Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Multi-part RFC on Wikipedia:Recent years

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I am closing this as it has been open for over two months now and the results seems obvious.

Scope of the guideline:No consensus, the status quo is retained
Scope on future years: No consensus further discussion on this specific topic may be required
Category/edit notice: A category is Approved there is No consensus on an edit notice, if someone wanted to draft one and submit it to WP:RY for discussion that would probably be ok
"Three continents rule": Retain although particpants indicated an interest in possibly discussing a better option in the future
"Ten languages rule": Retain unless and until a better metric can be devised
WP:RY status as a guideline: Accept as an established guideline

Beeblebrox (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Background: Recent Years is a set of editing guidelines for articles on events of global significance for an entire year, for example 2014. It is not binding on any other subset of articles pertaining to years that are not recent, such as 1865, or articles about certain subjects in a given year such as 2011 in Australian television, or 2011 in film and so forth. Recent years guidelines are not used as inclusion criteria for content anywhere else on Wikipedia, including the main page.

The issue this RFC aims to address is the fact that these guidelines were put into place and are maintained by a very small group of users, and indeed many if not most Wikipedians may not be aware of them at all, unless they try to insert material into an article on a given year (usually the current one) and suddenly find themselves faced with a number of new rules they never knew existed, being enforced by a small group of users who specialize in this area. Policy decisions in this area are sometimes made by as little as two or three users. It appears that the decision to make it an official editing guideline was made by a single user.

This is not intended to suggest that these users have been acting in bad faith, they have worked tirelessly to uphold what rules they have in an area of Wikipedia that seems to suffer from a lack of broad particpation. Constantly dealing with the same isssues day after day, year after year with little to no support or interest from the broader community can be understably frustrating.

For an idea of what these conversations are like and how many of them there are, see the talk page of any article on a year between 2002 and 2017.

Therefore, this RFC will attempt to mitigate some of these issues by calling for broader input on the rules used in recent years articles in order to make it apparent if the community at large supports them or not. Discussion will include the scope of the guideline, tools for improving awareness of it, and a review of some of the specifc points included in it, as well as the question of whether it should be a guideline at all.

21:45, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Please only edit in the discussion sections and leave the proposal/question sections undisturbed. Bolded !votes should be accompanied by an explanation of the reasoning behind them, and threaded discussion is welcome in all discussion sections.

Scope of recent years guidelines

This has been discussed several times on the talk page of the guideline, but due to low participation a consensus is not clear and there is no set definition of what qualifies as a recent year. Should the scope be limited to:

2002 (the year after Wikipedia was founded) and onward (status quo at the moment)
The most recent ten years
The most recent 20 years, beginning with 2002 for now but moving each year after 2022
Some other standard

Discussion of scope of recent year guidelines

I personally think that the ten most recent years is a reasonable and manageable scope for these guidelines. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
twenty years max ten years min I tend to consider anything older than 20 years history rather than recent events. I think having it apply to anything older than that is too broad. Likewise, anything in the last 10 years is pretty solidly "recent". Reasonable people will disagree about exactly where the cutoff should be, but I'd be in favor of any proposal within that range. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:04, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
2002, but guideline should no longer be called "recent" years. It was "recent" when first proposed in 2009. Some guideline is appropriate for all years, and I believe the start year should be constant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:22, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
2002 for practical purposes, but I'd really like any year for which sourcing is available for this standards defined in the guideline to be met. Scribolt (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Scope:future years

Wikipedia already has articles for every year in this century, all the way up to 2099. Given that these will all one day come under the recent years guidelines as time marches on, should articles on future years be subject to the recent years guidelines? If so, how far into the future should the guidelines be applicable?

Discussion of scope:future years

I'm not sure I really have a strong opinion on this, but I do believe it may be wise to have a seperate discussion on the issue of the usefullnes of articles about events that may or may not be relevant 73 years from now. Seems like a case of WP:TOOSOON to have articles at all on years more than 5-10 years into the future. That being the case I suppose that whatever we decide the scope is for the past could project forward into the futre as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree that we shouldn't have articles for years more than 10 years into the future; until a few weeks ago, there weren't articles for years more than 50 years in the future; until a few days ago, 70 years. But I think the guideline should extend as far as we have year articles.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When this is concluded I plan to open another discussion specifically on these articles, it seems a little nuts to have "predicted events" of little to no consequence that may or may not occur 75 years from now. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this needs its own discussion/RfC - many of these future year articles have no references whatsoever, and per WP:TOOSOON and WP:V they might need to be deleted at this point in time. And anyway, I agree it seems absolutely bizarre to have them. Triptothecottage (talk) 03:45, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: a discussion needs to happen. There simply isn't enough reliable information about events beyond 10 years into the future to justify creating an article, & creating one beyond then is just too tempting for someone looking for an easy way to up their editcount. -- llywrch (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Short term Applies to all year articles in the future. Medium term Update the guideline to remove future events Long term discussion need as per above as to whether we should have future year articles and what they should contain.

My reasoning as being so harsh regarding future predictions in the year articles is mostly due to manageability of dynamic information such as this. Imagine NASA announce that plan to place a human on Mars in May 2025 attracting considerable news coverage. So, we have a future year with a significant anticipated event. Various Mars & Mars landing articles are created, updated by a large number of interested Wikipedians. The 2025 article is updated, presumably by the much smaller subset of Wikipedians who like to update year articles. Later on, the launch is postponed to July, generating less media coverage and the Mars Wikipedians are all over it, but we're relying a Year Wikipedian being aware of the new date and remembering that this exists in a future year article and doing it themselves.

And also, Wikipedia is not a calendar. Scribolt (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Recent years category/edit notice

Currently, the only tool in use for identifying articles within the scope of the recent years guidelines and advising users of the existence of said guideline is {{Recent years}}, a talk page template advising users of the existence of these guidelines and advising them to read them before adding anything. There does not appear to be a category or a standard edit notice to better organize these articles and better inform users of these specialized guidelines.

Shoud a category for identifying and organizing these articles be created? Should there be a standard edit notice attached to all articles bound by the recent years guidelines so that users who do not check the talk page first will still receive notification of these specialized guidelines? If technically possible, should all three be linked so that adding the notice to the talk page automatically adds the article to the category and generates the edit notice?

Discussion of Recent years category/edit notice

A category seems rather obvious. It would only need to be updated once a year so it would be exceptionally easy to maintain. If the mechanism that would automatically link all three things is technically possible that would be helpful as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be a maintenance category, since readers wouldn't find our organization by applicable policies too useful. I think an edit notice would be useful, but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. If there is consensus, I'd support automation. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there should be an obviously visible link into the guideline. Scribolt (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "three continent rule" for events

Current wording:

New events added must receive independent news reporting from three continents on the event. This is a minimum requirement for inclusion. Events which are not cited at all, or are not Wikilinked to an article devoted to the event, may be removed.

Should this rule be continued to be used as the minimum threshold for inclusion of an event in a recent year article? Is there a better metric that might be used?

Discussion of the "three continent rule" for events

I think continents are a poor indicator for evaluating global relevance: something covered in the US, UK, and Australia alone would qualify. Number of countries might be a better indicator, though I'm not sure if it's the best. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think it can be improved, but I'm in favor of keeping it until a solid improvement is proposed. I don't see the US, UK, and Aus example as a problem: coverage in all three shows that it's internationally notable for the anglophone world (which is what enwiki primarily serves). Going off number of countries would really privilege regional coverage over truly global coverage sinceis also being discussed countries close to each other will probably report on each other, and those should go in regional articles like 2004 in Europe. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Needs to be some proxy for international significance; possibly, an item which belongs in a regional article shouldn't be here. I'm afraid that would be subjective, and probably subject to as the current regime as argument. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As per Wugapodes. Could be better, will do until its improved by those closer to it. Scribolt (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @King of Hearts:, do you mean all three of US, UK and Australia ("alone" to mean not including other countries in coverage)? Because that would be 3 continents... :-)Jack N. Stock (talk) 19:32, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm sympathetic to Wugapodes's viewpoint that it may in fact be enough. But if something has only been covered in the American and Chinese press and nowhere else, I'd argue that it is at least as significant, if not more so, than something covered in the American, British, and Australian press and nothing else. So my primary concern is about the choice of metric rather than the cutoff used on that metric. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:00, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much everything of national significance in French politics would count, since France includes pieces in South America (French Guiana), Africa (Réunion and Mayotte), and North America (Guadeloupe and Martinique), as well as Europe. For a lesser issue, anything in Russian or Turkish politics being reported in North America or Africa would also qualify. If you want this kind of rule, you should specify something like "three different countries, each on a different continent". Nyttend (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- That also runs into difficulties, e.g. a minor international incident between Egypt and Israel reported on in those countries and Greece but nowhere else would qualify, but a much bigger incident between Zambia and Zimbabwe reported on in every country in sub-Saharan Afica but not further afield would not. Number of countries would be significantly biased towards European events as Europe has significantly more countries per km² than any other continent. Thryduulf (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Ten languages rule" for births and deaths

The current rule for inclusion for births and deaths of notable persons are as follows:

Births:

Births are only to be included if there are Wikipedia articles in English and at least nine non-English languages about the individual in question.

Deaths:

The same criteria apply to deaths as to births, with the addition that the number of non-English Wikipedia articles is taken at the time of the person's death. Persons whose notability is due to circumstance rather than actual achievement (e.g. oldest person in the world or last surviving person of [x]) do not meet the basic requirement for inclusion.

Should these continue to be the minimum standards for the inclusion of births and deaths in recent years articles? Is there a better metric that might be used?

Discussion of the "ten languages rule" for births and deaths

I think the inclusion criteria for Births and Deaths might be a little too high; I understand that it is intended to counter systemic bias (in past years, Births and Deaths sections were overwhelmingly filled with people from the Anglosphere or Europe; some of whom had no interwiki links at all), but I fear that in the process it might actually enhance systemic bias, since I presume in many cases people from the Anglosphere or Europe would have more articles about them in other Wikipedias than those from non-Anglophone or non-European countries. How about lowering the requirement: instead of at least nine interwiki links, how about lowering the required number to five or six? I would agree with the current guideline provided that it should apply to people from the Anglosphere, but more leniency should probably be given (maybe on a case-by-case basis) to people from non-Anglosphere countries (i.e. China, Japan, Brazil, Kenya, etc.) Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 16:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What if we used similar standards as events? Rather than interwiki links, it's based on how international the coverage is. Or combine the two? The death is reported on in at least three countries/continents and has at least X interwiki links. Perhaps 3 so that significant figures in developing countries whose wiki may not be very robust can still be included if they're notable enough for inclusion in, for example, English, German, and French wikipedias. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:38, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think the criteria may be too lenient.... The "three continent rule" has been subject to debate before. The existing rule is objective. Still, a feel for what difference there would be for different options would be helpful in weighing alternatives. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Lacking a better (more objective and/or easier-to-use) rule, I believe it is good enough, eventhough it's self-referencing in a way. Looking at the number of people included in the past few years, it could even be moved up a notch or two (i. e. 10 or 11 interwikis). — Yerpo ^Eh? 08:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Silly criteria - many well known people only have articles written after they die in a language other than that native to the person. And does the mere existence of some stub in some other language elevate the otherwise locally known to worldwide known. Most other language WP's have similar notability criteria to the English language one. So putting "Joe Blow was an Olympic participant" or "Joe Blow was a professional <sport> player" or "Joe Blow was a member of the legislative assembly of state/province" translated into French, Spanish, German, Scots, Simple, and whatever Google translate would spit out, with a citation to something to show notability, on 9 other sites achieves instant qualification. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Should focus on notability, not Wikipedia coverage (which sadly isn't always the same thing). No immediate suggestions though. Scribolt (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The bit about "due to circumstance" ought to be relaxed; for example, the death of Florence Green, the final surviving veteran of World War I, belongs in the 2012 article: her death was much more significant than that of most figures on the list, e.g. an actor, a swimmer, or a football referee. Not sure how to relax it, however, aside from a general encouragement to treat certain high-profile deaths as events. Nyttend (talk) 03:09, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Recent years as an editing guideline

The Recent years page was created on January 5, 2009. After some discussion between about five users on the talk page, it was moved into project space and marked as an editing guideline one week later. This does not appear to conform to the usual process for elevating advice or essays to the status of editing guidelines. However, it has been used and basically accepted as the standard for articles on recent years since that time.

Should Recent years continue to be marked as an official guideline, relegated to essay status, or promoted to a policy?

Discusion of Wikipedia:Recent years as an editing guideline

While I think more initial input would have been desirable, this has been used as an editing guideline for nearly eight years, so it should probably remain one regardless of how it got there int he first place, with tweaks as needed. Hopefully this discussion will attract more users to this area and consensus will be easier to determine in the future. vBeeblebrox (talk) 00:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be debate as to whether it should be considered more than a WikiProject essay. I think it should be a guideline, but I believe there would be pushback if it were made a guideline unless considered now to be an essay and promoted to guideline. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It appears the tail wagged the dog on this one. Guidelines are supposed to be written to reflect best practices already in use, but in this case the guideline seems to have come first and dictated the practice. However, at this point it has been in place for long enough that it does seem to be the accepted guideline, and this discussion is drawing so little input that it looks like it will stay that way. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As per Beeblebrox. The guideline seems mostly sensible though and the improvements discussed in this RfC will help develop it further. Scribolt (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, treat it as a guideline, and don't make significant changes to it without discussion, since it's had long enough use. It's not like most of the MOS pages, which are reflected on pages only when disruptive style warriors edit-war to enforce compliance with the decisions of a small group of people. Nyttend (talk) 03:12, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion of recent years guideline

Please leave any comments that do not fit in any of the above sections here.

I have a general question about this because I'm not at all familiar with the area - why do we have guidelines for recent years, but not year articles generally? It seems that these guidelines should cover all years, but perhaps there's a good reason for limiting them to "recent" years. Sam Walton (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is because events, deaths etc are often added as soon as they have happened. As such the guidelines for Recent Years need to be more strict than Years in general. In fact, the guidelines for WP:YEARS are often either vague or non-existent making them virtually useless for Recent Years. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 23:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Given that WP:YEARS is a WikiProject, not a guideline, it strikes me that it might be useful to turn WP:RECENTYEARS into a guideline on year articles generally, with a stricter section on recent years if appropriate. Looking through the existing guideline it seems sensible enough to to apply at least most of it to all year articles. Sam Walton (talk) 23:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that extending WP:RY to cover WP:YEARS is within the scope of this discussion but the main difference which would make this problematic is that the older the event or death the less likely the probability that it will be covered in readily available online resources. Coverage of Deaths in particular is skewed by recentism which would mean that a sliding scale would be needed to make the criteria work for earlier years. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:31, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@DerbyCountyinNZ: Well I'd support more relaxed restrictions for less recent years, or years before a certain date (2000? 1900?), but I'm still not convinced that most of the points, or at least the structure of most of the points (with more relaxed criteria), couldn't apply to all year articles. Sam Walton (talk) 01:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, they could. But this possibility needs to be advised to as many associated projects as possible because the cynic in me expects considerable pushback. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 01:53, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I expect pushback on even recent years. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Following up on Sam's point, I think it would be more helpful to have a general years guideline, and make the recent years guideline apply to the current year only (with perhaps some buffer room a la WP:BDP, so 2017 is covered by the policy starting December 2016 and 2016 is covered until the end of January 2017). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:33, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think a general years guideline would be a good thing to develop, but I think the recent years guideline fills a niche. Most things included at 1180 would not satisfy any of the criteria we're discussing here, while if we used the same inclusion criteria for 1180 at 2006 we'd have a terabyte long page. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:44, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I discussed this in a WikiProject talk page years ago but the discussion went nowhere, so I'm raising this up again: what about persons with no publicly-known years of birth? A person keeping their age a secret from the public is fairly common in Japan, as well as among lesser-known celebrities in the United States. If the person is notable and meets the inclusion criteria for Births and/or Deaths, should they still be listed in date articles? For reference, this is currently being done in the Chinese, Italian, and Japanese Wikipedias. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 16:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My initial reaction is no, this would fail WP:V. Or perhaps you could show me an example of it being done, as I could be convinced if I saw it in practice? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@King of Hearts: For example, take a look at ja:2月13日#誕生日. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:26, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm guessing you're talking about the 生年不明 - 川田まみ、I've歌手 entry at the bottom of that section? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihonjoe: Sorry about the late reply, but yes. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:01, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's fine - but I thought we were discussing year articles only, not dates? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned above, I raised it here to see if the topic will get more discussion, as I had previously raised it in the WikiProject talk page but the discussion went nowhere. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know quite what to do here, the idea was to get more users to comment on these things so we can say we have a consnesus one way or the other, but hardly anyone is participating. I put here instead of at RY itself and listed it at WP:CENT. That's about all I can think of, it's possible people don't want to bother getting up to speed on on what RY even is and are therefore just not bothering. Hopefully if this is here for a while it will get some more interest. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:19, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Either I wasn't aware that this guideline existed, or I might have but forgotten it for a long time. Either a navigational template or a sidebox template is needed to help people surf to the guideline. What about Template:Guideline list and/or Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines? At least I can use category pages to browse guidelines. --George Ho (talk) 08:04, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: Hyphen in titles of articles on railways of a narrow gauge

The RfC is somewhat flawed in not clarifying whether "should" is merely preferred, or mandatory, across all cases; it does not allow the "don't care" option, and basically presumes that consistency, one way or the other, is required. This was raised by Beeblebrox in the "Side Survey". However, I find that, per the policy of WP:CONSISTENCY, "[a]rticle titles should be ... consistent", and therefore the result here applies to all cases.

There is support for, and no objection, to not hyphenating proper or common names that are normally unhyphenated.

The arguments (in brief) favoring of hyphenation are 1) consistency, 2) grammatical clarity, 3) standard usage, and 4) per MOS:HYPHEN. The arguments opposing are that hyphenation 1) is pointless, doesn't matter, and unnecessary, 2) pedantic, 3) a "one-size-fits-all" policy does not work, and 4) reduces editor freedom.

Section 3 of MOS:HYPHEN, regarding the use of hyphens to link "related terms in compound modifiers", seems applicable here.

Whether hyphenation is necessary for clarity and understanding is debatable, particularly as a lack of hyphens is not shown to present an insurmountable problem of understanding. Nonetheless, it appears they are useful, and having them is not shown to cause any problems.

It is claimed that not using hyphens is a national variant permitted under WP:ENGVAR. However, the basis of this claim is rather subjective, and is soundly rebutted by the n-gram graph.

Opponents also decry necessity, pedantry, one-size-fits-all policy, and any constraints on "editorial freedom". However (and without getting into any tit-for-tat history), it appears there has been an issue with excessive editorial freedom in changing hyphenation, as well as a lack of toleration of inconsistency. Therefore there is a need for standard policy.

The polling is 22 in favor of hyphenation, 10 opposed. While consensus is not necessarily the view of the majority, in this case I find (per the criteria at WP:Closing_discussions#Consensus) the arguments in favor of hyphenation to be more compelling than those against. Therefore: article titles should use "narrow-gauge", except for proper or common names where a contrary use has been established. By extension this consensus applies to similar terms, such as "broad-gauge" and "standard-gauge".

Whether existing use of non-hyphenated forms should be retained in articles where there has been no prior issue was not addressed in this discussion. While CONSISTENCY suggests that all article titles should be made consistent, there does not appear to be any urgency to do so.

~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 05:53, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should articles with "Narrow gauge railways" and such in their titles include a hyphen as "Narrow-gauge railways"? And is there any tweak needed to the guidelines at WP:HYPHEN to be more helpful in deciding such things? Dicklyon (talk) 05:58, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral background

Many articles were moved in late December and early January to include a hyphen, and then after about four weeks were disputed and moved back. Discussions at various places left the matter unresolved, and an RFC was recommended.

Affected articles include but are not limited to the ones in this template, which works the same with and without the hyphen due to the redirects:

@Bahnfrend, No such user, Bermicourt, SMcCandlish, Cinderella157, Tony1, Necrothesp, Mjroots, Corinne, Checkingfax, Scribolt, Mandruss, and Andy Dingley: Pinging participants of prior big discussion at Talk:Narrow_gauge_railways_in_Saxony in case any of them didn't see the notices. Dicklyon (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The case for hyphenation in these titles

It is standard practice in English to help readers parse phrases involving compound modifiers before nouns by using hyphens to hold the compounds together. As WP:HYPHEN states, hyphens are used:
3. To link related terms in compound modifiers: [Specifically, compound attributives, which are modifiers of a noun that occur within the noun phrase. (See hyphenated compound modifiers.)] – Hyphens can help with ease of reading (face-to-face discussion, hard-boiled egg); where non-experts are part of the readership, a hyphen is particularly useful in long noun phrases, such as those in Wikipedia's scientific articles: gas-phase reaction dynamics. However, hyphens are never inserted into proper names in compounds (Middle Eastern cuisine, not Middle-Eastern cuisine).

The application to the compound "narrow gauge" when used before a noun is clear: the hyphen helps the reader, especially the general or naive reader unfamiliar with the phrase, to quickly parse "narrow-gauge railway", and not have to consider whether the intended meaning of "narrow gauge railway" might have been a "gauge railway" that is narrow. This is common courtesy to help the reader, and has no downside or negative impact on any reader. There is nothing special about titles that would suggest a different style from what is appropriate in the text.

Sources are mixed on hyphen usage, since it is common practice for writers to drop such hyphens when writing for an audience that they feel is so familiar with the term-of-art phrases that they don't need help to easily read them. But in the case of "narrow gauge", which is well known to rail fans but less so to the general public, usage in books is actually a strong majority in favor of hyphen usage. See n-gram stats from books: [1]. Even if it were only 50% used in sources, it would be wise to follow the advice of our style guidelines and most external style guides and dictionaries to make it easier for the general readership rather than the specialists.

There is no ENGVAR issue here. Using the n-grams link above, but modifying the language domain from English to British English and American English, it can be seen that while the relative frequency of railway versus railroad changes enormously, as expected, the relative frequency of hyphen stays in a strong majority in both variants.

Dictionaries specifically list the adjective form of "narrow gauge" as hyphenated: dictionaries, [2], [3], [4], [5], [6].

Within specialist literature, the hyphen is still sometimes used, and in literature for the general public it is sometimes omitted, but it is better to follow standard practice and guidance than to be that random, and it is much better to help the general reader than to try to mimic the specialist.

Note also that in company names, signs, headings, titles, and such that are Title Case or all caps, it is more common to omit hyphens. So the appearance of these terms unhyphenated but capitalized should not be taken as evidence of any preference one way or the other.

Note that WP:MOS, including WP:HYPHEN exists to set a style and prevent style disputes so we can all get back to work on non-trivia. It did not prevent a battle in this case, but I think it is clear enough and probably does not need any particular amendment in this area.

