work so we can be a welcoming community to new editors.

talk

) 08:03, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• SupportOppose It gives users time to find better sources. However I missed the part about vandalism, I support the autobot part, but not restrictions on human users.Slatersteven (talk) 09:18, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support Bit long winded and the time period is long but overall yes I can stand firmly behind this. Deprecated definitely desn't mean fire and brimstone should immediately be rained down on all uses.
  Dmcq (talk
  ) 10:15, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose This literally gives deprecated sources more protection than merely bad sources. And new links to deprecated sources are added all the time - there's really no justification for protecting those known-bad additions for six to twelve months - David Gerard (talk) 11:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per David Gerard, and invalid RFC in that this seeks to undermine
  WP:BLP in that it doesn't make an exception for unreliable sources used to source negative claims about a living person; we are required to remove those on sight, and, again, this invalid RFC cannot change that because the core principle of BLP is not subject to consensus. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 13:58, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support seems like the least bad option. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 15:10, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support this would protect material being summarily removed for which other sources (once checked) can be used. It would also reduce the risk of good faith editors not understanding why sources are being removed with misleading summaries, the tag will give them time to understand the true meaning of deprecation in the Wikipedia sense, which in actuality is very different from the kind of wholesale bans we've seen being implemented. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:34, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Strong oppose #5 alone is a dealbreaker. If a shit source is used, people should be entirely free to remove said shit source, alongside the shittely sourced content. Just like everywhere else.
  b
  } 15:57, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose all except #1 - A "better source bot" would make it easier to locate and remove or improve bad sources. The rest of it adds unnecessary bureaucracy and arbitrary timeframes that would make it harder to address bad sources and open the door to process-based wikilawyering. "Deprecated source" has no official meaning and sources marked as such should be treated just like any other unreliable source. –dlthewave ☎ 18:45, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Aquillion's (core policies) argument.—
  eric
  20:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because of A/ its incompatibility with core policy, B/ its complexity, in turning what is usually a simple discussion on a talk page into multiple steps and C/ an attempt to replace human judgment with automated tools in an area where judgment and nuances are essential. DGG ( talk ) 20:58, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would prevent valid removals of BLP violations and other problematic content drawn from terrible sources. Guy (help!) 00:58, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Incompatible with core policy and goes to the heart of what Wikipedia is (or should be).
  talk
  ) 03:56, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as others have said, this proposal is simultaneously complex, while going against our policy and guidelines. For example although technically it could be argued that removing an unreliable source for reason 'unreliable source in a BLP' doesn't come under number 5, it's way to unclear to me. Nil Einne (talk) 16:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per all the above. See note below on automation. François Robere (talk) 17:44, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose this and any other proposal that introduces bureaucratic hurdles to the prompt removal of deprecated sources. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:48, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Mostly support I like the idea in general as a reasonable compromise. However the tags should be separate and distinctive (although similar), just for clarity. Also "a deprecated source effectively becomes a blacklisted source" at the conclusion is against
  WP:DEPS. This should be a cleanup measure to encourage the implementation of policy, not a back-door change to that policy. Andy Dingley (talk
  ) 09:50, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

FYI there's no policy or guideline on deprecation. It's something that we just sort of started doing one day, and

WP:DEPS attempts to document that practice. –dlthewave ☎

12:36, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

• OPPOSE Un-reliable sources need to be killed on sight. Debate, if any, can follow, the controversial information can always be added back later if a
  reliable source presents itself. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"}
  10:15, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The concept of deprecated sources is fundamentally flawed because our citation of sources is context-dependent and so each case has to be judged on its merits. Also, it is our general policy that Wikipedia is itself not reliable and so a
  🐉(talk
  ) 08:59, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. There's no such thing as a fully deprecated source; there are plenty of occasions on which we (e.g.) will need to cite the Daily Mail when the contents of one of their articles is the topic of the article and we want to ensure readers are able to verify the exact wording for themselves. Unless and until a bot is capable of understanding the difference between primary and secondary sourcing, any attempts at automated removal will lead to large-scale disruption. ‑ 
  Iridescent
  09:12, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
• MORAL support for all but 8 Most of the above seems reasonable, and I'm a little surprised that many people are oppose to the proposal as a whole based primarily on a problem with this one bullet point. Automating much of this process seems reasonable enough, but I'm not much of a techie, and I find it hard to believe that MicahZoltu, who three weeks ago had only 20 edits to his name, would know much more than I do. All that being said, with the inclusion of bullet point 8 I don't think we can allow this proposal to pass and place even more of a burden on those seeking to remove poorly sourced content. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:13, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose- bullet point 8 automatically rules this out. No prejudice against considering a version that omits this it in favour of something more sensible. Reyk _YO! 13:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Aquillion and DGG's reasoning. I support some of the bullets but am strongly opposed to others; this is too many things lumped into one proposal. – Levivich 03:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per David Gerard and Aquillion. Deprecated sources are
  core content policies. It would be inconsistent to extend special protections to deprecated sources that are not extended to other sources. Bullet points #3–7 describe actions that are already available to editors. — Newslinger talk
  00:50, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because marking worse sources as better is likely to be confusing. EllenCT (talk) 10:36, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on Proposal 3