Examples of titles with hyphenated compounds used as adjectives

Most Wikipedia titles involving compounds such as narrow body, broad spectrum, standard definition, short range, high speed, low pressure, small cell, large scale, wide angle, and such do use the hyphen in a way exactly analogous to what is proposed for narrow gauge. Examples:

Please respond to this opening case in the discussion section below, not here. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The case for no hyphenation in these titles

The phrase “gauge railway” by itself is meaningless. In fact, the only other modifiers that I can think of other than narrow are broad/wide, standard, miniature, and “out-of-” (however, no argument about using hyphens for the last one). Therefore, the argument requiring hyphenation is pointless, and this attempt to enforce one particular POV should be dropped in favour of common usage, which seems to vary slightly from one side of the Atlantic to the other. (This point was made in an earlier discussion, but Dicklyon now seems to be walking it back.) The suggestion made by the nominator that the average reader needs the hyphen in “narrow-gauge” for comprehension is pure and simple condescension. So in a word:
Oppose. Useddenim (talk) 17:33, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bermicourt, Bahnfrend, and Mjroots: This RFC is ready for an opening statement by someone opposing the hyphens. Dicklyon (talk) 06:46, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Side Survey: The case for not really caring one way or the other / The case for editorial freedom

because I don't. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:58, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Optimist on the run (talk) 09:28, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Andy Dingley (talk) 11:49, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Bermicourt. Both variants are widely used in the sources; however, there is a much stronger regional tendency in US sources to hyphenate. So we should allow editorial freedom to choose, using the same approach that is used for ENGVAR, and not force editors to adopt one or the other. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - this is pedantry at the extreme. People need to focus on more important things - it isn't as if we have a shortage of those. - Sitush (talk) 00:29, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note that these should not be counted as opposing the proposition of this RFC, as these editors (or most of them) have put the oppose !votes already in the survey below. Dicklyon (talk) 23:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: that is disingenuous and highly misleading; we do oppose the proposal because it would force us to adopt one of the two common variants used by the sources. But thanks for alerting me to vote below as I hadn't, despite your comment --Bermicourt (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarifying your position, and you're welcome for my alert. I don't know why Optimist thought it a good idea to add this side survey, and I was certainly not being disingenuous in trying to call attention to the confusion. Please AGF. Dicklyon (talk) 21:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. This is the one wrong result. The reader is helped by consistency. These will alll be used in lists and categories, wherre consistency is particularly important. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Although someone really needs to table an amendment to *policy* that states where MOS guidelines are disputed by local consensus, uninvested editors should back away. I would also support any MOS-update that states Railway article terminology has to comply with Thomas the Tank Engine. While I agree in theory with DGG above consistency in lists and categories can be important - lists and categories are not the primary function of an encyclopedia. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Uninvested"? If you think anyone who has no especial fondness for a particular topic is uninvested, you're mistaken. Everyone working on the encyclopedia is invested, even those who participate in discussions by announcing that they don't care about the outcome. Primergrey (talk) 14:34, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think someone whose presence at a railway article is only there to enforce a general usage MOS rule which may not be appropriate given the specific circumstances is uninvested in railway articles yes. They might be invested in the MOS... But ultimately no one outside of railway article editors and their readers care about the hyphen usage on railway articles. The world is not going to end if narrow-gauge is hyphenated. It really does not matter. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"and their readers" is the important part. Dicklyon (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Being invested in the encyclopedia means being invested in all articles therein. To dismiss an editor trying to uphold site-wide style guidelines as "uninvested" runs counter to WP's stated purpose as a generalist encyclopedia. Also, "the world is not going to end if narrow-gauge is hyphenated", if true, is an excellent reason to support hyphenation. Primergrey (talk) 17:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support allowing both variants. Disputes can be settled by local consensus, after an examination of sources related to the specific railway or station in question. Yes, we will have a few difficult cases where the sources are not clear. Despite this, I think we should avoid adopting a "one size fits all" rule on this... because, whichever "rule" we adopt, we will simply end up with endless arguments about how our "rule" is wrong. In other words, we will end up with more disputes if we adopt a "one size fits all" rule than we will by allowing both variants. Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Both variants should be allowed. There is no extra "clarity" here - both clearly and unambiguously refer to something to do with a railway where the gauge is narrow(er) than some standard - that is undoubtedly why usage without hyphen exists in substantial numbers across the English speaking world, and it is well within standard written English grammar to drop unneeded hyphens. The claim of "consistency" is without merit as shown by the fact that we do not demand everyone write like everyone else (especially on something so wide-spread, and on an issue where insisting is so obviously narrow-minded and bizarrely inflexible.) We allow such minor leeway (and, indeed much larger leeway) for very good reasons too numerous and too embedded in our system of writing (although an article should be internally consistent). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose inconsistency and ambiguity – no editor is being compelled or even asked to help, just to not interfere when things are moved toward compliance with the MOS, in favor of the interests of readers. Bermicourt started this mess by interfering after all articles had been made consistent, pretty much without objection except for his on Narrow-gauge railways in Saxony which he reverted back to hyphenless form (as he has a right to revert bold moves); so we went to discuss on the talk page there, and while that was not going in his favor he went and moved the rest of the articles about European countries, none of which had been objected to for a month. This is pure disruption, bad for the reader, bad for consistency. So now we're here, on advice of the closer there, to decide. So let's decide. Dicklyon (talk) 21:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Bulldozing opponents might be fun in real life but it is extremely destructive at Wikipedia which relies on volunteers who maintain and build article content. Dashes are not as important as collaboration. Johnuniq (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  Are you in the wrong section? Nothing about dashes is being discussed here. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. As this proposition is inherantly contrary to WP:Consistency, which is stated to be a policy document and thereby does not permit such latitude. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not. There is actually little support to make it apply everywhere. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support allowing both per Blueboar. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:19, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – all "editor freedom" does is cause trivial content disputes and long AN/I threads. Laurdecl ^talk 08:00, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Main RFC Survey

Please Support or Oppose including the hyphen in the titles.

Support. The list above clearly shows how it's easier for non-experts to pick up the word group if there's a hyphen ... not to mention our own style guidance and that of the style authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Tony (talk) 09:10, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is a view espoused by a handful of hyper-active editors here that styleguides mandate all uses of a particular phrase and that any single deviation from this is some sort of thoughtcrime. That is nonsense: language is simply not that consistent. Nor does WP policy follow such a line, instead we have WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NEOLOGISM which state that WP should follow the practice in use, not mandate its own claims and force them on top of reality.

There is a case for consistency with names that are created on WP. So I have no problem with "Narrow-gauge railroads in the US", nor even "Narrow gauge railroads in the US" (I really don't care what our "default styleguide in the absence of any external influence" says. But when the name is based on an external source, those sources should be followed, not the styleguide.

Why do external names matter for the hyphenation of narrow-/ gauge? After all, there are very few of them (although the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways didn't hyphenate). Because this isn't just a question of hyphenating narrow-gauge, it's also the question of capitalising "Line" in "Heart of Wales Line". The two naming issues should have been raised in the same RfC. But whilst the narrow-gauge one is broadly linguistic and hardly appears in sourced proper names, the capitalisation issue certainly does. Yet if the easier narrow-gauge issue can be won, that then establishes a "precedent" for WP naming, including the case issue - when in fact, WP does not follow WP:PRECEDENT in such cases. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:04, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Every single time there is a hyphen/en-dash/em-dash argument is comes down to a small group trying to impose a Victorian image of linguistic correctness on everyone else. There is literally no difference in reading comprehension between the characters. It annoys the picayune and the obsessive but is ignored by the rest, if such differences are even perceived at all. The MOS and external style guides are not weapons to hammer other editors with, especially when worrying about near-imperceptible differences such as this. Even if the three versions of a dash or no dash at all are randomly mixed between articles, it absolutely won't matter except to a handful of Emersonian hobgoblins and certainly won't damage the encyclopedia. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support narrow hyphen. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 15:15, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support with obvious cavaets If the name is not proper, eg "Narrow-gauge railroads in the US", the hyphenated form seems correct and easier to read particularly if more modifiers are added "the longest narrow guage railroad..." is awkward but "the longest narrow-guage railroad" is clear). But if it is a proper name like "North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways" above, we should not force that style onto the name, and leave it as is, and editors need to take care in page moves to not force this onto the proper name. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support – The hyphen is necessary according to the existing MOS:HYPHEN, and is the standard usage. Dicklyon's survey of reliable sources makes this very clear. RGloucester — ☎ 15:52, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as completely unnecessary. (See above for more.) Useddenim (talk) 17:36, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Grammatical clarity is a Good Thing in an encyclopedia, full stop. Most of the rest is generalized anti-MoS ideology and personal vendettas, which we could do with a lot less of. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:03, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Miniapolis 19:21, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Hyphen is more grammatically and phonetically correct, it is necessary to convey the meaning of the title correctly. Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση 2001 (talk) 21:25, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support as normal English usage across national varieties, and an obvious boon to clarity. Nothing is gained for anyone by dropping the hyphenation. This is not TrainspotterPedia, and WP is not written in a quirky shorthand style for specialists and fans to use with other specialists and fans (who have no trouble understanding the conventional style with the hyphen, just a subjective preference against it in their own materials). This same basic issue comes up across many topics, and it all comes down to the same answer: we have our own style guide for a reason, just like every other professionally published, multi-writer publication. People will unproductively fight about style trivia indefinitely if not given a house style to follow. WP follows the WP style, which is derived from the most influential off-WP style guides. We depart from our own manual when reliable sources (including general-audience ones, not just specialized ones) are with remarkable consistency doing something different from what our style guide does, for a particular case or type of case. (You'll find this exceptions rule in various wording at WP:MOS, MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, WP:COMMONNAME, etc.) The sources show no consistency in writing about railways, so that's the end of it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose See my arguments at Talk:Narrow_gauge_railways_in_Saxony. Bahnfrend (talk) 11:35, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose being forced to adopt a variant with a strong regional US following, when the rest of the world is neutral. Give editors the freedom to decide and let's not force an "either/or" that is not reflected in the sources. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:58, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The proposal seems very reasonable, is already consistent with established conventions, and I am unimpressed by the case against using the hyphen. Obviously in cases where "Narrow Gauge" is part of a proper name, we should use the WP:COMMONNAME. But the affected articles seem limited in scope to those where the title of the article is a descriptive title. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:46, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I agree with Sławomir Biały. I also find Dicklyon's statement above, which is not only written clearly and in a neutral tone but also is backed up with specific information, to be persuasive. To me, the most persuasive piece of information is that many Wikipedia articles use the hyphen in compound adjective modifiers. While I personally don't see the need for a hyphen in "narrow gauge", I do see some value to the encyclopedia in consistency of style, especially in article titles. – Corinne (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support hyphenation for the benefit of readers. Standard English practice "on both sides of the Atlantic" as Tony notes and sources confirm, in spite of claims by Bermicourt that this is "a variant with a strong regional US following". (as nom) By the way, I just finished writing a book published by Cambridge University Press; their style guide differs from WP's in places related to things like heading case, quotation style, and other things, but on hyphens it's pretty typical of those we follow, including "Compound adjectives will generally be hyphenated if they precede the noun: short-term effects ...". Dicklyon (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support hyphenation. There is clearly no evidence that the un-hyphenated form is more prevalent. The hyphenated form is slightly less ambiguous and for a non-English speaking reader, it may possibly prevent a small degree of confusion in the future. Where possible, article names should be consistent in construction. The oppose arguments don't really identify any real benefits to the un-hyphenated form. Therefore, we should choose a standard construction and that construction should be with hyphenation (with the caveat that exceptions relating to proper names can exist as per Masem but the default position should be hyphenation). Scribolt (talk) 07:29, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support hyphenation. It is standard English to hyphenate in this way when the term is used as an adjective, which it clearly is. This is not an ENGVAR issue (I'm British, incidentally). -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support hyphenation per consistency and standard English practice. On the meta-issue: I don't really understand the substance of opposing arguments if there is one, apart from "we don't like it". If there are editors that exhibit "pedantry at the extreme" (call them "gnomes" or "MoS warriors" at will), why don't just let them if you really don't care one way or another? I will readily grant that enforcing MOS-conformance and consistency is not a high-priority task, but everyone freely chooses what to edit on a wiki. No such user (talk) 11:49, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support as concerned as I may be about being labelled a "hobgoblin", an "obsessive", or a Quixotic opponent of "thoughtcrime", I must cast my lot with hyphenation and its added clarity, particularly for some non-native readers of English. Primergrey (talk) 15:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the proposal to remove editorial freedom and force editors to adopt only one two common variants; the one which is only predominant in US sources. It's not a grammatical issue, it's a sources issue. Please note, I'm happy for editors to use the hyphenated version if they choose, please give other editors the same freedom to use the very common unhyphenated version. Note also that the glossary published by the International Union of Railways to which most of the world subscribes, uses the unhyphenated version. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC) (Bermicourt already opposed above on 5 Feb)[reply]
Oppose One-size-fits-all does not work for socks or collaborative projects. Wikipedia needs volunteers who do good work more than it needs MOS enthusiasts who care about dashes but not the articles concerned. Johnuniq (talk) 23:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support – The general English pattern of using a hyphen to make a compound work as a single adjective is appropriate here, especially seeing that this is the way it is most commonly done in books (per the n-grams), and in light of the linked dictionaries that list the adjective form as narrow-gauge and give examples of it hyphenated. Also, per our house style described in detail at MOS:DASH. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:28, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support. While there may not be a clear case for improving clarity in every case, there are certainly cases where clarity is improved (eg British narrow gauge slate railways, where a consensus was recently reached for hyphenation and clarity was a significant issues with respect to this particular title). There is some value in consistent usage across the main space for titles (WP:CONSISTENCY) referring to rail gauges and within content: that is, that narrow-gauge is adopted throughout, and not just where it is appropriate for clarity. References to narrow gauge within an article that uses narrow-gauge as part of the title (for reasons of clarity) will inherently lead to inconsistency within an article that can most effectively be dealt with by standardising on the hyphenated form across articles. I note that WP:Consistency is identified as a policy document. This is the basis for my support. I see no strength to assertions of WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN. This is ultimately a matter of clarity and then of WP:CONSISTENCY - if it is needed in some cases for clarity it should then be done consistently. The converse of consistently not using the hyphenated form would lead to a degradation of clarity in some cases. This is a proposition that is less acceptable than the alternative. I also note the article title Narrow-gauge railway was moved to the hyphenated form on 8 Feb 2015 by User:Anthony Appleyard. It is difficult to argue against hyphenation when the title of the lead article is hyphenated. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:00, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It is enough to say, clarity is not improved - the contra claim, that maybe sometimes it might be improved (which is actually entirely doubtful) is a 'tail-wag-the-dog argument'. Cinderella links to a discussion that actually admitted no-one is actually confused. In standard English language grammar, dropping the hyphen happens all the time. Here, for these words, we know for a fact, that dropping the hyphen happens all the time. The "consistency" argument is just as absurd. It is stated above that there will be articles where we can't put the hyphen in the title. So, the consistency argument winds-up being 'I insist you use it everywhere (accept when I do not) because there is no real reason for me to force other editors to do this.' No, editor autonomy is a billion times more important then the silly, useless, hyphen, here .Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support: There's a good case that there's a (tiny!) improvement in readability, that our existing Manual of Style rules promote hyphenation for readability, and that on balance, sources hyphenate more often than not. Many of the opposing arguments can be summarized as "it doesn't matter", and advocate flexibility over strict adherence to the pattern. That seems an odd argument to me: flexibility and tolerance are compatible with supporting hyphenation: all that needs to happen is for those who prefer hyphenation to avoid browbeating users who happen to add unhyphenated versions of the phrase. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 22:39, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Opppose as restricting editorial freedom into a straightjacket. If we were actually getting paid to edit or if we had professional proofreaders who "finished" a page and then it never needed revision afterwards, we could induldge in this sort of MOS-minutiae. We aren't, so expecting it beyond the page is just pedantry. Go work on content. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:50, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The benefit to our readers, if any, is too minor for this level of control to be worth it. Local consensus on these article titles is fine; inconsistency between article titles is also not that big a deal. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:22, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The AT policy page has consistency as one of the five characteristics of good article titles. Primergrey (talk) 20:15, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It also says "These should be seen as goals, not as rules", and makes it clear that the rules on article titles are for the benefit of readers. If I thought that readers would suffer in any way (by being unable to find the right article, or by being confused as to the topic of an article, for example) I'd agree we need to enforce a rule here. WP:COMMONNAME, which is the next paragraph in AT, says editors should reach a consensus, and includes "usage in the sources used as references for the article" as one of the inputs to that consensus. To me, this all means we don't have to have hyphens in these article names. If they already had hyphens we should leave them in; if they don't, leave them out until there's a consensus among editors working on the article that they should be changed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The correct name should be used in all cases, and on the right hand side of the Atlantic that is without a hyphen in the majority of cases, and on the other side neither seems to be primary. WP:COMMONNAME is a policy, the manual of style is a guideline (and it should be a minor one at that). Thryduulf (talk) 15:18, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- This nationalistic assertion has been thoroughly debunked, with reliable (British) sources, repeatedly and in detail. Start here, at item #5. (Well, start first with the material at the top of the RfC that you apparently skipped.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:11, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is already clearly in the MOS. I respect local consensus at an article or wikiproject to allow for variance from MOS, but I haven't heard a convincing argument on the oppose side. Sources seem to favour the hyphen. It's clearer and easier to read with the hyphen. Reidgreg (talk) 22:59, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support hyphenation, which makes an otherwise ambiguous term unambiguous. There is no such thing as "narrow railway" nor "gauge railway", so "narrow-gauge railway" is the proper way to go. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 15:11, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support hyphenation – there is absolutely no policy based reason to defy the MOS because of personal preference and it is absolutely not a good application of IAR. I also note that some of the opposers have cast their !votes twice to create an impression that this is somehow contentious. Laurdecl ^talk 03:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The MOS is not policy and the policy-based reason to "defy" MOS is in the MOS itself: ... it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. The MOS itself is contentious, as the 190-page archive of its talk page alone shows, so no false impression need be created. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:42, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support—with the common sense recommendation that proper names be exempt. Imzadi 1979 → 19:45, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

I don't really understand Andy Dingley's long opposing rant after he stated that he doesn't really care. In particular, I tried to be clear that hyphens are usually not used in proper names, so there should be no worry on North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways if it's the proper name of the subject of the article, and if it's not then it would be correct to fix the case, too. Dicklyon (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And that's the problem. You don't understand anything more than a simplistic one-rule-fits-all styleguide. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:09, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
User:Andy Dingley, your posts are moving from low- to high-level irritability. It would be more productive if you were less personal. Tony (talk) 04:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Tony, threatening people with Arbcom for disagreeing with them does tend to have that effect. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:26, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, ignore it. You do good work on WP. You deserve to react calmly if the waters are ruffled. Tony (talk) 11:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have no trouble at all parsing what Dicklyon is saying, which clearly indicates understanding of proper names and that a style-guide rule about hyphenation would not apply to one. It appears to me that the failure to understand or to be flexible is coming from the opposite direction, from individuals so used to and so personally invested in insider writing about the topic than they are unable to understand (or, much more likely, unwilling to concede) that they cannot force everyone else to write about trains the way a trainspotter would when writing for other trainspotters. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it would make life a lot easier if you, Dicklyon and similar were simply banished from any discussions regarding MOS. Perhaps there are already restrictions - I don't know because every time I see such names at the Pump, ANI etc, I've tended to switch off after a few minutes of reading. - Sitush (talk) 00:35, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for lending credence to my comment about generalized anti-MoS ideology and personal vendettas. Your comment is not constructive. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just like to chime in here, as I do every time I see an argument about small horizontal lines, to point out that this is a ridiculous, pointless dispute that matters only to the people involved. I would suggest you host any further discussion in the walled garden where the illusion that any of this matters is maintained and don't let the rest of us know what you decide. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:53, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
matters only to the people involved - I would suggest that people generally don't get involved in things that don't matter to them, so you could say that about any issue, making it unremarkable.
I'll also note that this is not about hyphen-vs-endash, nor about spaced-endash-vs-unspaced-endash, which could be somewhat more easily dismissed as trivial pedantry. It's about clearly identifying an adjectival phrase as such for readers who are not familiar with the term "narrow gauge". Thus, argument about small horizontal lines appears to miss the point in a knee-jerk negative reaction to a legitimate MoS issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:29, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. However, Beeblebrox raises a valid point, in that these disputes are about trivia yet become disruptive when pursued, and seem to come up again and again. The typical pattern is that an editor doing "gnome" cleanup work applying our naming conventions, style guidelines, and title policy will occasionally run into a faction who have a WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:TRUTH / WP:SOAPBOX position on one of these points of trivia, grounded in nothing but subjective preferences based on what deeply steeped insiders in the topic do when writing to other insiders in insider publications, and without regard for the needs or expectations of people unfamiliar with the topic. This camp will then tendentiously fight against guideline and policy compliance at WP:RM, one article at a time, for weeks, months, even years in hope of "winning" through attrition.
That behavior pattern is obviously forum shopping, but RM has historically being easily system-gamed this way because of its lack of searchable archives and the difficulty of digging up previous related discussions as precedent. Last month, I raised this issue at WT:RM, and there is now a new search feature at the top of that page that should help to curtail this pattern of process abuse. However, until the administrative wiki-culture at RM shifts more firmly to shut down re-shopping the same trivial anti-guideline, anti-policy position over and over, the effective way to deal with it remains the WP:RFC process.
The more RfCs that close in favor of following the guidelines and policies, and against special pleading and anti-consensus campaigning on a topical basis, the fewer such incidents will arise. These disputes consistently go in the direction of "just follow WP's own instructions on the matter unless the sources in the aggregate overwhelmingly prefer a variance" (since this is an actual rule found throughout MoS and at WP:COMMONNAME), and they go that way whether dragged out over 30 RMs or settled in an RfC. It costs a lot less editorial time to RfC it, and sets consensus-determination precedent that is easier to find and more persuasive.
It's also proven more effective to RfC these matters at VPPOL rather than at WT:MOS, because on multiple occasions the result of RfCs at MoS have been ignored by those who didn't get their way and the issue has been re-shopped in an "anti-RfC" to try to overturn it here at VPPOL (ironically, the "walled garden" reasoning Beeblebox suggests should keep MoS disputes at MoS tends to have the opposite effect). So, just cut out all the middle-man processes and do the one that matters most, for any titles/style dispute that gets entrenched and affects more than a trivial number of articles, if a multi-page RM fails to resolve the issue (or it is not limited to title disputes).
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The opposition on this is grounded in two obvious fallacies: 1) that there is no comprehensibility difference, and 2) that the sources don't agree with the hyphenation. Both of these have been shown to be faulty. First, only someone already deeply familiar with the topic knows that a railway term of art is "narrow-gauge" (or "narrow gauge" as a noun phrase rather than a compound adjective: "this is a narrow-gauge railway" versus "this railway has a narrow gauge", a distinction most people learn in elementary schools or in their early ESL classes), but that "gauge railway" is not a railway term of art. The topic has many "foo railway", "foo railroad", and "foo rail" terms of art ("slate railway", "commuter railroad", "double-headed rail" etc., etc., etc.), so there is nothing obvious or intuitive about how "narrow", "gauge" and "railway" relate to each other in such a construction, except to experts. The very purpose of hyphenation of compound adjectives is to clearly link two words that form a single modifier, as distinct from independent modifiers (an "ugly brown dog" and an "ugly-brown dog" are not the same thing; I might have a magnificent, title-winning dog that someone feels is of an ugly-brown color, while if the dog itself were ugly, it wouldn't win conformance championships). Second, it's already been amply demonstrated that a) the sources in the aggregate do not prefer to drop the hyphenation, only specialist materials do so, and b) even those do not do it consistently. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that the ambiguity and confusion are real is easy to see with a web search for "a gauge railway". Even our article on Rapla exhibits this problem (I just now tagged it for clarification). You see it at Getty Images, this illiterate blog, this funny page, and some that just fail to copy the gauge template contents when they mine wikipedia. Even some conference publications and articles. Same for "the gauge railway", like in "The width of the gauge railway is 760 mm" and "Additionally, the gauge railway line will feature". These are probably all mistakes, but they indicate that this kind of unfamiliar construct is not the easiest thing for editors and writers to understand and get right. The hyphen can only help. Dicklyon (talk) 00:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no ambiguity and no confusion here. All of the links you have posted are very obviously nothing more than careless proofreading or editing errors, pure and simple. To say, as you do, that such obvious careless errors demonstrate confusion is like saying that the spelling of the word "Michael" is unclear and ambiguous because a lot of people misspell it as "Micheal". In other words, it is a grasping at straws, nonsense argument, which wrongly and disrespectfully treats Wikipedia readers as a mob of fools. Bahnfrend (talk) 11:33, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If any editor took my remarks as treating them as fools, or otherwise disrespectfully, I sincerely apologize. My remarks were about the ambiguity in parsing unfamiliar terms, and pointing out errors that might have been caused by that ambiguity as seen by unfamiliar writers or editors, and conjecturing that that evidence supports the interpretation that there is real ambiguity there for those unfamiliar with the concept, while acknowledging that many of those are simple errors of transcription or something. It's OK with me if you disagree; it won't make me think less of you. But the ad hominem might. Dicklyon (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish The only fallacy is that "arguments against enforced hyphenation are 'obvious fallacies'". First, the idea that you have to be "deeply familiar" railways to understand the term is an insult to the commonsense of the majority who don't need a grammar lesson to work it out. Second, the sources favour neither variant (we agree to that extent) except in North America, thus there is an element of WP:ENGVAR to this which simply reinforces the Wiki principle of leaving editors to decide for themselves as they had been doing happily for years, until this over-zealous, pro-hyphen crusade came along. Bermicourt (talk) 18:12, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can't say I care that much either way, but as regards having to be deeply familiar and a specialist etc, I think it would have been sensible to ease off on the rhetoric and not post such thoughts until checked against a well-known not-that-specialist series of publications aimed at those who have not yet had the benefit of much schooling. If you Google "Thomas the Tank Engine narrow(-)gauge" it will be found that Thomas has "Narrow Gauge" Friends, except in WP where his friends are "narrow-gauge". Just saying....Rjccumbria (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the Thomas books and other books by Awdry [7] [8] [9] [10] use "narrow-gauge engine", "narrow-gauge friends", "narrow-gauge railways" and "narrow-gauge rails" with the hyphen, but omit it when capitalizing as "Narrow Gauge". Pretty standard, and reported with links in the previous big RM discussion. Except this one gets mixed up and even uses the hyphen in capped "Narrow-Gauge Engine". Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Thomas books were first published between 1945 and 1972, and therefore cannot be described as a useful guide to present usage of hyphenation. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:09, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It's hard to tell which are the ones written since 1983 by his son Christopher, which modern editions might have been re-edited, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In any case (apologies for having taken a break from this, and for obviously failing to be adequately clear first time round what the point I thought I was making was), the point I thought I was making was not that "TtTE avoids hyphenation, so should we" (give me some credit, chaps!) , but that some of the rhetoric was OTT counter-productive shooting from the hip. Far from the un-hyphenated form being some arcane perversion known only to specialists, it is one potentially known to any child whose reading age stretches to Thomas the Tank Engine (mind you, they could probably also tell the difference between a diplodocus and an apatosaurus better than most grown-ups). I suppose we should be grateful that (as far as I am aware) we have yet to be told that hyphens are a mandatory requirement under health and safety legislation.

Do I see from the above that people who learned punctuation in the third quarter of the twentieth century will not have valid opinions on best practice? That could be just the excuse I need to slip away from this...Rjccumbria (talk) 10:12, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Whether sources from that era reflect current usage is orthogonal to what anyone's personal opinion is. Regardless, a) it's clear that the materials you pointed to mostly do hyphenate except in proper names (which is a common but not universal alteration), and b) waht writers of children's books do wouldn't tell us much about how to write encyclopedic prose; we learn that from academic versus casual style guides, and from what high-quality but general-audience sources do, and the answer is "hyphenate compound adjectives, either uniformly or possibly with the exception to not do so when there is no possibility of confusion" (an exception which does not apply here; Dicklyon already pointed to numerous cases of things like "the gauge railway" and "a gauge railway" in professionally edited material, where writers had mistakenly parsed "narrow gauge railway" as "a gauge railway that is narrow". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bermicourt, your ENGVAR theory is completely refuted by stats from British English books. If there's a small difference in the proportions, it's likely attributable to the higher proportion of rail-specialized publications in the UK compared to the US. But it's still a good super-majority hyphenated there. Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But you are uninterested in external sources and consider only the hyphenation styleguide to have any effect. You've just moved (undiscussed, naturally) dual mass flywheel to the hyphenated form, despite the unhyphenated form being universal in the drivetrain industry.[11][12]

You come here, presenting yourself as supporting the use of sources for one case (narrow gauge railways) when there is very little difference of opinion over that particular naming question, yet when there are other issues (such as capitalising "Line") that are contested, your behaviour is to ignore all sources, provided that you can find even one,[13] no matter how non-RS or poorly copyedited that coincides with your prejudical view to enforce the styleguide regardless. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How many times do we have to go over this, Andy? I think I've covered this with you at least half a dozen times already, on three or four different pages now. "[I]n the drivetrain industry" = in specialized sources written by specialists to other specialists. WP is written for a general audience, not a specialized one. What do general-audience, mainstream publications prefer, and what to the style guides they follow (and on which MoS is based) advise, for such constructions? Hyphenation of the compound adjective. Only someone steeped in drivetrain lore has any idea whether the unhyphenated "dual mass flywheel" means a "mass flywheel" of a dual-construction nature (a "dual, mass flywheel"), or flywheel of a "dual-mass" sort (a "dual-mass flywheel"). Specialized publications sometimes drop hyphenation, commas, and other clarifiers because they are certain that their narrow, focused readership all already know the answer and have internalized this terminology in great detail. Do you really think we haven't already been through this same argument many times with regard to medical terms, legal terms, computer science terms, etc., etc., with the same result? Do you really think railroads are somehow raising a new issue here? They most definitely are not. This is time-sucking rehash of perennial "my topic is somehow a special snowflake" tedium. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you three are now so close that you're claiming to speak for each other, I have little interest in what you've said there and am still waiting for Dicklyon's explanation of his moves.

Yes, there is an awful lot of ICANTHEARYOU: Dicklyon is dragged to discussions where he puts forward a reasonable case that relevant eternal sources should be taken into consideration; but then the way he acts, by continuing to make undiscussed page moves against such sources, is at odds with this. I make no excuse for seeing that the naming of an obscure drivetrain component should be taken from the drivetrain industry, the one place it's discussed authoritatively. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do support the use of sources (that's where all info in WP comes from, and informs us about style, too), but I'm not an advocate of "follow the sources", a discreditted anti-MOS campaign from Pmanderson of years past. Where sources are mixed, as S has pointed out, we follow the MOS. In the case of the dual-mass flywheel, I'm seeing 6 of the first 10 book hits with hyphens, but that's not the reason I moved it. I moved it because it was unclear without the hyphen (except to the those in drivetrain business, granted). Dicklyon (talk) 15:51, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I held off on tuned mass damper, because I could not clearly determine which of the two meanings was intended, or whether both work fine. Books sometimes use hyphen, but not often enough to convince me that the small minority with hyphens are correct. So I left it, even though sources are a little bit mixed and I think the hyphen would probably signal the intended meaning better in this case. Dicklyon (talk) 16:05, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bermicourt, please do not engage in circular reassertion of points that have already been refuted; it's just a frustrating waste of everyone's time. Dicklyon provided ample evidence already of real-world confusion that "a gauge railway" is a real term. This is incontrovertible proof from multiple publishers that people are confused on the matter (even professional editors and writers). Second, "the sources favour neither variant" is precisely the situation in which "just do what MoS says and move on" always applies automatically. This kind of scenario (and the habit of people to argue incessantly that their option is the One True Way) is why MoS exists at all. Only in the opposite situation, when the RS are consistently in favor of one particular option and it differs from MoS's default, do we not do the MoS default. This is also the WP:COMMONNAME policy, BTW, so you can stow any "just a guideline" handwaving: "prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources". Third, a slight alleged regional preference for one variant over another has nothing to do with WP:ENGVAR. Please actually go read ENGVAR. It's about norms of standardized English usage that have "strong national ties"; a slight leaning in one direction or another in dialects that each demonstrate both approaches, in practice and in style guides, is neither a dialectal norm nor a strong national tie, but exactly the opposite of both. But as Dicklyon notes, your nationalist assumption is false anyway, and the hyphenation is found aplenty in British materials, too. It's just not preferred in the trainspotter publications you are cherry picking to try to "win". I also have to point out that you can't denigrate the MoS and those who seek compliance with its MOS:HYPHEN provisions, out of one side of your mouth, while crying for the overextension of the MOS:ENGVAR part of it to suit you whims, out of the other. That's like being an atheism activist most of the time, but insisting on your devout Catholicism on Sunday when you hope a desperate prayer will be answered.

This is very simple: If everyone understands the form with the hyphen (even if some, due to familiarity with the term find the hyphen unnecessary for their own, personal, individual comprehension), but some people may not understand without the hyphen (even if you believe that number is small or you think they're ignorant), then the obvious answer is to use the hyphen, since it costs nothing and helps some readers, and helping ignorant readers become better-educated readers is WP's primary raison d'etre. That's all there is to it, and it's how encyclopedic writers approach every such question, from whether to break up a long sentence, to which word order to use, to whether an illustration of something may be needed.
PS: I'm going to laugh very hard if you make some kind of "inefficiency and bother" pseudo-argument about hyphens, after the amount of editorial time you have wasted fighting in vain over this trivia, and since a hyphen and a space take up the same room and require the same number of keystrokes. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Often, a 2-part compound word is written without a hyphen when alone, but as part of a longer compound it has a hyphen to show clearer what component of the total compound belongs closest to what. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:27, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- That's generally the distinction between the noun and adjective forms, respectively. This RfC is only about adjectival use (i.e., use as modifier of a noun). No one is proposing anything like hyphenating "narrow gauge" in a construction like "The railway has a narrow gauge". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:17, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This looks interesting; I'm tempted to try closing it. Any objections? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:02, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
None here. Best of luck. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

IP Block Exemptions should be expanded to include accounts (5+ years) in good standing

There is consensus against automatic granting of IP Block Exemption. Concerns were raised that such a system would be arbitrary (it would also be given to users with no need for it) and may be too easy to game.

There is consensus that the current system for assigning the user right is too restrictive and the right should be easier for trusted users to gain. There was also consensus that the requirements for granting IPBE should be reduced from experienced/trusted users having to demonstrate a need for IPBE (being unable to edit without it), to merely wanting IPBE (preferring to use a VPN while editing for example). Concerns were raised that 'experienced' and 'trusted' are poorly defined terms that may be interpreted inconsistently from one administrator to the next.

I don't believe that the consensus here is sufficient enough to immediately alter the wording of WP:IPBE, given the lack of discussion about specifics in relation to the existing policy and the concerns raised here and in previous discussions about the vague nature of defining 'experienced' or 'trusted' editors. Editors are encouraged to read this discussion and those linked in the More discussion section below thoroughly and to start a discussion (an RfC if necessary) regarding the necessary changes that need to be made to the wording of WP:IPBE based on the consensus here that wanting IPBE is a sufficient rationale to be granted the user right. Sam Walton (talk) 12:08, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

For the past three years I have been using Private Internet Access VPN to make myself harder to track on the Internet. I don't see myself stopping this practice anytime soon. The only problem is that I can't edit wikipedia while logged into PIA. Most of the IP addresses are hard-blocked. So, most of the time, I simply don't edit wikipedia at all. I was hoping that this problem would resolve itself, but it has not. So here I am, proposing a solution.

Although I understand the need to block anonymous edits and new-account edits on proxy-IPs, I do not understand why this block must be so comprehensive that it prohibits veteran wikipedians like myself from being able to edit while logged in.

There is a technical solution already available to users in my position. It is called the Wikipedia:IP block exemption. IP block exemptions are automatically granted to bots and admins. Ordinary editors who are impacted through no fault of their own can also be granted IP Block Exemptions -- but only in extraordinary circumstances. My proposal is that this policy be relaxed. I also request that exemptions be granted to accounts that:

have been around for five years and
have at least a thousand not-minor edits to their name.
Have not been blocked by an admin the last five years.

Very, very few spammers and sock-puppeteers are willing to create an account, contribute over a thousand (non-minor) edits, and wait five years for IP Block Exemption status just so that they can abuse the exemption status. But, if there are any, they will lose their exemption.. Keep in mind that this exemption would only apply to accounts that meet the above criteria.--*Kat* (talk) 13:14, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While I wouldn't be opposed to this, it would be almost a complete 180 of how IPBEs are currently used. See for example Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive279#IPBE - IP block exemption removals where last year an 'audit' was done on every account that has IPBE and if they were not actively using it, the right was removed. Jenks24 (talk) 13:29, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Annoyingly so, for those of us that had this exemption, were not "actively" using it, but then had it revoked only to discover later when they got caught in an IP block trap. Whatever methodology was used for the supposed "audit" was seriously misguided. It apparently never occurred to those parties responsible that editors who are IP block exempt often edit from dynamic IP addresses, which are only blocked some of the time. It may be months without getting caught in a block. Also, it is not very easy to get administrators to grant IP block exemption. They make it seem like it is some kind of once-only special favor. If it is to be understood as a temporary status, then getting it should be far more automatic than it was when I had to spend hours arguing over irrelevant things like my username (you read that right!) in order to get exempted. In fact, this interaction gave me a disgust with administrators here that I still bear. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

At least you didn't get accused of abusing it for edit warring, especially on a page where there isn't enough diff to support the claim that you had a disputed, let alone edit-warred. —Codename Lisa (talk) 15:21, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a reasonable change in policy, perhaps with the addition of a 1-year inactivity removal to reduce the risk of compromised accounts. If someone has been around long enough and proved that they're not causing disruption to the encyclopedia, they should be allowed to edit from wherever they want. — Train2104 (t • c) 16:22, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong opposition to any sort inactivity removal. I normally edit from home, but sometimes I edit from a job site in China. My employer requires that I only connect to the Internet through TOR when onsite in China, so I requested and was granted IPBE. The thing is, I may spend years between the times when I need IPBE. Right now, every so often I use TOR from home, just because someone might decide that I am not using it enough, but that is actually sub-optimal. Not only is it slower, it makes it harder to run a checkuser on me. Removal should start with asking me on my talk page, then seeing that I have edited Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't on vacation or something. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to inactivity as in "no edits at all", not inactivity as in "no edits requiring IPBE". Just like admins are desysopped after a year. — Train2104 (t • c) 03:25, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator note As this would represent a major change to an established administrative policy, I think this should be reframed as a formal RFC, with notifications at WP:AN and WP:CENT. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and did all that, as well as notifying at WT:IPBE. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. If I have missed any other little steps, please let me know or go ahead and correct. (Sidenote: I'm off to work now and won't be back to discuss further for several hours) --*Kat* (talk) 21:56, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any blind automatic granting of any userright as this proposal entails as written. I really don't care if you have been around for 5, 10, or 15 years. And you can do 1,000 edits in a month if you try. Edit count is never a good standard by which to grant userrights by in my opinion. If you need it, request it. If you aren't actively using it it should be removed. That is my stance on all userrights. --Majora (talk) 20:39, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I was trying to come up with objective guidelines. If you have better guidelines, please feel free to suggest them. I also don't understand why you "don't care" how long a person has been around. Do you truly see every editor as a potential vandal? --*Kat* (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - It has nothing to do with seeing every editor as a potential vandal. Userrights should never be automatically granted. Ever. Period. That is my view and the view of a great number of other people as well. --Majora (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - So you would agree to my suggestion of essentially rubber-stamping any valid requests for this, as long as it is not done automatically? (Addendum: If you disagree, please explain why - what specific costs or dangers you feel there would be to such a policy. Obviously, it would have major benefits in terms of making users more satisfied and more able to edit the way they prefer, so you need to present specific costs or dangers to answer that.) --Aquillion (talk) 01:06, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      - What is the difference between "rubber-stamping" something -- that it, approving it without evaluating it -- and automatically granting that same thing? They are synonymous, are they not? And how would one know that a request is "valid" unless one evaluates it, in which case there's no "rubber-stamping" involved. In short, what are you saying? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - Majora presumably does not object to WP:AUTOCONFIRMED and WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED, which are both automatically granted user rights. (If Majora does object because of the principle, then someone could look into revoking both of those on Majora's account, but I recommend against it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      - @WhatamIdoing: Hilarious. I was against ECP to begin with and autoconfirmed is a necessary evil to get around the thousands upon thousands of protected pages (many of which I have on my watchlist and help maintain). Again, as I have said numerous times in this discussion. Need versus want. Autoconfirmed and extended confirmed is a necessary "right" that allows continual editing of the project. I don't have a problem with necessary rights. I have a problem with hat collecting. Which is essentially what "I want it!!!!" boils down to. --Majora (talk) 23:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        What? No, they aren't. You can edit just fine without either one, as plenty of new editors can confirm. I think you are much too confident in your own ability to detect through the Internet what other people's personal security circumstances might be. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:19, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Majora. Also, believe me, some sockmasters do go to great lengths to create and raise sockfarms to gain any automatically-granted access such as being autoconfirmed.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:43, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Autoconfirmed's 4 day, 10 edit requirement is a much lower bar than the proposed 5 year, 1000 edit threshold. The only advantage an abusive editor would gain from IPBE is the ability to behave badly with his home ISP while editing blamelessly via a VPN. It would take less effort to acquire access through an alternate network—a trivial task for many. Rebb ing 21:22, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Additionally sockmasters are the exception rather than the rule.--*Kat* (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Question: First let me say I am no expert on IP users and enforcement actions against IP spammers. The objections above are to any *automatic* "right" maintained by software. I agree with such objections. I think this objection could be addressed if a request was required first, and then this would be a guideline for approval, not automatic right granted, giving an opportunity to look at IP edits to see if there is a problem before being granted the *privilege*. So I am inclined to support under those revisions. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@David Tornheim: The current guidelines for IPBE are already less strict than this. There are not silly numbers or bars that someone has to meet first. The current guidelines are if you need it and are in good standing you get it. That is in line with every other userright on the project. This RfC would actually increase that bar, not lower it, if it was anything other than an automatic granting. --Majora (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Would it? I read the guideline before posting. My impression was that it was only granted in extenuiating circumstances. Such as if your natural (ISP granted) IP address was blocked due to someone else's actions? --*Kat* (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hence the "if you need it" part of the current policy on granting IPBE (and all other userrights for that matter). --Majora (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't **need** it. I just want it. I *can* log out of PIA and edit but I don't like doing so. --*Kat* (talk) 21:52, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And I want a million dollars and a fully paid private jet to take me wherever I want. "Wanting" something is not how we do things here. Even the lowest barred userrights (rollback and PC) require some sort of proof that you need the right to continue editing normally. You Can't Always Get What You Want. --Majora (talk) 21:57, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@*Kat*: Do you want this to be *automatic* without request, or granted with a request having to be made first? --David Tornheim (talk) 22:03, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@David Tornheim: I would prefer automatic. Most of the affected users wouldn't know to ask for it. That hurts wikipedia. If someone abuses it can be revoked easily enough.--*Kat* (talk) 04:24, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@David Tornheim: That said... I can compromise. If the community is very much against an automatic granting of a user right. I can compromise. --*Kat* (talk) 04:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, hold on, Majora: Why are you opposed to Kat (and others in the same situation) getting this right? It is obvious that Kat is not part of some sort of sinister troll-network, which is really the only thing that matters here; and even if they were, this is not a right that (when given to just a few accounts) can cause much disruption. A million dollars and a private jet are expensive; granting Kat the ability to post using a VPN is free. I can understand, sort of, the opposition to granting it automatically, but I don't understand why you feel the right should be reserved only for the most extreme of circumstances - I feel that anyone who can make a good argument of "I would benefit from it" ought to have it. (Trolls are unlikely to request it because doing so only increases the attention focused on them and because, again, the benefits in exchange for the risks are so minor.) If you want to oppose granting this right to anyone who would benefit from it, you need make an argument for the harm or cost that would come from doing so. --Aquillion (talk) 23:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You have put words in my mouth Aquillion that I never said. I'm opposed to anyone getting any right they do not need. If you need IPBE to edit normally, by all means, ask for it. I will stand behind you in your request. I will not, however, stand behind you just because "you want it". That isn't how any userright works, nor should it. --Majora (talk) 23:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
But there's a middle ground you're deliberately ignoring. What about users who would benefit from being able to edit via VPN (because they prefer to use a VPN constantly for whatever reason), but who do not strictly need it? What is your basis for refusing to allow them to do so? My feeling is that if someone requests the ability to edit via VPN, some other user should have to present an argument why they shouldn't get it. If you can't come up with that argument (and you've presented absolutely no reason to deny it here), then they should get it. Anything else would be pointless and unproductive legalese. Giving the ability to edit via VPN to someone like Kat makes it easier for them to edit the way they prefer and makes it more likely that they will edit prolifically, which benefits the encyclopedia as a whole; if you can't come up with a specific counterargument (some cost or danger that would arise from granting it to them), then your objections are groundless and ought to be disregarded. --Aquillion (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(sigh) Wanting to edit through a VPN and needing to edit through a VPN are two completely different things. Again, want and need is the crux of what I am getting at. Very few people need a VPN to edit. Those whose government are monitoring them being the big one that comes to mind. Simply because you want to edit using a VPN does not mean you should have this userright. And there are dangers to this right as there are dangers with any right. Seeing as we have gotten into the "your objections should be disregarded" territory I don't see how continuing this conversation is a positive course of action. --Majora (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I want to know more about the practical end of this distinction you're drawing. Who exactly is supposed to determine me whether my use of a VPN is truly "needed" or merely "wanted"? How is some person who is not me supposed to know what I actually "need" to edit Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: It is rather simple in my mind. Do you require it to edit. The vague "privacy" reason is meaningless without a further reason. As stated above, government surveillance is a major aspect that would warrant the use of anonymizing proxies. A paranoia that you are being watched is also meaningless. Take the China example. There is no paranoia there. The Great Firewall is a known surveillance apparatus that affects editors based in, or travelling to, mainland China. Besides the blanket blocking of zhwiki and the occasional blocking of enwiki, this would require the use of an anonymizing proxy. As a side note, most of these IPs are probably blocked globally and would require a global IPBE which are given out far more easily on meta anyways. There are very few reasons why someone would need to edit through a proxy beyond simple paranoia which Wikipedia should not be party to. Occasionally wanting to edit through a proxy is also meaningless as there is really nothing that is that important that goes on here that cannot wait for you to get somewhere where you don't feel the need for one. --Majora (talk) 23:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So if I say that I won't edit without it, then you would say that I need to tell you my reason, and then you would pass judgement on whether my reason is good enough – according to your values and your circumstances and your understanding, rather than mine. And if you decide that my reason isn't good enough for you, then your reaction is basically "Good riddance, and don't let the door hit you on your way out!" I cannot support that. Individual editors are best suited to make their own decisions. We have in this discussion an editor who has largely stopped editing because of IPBE problems. Not editing because we're imposing an artificial hassle = not good for Wikipedia. This should be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit – not the encyclopedia that anyone who feels comfortable editing without a VPN can edit, or the encyclopedia that anyone who's willing to constantly log in and out of a VPN can edit. (Imagine doing that while trying to search for sources: Login to use a search engine, logout to get back to Wikipedia, login to click a link that explains more in the source, logout to finish editing... Requiring that of editors would be stupid, and it only hurts us.)
I think that your hat-collecting idea is irrelevant. IPBE isn't a "hat". It's a way of enabling editors to do normal, everyday things. It confers no extra abilities to the editor; it merely puts them back on a level playing field. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support, or, failing that, support a general rule that anyone who meets those rough criteria can get it rubber-stamped without the need for extenuiating circumstances. I don't see any reason why this right shouldn't be granted to any established user who would benefit from it, since it costs us nothing and has almost zero risk. --Aquillion (talk) 23:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If such a user asked for the bit, you can expect it would be granted. So no change to policy is needed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:44, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Is this true? Some people above seem to feel that the bit should only be granted to people who absolutely need it (ie. some people are arguing that simply preferring to edit from a VPN for privacy reasons is insufficient, and that it should be denied.) I feel that this is the real question we ought to be addressing; the mechanism by which it is granted is less important than the standard for doing so ("only grant when absolutely necessary" vs. "grant on request unless there's a compelling reason otherwise.") --Aquillion (talk) 01:08, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - Speaking from experience, the granters of this bit are not autocratic jerks. If they feel you're a trusted editor (this, of course, is key), and you state why IPBE would make your editing easier, you'll likely be granted the right. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - "the granters of this bit are not autocratic jerks": Given that you're one of the autocratic jerks that I previously had to deal with, who hassled me about my username, you'll hopefully understand why I don't take your word on this. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:28, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      - Thank you for proving my point. The only admin present in this topic used his judgement and made quite reasonable posts. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Majora: I usually edit at home and school which autoblocks affected the school IP address mostly from vandals in the school, and strongly oppose the 5 year requirement that don't make sense either. I'll alternatively support a 6 month requirement instead. KGirlTrucker81^{huh? what I've been doing} 00:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not against a 6 month requirement. I just figured that people would scream that that wouldn't be long enough.--*Kat* (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as written. I do not agree with this userright being handed out automatically. The vast majority of users do not need it. Also, once you've met this threshold without using IPBE, why would you all of the sudden need it? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I figured that setting this to "automatic" would make it easier to implement -- from a technical standpoint. I was hoping that the five year limit bar would reassure people that the IPBE couldn't be easily abused.--*Kat* (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On another note, you know what doesn't make sense to me? A blanket ban of edits from a proxy IP address, regardless of whether the editor is in question is an anonymous newbie or a logged in user who has been part of wikipedia for more than ten years.--*Kat* (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You'll note I said opposed as written. I am open to the idea of a reasonable proposal to change the conditions under which we grant IPBE, I just don't think automatically granting it after five years is the right approach. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - per Beeblebrox. Any editor who needs it should simply ask for it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Then can I propose that that be made more clear on the IPBE page? I came away (and per user Majora, still get the feeling) that only those with the greatest need be granted an IPBE. --*Kat* (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@*Kat*: I read over the granting at WP:EXEMPT and it seems to me that any editor who was blocked "through no fault of their own" could reasonably be expected to get the privilege:

IP address block exemption allows editors to edit without interruption, when their usual IP address would otherwise be blocked through no fault of their own.

Although it does say in other places that it is only granted under "exceptional circumstances," I believe that was meant to apply to editors requesting it for Tor. I got the impression that being blocked through "no fault of your own" immediately qualifies as an "exceptional circumstance." If that's what confused you, perhaps a suggestion about a slight revision to the page is in order? (To be honest, I think it is one of the better more concisely written pages on rules.)

Or is there another issue? Perhaps that long-term editors might not realize they can request the permission? There is a section that says:

In addition, IP address exemption may also be given by an administrator without a request, to prevent good-faith editors being affected by a hard IP address range block.

It seems you want this to be more automatic. Instead, I would support giving automatic notice to any user meeting the above requirements of the ability to request the exemption. I would support automatic notice for even a much lower threshold. Would that solve the problem?

--David Tornheim (talk) 11:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The part you quoted is intended for someone whose *normal IP* is impacted by a vandal's IP block. My normal is not being blocked. My "chosen" (for lack of a better word) IP is being blocked because it is an open proxy IP. I don't have a problem with open-proxy IP blocks. I've reverted too much vandalism not to understand why they are necessary. What I do have a problem with is open proxy IP blocks impacting long time editors who have done nothing wrong. --*Kat* (talk) 14:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@David Tornheim:, WP:EXEMPT makes it very clear that, "Editing via an anonymous proxy can be easily abused, so it is only granted under exceptional circumstances." THAT is what I would like to change. While I would prefer for the exemption to be granted automatically, if that isn't feasible at this time then it isn't feasible. But I definitely want to see this bar against VPNs lifted.--*Kat* (talk) 14:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@*Kat*: Okay, I don't know this well enough to know whether the word "exceptional" for Tor is too high a standard. I could see the potential for abuse, but I am not sufficiently familiar with that. I think the requirements you listed above are in a sense "exceptional". So perhaps there could be a change that those editors meeting the threshold you identified would meet the "exceptional" standard, but rather than be automatically granted by a bot, that an admin would have to review the request before it is "automatically" granted. I definitely understand the concerns about having a bot do it. A slight revision to the language on the WP:EXEMPT page would make that possible if there is sufficient support for such a change. --David Tornheim (talk) 14:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment *Kat*, it doesn't appear that you even attempted requesting IPBE before opening this RFC. I'm not familiar with typical practices at IPBE, but there's at least a chance that a lot of people's time could have been saved, avoiding this entire RFC. And if you were declined, then at least you'd have some concrete example to consider whether IPBE practices need changing. Alsee (talk) 11:50, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Guilty as charged. I looked at the WP:EXEMPT and determined that under those guidelines I did not quality. At all. WP:EXEMPT makes it very clear that only an editor with "genuine and exceptional need" should be granted an IPBE. As I stated above, this is not something I need; it is something I want. There is nothing preventing me from editing Wikipedia with my normal IP *except* my own desire to stay logged into my VPN. I can't be the only one in this position so I decided to make Wikipedia a better place by proposing a solution.--*Kat* (talk) 14:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC).[reply]
I think it was better that

Kat* made this RfC to address the concern, rectifying any actual problem for all editors similarly situated, rather than focusing primarily on his/her approval. If

Kat* had been denied, and then made this WP:RfC, it would appear more self-serving than to make this request on behalf of all similarly situated editors. --David Tornheim (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment I don't see this RfC as asking the right question. I think IPBEs should be easily granted, without the need for editors in good standing to jump through hoops. (Perhaps granted by request from any user with a certain number of mainspace edits, been around for several years, no block log, or some other reasonable proxy for assessing "in good standing".) I also feel that some test should be incorporated into policy, to make this easier for administrators to check. At the moment, the policy seems quite vague and discretionary, and I think this leads to needless issues both for editors wishing to obtain IPBE and administrators determining whether granting this status is appropriate. However, I don't think they should be automatically granted, as that creates a needless avenue for abuse. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:20, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This having been said, the right to privacy is something that is explicitly recognized by the foundation, in the privacy policy, which states "we believe that you shouldn’t have to provide personal information to participate in the free knowledge movement", and a commitment to "[use] reasonable measures to keep your information secure." This ought to include the freedom to use a VPN to avoid snooping ISPs, and the right should be granted upon request to any editor in good standing who asks for it. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: IPBE should not be automatically granted or automatically removed. IPBE should be the result of an administrator looking at your edit history and deciding that you are unlikely to be a sleeper sockpuppet. Administrators should be instructed that a desire for privacy through a VPN or TOR is considered to be enough reason to grant IPBE, and to focus on the question "Do I think this will be abused" rather than on "can they prove that they really need this"? After this closes, we should have an RfC concerning what I just wrote concerning administrator instructions. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This isn't a discussion about IPBE, this is about allowing editing from webhosts/proxies for established editors (5+years or some other metrics), and should be clearly framed that way. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 14:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a method that allows editing from webhosts/proxies without IPBE? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:32, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guy Macon — we know there are methods, because this is exactly how archive.is got black-listed. Basically someone used non-public (or just public, but not yet detected) proxies to add links to thousands of pages. The issue was not so much with the site itself, but rather with the modus operandi of one(?) user who just changed IP as soon as he/she/they got blocked. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 19:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely my friend -- stop hardrangeblocking to allow registered accounts. The old argument about attribution issues only applies to unregistered editing, and problemtic behaviour can lead to account blocks no matter whether the account is used on a dynamic or static IP or a VPN/webhost. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but claims that "this isn't a discussion about [the title and opening paragraph of the discussion]" will get you nowhere. If you want the blocking of open proxies to stop, you will have to post an RfC asking that question. See [14], [15], and [16]. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Only expansion I see here would perhaps be temporary IPBE, if you are going into an area where you will be forced to use a VPN, but still want to edit. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:13, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is something that is going to have to be addressed in some way sooner rather than later. Private VPN usage due to security concerns is on the rise. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I agree with User:Only in death. Every security expert says to use VPNs on public networks. This issue should be resolved somehow. Maybe Wikimedia can have it's own VPN just for editing Wiki projects. Or whatever. Felsic2 (talk) 16:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That would be a useful allocation of funds from the McDuck moneypit they are building. And of course, since it would be useful, its unlikely to ever happen. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - this is a solution in search of a problem. Which editor in good standing who needs an IPBE has been denied one? If the OP needs an IPBE then if they ask on my talk page they can have one! If there are privacy issues then go to WP:UTRS where I spend much of my time! Numeric criteria are no good - so an editor has no blocks, it does not mean that they are not problematic - admin judgement has to be used because the protection of the Project is the overarching requirement. Just Chilling (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a solution. I usually am logged into a VPN. Which means that my IP address is autoblocked. *And* it changes all the time. You are saying that I should request an unblock everytime I want to change a paragraph. This is not a feasible solution since it would take longer to get unblocked than it would take to change the paragraph. And then I would probably have to do it all over again the next time I see something that needed to be fixed. --*Kat* (talk) 21:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say anything like that! Please reread my offer again! Just Chilling (talk) 01:59, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support in principle, oppose these conditions — I had the right prior to 2016 because I travel extensively, it was removed last year because I hadn't struck upon any issues then (which per definition I would have not have noticed) — and was currently not abroad. Within a few months I struck upon the issue while traveling (within Sweden as well, mind you) — which forced me to waste hours applying for a new exception, and wasted time from an administrator that had to look into the issue and verify that the IP I was editing from really was blocked, and was blocked for something unrelated to me. The issue has arisen at hotels, libraries and some campuses I've visited.

However I disagree with some of the points that are suggested here as to how the right would be given. While it is true that it is very unlikely that a vandal or disingenuous person would wait 5 years to later start sockpuppeting – this may open the floodgates for a stream of paid editors creating hundreds of accounts today, which could be used in 2022. This is not a good solution, even though we really ought to be far less rigid when handing out IP-block-exempt rights. Unfortunately I don't have any solution that would avoid this issue, but I think it's important to note that the issue is worth looking into.

The biggest hurdle to implementing this is the cut-off of only being able to go back 6 months through checkuser. We could potentially allow anyone with more than 1000—10,000 edits to edit through an IP-block, as long as we could checkuser them back further. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 19:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Our approach to this problem is increasingly out of date and out of step with both "mission-aligned" external groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and with other common security advice. Current procedure for obtaining IPBE expects disclosure of the circumstances that necessitate it, which is obviously counterproductive for those who really do have compelling serious security concerns, and unnecessarily restrictive for those who are just privacy-minded. It's time we modernized our management of this issue.
This was discussed a bit after last year's IPBE audit, but a few proposals were made that weren't workable, and nothing really congealed into a better proposal. Unfortunately, this one isn't really workable either, as amply covered above - edit-count thresholds are both gameable and counterproductive, account-tenure thresholds are not all that meaningful, and in any case, five years is hugely excessive.
Realistically, although socking by established users is more disruptive than socking by garden-variety trolls, it is also less common and often noticed behaviorally. It would be interesting to have more data, but I don't think we have strong evidence now that relaxing requirements for IPBE for established users would lead to such a significant increase in disruptive activity that it wouldn't be worth doing. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:03, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose/Comment. I am opposed to automatic granting of rights to people who may not need them. I am opposed to arbitrary limits for edit counts or tenure in order to qualify. I am opposed to people hanging on to rights when they are no longer needed. However I do support some relaxing of the current wording of the policy. The policy was written a long time ago, before Edward Snowden, proper Wikimedia HTTPS, and all that. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support dropping "need" as a criterion. I don't think the proposed five-year threshold makes a lot of sense. But I think Majora's "need versus want" is not a useful demarcation for this sort of thing. No one "needs" to edit Wikipedia in the first place. If a trustworthy editor judges that editing through a VPN will facilitate editing, there's no good reason for us to get sticky about whether it is "necessary". --Trovatore (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree with you. It shouldn't be about whether I think your circumstances are sufficiently dire to absolutely require it; it should be about whether you'd (at least occasionally) use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose One user having difficulties of their own making isn't an issue. This is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist in the first place. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 08:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as written. I wouldn't like to see the right automatically granted, and I also think the five year requirement is far too long. Even if we made it a few months and a thousand edits, that will dissuade all but the most determined sockmasters (and those highly determined ones will find a way whether we grant people IPBE or not.) What I would support, as always, is granting IPBE on request to any established user in good standing (without trying to too tightly define that) with the clear proviso that "I want to use this service for privacy reasons" is a good enough reason. Wikipedia should be a supporter of open use of the Internet, and that includes, if one desires, the ability to use it without being tracked. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:16, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Let me put it simply, if this were to be implemented do you understand what'd happen if experienced users turned, there'd be almost no way to determine the entire situation. The Ricky81682 affair already affirms that it's a credible possibility. As anyone else who works at SPI would say, I'm vehemently in opposition. --QEDK (愛) 06:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Restart

I think we need to completely start over here. Many users have expressed support for some sort of change/relaxation of the conditions under which we grant IPBE, but very few are supportive of this specific proposal. So, let's try this again.

Currently, "because I want to use a VPN" is not a valid reason for granting IPBE, even to experienced users, even though it is granted to admins by default and they are therefore free to use VPNs if they wish. Should we therefore grant IPBE to users in good standing and with significant editing histories if they desire to use VPNs? Beeblebrox (talk) 22:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's important to keep in mind that currently there are only 145 non-admin users who have this right. The majority of them are either operating from behind firewalls in places like China or are regularly affected by blocks that are not targeted at them. The risk involved in opening this up is that, as we have al seen, sometimes even highly experienced users turn out to also be highly experienced sockpupeteers. If they are using VPNs Checkuser is pretty much useless at detecting sock farms. So, this is the risk we would be taking if we decide to do this. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Beeblebrox, where do you get the idea that there are 145 non-admin users who have this right? If I go to Special:Listusers and request IPBE users, I see only 113 names, and at least one of them is an admin's public-computer sock (it's mine, Nyttend backup), which has the right because I travel a lot and not too uncommonly find blocks on public computers or other networks. Nyttend (talk) 19:22, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's what it says at the IPBE page, must be outdated. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The IPBE page pulls directly from ListUsers. Special:ListUsers/ipblock-exempt does show ~140+ usernames. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Silly me — I just discovered my mistake. I reached the final page and ran a search for (IP block exempt), which returned thirteen results, but of course it doesn't count users who have other rights as well. Nyttend (talk) 20:00, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to start by accepting that with a certain level of dedication and sophistication, a sockmaster will be able to avoid all of our technical means of detection. I'm not going to spill the WP:BEANS, but its out there. Actually they can already do this with IPBE, if they are willing to put the time and effort in necessary to pass an RFA. Luckily, the number of sockmasters that are willing to make that effort to do either is small enough that we really don't really worry about it. So if we were talking enough edits to be in RFA territory, we are setting the bar high enough that few sockmasters would be willing to make the commitment. At that point the risk is really previously good editors who turn to socking after already meeting whatever criteria we set of IPBE. But there really isn't much we can do between just accepting that risk, or just saying no... The only thing I can come up with would be to restrict IPBE editors from editing in sensitive areas (noticeboards/areas with sanctions/related to arbitration) when using a VPN, such that either socking or violating this rule could be detected by Checkuser. Personally, I'd accept the risk even without such a restriction, and support something in the neighborhood of 20k edits & 2 years as a guideline for waiving the "need" criteria in an IPBE request. Monty ₈₄₅ 04:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

20K might be a bit much. I've been here for 12 years and was active for at least 7 of them (not consecutively) and I've only got 5K. Maybe 20K is easier to get now than it was a few years ago though. Either way, seems a bit steep to me.--*Kat* (talk) 09:24, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support As per the above, it's obviously a balancing act. That being said, it's hard to see why experienced editors should be limited in this regard. Sockpupeteers are of course a problem, but anyone who is openly disruptive will be hopefully be caught before they get this far, or at least before they do substantial damage. We shouldn't live our lives running around in fear of sockpuppets. Additionally, the additional scrutiny brought by an IPBE request may actually help detect some sockpuppets. Certainly that's enough to make me think it's worth it. Tamwin (talk) 05:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Obviously. Sure, sometimes good editors go bad but they are the exceptions rather than the rule.--*Kat* (talk) 09:24, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate support - The question is "should established users be allowed to edit via VPN" and my answer is "yes" but I don't think IPBE is the solution. Instead of allowing IPBE for established users, we should stop hardrangeblocing VPNs/webhosts. The old argument about attribution issues only applies to unregistered editing, and problemtic behaviour can lead to account blocks no matter whether the account is used on a dynamic or static IP or a VPN/webhost. Softrangeblocks can continue disallowing unregistered editing via VPNs/webhosts. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Would there be any downside to using soft blocks instead of hard blocks for VPNs? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:38, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The old attribution argument hasn't had any credibility for at least a decade (if it had any at all). The real problem with softblocking proxies is the prolific abuse from vandals and sockpuppeteers who tend to use them to operate large numbers of accounts. Accounts are easy to create. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You can block account creation on a rangeblock without disallowing editing for logged-in editors. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 14:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And it's easy for any vandal who is rangeblocked to find another IP address in order to create accounts. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:01, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which is besides the point of this discussion, it is neither easier nor harder for someone to find a different range whether the original range is softblocked+ACD or hardblocked. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've got something here. This would be easier to implement and would not require a lot of admin time. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:37, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's more of a mindset change. (And coding tweaks to ProcseeBot probably). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It would make socking marginally easier, as one could create an account from some clean/public location, and then sock from home via VPN. I don't really know how big an issue that would end up being... We could probably do a softblock trial and just make sure we can easily roll it back if we see a flood of socking... Monty ₈₄₅ 23:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dedicated sockers are already finding plenty of ways around the roadblocks we try to impede them with, so I don't foresee this option changing much. Miscreants with too much time on their hand have always and will always continue finding ways to haunt the project no matter what we do. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:30, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) So at this point, I've stopped going after most webhost blocks for a year or two now at least, UNLESS I see abuse of the range. So all my blocks over these past 2 years are because of abuse. Futhermore, People ask me to go block the potential proxy that users rotate through like they get new IPs at the push of a button, I refuse as it's a waste of my time. So that's a lot already thats left open.

The reason I set them to be webhost blocks is so that any admin who is informed on proxies can make a legitimate change to them, otherwise, you'll just see me going right back to checkuser blocks on the ranges, which then increases the additional load on checkusers with block appeals that aren't worth the money they were written on, as it's harder to tell a legitimate user from a sockpuppet. Don't belive me? Read back to 2013 where I had a week and a half of hell and was berated for my well-intentioned actions. Post that, it then proceed through a month long audit of my actions. That said, reading through, I got a lot more support than I had realized, but I still only remember the bad end of it 4 years later, and it's molded into me hard. I've also had several more recent cases where the user gets upset when I ask them about their editing on a proxy, as they think they are exempt from such investigations having IPBE.

If the community wants to allow clear use of IPBE for any established editor on the fact that they want a VPN, then i'm going to be walking away from any investigations that involve webhost/proxy usage as a CU. This will only result in more "established user" sockpuppets from getting through. It's extremely hard for me to tell if Joe 1 is a different person from Joe 2 on a webhost/proxy, if they use the same software. Without the limit from people using a VPN...there is no point to CU investigations on VPNs. So you'll have more evasion, more major sockmasters getting away (including extremely abusive ones), and more community members frustrated over the lack of good that checkusers can do or have the ability to investigate. If your going to force the softblocking of proxies and webhosts...the same thing applies.