• Good sources don't get a twelve-month protection from removal. Why should known-bad sources? - David Gerard (talk) 12:40, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Good, reliable sources don’t NEED a “pause before removal”, because no one is likely to remove them. Unreliable sources don’t need a “pause before removal”, because we agree as a community that they are not appropriate. Deprecated sources DO need a “pause before removal” because they are neither fish nor fowl... They are neither reliable nor unreliable. It depends on context. The pause is to examine that context, and to determine if that context is one of the limited situations where the use of the deprecated source is appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Well said. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

RfC. I don't see any valid reason to specially protect deprecated sources when questionable sources are usually considered inappropriate. — Newslinger talk

01:03, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

It is extremely simplistic to say "Deprecated sources are those listed on a wiki page. All content from such sources is equally bad." Andy Dingley (talk) 13:17, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Content can be removed for normal content removal reasons, just not for "Unreliable Source" during the window. This effectively treats the source as "fine for now, will become blacklisted eventually". There is no additional protection given to the content or the source beyond the protection from being removed as "unreliable source" (which a good source would also have). If the content is inappropriate for the article, if it is vandalism, if it violates other policies, etc it can still be removed per normal Wikipedia editing policies. Basically, treat the source as "fine" for pre-existing content during the transitionary period, but with a warning to users that the source is going to become blacklisted after a time and they should take measures to address the situation if they want the content to remain.

talk

) 12:53, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Not long ago, someone removed one of these so-called "known bad" sources and modified content, replacing the "known bad" source with a "not-known bad source". Thing was, the so-called "known bad" source was absolutely 100% accurate, and the replacement was wrong, and factual inaccuracies were literally added to Wikipedia. This is why we can't get even close to automating this process, particularly when the use of these sources is contextual and even per DEPS, agreed reliable in some circumstances. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:19, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• But I can currently remove any source I feel is unreliable with "unreliable source", with the content cited to it if I don't think finding a source for that content is likely to happen. I can even do so on a dozen articles or a hundred articles, if I want to be fairly
  WP:BOLD about it or am extremely confident that the source is unreliable, without any discussion or RFC of any sort in advance. This proposal would redefine "deprecation" to give such sources special protection for months on end, which is extremely misleading - I would still be able to mass-remove sources that haven't been discussed, but sources that the community has agreed are severely unreliable in all cases would be specially protected? Absurd. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 14:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

And new links to deprecated sources are added all the time - there's really no justification for protecting those known-bad additions

• talk
  ) 12:57, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
• As I mentioned in my response, I feel that this proposal is invalid (as in, it cannot be implemented even if it obtains consensus here.) It would redefinine "depreiated" in a way that would effectively overturn every RFC that has ever used the term, and I would even argue that it wouldn't apply to any future RFCs that use the term unless they specifically incorporate its text in the RFC proposal, since its meaning is idiosyncratic to the point of meaningless. "We want to deprecate this source" does not mean "we want to provide special protections for existing usages of this source", and, therefore, any RFC that decides on deprecation would override this RFC unless the response here is extremely high (as most of the RFCs this seeks to undermine were.) --Aquillion (talk) 14:12, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

talk

) 15:13, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Blacklisting a source adds an edit filter to prevent people from using it, and requires that it be removed as soon as possible. Deprecation merely establishes a consensus that it can be removed on sight, raising the burden of anyone who wants to object to a removal by requiring that they answer the consensus in the RFC. Note, even without formal deprecation, and even without any existing discussion, any unreliable source can be removed on sight with an edit reason of "unreliable source" - in fact,

WP:RS, with the caveats just being disagreement over whether a source is reliable in that context and whether to remove / replace. It is not something an RFC is required for, and certainly not something this RFC could restrict. --Aquillion (talk

) 20:19, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

talk

) 15:13, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

The only thing you cannot do is remove the source/content for the reason of "Unreliable Source". Incorrect.