To be clear, if someone has a pressing issue that requires the privacy of a VPN, I do not hesitate in granting IPBE either. So I ask to trust your checkusers to handle the private request reasons and assign IPBE when appropriate. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 01:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Trust the government...they're here to help. :-P --*Kat* (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On a more serious note: It isn't that I don't trust you. I just don't understand why I should have to justify my decision to use a VPN.--*Kat* (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the benefit of the closer: I would also Support the suggestion as proposed, to allow IPBE to be granted more freely to established users. It's not my preferred solution as explained above but it's a solution I can still support. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:50, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: I honestly don't see a pressing need to allow people to use VPN, TOR, or other proxy services simply because they want to. Yes, any sufficiently intelligent and committed sockpuppeteer can still manage to make himself checkuser-proof, but from my experience at SPI, that does not appear to be most sockers. Most of them are demonstrably lazy, stupid, and/or ignorant of how the internet functions. If you make it easier to sock, there will be more socking. The WMF privacy policy never promises that all of your information will be invisible to everyone, only that it will be invisible to the public, and almost every user of the site. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Someguy1221: So you are against it just because you don't see a pressing need for it?--*Kat* (talk) 04:33, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that if an email from OP had shown up in my inbox, I'd have spent a few minutes poking around to see if everything was on the up-and-up, flipped the switch, and then tried to remember to come back in a month and ensure it was being used properly. Truthfully, I likely would forget that last step. Long term good faith users are not going to ask for this flag to start socking, and while we need to be vigilant about handing this right out, we treat it entirely too carefully. People who want to make trouble aren't likely to start contacting checkusers with an open invitation to pull their data and investigate. Courcelles (talk) 03:36, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, they just go and find an admin who is willing to do it. I also frequently forget the last step, most CUs do. And I think one big issue around this is define long term/established/whatever. Long term users won't ask for this to sock, my experience is when they are already socking or they won't ever sock. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 04:17, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose What legitimate reason would there be for wanting to use a VPN versus needing to? If you need to bypass censorship then that's a need, not a want. Still not convinced.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I do either. Others have said it is because they wish to maintain their privacy, but if you are just a username on a screen, only a CU can find out anything you don't tell them yourself, and a CU will only look if there is reason to suspect abuse. If instead you are frequently caught in blocks intended for others, that is already a valid reason to grant IPBE. On the other hand, all admins get this by default and don't have to justify using a VPN, ever. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support. I think far too much is being made over the difference between "wanting" versus "needing" to use a VPN. Privacy is a basic right, that is explicitly acknowledged by the WMF. It is also a necessity in today's world. Furthermore, one needs a VPN in order to secure this right of privacy. (Ever edit from a coffee shop? from work? from an unsecured WAN? over cable lines owned by an ISP? yeah, I thought so.) It may or may not be that there are immediate consequences to a lack of privacy, but that is usually only clear in hindsight (after arrest and torture, having assets frozen, identity stolen, personal details posted, or other unpleasantness). Unless administrators are granted prescient abilities to determine whether some such unpleasant circumstances are going to come about as a result of lack of privacy, they have no business determining whether an editor wishing to use a VPN to secure privacy comes from a "need" for this basic right, or a mere passing fancy. Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Sławomir Biały: took the words out of my mouth and made them better. I'm not hiding from Wikpedia, I'm concealing my presence on the net by masking my IP. I'm making it harder for individuals and groups with the means and motivation to know what websites I am visiting and when. Using the VPN gives me peace of mind and for the most part the Internet is exactly the same when I am logged in as it is when I am logged out. There are only two things I can't do while logged into VPN: order a pizza and edit wikipedia.--*Kat* (talk) 01:09, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You want privacy of a kind unknown to the vast majority of internet users. If it is that important, why not buy a VPN service that is not used by trolls to attack Wikipedia and so which is not blocked? The comments by Amanda above may seem incidental to you (just another person's opinion) but to those of who see WP:LTA cases, Amanda's comments seal the deal—privacy of the kind wanted is not available for free, and a very experienced checkuser has noted that open slather on IPBE would make checking too hard. Johnuniq (talk) 01:50, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You could demand committed identities from exempt editors. That would obviate the need for checkusers. Sławomir Biały (talk) 02:01, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think {{committed identity}} is relevant to Amanda's point. It is not desirable to publicly discuss checkuser procedures but we have a clear statement that Amanda will not be able to pursue socks who operate through webhosts/proxies, presumably because there would be too much noise due to assumed valid users who are using them for assumed valid edits. Johnuniq (talk) 02:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sławomir Biały: and what would stop them from lying about it? -- Amanda (aka DQ) 00:15, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You could confirm an institutional email address, telephone number, or other publicly accessible piece of information. Doesn't OTRS regularly have to do this sort of thing? Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:42, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Sławomir Biały: True, but not everyone has one of those, and some have multiple. Plus I don't really want to have someones phone number or text/call them to verify that it's their number, and pay the associated costs. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 06:41, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DeltaQuad: Is WP:AGF no longer a guiding principle of Wikipedia?--*Kat* (talk) 06:25, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Kat: When it comes to socks, no. If I assumed everyone who told me they are not a sock was telling the truth, we'd have many socks all over Wikipedia, including administrative ones like ArbCom dealt with this past year. Either way, my argument is that this data wouldn't be helpful to begin with. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 06:41, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing in this proposal that says you should ignore WP:Duck and grant this access right indiscriminately.--*Kat* (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not that it should matter, but I do use a paid VPN. Private Internet Access isn't free. It is, however, quite popular with VPN users because it doesn't log anything. But we are getting off topic here. This isn't about me. This is about Wikipedia's policies. And privacy.--*Kat* (talk) 04:16, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, Wikipedia does not maintain a list of VPN providers that are not blocked. And in any case, there is no guarantee that a VPN provider which is not blocked now will remain so. I have used paid VPNs in the past which were eventually blocked. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the time the IP blocks I come across are specific to my paid VPN service. Perhaps I should be paying more? --*Kat* (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support. A desire for privacy is sufficient reason. I don't use a VPN to hide from checkusers or to sock. I use one because, first, I use public access points with some frequency and it is insane to connect unprotected to those, and second, because I want to put one more stumbling block in front of entities (public or private) that want to track my Internet activity. Sure, Wikipedia doesn't track anyway and I wouldn't really care about my information being available here, but Wikipedia is not the only site I visit and a VPN is either on or off. I can use it since admins can bypass those blocks, but it's hardly fair I can do that and many other good-faith users cannot. Someone who is so determined to sock that they will work up an account to the "good standing" level is going to find a way to sock, period. It's hardly like use of a VPN is the only way to do it. The "good standing" requirement will dissuade those casually considering socking, and they're the only ones it's possible to dissuade at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I think "do you need it or do you just want it?" is an arrogant and obnoxious question. That's my main concern here. I'm OK with a reasonably high bar for evidence that an editor is trustworthy, but a trustworthy editor should not be asked why they "need" to do something. --Trovatore (talk) 04:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I suppose that current protection mechanisms exist for a reason, and are built on prior experience. My own experience as a regular editor is that some ten years ago one would far more easily get entangled in an IP sock fight with uncountable ramifications than more recently. I'd listen to the people managing SPI, because obviously they're doing a good job. VPN-related strictures can be bypassed via a standard operational mechanism without endangering the general protection level. So what does one want: not having to jump through any hoops if one wants to bypass VPN strictures without obvious rationale? Don't see what would be the advantage of that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I don't say that editors requesting IPBE shouldn't be asked for a reason. I object to framing it as a requirement for a need. Kat, I think, has presented a reason. She judges it prudent to use VPN for everything, not just Wikipedia. That's a perfectly plausible reason, if not necessarily a need. If IPBE asks for a reason of that level of significance, together with an established pattern of behavior that inspires trust, it seems to me that it would be quite time-consuming and difficult for a sockmaster to establish a farm of identities that can all meet that burden, and almost impossible to avoid giving them away with common tropes/word choices/speech patterns/etc. --Trovatore (talk) 10:23, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support per Trovatore. If someone has a valid reason and is well-established and trustworthy (long edit history and no evidence of problems) there's no reason we shouldn't give it out. --Jayron 32 14:45, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support per Sławomir Biały and others. According to The Intercept,

As described in a document saved by GCHQ, Palantir fielded a team in 2008 and tackled one such scenario using its own software. It was a powerful marketing opportunity at a conference filled with potential buyers.
In the demo, Palantir engineers showed how their software could be used to identify Wikipedia users who belonged to a fictional radical religious sect and graph their social relationships. In Palantir’s pitch, its approach to the VAST Challenge involved using software to enable “many analysts working together [to] truly leverage their collective mind.” The fake scenario’s target, a cartoonishly sinister religious sect called “the Paraiso Movement,” was suspected of a terrorist bombing, but the unmentioned and obvious subtext of the experiment was the fact that such techniques could be applied to de-anonymize and track members of any political or ideological group. Among a litany of other conclusions, Palantir determined the group was prone to violence because its “Manifesto’s intellectual influences include ‘Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, [and] Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí,’ a list of military commanders and revolutionaries with a history of violent actions.”

That said, I should mention I have substantial reservations about VPNs. The ideological leader of the world, China, has already begun substantial and effective crackdowns on VPNs. The powerful elite behind omnipresent copyright surveillance in the U.S. certainly likes them no better. The VPNs may promise to limit record-keeping, yet all of them know that their days are numbered and in the end their best hope to make money and avoid prosecution involves some kind of deal involving those records. And using one provides extra documentation of identity and communications. I therefore don't mean to recommend them like they were a silver bullet, but ideologically I would like to see Wikipedia step out of lockstep with the computer surveillance state. Wnt (talk) 18:03, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt: The level of non objective content in your comment above is concerning. Wikipedia and its servers are guests of a State for which you speak against. The way you have phrased this post seems to suggest that Wikipedia should be at odds with the State that hosts it, not only is this extremely dangerous but also seems to violate the principle that Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy. I agree that VPN use should be unrestricted but only on the principle merit that it cannot be avoided and thus methods that work either need to be implemented to completely stop VPN use for everyone or it should be available to anyone. A failed system is a worse example than no system at all and if the system is required by practical need then it should be implemented to at the very least, work. Now anarchy is not the aim of the game here nor is it to try and counter Government surveillance of the country which implements this according to its Laws which are the same Laws the Wikimedia foundation is governed by. →ὦiki-Coffee^{(talk to me!)} _{(contributions)} 01:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Let's try to avoid arguing general political ideology unless it really can't be avoided. This is a discussion about Wikipedia practices, not about how we feel about the State. --Trovatore (talk) 03:50, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wiki-Coffee: Wikipedia is not a "guest" of a State - it was founded and run by citizens of a State, who have rights. If that State were to make a law that forums cannot allow people to post if they come from a VPN, or unless they sign up with their official ID cards and identity verification fob device, well, then that would be a law, and WMF might follow it or take it to the courts. (I'd predict B, wouldn't you?) But until such time, if the State is going to set up a "voluntary" surveillance program, or if other States run surveillance abroad, we have the choice whether we want to help that or not. I'd say B again. Wnt (talk) 16:14, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt: I think that I can understand your point. Basically, we should accommodate the needs of people who are so vain that they genuinely believe a countries government would be interested in them for no reason and that supporting the needs of paranoid and irrational individuals is of greater importance than protecting the integrity of Wikipedia by preventing sock-puppetry and POV-Pushing from socks. →ὦiki-Coffee^{(talk to me!)} _{(contributions)} 18:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wiki-Coffee: This sort of "paranoid and irrational" namecalling never deserved respect, but today... have you ever heard the name Erdogan? Have you encountered articles like [17][18][19][20]? Modern mass surveillance goes a hell of a lot further than the occasional Marcus Garvey - the example I give is of a whole country where people thought they had a "democratic" society and now anyone accused of reading the wrong book or talking to the wrong person is living in fear. And ... even now, Turkey is still reckoned one of the freer countries in the Middle East, God help the poor bastards. Now - people hope that thinking that way would be paranoid for Americans, but who knows? It takes all types to make a balanced social ecosystem. If some people encrypt their communications and cache guns in the desert, maybe the rest of us won't need to have done so. Wnt (talk) 20:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused how concerns about privacy over public networks, unsecured WANs, and ISPs became a discussion about state surveillance. While there certainly are justifiable concerns about surveillance from government parties &endash; local law enforcement Stingrays, federal spying programs, international espionage, or editing behind a national firewall &endash; often the primary goal in using a VPN is to prevent private, non-governmental parties, from obtaining unsolicited access to information. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sławomir Biały: There is a smooth gradient between public and private spying. For example, see the conflict HBGary and "Anonymous" hackers - was that a public or a private action? Business is crime is law. Wnt (talk) 12:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not disagreeing, but dismissing concerns over privacy as anti-government paranoia seems to miss the point. Data is stored and shared by many parties, most of which are actually private entities. It's the weakest links in that chain that we should be concerned with. That might be a local law enforcement Stingray, or a poorly secured WLAN in a coffee shop. By saying that we don't want "government" to have access, most folks take that to mean the NSA. That just invites spurious arguments like "If you aren't doing anything that would place the national security of [...] at risk, then you have nothing to hide." The point is, everyday citizens should be concerned with their privacy, and not because of the NSA. However one feels about the Men In Black, there are plenty of (other?) bad guys out there to be worried about. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:51, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support granting IPBE in both proposals I agree with others that proposal statement could be formed better. The position that I support is granting easier IPBE to trusted users. It is too difficult to get this user right to the correct people who need it. I understand and recognize the need for a strong vetting process when this right is issued, but right now, the process is too indistinct to describe and too onerous to recommend. I have done editing to Wikipedia:Open proxies, Wikipedia:Blocking_IP_addresses#Open_proxies, Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Open_or_anonymous_proxies, Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor, meta:No open proxies, and also posted lots of notes at meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Partnership between Wikimedia community and Tor community. I am convinced that there are no clear answers to be found on how IPBE is issued or managed, other than the approval process requires meeting unpublished criteria that are not cross-checked to meet the demand of what most Wikimedia people want. I feel that most Wikimedia community members would want for logged-in accounts that have passed a high standard challenge to prove their trustworthiness would support giving exemption to people who profess a need. My objection is that there is no standard, not even a high one, that a person can pass to get this right. I want a standard defined and the right awarded, and then over time I want the standard discussed so that it can align with community need. Among the people who might want to edit through a VPN include anyone who values their privacy as a personal choice and people who value their privacy as they edit political or illegal Wikipedia articles like LGBT+ related topics or articles about opposition parties in governments which discourage that. Right now, there is no way for a person with privacy concerns to publicly state their problem because many people who want privacy do not want to draw attention to the fact that they want privacy. The conversation needs to start somewhere, and it can start by vetting this person to have the userright. If things check out as they saw they do, then a user with a huge number of edits and 5 years of editing is a fair candidate for an increased level of trust. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support second proposal. I don't think it makes sense to automatically grant it to anyone, but "I want to use a VPN" seems like a legit reason to me, assuming that the account is a) somewhat experienced and b) in good standing. If they abuse it, it can be removed with a few clicks of a button. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 22:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to accept that if the community wants this change, that we hand out IPBE on request. That said, this RfC has not specified so far what "established users" means nor has it established what we would do if a user is not in good standing (like a previous sockpuppetry block, about to be sanctioned, etc.). I would appreciate something surrounding that be put into this before we have admins granting IPBEs to editors who easily racked 500 edits in two months. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 00:42, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Established users in good standing" has been an accepted (if unwritten) standard at Wikipedia for some time. Its definition may vary some depending on context, but general it means that someone has enough edit history to judge that they know what they are doing, and "in good standing" means that there has never been any questions of the users integrity. Per WP:CREEP, WP:NOT#BURO, etc. it isn't always useful to define hard limits. Admins are promoted as admins solely because the community trusts their judgement and believes they can make the correct decisions in cases like this. --Jayron 32 02:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Comment. I don't know how formalized this needs to be. I would be happy with just a little change of mind-set, where the first question is not "do you need it?" but rather "do we trust you?" and maybe the second question is "do you have, not necessarily a 'need', but a non-frivolous reason that rings true?". If that turns out to be too much discretion (that is, if people are getting denied that the community can't figure out why they should be, or if there seems to be favoritism based on POV or something), then it can be revisited. --Trovatore (talk) 02:55, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support: "Because I want to use a VPN" and "Because I want to use TOR" are indeed valid reasons for granting IPBE, to users in good standing and with significant editing histories, subject to the discretion of the deciding administrator. In other words, not automatically accepted and not automatically rejected. If anyone thinks that what I just wrote is not what this particular section of this RfC is asking, let me know and I will post Yet Another RfC. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:46, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My reasoning: privacy concerns are a perfectly good reason for requesting IPBE, and the user should not be asked to "supply a good reason". That being said, a vague "this one smells wrong" feeling is a perfectly good reason for an administrator to reject an IPBE without prejudice (meaning that another admin is free to grant it). "Does this user really need IPBE?" is the wrong question for an admin to ask. "Do I trust this user to not engage in socking?" is the right question for an admin to ask. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:54, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This seems reasonable.--*Kat* (talk) 06:39, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support What Guy Macon said. 'I would like my privacy protected' is a perfectly valid reason. The problem I forsee is 12 months down the line another checkuser deciding on a whim that everyone who has IPBE doesnt have need of it in their opinion and removing it. So there needs to be a policy change to explicitly prevent this, either in the Checkuser policy or IPBE to prevent 'sweeps'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:41, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - before people get carried away with @Guy Macon:'s comment, note that the question before us, what I and the others supported, was "Should we therefore grant IPBE to users in good standing and with significant editing histories if they desire to use VPNs?" That is a call for admins to grant the right, not to think about it on a case by case basis and use any or no justification ("smells wrong") to deny it. The proposal doesn't take away their discretion when evaluating "good standing" or "significant editing histories", until such time as those things are better defined, but it does require them to evaluate those things fairly and act on them as appropriate. Too much "discretion" here only encourages the situation Guy suggested - asking another administrator. The admins don't seem to like it when you ask Daddy because Mommy said no, so the excessive discretion would likely be followed up with an interpretation we absolutely didn't vote for, namely prohibiting any admin from reexamining the first admin's verdict, at which point the whole procedure becomes extremely arbitrary and subject to personal politics and perhaps ethnic affiliations or stereotypes. Wnt (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand. None of Guy's remarks indicated that he wants admins to ignore WP:DUCK and act as a rubber stamp. Nor does he suggest that editors should or will go admin shopping in a quest for approval.--*Kat* (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

He isn't disagreeing or agreeing with me. He is answering my question ("If anyone thinks that what I just wrote is not what this particular section of this RfC is asking, let me know and I will post Yet Another RfC.") by saying that there is at least one person who thinks that what I wrote is not what this particular section of this RfC is asking. Make that two, because I agree with him on that point. Clearly, a more carefully worded RfC is needed, which will appear shortl as soon as my nimble fingers start typing it in a new section. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No admin can ever be positively required to take an admin action. We can always decline to push a button. So I can always answer a request to give IPBE (or any other user right) with "Sorry, but I'm not comfortable doing that." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:20, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per my rationale in the previous section. --QEDK (愛) 06:03, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed draft of new policy

Draft withdrawn

With respect -- and great appreciation for his support -- to Guy Macon I'd really rather us not get bogged down in a discussion on what we should discuss next in this discussion on changing the IPBE policy. so, if I may, I'd like to proposal a revised policy here.

Current wording

Editing via an anonymous proxy can be easily abused, so it is only granted under exceptional circumstances. Examples of editors who may reasonably request an exemption include users who show they can contribute to the encyclopedia, and (for existing users) with a history of valid non-disruptive contribution, but are either being hindered by restrictive firewalls, or for exceptional reasons must edit via anonymous proxies.

However, many users are known to access through open proxy unknowingly due to the default setting of their browser. Before you apply for IP block exemption (which may take time and is not guaranteed to be granted), you should check the internet connection preference of your browser and change it to no proxy access.

Note that avoidance of checkuser, or specific checkusers, is not usually considered a sufficient reason – concerns over checkusers should be discussed with the Arbitration Committee or ombudsman.

Who may request: An editor who has genuine and exceptional need, and can be trusted not to abuse the right.
How to request: Email the functionaries team or contact a CheckUser directly, explaining why you need to edit via anonymous proxies. Administrators who are contacted through other means may need to consult a checkuser to confirm the problem.

New Wording (proposed)

Editing via an anonymous proxy can be easily abused, and therefore will not be granted without deliberation. Examples of editors who may reasonably request an exemption include users who show they can contribute to the encyclopedia, and (for existing users) with a history of valid non-disruptive contribution, but are either being hindered by restrictive firewalls, or for reasons of their own, would prefer to edit while logged into a VPN.

Note that avoidance of checkuser, or specific checkusers, is not usually considered a sufficient reason – concerns over checkusers should be discussed with the Arbitration Committee or ombudsman.

Who may request: Any editor with an account that is in good standing and who has a significant history of positive (non-disruptive) contributions to Wikipedia.
How to request: Email the functionaries team or contact a CheckUser directly, explaining why you need to edit via anonymous proxies. Administrators who are contacted through other means may need to consult a checkuser to confirm the problem.

Okay...discuss. --*Kat* (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

edited to add part about significant editing histories--*Kat* (talk) 12:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to treat those who cannot edit without a VPN (or equivalent) differently from those who could edit without one, but for any reason prefer to edit using one. We should only consider a request for IPBE from a new editor if they have a "genuine and exceptional need". The burden would be on the requester to provide justification. We should consider the request of an experienced and trusted editor without requiring them to provide any justification, though with an opportunity for discussion if anyone has a particularized objection to the editor receiving the right. There would be a reputable presumption that IPBE would be granted when requested by such an experienced editor. Monty ₈₄₅ 05:20, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose Ladies and Gentleman, this proposal could be seen to be a violation of the principle that Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or anarchy.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, a wonderful one at that. It’s a place for objective content which helps people access knowledge. Unless there is evidence to suggest that allowing wider access to IP Block exemptions, particularly to subjectively “trustworthy editors” is going to help Wikipedia by allowing for more useful contributions this policy suggestion is utterly redundant. →ὦiki-Coffee^{(talk to me!)} _{(contributions)} 10:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coffee I would like for the VPN blocks to be done away with as well. But that proposal didn't achieve any kind of consensus. I was hoping that I'd missed something when Beetlebrox came out in support of the measure but judging from Amanda's response I didn't. Expanding on the IPBE is the next best thing -- and it is what has achieved has achieved consensus. Amanda can live with it and so can I. Since we are on opposite ends of this spectrum I think that means it has the best chance of actually effecting change. --*Kat* (talk) 11:43, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (& proposing a rationale for closing this discussion without further ado) – I just had a look at Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption: seems the issue has been discussed for over a year, with multiple RfCs, the last one of these ending in a WP:SNOW close. When the topic was launched here at WP:VPP, no noticeable reference was made to that prior discussion (and its outcome), so to me this seems like a sort of ask the other parent, because if participants here would have been more aware of prior discussion I suppose this would have seen a WP:SNOW close long ago. Instead, we're just taking editors' time for something that sooner or later will receive its (half molten & watery, but predictable) SNOW close anyhow.