WP:RS and is therefore not possible - unreliable sources are always at least potentially subject to immediate removal. --Aquillion (talk

) 20:19, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Nitpick, but an important one I think for this particular conversation:
  WP:RS
  .

I'd support users being able to use deprecated sources provided they mark the use as such and it gives their justification. Normal talk page discussions can deal with anything beyond that. Not that it is blacklisted like spam.

Dmcq (talk

) 15:21, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

We can add a "none grandfather" clause that says this only applies to cites 12 months old, after this new proposal comes into effect. Any source added after this date is still subject to summery removal.Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• How do you tell the age of a given source in an article? It's considerable faff with the history. The proposal throws up gratuitous roadblocks, and still specially-protects the worst sources - David Gerard (talk) 17:15, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I did not say it was easy, but I thought this was a bot? Would it not be possible to have that bot only mark cites added before a certain date?Slatersteven (talk) 17:44, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• As mentioned above, this proposal cannot "come into effect" as written.
  WP:RS, to say "this source is not reliable, but we are going to use it here for twelve months anyway." --Aquillion (talk
  ) 20:37, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Again I think this is just about an automatic bot.Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne Would you be more amenable to this proposal if BLP was specifically called out (as is common in many guidelines and policies)? Or does the complexity of the guideline still leave you in the oppose camp? Micah Zoltu (talk) 17:13, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• A note on automation: I generally support more automation on Wikipedia (see §1-2 in the proposal). I think there's place for a separate discussion on automated scan-and-tag (with {{
  cn}}) after 12-24 months of inactivity. François Robere (talk
  ) 17:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to automation for this. The simple fact is, there are nuances to dealing with deprecated sources that a bot simply can not handle. It has to be done the hard way... case by case and by hand. Blueboar (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• What if instead of {{
  cn}} we create a new tag (ie {{cndr}}) specifically indicating citation needed because deprecated source removed? Hyperbolick (talk
  ) 18:58, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I like that idea,
    talk
    ) 15:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

You profoundly misunderstand policy, yes.

WP:BLP situations you are required to remove unreliable sources on sight, and restoring them is not permissible without a clear consensus supporting restoration.) --Aquillion (talk

) 20:35, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

So (lets give you are scenario) someone (using a deprecated or dare I say it even banned source) uploads say "Slaves in the south were happy being slaves" that should stay because it is sourced? Or "NASA never landed on the moon" or "Kennedy was killed by Tuffty club assassins to demonstration how dangerous roads are"?Slatersteven (talk) 14:00, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• Great examples Slatersteven. I think what I would like to see in such a situation is at least a claim made by the person removing the content that the information is likely untrue. Part of the problem I'm witnessing both in the issues that lead to this thread and throughout other parts of Wikipedia is that editors are just saying "Unreliable Source" and deleting content without trying to find an alternative source, and for content that is largely undisputed. As an example, if you have 100 unreliable (but not deprecated/blacklisted) sources that all say that X happened, and 0 reliable sources that say otherwise, and little to no reason to believe that the data is incorrect, I think we should err on the side "keep the content". Of course, such a strategy applied without thought has its own set of problems such as people creating 100s of unreliable sources to make some claim no one would report contrary to (e.g., celebrity X was an extra in movie Y, no one will report that celebrity X was not an extra in movie Y). Regardless of which side we land on on this issue, editor judgement needs to play a larger role than is being employed currently.
• TL;DR: I think the root problem that people are frustrated with is that some editors do not appear (not implying bad faith) to be applying judgement to their editorial strategy. They appear (not implying bad faith) to be doggedly adhering to policy/guidelines without regard to context. This thread, I believe, is essentially other editors trying to formalize a set of rules that will protect Wikipedia from such edits, but in reality I think the core problem is that context and judgement are either not being used or there is disagreement on context and judgement (likely), and disputing context/judgement is really hard and will very often result in an edit war. I don't think I have a good solution for how to deal with editors who don't apply judgement/context, and even less of a solution for dealing with editors who disagree on context/judgement. I don't think any proposed solutions to the problem, including the status quo, will actually resolve this core problem. This problem is particularly bad since a
  WP:GAME. Micah Zoltu (talk
  ) 15:09, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Which I agree with, because everyone things their loony theory is logical, factual and not disproved (often because RS cannot be bothered to even look at it). Moreover this also reds a bit ORy, "well I think this sounds reasonable, so lets keep it". NO, our cornerstones are verifiable in reliable sources, not logic or reason or persuasive argument (I have recently seen a block for just this sort of argument). Also we do have

wp:undue, if no one who is significant gives a damn why should we?Slatersteven (talk