Now the reason why I went to look at Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption is that I was going to propose to close the discussions here at VPP and suggest not to come here again before at least at the IP block exemption talk page something would become apparent as not necessarily ending in a SNOW close. I still think that a good mode of operation: close this VPP discussion (and all other threads on the same topic). Keep discussions at the IP block exemption talk page until something with a sort of rough consensus there is worth taking the wider editor community's time for. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:55, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did 'not' forum shop. I wasn't aware of the discussion on the IPBE talk page. I ran a search for "VPN" on the Village pump and skimmed WP:Perennial. Didn't see anything that fit. Which is when I posted here.--*Kat* (talk) 11:43, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Just inviting to do so now (i.e. look at the previous discussions – I gave the links to the major ones below), and then see whether we still need to go through with this new extremely similar exercise. Well, anyhow, for the next time: if you want a guideline or policy to change it is *always* a good idea to look at the talk page of that guideline/policy to see whether someone else had the same idea before (and if so, how that idea was received by other editors). And not start a new discussion about the same at VPP without linking to the last one on the same topic. I.e.: the last *closed* one; if you'd come here when there's still an open discussion there it would definitely be forum shopping (*unintentional* forum shopping if you didn't take the trouble to look at the policy's talk page, but still something we'd try to avoid, have the same discussion about the same topic in two different places at the same time). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:02, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose "significant editing histories" has been excluded, which was directly included above. If you want to reduce it to that and that gets passed, i'll turn in my checkuser bit. No way in hell is a new user going to get IPBE without providing a damn good reason for it. And i've only picked that single part out of more issues. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 11:30, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies. That was 'not' omitted on purpose. I was in a hurry when I typed up this section and clearly I should have waited until such time when i was not.

Comment Clearly I have made a mis-step. My intention was to come up with some verbiage that we could put on the IPBE page. I didn't expect everyone here to like it but I figured we could make more revisions and come up with something better, much like we did with the original proposal. I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to sink my own proposal. --*Kat* (talk) 11:53, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, continue to oppose the proposal after it was updated. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:26, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose In addition to my comments above, m:No open proxies is a global policy. Therefore I do not support expanded usage of VPN's.--Jasper Deng (talk) 16:40, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- The Meta policy doesn't prohibit editors from receiving IPBE in order to edit via proxy, and it explicitly states that "legitimate users . . . are not the intended targets" of proxy blocks. Rebb ing 17:05, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Rebbing: But it does give reasons for why open proxies are generally not allowed and why IP block exemption should be granted on a need, not a want, basis.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:23, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Several of the reasons given for opposition don't hold water. @Rebbing: it is up to people at Meta to try to interpret their policy in a way to make some claim against this one based on it, and only after discussions there that, even if they find that, might choose to modify that policy not to conflict this one. We are making up our minds now and if they want to try to override us that is their crusade to fight. @DeltaQuad: "significant edit history" may not occur, but "a significant history of positive contributions" is actually more demanding. And as for whether there have been previous discussions -- we have seen that "consensus can change", too often for worse but in this case it could be for better. Wnt (talk) 19:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't propose that new wording. I'm fine with the basic significant editing history, so i'm not sure why I was pinged. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 22:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as this would undoubtedly increase the burden on CUs per DeltaQuad. I'd prefer not to exacerbate the already difficult task of sockpuppet investigations by muddying the waters. (If a number of CUs voice the opposite to my assumption I would be happy to switch my !vote). --Majora (talk) 22:18, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More discussion

Clearly I was wrong to try and draft a new policy. Or perhaps the big mistake was in trying to pound out a draft in the six minutes that were available to me before I left for work. Regardless it was a mistake. One made in good faith, but a mistake none the less. I apologize for contributing to the derailment of this discussion.--*Kat* (talk) 09:55, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@*Kat*: previously I suggested you to take a look at these prior discussions:
- Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption#Less restrictive IPBE RFC (February 2016)
- Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption#Proposals for RfC (February-March 2016)
- Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption#RfC: Grant exemptions to users in good standing on request (May–July 2016)
- Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption#RfC: Automatically grant IPBE to users by proof of work alone (May–June 2016)

I still didn't see any reactions of yours to that closed talk page content (unless if I missed something). I'd be happy to know what you think. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:10, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've read the entire talk page. It seems that there is pretty broad support (if not a true concensus) for the IPBE guidelines to be relaxed. However, the actual proposals to do so have all been rejected as too broad or too complex (although technically that one was SNOWed). Having read through the opposition's remarks for all of the proposals, I get the feeling that no proposal to relax IPBE would achieve consensus -- on that page, at least. --*Kat* (talk) 10:16, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hence my proposal not to come to WP:VPP with this issue again prior to reaching a rough consensus with the Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption regulars (there's a technical & general WikiMedia protection strategy angle to this that prevents any change without having the CU and related type of editors on board). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:07, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping there won't be a "next time". If you look at the Restart section you will see where quite a few people (approx 66%) agree that merely wanting to use VPN shouldn't be a barrier to being granted a IPBE. What we lack is agreement on how the new policy should be worded. --*Kat* (talk) 09:10, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, in my appreciation the current WP:VPP discussion(s) on this topic is/are going nowhere, for lack of solid basis. So, whatever is debated and/or preferred here, the looks of it are that it won't lead to anything in terms of policy change while nor the current CU editors (on a local level) nor those responsible for WikiMedia's broader protection strategies are on board. Elegant way of saying: time sink, don't get your hopes up for change where it seems extremely unlikely. I'd have closed the whole thread on this basis if I hadn't been involved in these discussions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:26, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked Amanda to draft the new policy. I don't know if she will but I hope we can wait a few days to find out. --*Kat* (talk) 05:04, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is known as forum shopping. Don't do it. Above, I explained what forumshopping is, so I think the qualifier "unintentional" no longer applies. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:43, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh please. How the Hell is that forum shopping? I asked @DeltaQuad:to to come up with the new proposal because although she doesn't entirely agree with relaxing IPBE she seemed to recognize that this is what the majority of people here wanted. I figured that anything she came up with would be acceptable to all sides, provided that a desire to use VPN was no longer a hard barrier to being granted an IPBE. Furthermore, as a CU she understands the technical constraints that made other proposals unworkable.--*Kat* (talk) 21:02, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: First sentence of bilateral relations articles

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As has previously been raised at WT:WPFR, and others have agreed to at WT:LEAD, the current widespread practice of beginning bilateral relations articles with "X–Y relations refers to bilateral relations between X and Y..." is not in compliance with the Manual of Style, specifically WP:BOLDAVOID. It was suggested that an RfC be filed in order to determine how best to address the issue; I'm placing it here as the project talk page doesn't appear to see much activity.

The questions here are:

Is there consensus that the above interpretation of the MOS is correct, i.e. such wording should be avoided and a natural sentence without bold text preferred instead?
If there is consensus, how should the current bilateral relations articles be dealt with?

Personally I don't think all instances of the construct need to be corrected at once. If there is consensus, editors should be advised of the fact, and corrections can then be made gradually as interested editors go through the articles. Editors should also be advised to refrain from reverting such changes. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment [Pinged by bot] - Certainly, WP:BOLDAVOID asks us to avoid bolding for such phrases. But BOLDAVOID is probably the most violated edict on Wikipedia, and it would be a humongous task to clean up the leads that violate it. Bilateral relations articles are probably the most obvious violations. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:23, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that you've missed some alternatives. You don't have to use "refers" in such sentences. You could equally begin the article with something like these:
- "X–Y relations formally began in 1724, when the King of X sent an ambassador to the Queen of Y to form an alliance against pirates from Z" (a statement about their history)
- "X–Y relations have been tense since 2010 as a result of what scholars call the Tomayto–Tomahto Incident" (the current relationship).
- "X and Y are each others' most important trading partners, so X–Y relations has long been dominated by pressure to maintain free trading arrangements between the two countries, as both countries' local economies could be plunged into depression by any significant disruption" (a quick summary of long-term issues). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - WhatamIdoing, thanks for the suggestions. However, I think the third example isn't really okay because the WP:LEADSENTENCE suggests, "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence." If it doesn't then it there's no need to try and accommodate it in boldface elsewhere. --Paul_012 (talk) 20:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - That's trivially fixed by copyediting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Would prefer the X–Y relations formally began... lede the best. Less awkward than using "refers to" and allows bolding per style guidelines.---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:26, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any official wp policy that prevents the incorporation of primary source material in wp articles?

Hi! I'm a relative newbie, but have made significant contributions to pages, both small and large. Many experienced editors have appreciated and/or accepted my contributions of discussions of very recent primary sources from respected, peer reviewed, scientific journals, including one that is a GA article which had especially careful review by experienced editors.

Knowing that one well-known editor has objections to inclusion of primary sources, I began a discussion of possible inclusion of 4 recent primary sources into a wp page about an evolutionarily conserved gene DCC that is involved in axon guidance. I would use the references to discuss axon guidance (agenesis of the corpus callosum) and evolution (birds have had this gene deleted twice in 2 different lineages). I want to emphasize that this discussion would make no recommendations for medical treatment. It is simply interesting genetics, that tie in with popular culture (Kim Peek the megasavant inspiration for the movie Rain Man, had agenesis of the corpus callosum).

The well-known editor objected (on the DCC talk page) to inclusion of the references. One other experienced editor (who is a medical student) encouraged me to make the addition to see what I write before judging, a stance with which I am perfectly happy. The well-known editor cited WP:SCIRS as evidence that I shouldn't include the discussion. Yet, WP:SCIRS specifically states "Respect primary sources A primary source... may be a valuable component of an article. A good article may appropriately cite primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Use of primary sources should always conform to the No original research policy."

I have come into conflict with the well-known editor repeatedly over the issue of inclusion of respected, peer reviewed, publications in wp articles. I am not going to be intimidated by his snarling and barking like a junk yard trained dog, but I will cease and desist if somebody can show me a specific, wp policy that prohibits use of primary sources. I understand that discretion should be used in citing primary sources. I don't look at articles from the Frisbeeland Journal of Science. The 4 articles were published by the Nature publishing group, which is widely regarded to be in the top 3 of most respected scientific publishers. I also understand that primary sources cannot be used to establish notability of a topic, regardless of how prestigious the publication.

In summary, before the well-known editor and I end up in an ani, it would be beneficial if someone could cite a wp policy that contradicts the official policies I read that respect the inclusion of primary sources, and support the well-known editor's insistence that I don't know how this place works. (note: none of the editors I ping below are the well known editor.) Thanks very much, DennisPietras (talk) 20:36, 10 March 2017 (UTC)_{@Aspro, Jordanben, and PriceDL:}[reply]

I use a lot of primary sources myself. "Primary sources" can have a couple of different meanings here. The first one is when people write about themselves or their organisations. This is very likely to to be a COI situation, but still these sources can be used for uncontroversial facts. But the sources you talk about are not these. However the sources may be presenting ideas of one person or unconfirmable "facts". The findings may later be discredited or totally ignored by others. So please consider if there is also a review article (secondary source) that includes the facts mentioned in the primary source. I often use a different "primary" source that talks about research from another source in its introduction. This adds similar confirmation that the ideas are supported by someone else, as they would in a review. Primary sources of the original research are also often useful as they usually add far more detail than a review article would. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:28, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Graeme Bartlett:Thanks for your comments. Yes, I do realize that primay sources are not optimal, but recent primary sources have not had the time to be reviewed. Also, the 2 pairs of references actually "reinforce" each other, so I don't believe that there is any significant chance that they will be proven wrong. Thanks again, DennisPietras (talk) 01:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's important in this context to remember that WP:Secondary does not mean independent; the sources that Graeme describes are usually primary, non-independent, and self-published (e.g., stuff in a press release or on an organization's website). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:59, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no rule against using primary sources... but there is a policy that limits how and when to use them appropriately. See WP:No original research. Blueboar (talk) 01:43, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Primary sources are vulnerable to interpretation -- you almost have to interpret -- and that's tricky. Also, I always figured that another reason to be leery of primary sources is... if there's no secondary source, is the material really notable? Like if I want to put in an article "Smith tweeted such-and-such" and link to the tweet, a reasonable objection is "But wait, not a single newspaper saw fit to report on that? Then how is it notable enough for us to report"? You're working in science stuff, but I guess a parallel objection would be "Wait, not one single journal reported that? Then is it really important enough for us to describe here?" If it's a matter if timeliness though -- a journal hasn't reported it yet because journals lag -- that's a reasonable counter to that, maybe. Herostratus (talk) 07:18, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This has long been a bone of contention here on WP. My view: If no good secondary exists then primaries are acceptable when the editor has in-depth knowledge and can place them in 'proper' context. I.E. If a study was done on a small cohort (due to lack of adequate funding perhaps) which means that cohort may not be representative of the whole. That should be mentioned and a good editor will point that out when using primaries. Some editors think that a newspaper is a reliable source. Read many an article and watched many a TV news slot where the Science Corespondent (whom may have a science degree in one discipline or another) but in order to reach the publication deadline, fluffed it up badly due too little time to understand the science in a different field from his own. So his interpretation was hopeless – yet should some editors think this should be deemed 'reliable'? Next. If the national press hasn't published it, is it notable? New breakthroughs travel very fast these days in the age of the internet. An encyclopedia is not actually and foremost a compendium of facts and figures – it is a means to disseminate the current views and thoughts for further discussion and debate. New findings often help to join up many of the dots. WP is work in progress. Not being a paper encyclopedia we can update fast and correct when necessary. We don't need editors that throw spanners in the works, who do not understand the field and progress being made...however well meaning they may be. Because it keeps WP rooted in the bygone days of William Caxton the printer. So I say, we can and are free to use primaries if we need. For those editors that object to this, perhaps they should create an centralized Objection Help page or something, rather than hog the talk pages. This may save worthwhile contributing editors (whom are actively adding content) the trouble of explaining and re-explaining every objection to the small but vocal cohort of objectors spreading their POV across many articles. --Aspro (talk) 16:17, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, whomever, you are, named @Aspro:, to be very blunt, Wikipedia should not trust your "expertise", nor should it trust your claim that we really have to know the latest thing now, though Wikipedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:03, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would be the subject "well-known editor". See User_talk:DennisPietras#Secondary_sources and the discussions linked from there, for the background. The focus on kind of sources is kind of wrong headed - the real issue is mission.

The OP is an academic who wants to:

- 1) write literature reviews in Wikipedia on biology topics built off primary sources, even when good secondary sources are available. (example here: GRIN2B). They can't see how this is WP:OR and not what we do here. The correct WMF project for this activity is Wikiversity -- a different WMF project than Wiikpedia.
- 2) take "hot science papers" (primary sources) and write news about them in WP, like this and this (same edit in two articles) or this, complete with "recently, X happened", inserting "hot news" about academic research that may never be commercialized into an article about plastic recycling - something that goes on all around us in the RW, and our article does a pretty poor job of describing the actual processes that are used to recycle plastic today -- the last thing it needs is confusing content added about academic research. Here we have a policy against this - WP:NOTNEWS. And in any case the correct WMF project for writing about news is WikiNews -- a different WMF project than Wikipedia.

Neither thing, is what we do here in en-WP. We write encyclopedia articles that summarize the accepted knowledge that we find in secondary sources and other tertiary sources, using primary sources rarely and with care.

To say that another way:

- the mission of en-WP is to crowdsource articles that provide accepted knowledge to readers; the strategy through which the community does that, is described in the policies and guidelines; and the tactics are to find high quality secondary/tertiary sources (and yes primary sources, rarely and with care) and summarize them in WP
- DennisP's mission here in en-WP is to write literature reviews and science news; their strategy is unclear to me, but their tactics are to generate that content, often with their own interpretations, based on primary sources.

Rather than wasting your own time and everyone else's in pursuit of the wrong mission in all these different fora, Dennis why don't you just get aligned with the mission of en-WP already? I keep replying to you because you could be producing so much useful content if you would just get with the program. What is going on with you, happens with academics when they come here sometimes - they will not let go of the kind of writing they do in the real world under their own name and insist on doing this kind of thing here in WP, where it is more or less WP:OR. WP is a radically different environment. This is discussed some in WP:EXPERT. Jytdog (talk) 00:51, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:EXPERT is not policy but an essay. It appears too, that is is slowly being transmogrified away from its original purpose of guidance for the newbies. May have read the history of the article wrong but one of the edits by Jytdog was to swap 'scientific' for 'academic'. Own judge and jury one might say, based on an essay (not policy) he contributes to. There is also an attempt to confabulate by suggesting these changes to the essay will ensure a NPOV. We already have a policy on that and it don't need it to be 'bent' with the addition of little hidden away clauses on essays. So, think Dennis's time is being waisted by others that have too much time on their hands and only have superficial knowledge of a few subjects and feel sidelined when some new kid comes to live on their block. The WP credos is that we all work together.--Aspro (talk) 17:06, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What I wrote is not based on EXPERT; do not misrepresent what I wrote. (am capturing the diff) My arguments are based primarily on the policies WP:NOT and WP:OR, as I very clearly stated. Of course EXPERT is an essay. It is a very helpful one to assist people from academia and other fields adapt to the strange environment that is WP. We do all work together, toward the mission of WP. Disputes occur on many levels here but very often they are on the level of mission. People who come here to promote some idea or product (advocates of all kinds) are one example of people who are NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. Academics who want to write literature reviews here are another. What Dennis wants to do belongs in Wikiversity or Wikinews, not here. Jytdog (talk) 21:41, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It continues to perplex me that jytdog claims that I do things that I don't while citing references opposed to his point of view. He points to the literature review link as something that is my "mission". From that link, I quote "A careful literature review is usually 15 to 30 pages and could be longer." I have written one article from scratch in response to an article request. It is Polysome Profiling. If anybody is still reading this thread, including jytdog, please point out to me how that qualifies as a literature review. Jytdog wrote that I write "science news". No, I don't. I read new science. My mission is to update (and all-too-often correct crud in) wp articles by citing primary sources. Jytdog has written things to me that seem to me to indicate that he does not respect primary sources. en-wp does instruct editors to respect primary sources, even in a link he provided to me! ODD! Jytdog appears to not accept that, and I'm not some candy-assed coward that is going to let him anonymously bully me into his unfounded (as yet, nobody has shown me a policy that prevents use of primary sources) view of what wp is. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of editors have looked at what I've contributed. I've been thanked. I've received barnstars. I've collaborated with other experienced editors. The one thorn in my side is jytdog. I respect what jytdog does for COI, and understand that anonymity is important for that work, but to anonymously claim that my mission is something that it isn't and to enforce a vision of wp that is not supported by wp policy, is absurd, and maybe psychotic, IMHO. Unless somebody can show me that primary sources are not allowed, I am going to continue to use them to update and/or correct and/or add information to wp articles, and I'll meet jytdog in arbitration or an ani if he continues his personal crusade against me and primary sources. I'm as tired of his bullshit as he and I both are of non-GMO zealots, and I hope he can somehow learn how wp actually works, rather than the construct he seems to me to have built in his mind. DennisPietras (talk) 01:45, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While you reasonably may find it irksome to be, as you see it, misrepresented by Jytdog (making him a big irk ;-)), calling his statements "maybe psychotic, IMHO" is a bad idea and you should probably strike that. IMHO, "My mission is to update (and all-too-often correct crud in) wp articles by citing primary sources." is a focus that can be problematic, partly because of what WhatamIdoing writes below. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:30, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this situation is more complicated than is easily explained in any single comment. Also, with a quick glance at some of the diffs, it looks like User:Jytdog's problem with these edits isn't the mere use of a primary source (which, contrary to the narrow view that we're getting here, is not something that Jytdog rejects in every single case), but the problem of figuring out whether it's relevant and encyclopedic. For example, the edit to Expanded genetic code basically says "Some researcher made yet another genetically modified mouse", which is trivially verifiable in the cited source and not WP:Biomedical information as the English Wikipedia conceives it – and, it's also completely unclear whether anybody should care. Another diff, at Plastic recycling, is similar: yup, someone's researching ways to improve plastic recycling (and the article actually should mention, in a general way, that this is an area of research), but, nope, there's no way to tell whether these particular researchers are the best or most representative ones.
I think that it'd be better to take these individual edits to article talk pages or to WP:NPOVN. The general rules are broad enough that they're not especially useful to resolving this kind of dispute. You need to get a handful of editors considering the exact wording and presentation, rather than just waving at some 'rules'. That's not going to happen here, and it's not likely to happen at all if you're considering dozens of edits at once. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:59, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