) 15:39, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• people are frustrated with is that some editors do not appear (not implying bad faith) to be applying judgement to their editorial strategy. They appear (not implying bad faith) to be doggedly adhering to policy/guidelines without regard to context. It is remarkably forthright of you to admit that you find our core policies to be frustrating, but they are, nonetheless, core policies. If you're in a disagreement with someone who you think is misapplying
  WP:BLUE, I suppose.) --Aquillion (talk
  ) 18:35, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Existing methods work quite well on loony theories. The problems arise when there is genuine disagreement between responsible editor on wha controversial matter, because the general (and appropriate) way of conducting an argument on disputed content is to attack the reliability of the sourcing. Any attempt to set up a complicated procedure here will provide more opportunities for those WPedians who are in the majority here to decrease the amount of coverage of other views or even remove them entirely. (I almost always agree myself with the majority position here in most such questions, but the proper way of explaining it is to give every view a proportionate coverage, not try to decrease it by focussing on deprecating every source used while ignoring the possible dubiousness of some of thes ources that agree with the majority.) NPOV requires active measures to counter the inevitable tendency to want content to support what one thinks ought to be the case. DGG ( talk ) 21:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  DGG, that's a risk, but I'd be interested in specifics. Normally I have not found it difficult to document genuinely significant insanity from reliable sources. We've learned how to deal with this through long experience with Truthers. MONGO is particularly good at it. Guy (help!) 11:37, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• Suggest a two-step process to avoid excess abruptness. First, tag content {{better source needed}} to give heads up on problematic source. In a few weeks, remove bad source, change tag to {{citation needed}}. In a few weeks more, if no better citation given, then delete content. Hyperbolick (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• This is the same as Proposal 3 above I believe, just with shorter time frames. If you agree with that, I would encourage you to express your support above with a caveat that the timeframes should be shorter. I would personally be fine with shorter time frames. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MicahZoltu (talk • contribs) 21:28, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• Point is, content is not the same as source. If the claim that the Pope is Catholic is cited to an unreliable source, does it ever make sense to remove both source and claim? Hyperbolick (talk) 21:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• Reading back over Proposal 3, I think I poorly phrased the last step in the process. My intent with the last step in the process is that any content referencing a deprecated source would be "open season" by editors for removal with prejudice. This wouldn't override Wikipedia policy by demanding that the sky is blue is deleted because no one updated the source to a non-deprecated source, it would just move the onus from the person removing the content to strongly back up their claim (which would be the operating procedure during the 12 month window) to the person wanting to retain it to strongly back up their claim. The purpose of Proposal 3 is give people time to fix pages they care about before editors come in and do mass deletions with minimal editorial research. Micah Zoltu (talk) 21:55, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• The phrasing isn't the issue. Material without a reliable source can be removed at any time by any editor, and a reliable source must be produced to restore it. You cannot change that, fullstop. --Aquillion (talk) 18:35, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• As I already said above, we cannot set the process you're requesting. It is a violation of
  WP:V cannot be changed by editorial consensus and, therefore, any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 18:29, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• I largely agree with you at this point, see my TL;DR above. I think the real underlying problem here (which it sounds like you agree is a problem if it is occurring) is that there is the appearance/belief that some editors are not trying to find alternative sources, are not using judgement to decide whether the claim is exceptional or not, or are doing mass reverts/deletes rather than precise deletions. This sort of behavior is hard to prove since the editor can just say "the claim seems exceptional to me" or "oops, didn't mean to delete that" over and over again and it becomes exhausting to cleanup after such a person and debate them over and over again, even if you are winning the exchanges. On top of that, since following someone around and fixing their mistakes is generally not allowed, you may end up getting in trouble for trying to protect Wikipedia from such an editor. This is what leads to proposals like these, where people are trying to figure out a way to protect Wikipedia from a perceived problem. Micah Zoltu (talk) 18:44, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Exactly... the issue is that, as a community, we really do not like it when editors make mass edits (even when those edits are totally in line with policy ... people have been sanctioned for going on policy “enforcement crusades”). Go through a series of articles, one at a time over the course of several months, and remove/replace poor sources and iffy content... no one gets upset. Do the same all at once, and the edits appear unthinking (even when they are not), and the edits are deemed disruptive.

The community agrees that certain sources should be deprecated... and that in most (but NOT all) situations they should either be replaced or removed. But we ALSO want that done carefully (because there ARE exceptions to deprecation). And THAT means we have to do it the hard way... one citation at a time... slowly and by hand. Blueboar (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

This is literally what I do - you're battling a straw man - David Gerard (talk) 20:04, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Blueboar, what you're saying - and it's absolutely true - is that you can get away with purging all references to a crap source (a predatory journal, say) as long as you do it in a way that nobody notices.

We have strong support for identifying sources that are generally unreliable, super-strong support for RS as a principle, but no documented consensus around the inevitable corollary that once a source has been identified as unreliable it should be removed, despite a long history of having done exactly that (e.g. with Breitbart).

So while you're right that removing over a period of time is certainly less likely to cause drama, that arguably introduces a policy that you can only remove sources as long as nobody notices, which is unsatisfactory and more or less guaranteed to result in drama. Guy (help!) 11:34, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere. New RfC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Use of Decorative Quotes in article space, and the Cquote template

DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 00:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Please check your link as this is going off wiki for me. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

The correct link is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Use of Decorative Quotes in article space, and the Cquote template. Outriggr (talk) 05:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

It has been changed to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Use of Large Quotes in article space, and the Cquote template. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:22, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Fixed the pointer in case anyone else goes offwiki. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Added the {{Anchor}} with the previous title of the section (Special:diff/933856733). --CiaPan (talk) 11:19, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I’m first time here, and no expert. In my search, I didn’t find a discussion of this issue.

I’m a regular user of Wikipedia, but have only contributed once before this. My issue is article introductory paragraphs, which frequently are so precise that, for the average reader of an unfamiliar topic, the summary point is lost. My issue is well summarized by this comment I found in a thread on a technical website:

@MontyHarder, actually, I liked the simplicity of the explanation before, without getting so deep into terminology. This is the problem with community edited solutions like Wikipedia: simple explanations that get the idea across get mangled to the point of unreadability for beginners simply because experts aren't satisfied with the technical precision. – Wildcard Mar 29 '17 at 23:53

Or more simply: the perfect is the enemy of the good.

IMHO, when someone starts or edits a wiki entry, I would hope such a reminder would be the first guideline they see.

Comprehension is the key to the introduction. When I comprehend the overview, I’m much more likely to explore its nuances.

Many thanks for your consideration.Urbanist27 (talk) 16:48, 30 December 2019 (UTC)Urbanist27

We try to provide a readable lead but sometimes we miss the boat. If you have an article in mind, you are welcome to provide feedback on the talk page or at one of the WikiProjects tagged in the talk page. --Izno (talk) 17:50, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Most articles in Wikipedia could do with improvement, and the lead sections of articles about technical subjects need lots of improvement. As an example, I am a postgraduate student of mathematics, but I find many of the leads of our articles on mathematical topics impenetrable, because they appear to be written like advanced text books rather than provide an introduction for the interested and intelligent reader who is not an expert in the particular sub-field. Technical experts in such fields do not tend to be particularly good writers of English at the appropriate level. I don't know that there is much we can do about this apart from edit articles to improve the situation.

Phil Bridger (talk

) 18:03, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

There are sometimes tags at the tops of articles saying things like "This article needs additional sources for verification". I am sure I have, on occasion, seen tags saying something to the effect of "This article's introduction may not summarize its key points clearly" - if the introduction is unclear, this tag could go at the top of the article. Vorbee (talk) 09:02, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The relevant templates are listed at

Phil Bridger (talk

) 09:49, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Lead Improvement Team is appropriate. For myself, I often edit introductory paragraphs. Mathematics is perhaps the field most in need, but medicine, sociology and others also suffer. I must confess, as an old communication technician I sometimes review articles I wrote on that topic a decade ago and realize, I am nearly as guilty as any mathematician. It's easier to translate from a technical jargon that I barely understand, than from a jargon that's practically my native language. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:33, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I would like to create a new category called "Category:parent categories." category:Classification categories. it would be only for the highest category in a group of sub-categories that are all iterations of the same distinction. right now, we have Category:Container categories, but it is totally repetitious, and therefore of little use.

Therefore under my idea, THIS would be a parent category: ► Category:Olympic competitors by country‎ (220 C)

while THESE would not, although all of them currently appear in the category Category:Container categories.