dennisP is just bristling more fiercely. Not sure how to get through. Bummer Jytdog (talk) 07:28, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Think you can't get through because you have come up against Newton's third law. Semantics perhaps? Personal uniformed interpretation of primaries vis informed ability to explain the primaries. I've noticed it in my own discipline that some other editors are quick to delete, only to have another editor reinstate because they understand the difference between science grounded on solid foundations and those of poor quality. Whilst you do some sterling work at patrolling our articles you do never -the-less appear hammer constantly until you get your own way. Think you should take a step back and patrol other pages for a while. The modus operandi of your Malleus Maleficarum is becoming obvious now and is creating an opposite reaction amongst other editors thus proving Newtons third law.--Aspro (talk) 14:00, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you aspro! jytdog as the recent discussion at mediator proves, I am more than willing to learn from and correct my mistakes. We actually have multiple common views, and can work cooperatively, as with abscription. I will not use any sources to offer medical advice on wp. I ask you to not reject the updating of wp articles with new primary sources unless you carefully look at the references and decide if they are reputable. Updating and correcting (meticulously, to the point of hugely overeating peanuts for comfort) wp is my "mission". I hope you understand. If I knew how to do it, I would close this discussion, but I'll leave it to you in case you want to reply further or give anybody else the opportunity to comment. DennisPietras (talk) 02:41, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DennisP you should be aware that Aspro has a long history in WP of advocating for FRINGE medical and science positions based on crappy sources and skewing WEIGHT of content based on OK sources, and the two of us have tangled a lot in the past. Be careful whose advice you take. Aspro plays the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" game in WP, which is probably why they are being all chummy with you. (I can back all that with diffs, except the guess about why they are supporting your particular misalignment with the mission of WP) Again, you will do as you like. And I will continue to remove NOTNEWS content and reviews created in WP based on primary sources, regardless of who generates them. Neither thing belongs here in Wikipedia. I continue to encourage you to explore Wikiversity and Wikinews if that is the kind of content you want to generate. Jytdog (talk) 19:12, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FRINGE ? This is news to me! Sure, I worked for some six years in R&D. Cutting edge research and development. Some editors appear to be getting 'cutting edge' confused with lunatic fringe. Think Jytdog owes an apology to all those that labour away and even take their work home with them, because they care so much about making our World a better place and advancing humane knowalage. For example John Zarnecki's marriage broke down because of the very long hours he was putting in on the Huygens probe. So there are editors on WP that look more like wikilawyers and school marms than a useful contributor. --Aspro (talk) 23:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just one example: Aspro giving a barnstar to an editor on a one-month block diff. The editor was not only blocked but topic banned from GMO, alternative medicine, human health and medicine, and WP:MEDRS discussions. A barnstar (check the wording) which suggests the editor is right and all the sanctions are wrong is very unhelpful and plainly absurd. Worse, the barnstar's wording can only encourage further inappropriate behavior on the part of the editor, and that will get them indeffed. Johnuniq (talk) 02:41, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Check your temporal time line. Couldn't use the barnstar earlier as was still being processed. You should surly see that was for work done previously.--Aspro (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctant to come in here, but I see some dubious claims that I'm silly enough to comment on. We need to realise that the basic rules of Wikipedia were not originally formulated with scientific articles in mind, and later attempts to stretch them to cover science were only partially successful. A particular example is the assumption that anyone who has access to a source will be able to check whether it supports the text cited to it; that is not generally true for scientific sources. Another example, relevant to this discussion, is the assumption that the "primary sources" of science have similar nature to the "primary sources" of the humanities and so should be viewed the same by the rules. This assumption is profoundly broken: the idea that a medieval manuscript and an article in the current edition of Nature are even remotely similar is simply ridiculous. I'll address one issue arising: there are those who claim that something which has so far only appeared in a scientific journal should not be in Wikipedia. Not only is this a misapplication of the rules, but I'll argue that it is inimical to the needs of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia exists for its readers, not for its editors. What do readers of scientific articles want when they come to Wikipedia? Easy, they want articles that are comprehensible, correct, and up-to-date. A scientific article that is not up-to-date is deficient at best and misleading at worst. This doesn't mean that every minor paper has to be reported—rules like WP:DUE still apply—but important advances should be reported when they are published. And the editors who should report them are the editors who understand them. Zero^talk 09:52, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but what you are saying is that Wikipedia is "broken" for science the same way it is "broken" for everything else, the pedia does not have a way to check that editors understand their sources or their topic before it allows them to write. That is why it stresses reliance on the proven, and re-proven on topics. Giving undue weight to something is also "deficient at best and misleading at worst," and, yes, such undue emphasis shades into original research. Textbooks and encyclopedias are tertiary, they lag, so one does have to have some comfort with that. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:43, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Don't see how you conclude that Zero is suggesting WP is broken. Since its very start, WP has been evolving and improving via incremental steps in policy. What is being pointed out is that one size doesn't fit all articles and the current growing gamut of subjects. Agree with you that OR is an unhelpful path to walk down and that the majority of newly published scientific papers must be treat with great caution -rather than being accepted as gospel. We should be striving (as said above) to provide the reader with articles that are comprehensible, correct, and up-to-date. For this to happen there needs more clarity and subdivision. Hence the discussion here, to decide how we go forward. WP is not a paper encyclopedia.--Aspro (talk) 12:55, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why such an obtuse comment? No. As Wikipedia science readers, we most certainly do not want Wikipedia editor's opinion on what is "correct", we want what the science community says is correct, and for that to happen, Wikipedia editors do have to show it with sources from the relevant science community - even if you are (bizarrely) convinced you are able to "update" the world via Wikipedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:06, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Zero that scientific articles are not exactly like other primary sources. Such an article is usually peer-reviewed, which means other experts in the relevant field have checked it and the conclusion it brings. As such, it can be agreed that such an article is indeed a reliable and acceptable source to be used. The only caveat is that, as per other policies, you should not interpret the article in any way yourself (except for resuming what's directly written it), but rather let secondary sources do it. However, it remains that scientific papers can almost always be used as sources for facts, and that they usually should be acceptable for the interpretations made of those facts (we can safely assume that scientists know what they're doing and that they're (except the rare exception) not making stuff up...). 69.165.196.103 (talk) 16:37, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On the primary scientific literature in biology and medicine, see Replication crisis. If you are reading a primary source in the humanities (say a verified letter from George Washington) that is what is Washington said. A primary source in the sciences that claims a mutation in gene Y is a key player for schizophrenia is not the same thing, nor is even say a more basic science claim like a mutation in gene Y causes changes in the frontal lobe . We could attribute of course, but there are generally boatloads of primary sources about gene Y, schizophrenia, and the frontal lobe, and WP would turn into a laundry list of attributed claims from primary sources. That is not what we do here. We use reviews for several reasons - they tell us what research has been picked up and validated by the field and really importantly, they leave things out that the field has not picked up on for any number of reasons. We rely on the experts in the field who publish review articles or textbooks to tell us what is accepted knowledge. Jytdog (talk) 17:53, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Your analogue doesn't work; you are confusing the text of a source with the assertions made by the source. A more correct analogue would be using GW's letter as a source for a claim he made in the letter, which is quite different from citing the letter merely for what it says. (2) Articles that look like laundry lists can be written perfectly well without recourse to primary sources. It is not about the nature of the sources, but about the ability of editors to judge WEIGHT and choose the correct balance between completeness and conciseness. (3) Review articles and (very recent) textbooks are an excellent resource that we should utilise. However, I don't think we should be protecting readers from the real nature of science by waiting for everything to get into those sources. It often takes years. I think we should also report important new announcements and important disputes. Zero^talk 08:38, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does often take years for new developments and understandings to filter down. So agree most whole heartedly with Zero on those points he has made (and they concur with many of my own). The dissenters views, I find interesting too and useful also. Think we have come to yet another Rubicon in WP policy development. For instance, Alanscottwalker says: ”we want what the science community says is correct”. Well, the 'science community' is now embracing WP – we are here! But I think the dissenters have something else on their minds that they can not yet put into words to express their unease. Think we need to acknowledge that, before we can move forward. Think we all here, uphold our credo that 'anybody' can edit WP. Although, I agree with many of DennisPietras views, he (as a new editor) appears to be suggesting that "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others". It is this view that I think irks some other editors. However, isn't is this win-win situation? The scientific community is now here and active. They can plough through the mountains of published papers and filter out those of importance. Then contextually add them to the articles in a way that makes sense to 'all' editors regardless of their walk-in-life. You can bet, that other editors in the same scientific discipline will scrutinise those edits and come down heavy if an other expert errs into factual inexactitudes. Scientists become scientists (instead of mere technicians)because they are naturally sceptical and require a convincing argument before they can accept. Whilst many technicians (not including every one here) become psudo-skeptics. With a policy review (such as this) we can ensure that WP remains an encyclopedia that anyone can edit,is up-to-date and as accurate (and better) that any popular science magazine can achieve.--Aspro (talk) 15:53, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. The scientists that matter are not, here. The ones that matter publish off-Wikipedia - it has nothing to do with equality, it has to do with editorial honesty -- anyone of us may be the foremost expert on whatever, but that is undetermined - "on the internet, no one know your, etc." If any actually are expert, what we need from them is 1) a facility to identify excellent sources, and 2) write for a general audience what those sources say - that's all (whether they are expert in this task, we shall see). Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is exactly what primary sources are -published off Wiki. A simply definition of an excellent source is a paper which reports a study that has been well designed and helps to join up more of the dots. They (the authors(s)) always cite other studies (often behind pay-walls – which many editor may not be able to access) . By reading between the lines, ones own experience (if one is in that field) tells you if it it a quality paper or should be ignored. Whether it be Nature, New Scientist, BMJ, Scientific America, etc. They reject most because they are paper journals and only have so much room (ink space) and only so many staff, for which to produce the next edition. The world has changed... Information can and is being disseminated faster than ever before. WP is not a paper encyclopedia and we are not no longer in William Caxton age. It was Jimmy Wales's wish that we should embrace all – now we have the scientific community also willing to contribute. Why change our minds (or you try to change our minds) and revert back to the William Caxton era? --Aspro (talk) 18:57, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aspro, New Scientist and Scientific American are popular science magazines, not scientific journals. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:37, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is my very point and I think the point that DennisPietras, Zero is making. We should not be wholly dependent on popular science magazines to provide us with sources. They cater to the lowest common denominator – i.e., their main readership. Yet, some editors are pontificating that we should never-ever cite original scientific papers because they are primaries which is against WP guidance. As Solon the Lawmaker of Athens (638-558 BC) quoted (and has oft been subsequently misquoted): “Laws are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools”. Where are the WP laws banning editors from using primaries when they are the best references for the article? Where are they? --Aspro (talk) 13:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What? Of course primary sources are off-wiki - what a useless observation. Much crap is off-wiki, too. It's odd that you keep saying the same bromide over and over, it's precisely that we are not a traditional encyclopedia that we reject editor's creative reinterpretation of primary sources. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:13, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How did "creative reinterpretation of primary sources" get into it? Nobody here has argued for the overthrow of WP:NOR that I can see. Zero^talk 02:06, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all for your contributions. To try to settle this, I have started an ani at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#request_for_block_of_user_.40Jytdog:_to_prevent_him_from_removing_valid_edits DennisPietras (talk) 03:27, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts in 2 different areas. Wikipedia policies and guidelines often require and get interpretation for the particular situation at hand. If there is a particular situation involved, the poster should note it. Otherwise IMHO one is (even inadvertently) being somewhat manipulative. Trying to get general comments non-policy comments (given without knowledge of the details of the dispute) on policy talk pages and then using them in a particular dispute. Second, the discussion has a bit of a structural flaw. Wikipedia'a sourcing related policies relate to what constitutes suitable sourcing for challenged or likely-to-be-challenged material, not to allowing or disallowing source types per se. North8000 (talk) 14:38, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what Blueboar and Herostratus said earlier, that it's more a matter of how to use primary sources, than whether. And I also agree with Jytdog about "hot" new sources. I'll give some examples of my personal take on the ways that this applies to science content. Not too long ago, I had a very productive interaction with Dennis over a primary source at Cichlid: [21], [22], [23]. That was a very helpful use of a primary source, and a very recent one at that, but that is because (a) it was in a particularly prominent and strictly-refereed journal, and (b) more importantly, the subject (evolution of a family of fishes in a lake in Africa) is something where there simply aren't a lot of experts disputing with one another over not-yet-settled issues. In my own expertise area, neuroscience, I view it this way: If a page about medium spiny neurons in the caudate nucleus contains a statement that the typical diameter of the cells is "x" number of microns, there may well be a secondary review article that could be cited for the number, but I would have no objection to citing a primary study. That's because it's a simple statement of uncontroversial fact, and there is essentially no risk that a new study will come out next year saying "no, they are much larger or smaller". But – if instead the content is about genes that have been implicated as playing possible roles in giving rise to schizophrenia, that's a very different situation. That's a subject where there are constantly new primary sources coming out, saying that the previous primary source was probably wrong, and it is not yet anywhere near to being settled. So I would likely insist on a secondary source, rather than depending on the most recent primary source because it is "hot". And if instead the content were about the kinds of medicines used for people with schizophrenia, then we would be solidly into WP:MEDRS territory. So that's an important way in which Wikipedia is and should be different than scholarly science journals: editors here cannot or should not make the subjective judgment that a recent primary source in an active area of research is "hot" – because doing so would be WP:OR. We need to leave that evaluation to secondary sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have experience with this too. I was approached by an athlete who was upset that her birth date was incorrect on Wikipedia. Birth dates affect eligibility for certain events, which is why they are published, and why we have them in the articles and the infobox. It was reasonable for her to feel that our incorrect date was tantamount to an allegation of cheating. She of course had evidence in the form of ID to back up her claim. Note that WP:BLP states that "We must get the article right" - a clear reference to WP:NOTFALSE, which in this era of fake news and disinformation really needs to be upgraded to a policy. On checking, I found the (usually) reliable source contained a typographical error. Working to avoid WP:NOR, I corrected the date, and replaced it with another WP:RS that had it correct, along with a footnote explaining that the first one had a typographic error. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have experience in writing scientific primary research articles, review articles, book chapters, and being interviewed by newspapers (secondary sources). For those not experienced with scientific publishing, if a paper (primary source) is submitted to a reputable journal, it will be peer-reviewed by 1 - 3 (maybe more) experts in the subject and may take a year to be finally published. In my experience of TV news and newspaper interviews, I believe there has been little, if any fact checking by the non-expert reporter and it is published within 24 - 48 hrs. So, which is the most reliable source? DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:16, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this discussion is worth continuing anyway, but I'll note the OP has, sadly, retired, following frustration about the outcome of the ANI thread he mentions above. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 23:03, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not a happy outcome. At all. Jytdog (talk) 04:26, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. Well, maybe he´ll be back at some point. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Media sources and WP:UNDUE

We have been having a lot of discussions recently about various media outlets and whether they pass WP:RS... but I think we could use some discussion about media outlets (in general) and how they relate to another policy provision: WP:UNDUE. Now, I know that UNDUE is really focused on putting viewpoints in proportion (and not blowing minor viewpoints out of proportion) ... but I am beginning to think that it is possible to give a media report UNDUE weight as well - especially when the event it is reporting on has just recently occurred, and we don't yet know the long term significance of the event. Thoughts? Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am approaching the issue of recent/current political and ideological controversies and other topics in a draft of guideline I would like to propose at some point about how WP should be dealing with this topic area, where the application of UNDUE for the press as Blueboar alludes too happens too frequency. Mind you, I'm also focused more on us having awareness that the media is not as objective as they were went most of these policies were written, and when coupled with UNDUE, can swing the tone of political/ideological topics towards one side easily. It is far from complete, but the points of merit that would need to be addressed towards this I've got summarized as User:Masem/RSPoly. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from rejecting Masem's claim about "more" bias, this is a severe problem in that we do write about "current events", and it is a terrible fit for this encyclopedia for multiple reasons, but beyond RECENTISM, NOT, and yes, UNDUE/the whole OR/NPOV/V triumvirate, I am not sure what magic words of policy could be added (Policy to not write things unless they have had widespread, coverage for say three months to six months? Specific policy more targeted on BLP and shifting burden and onus, more against additions in "breaking" areas?)Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's not about there being "more" bias, the bias of the press is the same as it 10 or so years ago; it is the lack of objectivity the press has gained since, which causes more bias to become visible and by nature of our policies, drive content creation towards that bias without considering the long-term picture. Look how many issues there have been and continue to be over the US election and people and topics related to it, mostly driven by a highly critical press. All the issues at play are magnified with this current situation. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Again this argument I have seen from you is without basis - it is your opinion. Now, it's not that 'they have more bias', its that 'they have less objectivity' - no, they do not - it is the same as it was, when these policies were written. Your somehow coming to this new realization of yours "recently", is just "the problem". Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:27, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Masem. The traditional media have changed immensely in the last 10 years, as has their playing field. Much of the firewall between informative content and opinion content has disappeared. And a much more spontaneous form (the internet) has taken over much of what they were doing. North8000 (talk) 16:02, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Another opinion? Really? How unhelpful. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:11, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you doubt that things have changed in the last decade or so, then perhaps you'd like to type something like "how has news reporting changed" in your favorite web search engine and see whether the reliable sources tend to agree with you. Here's what one says: "Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages....Reporting is becoming more participatory and collaborative....advocacy journalism is not endangered—it is growing. The expression of publicly disseminated opinion is perhaps Americans’ most exercised First Amendment right, as anyone can see and hear every day on the Internet, cable television, or talk radio. What is under threat is independent reporting that provides information, investigation, analysis, and community knowledge, particularly in the coverage of local affairs. Reporting the news means telling citizens what they would not otherwise know."[24] It's not hard to find sources like this one that trace the financial effects and its consequences.
Also, I'd like to point out that "when these policies were written", they were based on editors' experiences and long-term beliefs about what the news media was like, rather than an absolutely up-to-date understanding of the exact state of journalism in 2003. So I believe that journalism has changed a lot in the 14 years that have elapsed since those policies were begun (and the reliable sources agree with me on that point), and I think that when those policies were begun, they were based partially on a 1990s-era understanding of journalism. Also, Wikipedia itself has changed dramatically since then. Back then, the basic hope was to get people to please, please, please cite something; now, many editors are pushing for citing only high-quality sources. Rejecting a peer-reviewed article from a reputable scholarly journal because it's "not good enough" is an everyday occurrence now. Given that reality, it is hardly surprising that some editors are interested in reviewing the use of media sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing: That you cite an article from almost ten years ago that things have changed from ten years ago is just nonsense. Moreover, you respond with strawman. Your source does not say high quality or mainstream journalism, which is what NPOV, NOR V and RS value, is "more biased", nor does say it is "it has less objectivity." If you have literature reviews that compares say the front page articles of the New York Times 10 years ago with today and actually makes the currently unsupported conclusion than bring it forth, don't hand wave to 'things change'. Prove the unsupported assertion. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That particular article is 7.25 years old, not ten; furthermore, there are many more like it.

The discussion here is not specifically about "high-quality" or "mainstream" journalism. The OP's comment refers to "media outlets (in general)", and the comments you particularly replied to talk about "the press" and "the traditional media".

But... if you really want to convince people that the media haven't changed in the ~15 years since this advice was first talked about, maybe you could produce a suitable source for people to read and contemplate? So far, I see you asserting your personal opinion that the media hasn't changed during the last 10 years (an opinion that I, at least, can't find any reliable sources to support), while denigrating other people's views that it has changed for failing to provide sources ....just like you failed to provide sources to support your opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You cited an irrelevant article and ended up making a nonsense point, that is all (as I said, the source is almost 10 years ago). I take it you have other irrelevant articles, which just goes to show you have no proof that mainstream and high quality media is less objective or more biased than 10 or 15 years ago. This discussion is about "mainstream" and "high quality" because that is what all the central policies V/NPOV/NOR/BLP require (otherwise again your comments are irrelevant). We have to adhere to mainstream, high quality media because that is policy. If you say the mainstream, and high quality media has changed that it is now more biased and less objective (thus, no longer high quality, and mainstream) the burden is on you to prove it (not wave at "things change"). The person who asserts always has the burden not the one who denies. That's basic logic. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Policy is not a blood oath or a law, it can change, and consensus can override it. But really, it's not a change of policy that is needed but avoiding selective reading of it. UNDUE is used as a sledgehammer to eliminate viewpoints that aren't in RSes, or to demand we include subject statements from RSes as fact because many RSes report the same. That's not what the whole of policy and guideline sets out, but its how its used to shut down any consensus discussion. Further, it is not that today's media aren't mainstream or high-quality, just that relative to what they were 10-15 years ago, that measure has certainly gone down, but it has gone down across the board, so that high-quality sources from 10-15 years are still the same high-quality sources today because no sources have improved in quality otherwise. And policy/guidelines do give measures of how to handle that if we don't use selective reading of them. --MASEM (t) 19:52, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've been thinking that one of the fundamental issues underlying many wiki-problems arises from giving a common English term "reliable" a completely different/independent definition in Wikipedia. This inevitably leads to the falsehood of automatically giving a WP:RS the imprimatur of being actually reliable vs. taking it in the context of it's own limitations. In reality, even sources meeting wp:RS often aren't.....they contain factual errors, apply terms in erroneous or fringe ways, apply highly-POV terms as fact, and provide spun and distorted coverage. I think that Masem is onto something and doing excellent work in one area on this. That is to at least deal with this in the area where it is most often a problem. North8000 (talk) 14:53, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there may be something to what you're saying about language. A little while ago, I was part of a long RSN-type discussion over a source, which some editors declared to be "unreliable". Problem: Professionals around the world, including some of the Wikipedia editors participating in that discussion, actually do "rely upon" that source in the exact way that the source was being used in the article. (I doubt that we will ever stop referring to acceptable sources as "reliable".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IMO the solution is to strengthen two other criteria (expertise and objectivity with respect to the text that cited it), combine these and traditional wp:RS criteria together into a "strength of sourcing" metric, (thus taking the "magic bullet" from wp:rs criteria by itself) and then say that the strength of sourcing has to be suitable for the particular situation. North8000 (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Folks... we are wandering off topic... could we discuss media sources in terms of UNDUE and not reliability. Blueboar (talk) 10:40, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would certainly agree with your paragraph that opened this thread. Except that newness of events is only secondary to the discussion. But under current wp:undue, you are going to have a hard time because what wp:undue sets up as the ultimate arbiter "a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources" is an un-usuable facade. I mean, has anybody ever seen that criteria actually truly implemented? I don't even know how it could possibly be objectively implemented. North8000 (talk) 13:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think if you want a more focused discussion you might want to quote the parts of NPOV and RS that you want discussed (we do have to read undue in context of other policy/guideline). Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

UNDUE is one of those things that needs a time consideration. UNDUE readily applies if we're talking a debate or controversy a decade ago: the dust has settled, and we can readily use reliable secondary sources to get a view of how that situation was viewed. But when we're in the midst of a controversy, where their might be a popular opinion but no clear "winner" of the situation, UNDUE has to take a back seat to staying neutral and document the controversy fairly, if we are going to allow editors to keep articles as up to the minute as we do now. Editors need to use UNDUE and think about how the article will be written many years down the road, not just what is prevailing in the media at the current time, and that's hard particularly for anything political now adays. UNDUE has to also reflect that the media more than ever is far from being "independent" sources in these controversies (eg the media cannot be independent in the situation around "fake news"), and UNDUE should be used to evaluate principally independent sources. --MASEM (t) 14:16, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, I think that UNDUE is difficult. The usual approximation (as in "to a first approximation, the entire universe is made of Hydrogen") is "whatever the sources talk about the most, that's what's DUE".

However, this isn't adequate, because there is material that is DUE even if sources mostly ignore it (e.g., birth and death years for biographies, what a notable company sells, prognosis for a disease, etc.). We don't really want an article about, say, a 19th-century university president to omit birth and death dates on the grounds that most sources don't include his birthday and those that do barely mention it in passing.

On the other end, news media over-emphasizes certain events. If you took raw news media as the standard, then 50% of Michael Jackson should be spent talking about child abuse, and 25% of Paris Hilton should be spent talking about drunk driving, because that percentage of news sources (across the entire spectrum of quality) seem to mention those subjects (at least in passing). But that percentage is really about what generates money, and not what you'd get from, say, a scholarly biography of the subjects.