► Olympic competitors for Afghanistan‎ (6 C) ► Olympic competitors for Albania‎ (7 C) ► Olympic competitors for Algeria‎ (19 C) ► Olympic competitors for American Samoa‎ (5 C) ► Olympic competitors for Andorra‎ (8 C) ► Olympic competitors for Angola‎ (8 C) ► Olympic competitors for Antigua and Barbuda‎ (3 C) ► Olympic competitors for Argentina‎ (36 C) ► Olympic competitors for Armenia‎ (17 C) ► Olympic competitors for Aruba‎ (5 C) ► Olympic competitors for Australasia‎ (8 C) ► Olympic competitors for Australia‎ (47 C) ► Olympic competitors for Austria‎ (40 C) ► Olympic competitors for Azerbaijan‎ (16 C) ► Olympic competitors for Bahrain‎ (6 C) ► Olympic competitors for Bangladesh‎ (5 C) ► Olympic competitors for Barbados‎ (6 C)

► Olympic competitors for Belarus‎ (31 C)

thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 04:34, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Why Category:Olympic competitors by country, not Category:Olympic competitors? The definition you proposed feels a little arbitrary. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:40, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

okay, but in that case, why have Category:container categories in the first place? what purpose is served by having 157 subcategories placed there, that are all repetitions of the same iteration, i.e. "X by country," "X by century," etc etc?

My point is that if a group of subcategories exist that are all "X by Y," then it would be far more useful to have "parent categories" to group the individual parent category for each such individual distinction, together, rather than including the same iteration over and over for each distinction as we do in Category:Container categories, for every century in history, or every country in the world, or every occupation in society, or what have you, etc etc etc ad absurdum.

so ultimately, it would include every category here that is "something by something", but not each and every recurring iteration of the same thing, so it would have several categories that are "'something' by country", but it would not have every resulting iteration, as in "something by Algeria," "something by Argentina," "something by Australia," "something by Albania," etc etc etc. --Sm8900 (talk) 04:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

"okay, but in that case, why have Category:container categories in the first place?" Maintenance. Essentially, it's a tracking category for categories that either use the template {{Container category}} directly or the container=yes parameter of a small number of other category-templates. So that means that if, for some reason, something about that template needs to be updated across all categories, it's easy to find all of 'm. It means that if for some reason, policy or guidelines regarding container categories change, it's easy to find most* of them (*no doubt there's some lingering around that technically are but haven't ever been properly tagged, hence not all) to verify they all fit those changed policies/guidelines. Its use is "finding a particular type of category (namely, those that are container categories)" not "finding a particular style of category" (x by y, x in y, y of x & so on) nor "finding categories with a particular type of mainspace content". AddWittyNameHere 05:27, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The optimal solution is probably adopting WP:Category intersection with an actual 2020 UI that supports it. That means a page in category like "Olympic competitors for Argentina" will be tagged with "Olympics", "Competitors" and "Argentina" (or something like that) and in the UI you can mix tags to find what you are looking for. This saves a lot of time on the creation and maintenance of categories. But as the UI for Wikipedia itself is stuck in the early 2000s, I doubt this will ever be implemented or if implemented, be remotely useful. --Gonnym (talk) 09:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

New proposal

• New proposal. okay, but in that case, doesn't my idea sound kind of intriguing? come on, you guys!!! I do find "container categories" mildly interesting, but impossible to browse through. i think it'd be neat to have a real "container category", i.e. one that only shows other categories that need to be "containers," but without repeating the same iteration over and over and over again. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I am open to alternate names on this. how about some of these possibilities?

See also the categories classification categories, holder categories, branch categories, trunk categories, subdivision categories, and source categories

open to comments. I have changed the section name. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 18:36, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gonnym:, what do you think? thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Sm8900, What problem are you trying to solve? How might your proposal help readers/editors? Do you think other editors would understand which pages belong in your proposed category? DexDor ^(talk) 19:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

DexDor, those are excellent questions. briefly, my original reason was that I thought that Category:container categories was meant to help users in browsing categories, but that it was too over-populated to really let them do so. Now that a commenter explained above that it is for maintenance, perhaps that does somewhat reduce the original basis for my original idea; however, I still think my original idea is valid; it would allow users to browse through multiple classification folders easily if they wish, allowing people to have a broader perspective of the categories out there.

as an example, here is another category that I created, along with almost ALL of its sub-categories. Category is: Category:History overviews by topic. do you see what I mean? I favor categorization as a way of enabling users to browse, and to get easier or better oversight of broad areas that they might not otherwise see. so therefore, I do see this idea as one more such tool, simply as an alternate method and approach to browsing here.

as far as users understanding the scope, we could make sure they do so. I would add some degree of notes on the category, and would welcome input from everyone on how to improve such notes. --Sm8900 (talk) 19:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose any expansion of categories. The proposal seems to be a make-work project with little to be gained. The whole antiquated category system should be replaced by list articles, and certainly not expanded. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 20:03, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Any other comments??

Okay, fair enough. any other comments? I would presume that this proposal can only stay here for a limited time. --Sm8900 (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sm8900: there is no rush - eventually if no one continues it will be bot archived. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:11, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

This comment pertains to a Commons file, but was posted on the enwiki File talk page where it will be missed and most likely never actioned. As you can see from running through the file talk page list or better yet the file talk page recent changes list, this is far from uncommon. Is there a way - an edit filter, some kind of warning - to tell people that if a file is on Commons, comments on it (rather than WikiProject templates or such) should probably go there? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, could be done by editing Template:Editnotices/Namespace/File talk whether the file is on the commons or not can be found using the ifexist parser function. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 11:18, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I've set up a sandbox version which can be seen in action when editing File talk:Granby crater LC08 L1TP 194019 20181205 20181211 01 T1.jpg. Feel free to edit the message at Template:Editnotices/Namespace/File talk/sandbox, I may perhaps made it too aggressive. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 12:00, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Because the community consultation cited in support of the meta:Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 movement brand project did not include the question, and to the extent that it may have been implied, community agreement with the proposals did not achieve majority support, I have created meta:Requests for comment/Should the Foundation call itself Wikipedia. EllenCT (talk) 20:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

hi. I have a new idea for a new Wikipedia policy. in fact I am thinking this should be a sixth pillar. Here it is: "Wikipedia has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any individuals." what do you think? I have observed some gaps in that area. if anyone is interested, let me know, and I'll write more details. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

What does "note re idea" mean? GoodDay (talk) 14:29, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

It means "comment with regard to an idea". See the second definition of re if that's the source of your confusion. I would suggest to the OP that they avoid using headings that give no clue as to the topic of the thread; i.e. one could use "note re idea" for most discussions on this page or any other. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Pillars are never this specific, and harassment falls under the broader

Pillar 4. We already have a policy at Wikipedia:Harassment, and the definition of harassment is not as clear as you seem to believe. ―Mandruss ☎

15:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

well, in my opinion, we need to make that definition clearer.

by the way,just to answer the valid question above, the reason that the section title is ambiguous, because I don't want to attract harassment merely for bringing up a topic that relates to harassment. that is also a concern here sometimes, you know. I appreciates your replies. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

What would you call this proposed sixth Pillar? GoodDay (talk) 23:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

As stated above we already have a policy on this at

Phil Bridger (talk

) 07:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sm8900: you likely would've gotten more input here for your proposal, if you had named your section heading "Proposing a sixth Pillar". GoodDay (talk) 19:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 30 § An idea for missing people deaths

 – Please discuss at Idea lab first. Post here if there is any support and you can propose a specific change to a specific guideline. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:12, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I would like to get a consensus how we work with Europeana on en:Wikipedia

Background: Europeana has 50 000 000 objects from European museums and archives. They have taken a decision to move in the same direction as Wikipedia has done with Wikidata and have created Europeana Entity API As a start they have for agents (persons) select 160 000 people from dbpedia everyone that has a same as Wikidata.

What I have been doing: see also overview and status report

1. I have matched 160 000 artists in Europeana to Wikidata Property 7704 see T240290 i.e.
   1. e.g. Leonardo da Vinci --> Q762 --> Q762#P7704 --> agent/base/146741
2. I have created Templates or got help adding Property 7704 to Template:Authority_control on more Wikis see status
3. on en:Wikipedia
   1. template was created Template:EuropeanaEntity
   2. started to populate see Category:Europeana
   3. got one complain 4 jan 2020 about the quality of Europeana see link
   4. created this question about next step

Question Can we get a consensus what to do? The options I see

1. ) add Property 7704 to Template:Authority_control - my suggestion
2. ) continue with Template:EuropeanaEntity
3. ) put it on hold

Hope this is the right location for a discussion like this - Salgo60 (talk) 14:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a good place for the discussion, though you may want to consider posting notifications about this discussion at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography. I do not know enough about Europeana to offer any insights on your question, but I will note that Category:Europeana should probably be named Category:Wikipedia articles with Europeana identifiers to be consistent with the rest of Category:Wikipedia articles with authority control information. Cheers, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 06:06, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Adding it to {{Authority control}} sounds like the best way forward. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:23, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
• First preference: don't use it. Second preference (if there is no consensus for my first preference): add it to authority control. Please don't add it as yet another separate template. Reason for my first preference: the first use of the template I checked, on
  Fram (talk
  ) 08:23, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@

Fram: I agree they have quality problems see T240809. My hope is by easier access Europeana

from Wikipedia on more languages MAYBE we can get museums to upload better material linked to the correct artist.

• In Sweden I see a very low understanding for Linked data and the need of not just uploading text strings and we get in Europeana a mess, My hope is that Europeana take this serious and get committed to start correct things and have processes tools for things we always have had like version history, discussion pages, subscribe on changes. Today a text search "Pablo Picasso gives 490 hits and checking the entity "agent/base/60206" abt 200 hits i.e. they have a mess...
• Museum people are not "rocket scientists" - maybe a Wikipedia article with a Europeana link in {{Authority control}} will help them understand Linked data and that its important when you upload a work by Photographer "Carl Larsson" to say its NOT same as the painter Carl Larsson "agent/base/60886" same as Carl Larsson (Q187310). Today local museums in Sweden dont even understand the change process of Europeana when I tell them they have issues with objects they have uploaded
• I will tweet to the Europeana people and see if they tell us if they have a plan to add quality. If that plan is trustworthy I think we should add them to {{Authority control}} otherwise they can stay in Wikidata ;-)

regards and thanks for the response - Salgo60 (talk) 10:27, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think adding something to Wikipedia in the hope that this will lead the quality of the source to increase is the right approach. The goal of Wikimedia may well be to work together with such institutions or organizations to benefit mutually (and I have no problem with this of course), but this is not the goal of Wikipedia.

Fram (talk

) 10:31, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I also guess Wikipedia now is so big that we can start telling others come back when you have good enough quality. The "win-win" I see is if museums starts understand this matching process and Europeana get "cleaned" its a nice echo-system we get were

• a small Greece museum can upload material for el:Θεοφάνης_ο_Έλληνας to Europeana
  • match it to Wikidata Theophanes the Greek (Q319403) and Europeana "agent/base/154989"
  • and readers of en:Wikipedia article Theophanes the Greek get a link to Europeana and easy get access to material from the local Greece museum --> the en:Wikipedia reader experience will increase
  • lesson learned is that often when I compare Europeana and Wikicommons e.g. commons:Category:Feofan_Grek then Wikicommon has more material and better structure/metadata. The good thing in Europeana is that they often have a link to the local museums --> you can go there and get more information as the metadata is often better in the local museum compared to Europeana as Europeana has a rather week metadata model EDM compare it to Wikidata and > 7000 properties
    • I also see the development of commons:Commons:Structured_data/Overview as a magic step in the right direction were we can tell that a picture depicts something and we will get a new level of possibilities writing articles of xxx and easy retrieve all paintings depicting something... when looking at Europeana i doubt they will take the same technology step so maybe Europeana is just a "structured container for museums before good objects are uploaded to Wikicommons and get enriched... - the future will tell but one big step I see is if local museums get digital and can add metadata so objects are findable and then I feel Europeana is a friend...

- Salgo60 (talk) 12:33, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Only preference: don't use it. All per Fram. Outriggr (talk) 08:42, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Summary

Thanks for feedbacks I have also tried getting some feedback from Europeana people but no reaction so I guess they have more important things to do ;-) I try to summarize

• quality in Europeana is not good when we check
• Europeana has no structured way for communicating with them to improve the quality so we see no activities we guess we will have yesterdays weather
  • Europeana also lack tools for us to track changes/version history/discuss objects
• Adding Europeana to Authority data on en:Wikipedia will not be done
• If the quality of the objects of an artist in Europeana is good enough the template Template:Europeana entity can be used

for more status of using Europeana entity (P7704) see report - Salgo60 (talk) 10:33, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

That seems a weird summary of what is said above. The positions were (from most to least popular) "don't use it at all", "use it in authority control", "use the Europeana template". That final position was only advocated by you. And yet, in your summary, you conclude that the template can be used? Then why bother even asking the question? I'll TfD the template to get more input on this.

Fram (talk

) 10:54, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

What I say is that the template is ok if we check the Europeana quality for the artist we use it for. I think many museums in e.g. Italy has done a good work.

Having the Europeana link in the Authority template > 140 000 articles means that we must trust the quality of Europeana and that is sadly not possible - Salgo60 (talk) 03:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Feedback from Europeana see T243764#5833958 - Salgo60 (talk) 12:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

As you may know, one of our strongest contributors, Brian Boulton, has recently passed away. He leaves behind a sandbox with links to twenty-one draft pages. Some of these are empty, perhaps already having been finished, but many others contain content from which Brian probably intended to either develop new articles or improve existing articles. It would be great if some Wikipedians could sort through these and see what can be done to complete the last items that Brian was working on. BD2412 T 02:00, 30 January 2020 (UTC)