I'm not sure how you'd write this into a policy statement, though. "Some stuff is inherently DUE, so include it if you can verify it at all, but other stuff is overemphasized in the media, so play that down" is not very useful. And IMO the real rule – which I might summarize this way: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a mindless regurgitation of whatever generates clicks on headlines – is not sufficiently instructive for the people who don't already know what to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Related issue: assigning weight to primary source opinions

This seems like a recent issue that is possibly related to the subject of this thread. I second the need for more clarity on UNDUE, vis-a-vis new media kinds of sources. I am particularly concerned about what I think is an overly legalistic reading of policies and guidelines surrounding UNDUE in the context of this RfC. I think that the UNDUE policy should explicitly mention the need for secondary sources if it is unclear how to assign weight to an opinion. There is WP:BALANCE that does mention the need for secondary sources (and, surprisingly, that is the only place in NPOV where secondary sources are mentioned at all), but that's more in the context of discussing two opposed and widely-held opinions. The guideline as currently written does not appear to offer enough guidance on how to assign weight to published opinions that are not widely held. (I would have thought that a standard application of WEIGHT would be to exclude them, but I am being berated by a tag-team pair of relatively long-time editors that I and others "don't have a clue about policy".) Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on Fabergé egg naming convention

A recent page move discussion has raised an interesting question regarding the disambiguation of Fabergé egg titles. I have started an RFC in an attempt to codify the naming conventions of these eggs. Please join in the discussion here. Primefac (talk) 17:08, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

valuable picture of trump's childhood

I just found a valuable picture of trump's childhood (here: [25]) that is cool to upload for the article. Can anybody do this? Alborzagros (talk) 11:15, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any indication that the photo is under a free license. Do you know where it's indicated that it was released under one? It wouldn't be old enough to be public domain, so we'd need an explicit free license release. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:09, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is it ok?

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1977 inclusive, without a copyright notice. Unless the author has been dead for several years, it is not in the public domain in countries that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works. This includes Canada, China (not Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan Area), Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and other countries with individual treaties. See also further explanation.

Alborzagros (talk) 12:42, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

2016 is not between 1923 and 1977. Jack N. Stock (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Time of taking picture is important. isn't it? Alborzagros (talk) 13:00, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but so is time of publication. Note that the template says that the photo was published during that time frame, not taken during it. Do you have any indication that the picture was published then, and that there was no copyright notice? (The photo itself doesn't have to have a copyright notice; if for example something it appeared in had a notice, that could cover it as well.) It is very unlikely that this photo is public domain. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 13:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The default status of any image on Wikipedia is "not allowed to use it", the burden is on the uploader to prove its status is compatible with our license. See WP:IUP. --Jayron 32 14:34, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Weather events and notability

I noticed there are already articles on serious winter weather events (ex. January 2009 North American ice storm, January 1998 North American ice storm). However, there does not seem to be any specific guideline on about those kind of events - what makes them notable enough? WP:EVENT states general things, such as that the event has lasting impact, a large enough geographical scope, and significant coverage. Now, my question is, how large must that be? Is coverage in multiple new sources - including some outside the countries affected ([26] [27]) enough to demonstrate significant coverage? Does an event that causes major disruption to road and air traffic (including cancellation of thousands of flights - throughout North America in this case) ([28]) have enough of an impact? I'm asking this (yes, you've guessed, mostly because of the actual weather here) mostly because of the lasting impact criteria. The question is: If an event meets and exceeds the criteria for having a large enough geographical scope and significant coverage, but the impact (however major) is only short-term, should it be included? - In other words, is it notable enough? Thanks (from snowy Quebec)! 69.165.196.103 (talk) 13:02, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it is possible to be any more explicit that EVENT already is, but the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Meteorology may be able to provide some more insight. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:33, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Developing guidelines for adding open license text into Wikipedia

Hi all

I have been developing guidance on adding open license text into Wikipedia, with the idea of setting up a process to adapt and add existing open license text into Wikipedia. The potential for adding open license text is huge e.g there are over 9000 open license journals. This guidance could be used by both Wikipedians and as an expert outreach tool for experts who have already written suitable text which is available under an open license.

Something lightweight, perhaps one or two paragraphs at most would be ideal to help someone understand quickly how to adapt text, the text would have links to further reading if needed.

My main stumbling block is I can find very little information on adapting the tone of open license text to the tone of Wikipedia. I also know there would need to be information on neutral point of view etc.

All suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It has been a while since I last checked, but I was under the impression that the term "inverted pyramid" was more prominent in the MOS than it is now. This is one place where it is mentioned, and perhaps this is helpful? - Wikipedia:Summary_style and Wikipedia:Summary_style#Levels_of_detail - "Summary style is based on the premise that information about a topic need not all be contained in a single article since different readers have different needs... This can be thought of as layering inverted pyramids where the reader is first shown the lead section for a topic..." -- Fuzheado | Talk 11:37, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Use of Template:Interlanguage link in template space

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Procedural close. The previous RFC ended a week ago (plus one day). There are other questions that could be valid RFCs (such as officially determining if an interwiki link is truly an "external link"), but simply reopening the original discussion in a different venue does no good. Primefac (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As the closer of the previous RFC, I want to explicitly endorse the above close. I explicitly cautioned TonyTheTiger: Don't jump directly to Village Pump, the community likes to have some time for things to process and settle after an RFC.[29] Alsee (talk) 03:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should the use of {{Interlanguage link}} in templates be allowed? An RFC at Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates on the use of Template:Interlanguage link in template space closed as no consensus. The participants in that discussion were as follows

Supporters: 1. TonyTheTiger (as RFC nominator), 2. Randy Kryn, 3. Gerda Arendt, 4. Jc86035, 5. Andrew Dalby, 6. Hawkeye7, 7. K.e.coffman, 8. Thincat, 9. Finnusertop, 10. Iazyges, 11. Sadads

Opponents: 1. Frietjes, 2. The Banner, 3. PBS, 4. MilborneOne, 5. Walter Görlitz, 6. Izno, 7. Plastikspork, 8. Robsinden, 9. Boghog, 10. Bkonrad +1 IP

Also notifying non-responsive editors from prior RFC MirandaKeurr, Izkala, Primefac, and BU Rob13 as well as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates and Template talk:Interlanguage link.

In closing the prior RFC, the closer (Alsee, noted that the broadly defined external links have been opposed in templates for a long time as was made clear in this 2012 edit to the guideline. The closer noted that an RFC on the subset of external links known as interwikis had been discussed in a prior 2015 RFC that closed with 3/4 opposed to an exception for using interwikis in templates. Above we considered an exception for a small subset of interwikis known as the foreign language wikipedias and the above RFC closed as no consensus. The prior RFC contested whether there was ever support for the 2015 change to the guideline opposing non-English wikipedia links. The prior RFC suggested coming to Village pump if that RFC close remained contentious.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As nominator, I support the use of {{ILL}} in templates to supplement redlinks.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support allowing {{ill}} to be used in the Template namespace. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 15:28, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support. With the comment that links to multiple other Wikipedias are distracting and unnecessary, since any other Wikipedias can be accessed from the first one reached. Andrew Dalby 15:31, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment A the previous RFC Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Request for comment: Use of interlanguage links in Wikipedia templates was proposed by User:TonyTheTiger and that RFC only closed on 7 March 2017 , this is forum shopping and is a time sink for everyone involved. I suggest that User:TonyTheTiger closed is RFC and waits at least six months to see if a conensus emerges. -- PBS (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Comment For clarity, in what way is this RFC different to the one which was begun last month? Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 15:33, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close. This is just going over identical ground to the recent RFC. But for the record, I oppose the proposition, as it does not assist navigation between articles on this Wikipedia, which is the sole purpose of a navbox. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:44, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close and oppose. Redundant to previous RfC. Boghog (talk) 16:15, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support international connection per the ill template. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:33, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Restore long standing wording " within English " that simply clarifies the last 2 RfC.--Moxy (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose and speedy close I oppose the proposal and I oppose the forumshopping. The Banner talk 18:11, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is it much too easy to create Start and Stub articles of low importance on Wikipedia

Recently some graphs were updated on the Wikipedia page from 2015 to their current 2017 updated form. The graph seems to show that the fastest growing category is in the Start class articles of Low Importance, with all the other category breakdown growing at much slower rates representing much lower aggregate number of articles. Is this a concern; that the largest amount of editor time is being devoted to Start class articles of Low Importance, by a least an order of magnitude over other classes of Wikipedia articles? Is it much too easy to create Start and Stub articles of low importance on Wikipedia?

Quality-wise distribution of over 5.5 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, as of 29 January 2017^[update]

Statistics and Quality control

@Od Mishehu and Llywrch: Thanks to both editors for their comments in the section directly above. Although I opened that discussion there to try to get comments on the very lop-sided data provided by another editor in the pie-charts given above, the responses from several editors were instead very strongly oriented to Quality Control concerns at Wikipedia. The discussions and comments made in the above section go well beyond what is covered on Quality control and cover the topics of editorial improvement and editorial drift in quality of content in articles over time, sometimes over months or even years. Od Mishehu makes the strong point that there is a large discussion at the nomination pages at both of the very active FA-project and the GA-project pages about articles which become listed or de-listed over time (months or even years). Similarly, Llywrch makes the point of spending much time updating article evaluations which seem to have not always positive editorial drift in quality over the years. Neither of these important issues is dealt with effectively in the WP:Quality control article and possibly there is more to be said on this by way of comments or observations from other editors. We have not heard from many of the editors involved directly with the FA-nom and GA-nom pages, and possibly they might have some experience points to make. Does the topic of Quality control deserve more attention than it has been receiving in recent years, especially as reflected by the differences in emphasis seen in the new section directly above and the older concerns covered in WP:Quality control policy page? ManKnowsInfinity (talk) 16:43, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Quality Control and Wikipedia:Quality assessment are two very different topics. I think it is Wikipedia:Quality assessment you are interested in rather than WP:Quality control.

The alternative to a flawed quality assessment system is not necessarily an alternative quality assessment system. Many of us edit here quite happily with little to no involvement in the quality assessment system at all. I take the view that if I correct a particular typo across the whole of Wikipedia I have improved that aspect of Wikipedia quality. How much of an improvement in quality I leave it to others to measure. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@WereSpielChequers; There is a significant difference, I agree, between WP:Quality control and WP:Quality assessment. The editors responding in the section directly above this one were discussing many concerns which seem to overlap these two areas but are not covered in either one of these standard Wikipedia policy pages. There is likely a notable difference between Quality control when looked at from the standpoint editing content as opposed to observing and controlling editor conduct on Wikipedia articles. For example, the Quality control page seems to spend much time talking about protection from vandalism (an important topic on its own) though not directly related to maintaining and improving genuine article content over time. The issue of editorial drift is also not covered on either of those policy pages where, for example, the original editors of a page may have left Wikipedia and other editors get involved in partial and perhaps mistaken directions for further over-edits leading to the type of article deterioration in content quality over time which Od Mishehu seems to refer to above. None of this is covered on either the Quality control page or the Quality assessment page, though its a significant issue for articles as they are edited over months and often over years after the original top editors for a particular page are long gone. Then there are the other Editing content issues notably raised by the other editors here responding in the section directly above. Should the pages for Quality control and Quality assessment somehow be rewritten to cover all of these issues discussed in this thread, or, should they be covered under some other policy page not yet mentioned in this thread? ManKnowsInfinity (talk) 16:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How article assessments actually work

ManKnowsInfinity, I think you need the whole backstory before you're going to understand any of this.

Once upon a time, when Wikipedia itself was only about two or three years old, a small group of editors looked around Wikipedia and said, "This is really cool, but what if you don't have access to the internet?" This affected schools, libraries, and people in developing countries. So they looked into the feasibility of burning Wikipedia onto CDs (yes, those big silver-colored discs that were created in the early 1980s). Even though Wikipedia was much smaller then, it was still too many articles to fit on a comfortable number of discs.

So they said, "How about we only burn the best and most important articles to the CDs?" Well, that obviously meant that someone would have to determine what the best and most important articles were. The first batch was done by a small corps of dedicated editors. After a while, though, they enlisted the WikiProjects (that's "groups of editors who want to work together"; there were a lot more small ones back then). Assessing articles (I've done tens of thousands of assessments over the last ten years, so I know a bit about this) became a way for interested groups to identify the best articles ("quality") and the articles that they cared about the most ("importance" or "priority"), and to increase the likelihood that those articles would be included in the offline/CD-based releases. The original corps devoted themselves to the infrastructure aspects, such as setting up the bot that updates the statistics. The WikiProjects used this as a source of motivation (you wanted your best stuff on the CDs, of course) and to prioritize the improvement of articles that mattered to them.

However: nobody really needs CD-based copies of Wikipedia any longer. It's an outdated media format. If you want an offline copy, then you're going to use a thumb drive or sideload articles onto a smartphone. The last use of these assessments for the original and main purpose was seven years ago.

So why do we maintain this? Well – mostly, we don't. People, including me, have generally stopped updating article assessments as often. I am still happy when the assessments are correct, but it's not urgent or even important. Readers almost never see this, and editors mostly don't change their behavior based on this. There are still a few uses, so we don't need to remove it: WPMED tracks some statistics (mostly for us to talk about, but also for use in presentations to non-Wikipedia groups). A list of top- or high-priority articles is a good way for a new editor to find articles to watch. A list of high-quality articles is handy when you need examples (e.g., to show people unfamiliar with Wikipedia's best work, or to use as models for articles that you're improving).

But does it truly matter? No.

Also, when you try to interpret stats related to article creation, then it's worth remembering this: We already have articles on nearly every recognized disease. We have articles on only a small fraction of notable medicine-related organizations (e.g., pharmaceutical companies, local hospitals, notable surgeons, health-related charities, etc.). So if you had a perfect list of all missing articles, and you randomly picked a missing article to create it, WPMED would very likely tag your article as |importance=low and |society=yes. That doesn't mean that your contribution is useless to the world; it means that the particular editors who focus on medicine-related articles don't really care about articles on that subject. Leonardo da Vinci had a hugely significant effect on anatomy – but it's a low-importance subject for us. And if we're the only group that provides an importance rating (which is very common for newer articles), then you're going to see our disinterest in those stats, even if the article would be normal or higher interest for a group that doesn't bother with ratings very often (such as WikiProject Organizations) or one that refuses to list importance on principle (like MILHIST).

The bottom line is this: You have found a flawed and outdated dataset that existed for a different purpose, and you should be exceedingly cautious about even attempting to (mis)use it for the purpose of trying to decide whether new articles were worth creating. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing; That is a very good summary of the Chapter in the book titled The Wikipedia Revolution from 2009 written by sysops User:Fuzheado, which I have read and I recognize your points in your good summary of his Chapter on this issue. The point remains, that editors and administrators who are spending truly large amounts of time upgrading and delisting articles for FA-review and GA-review feel that their efforts are highly important to Wikipedia and they devote very large amounts of time to the creation and maintenance of FA-articles and GA-articles. Many editors consider it a sort of badge to place their FA stars and GA stars on their user pages to indicate how important they feel their contributions to the FA-level and GA-levels of articles has been over their long editing time at Wikipedia. Yes, your summary is accurate above, but its also accurate to acknowledge the very large amount of time which even very experienced Wikipedia editors expend to produce FA- or a GA-articles throughout Wikipedia. Your comments on the med articles I also have to agree with almost in the entirety of all you say here; still the editors of those peer-reviewed articles also attach a good deal of importance to improving the quality of those med articles that eventually reach FA- and GA-status. It is a big deal to them.

My comment about the statistics comments you make is really very rudimentary since I only have an interest in the data itself represented in the graphs. Anyone, you or me or anyone, who takes an introductory statistics course or probability course is very quickly introduced to the fact that data sets of statistics are sometimes deeply skewed from medians and averages; that's just the way the real world works. However, the same professors who teach that also state that when statistical data sets are skewed or lop-sided, then its probably important to try to understand why the data sets are lop-sided. That was all I was referring to when I posted those two pie-charts in the section at the top of this thread as provided by User:Hanif as an update of the Wikipedia statistics for 2017. The statistical data represented there is very lop-sided and elementary statistics teaches that such things should be explained for the benefit of future study and analysis. The current article at Wikipedia for WP:Quality control and WP:Quality assessment do not cover most of the strong comments which you and the other editors have made already in this thread. Since so much time and effort is devoted at Wikipedia to creating and maintaining FA-articles and GA-articles (especially in the med articles) then should there be some improvements made to the apparently outdated policy pages for Quality control and Quality assessment at Wikipedia if only to make them better? ManKnowsInfinity (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I find that the stubs or starts can be helpful, and should be made (if notable), as they will be improved when someone who wants to improve it comes along. Sometimes they improve it a whole lot. My only real example of such is with "my" Iazyges page. Compare diff 722458881 with how it is now, or compare its beginning as a one sentence stub in 2001 to now. Sometimes articles lay dormant and low quality for a while, but if it's notable the potential for use is still there. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:58, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@ManKnowsInfinity: I find the stats fairly helpful - see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds/Assessment#Statistics - as it gives me some idea of the state of play of the wikiproject. Many articles are inaccurately categorized but as a global ineact overview it is helpful. As far as buffing content and the proportion of stubs, I entirely agree, which is why I have run the Stub Contest and Core Contest. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:19, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Are top lists copyright infringement ?

I've found many articles as Tozai Mystery Best 100, 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction, The Guardian's 100 Best Novels Written in English, The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time that seem to be copyright infringement. Is it ? Elfast (talk) 23:34, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If it's just a simple list, they can not be copyrighted due to lack of original content. This essay addresses the issue and has links to relevant policies and guidelines. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:38, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And to specifically answer your question, the three lists mentioned are not copyright infringements. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:39, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is absolutely incorrect, as noted below. They all are subjectively selected lists, so this are all copyvios. --MASEM (t) 04:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What Masem said. The Guardian list is certainly a copyright issue, being a completely subjective 'Best of' list based on unknown criteria by a single author. Which I will nominate for speedy as soon as I work out how. The other two are less obvious but going by the essay you yourself linked would likely be considered copyvios. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your answer. Nevertheless, in the article you link, you can read "A complete or partial recreation of "Top 100" or similar lists where the list has been selected in a creative manner" is "unacceptable use."". It contradicts your view. Elfast (talk) 23:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is often referred to as a 'laundry list' are not copyrightable. But when it comes to an organization issuing a list derived from its own its own effort. Then I agree that this seems like a copyright infringement. Of course, if the organizations are very 'notable' their lists become generic but not quite. For instance, the current Dewey Decimal Classification is still proprietary. So think you have a good point. Maybe these articles need to go for AfD.--Aspro (talk) 23:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Today I learned that the Dewey Decimal is proprietary. Thanks for that tidbit! :D ^demon^{[omg plz]} 00:48, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I used to work shelving books in a large library and I didn't know that either. Crazy. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:50, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

'Effort' is actually the wrong word in this context, as the US does not recognise 'effort' but does recognise 'creativity'. You could put a lot of 'effort' into creating a list from publically known facts but as 'effort' isnt recognised, it wouldnt be copyrightable (unlike in other parts of the world where even databases compiled from public data can technically be copyrighted due to the amount of 'effort' used to create them). A subjective list contains substantially more 'creativity' but could contain much less 'effort' and would be copyrightable in the US. I could create my 'Top ten list of films involving sharks' in about 5 minutes, it would take me substantially longer to create 'Top ten most profitable shark films' Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lists that are compiled from subjective criteria are considered copyrightable, and thus full replication of the lists are inappropriate without prior permission (as we have for the various AFI lists). Contrast that to lists developed from data (such as the top selling books or films), or lists from a rigorious voting process, such as a list of Best Picture for the Academy Awards - this is data and not copyrightable. --MASEM (t) 04:57, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Generally, cvio. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. In order for a list to not be copyrighted, it must:

Have completely objective criteria.
The idea behind the list must be onw which a person may be reasonably likely to come up with withou having seen the sorce. So if Only in death were to create a "Top ten most profitable shark films", the idea behind the list may be copyrighyted.

עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes per Wikipedia:Copyright in lists, "ordered rankings based on judgement, such as the top 50 most influential Muslims" are copyrighted. The concept of the list may be notable but the ordered list itself is copyrighted and incompatible for sharing on Wikipedia without a wiki compatible license from the copyright holder. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:12, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Combining AfC reviewers and new page reviewers

There is an ongoing discussion about combining AfC reviewers into the new page reviewer user right. Your comments and opinions would be welcome. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discretionary 1RR in place of edit-warring blocks

I've noticed in cases of WP:EW / WP:3RR that what's been particularly helpful is when I can simply restrict someone to a reasonable 1RR due to WP:ACDS instead of blocking them. It's proven to be surprisingly effective at preventing further edit-warring (in my anecdotal experience) and seems to be received much better than an eternal block-log-of-shame entry. Obviously a block does accomplish the same prevention of continued edit warring, but things become slightly tricky if an experienced editor, who might otherwise make good contributions, missteps (even accidentally). Or if they edit war but not enough to be 3RRing, but still obviously enough to be unacceptably edit warring. The only recourse so far is blocking for non-ACDS topics, but does it always make sense to block someone from all edits? Why should the page they're edit warring on need to be in an ACDS topic for an admin to take—at least what seems to me to be—a less-harsh action than blocking? You'd think it'd be the other way around, right? :P

Anyway, that got me thinking: why not just allow admins to impose a reasonable 1RR on an editor in place of an edit-warring block, regardless of ACDS status, if they feel it would be appropriate? It seems like it's win-win: in place of a block an uninvolved admin could, at their discretion, decide to restrict an editor to 1RR for either the same, normal period as the block or a reasonably padded one (e.g., if a block would have likely been less than a week, as is usually the case, a 1RR of up to a month in its place would probably be reasonable). It could be appealed in basically the exact same way as a normal block: an uninvolved admin reviews it and decides if the 1RR was inappropriate, of excessive length, etc... *shrug*. Seems like just one more tool in the toolbelt—one that's a little more finely tuned to the situation at hand and a little less walloping than a full block.

The real goal of preventing edit warring down the line is to create an extended period during which someone has to consciously keep themselves from edit warring—they have to develop a self-regulating habit of not edit warring—and a day or two (or whatever) of forced non-editing doesn't seem like enough to help form that habit (or at least, it probably doesn't help that much and seems more punitive for someone who might otherwise edit constructively). A week/month of 1RR, on the other hand, seems like it has a much better chance of succeeding as both an administrative action and a super-strong final warning before a block (at least, in some situations).

Thoughts? --slakr^\ talk / 10:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am guessing, if editors didn't follow a policy (WP:3RR) why would we expect them to follow another one (WP:1RR) when told to do so? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:00, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, it sounds interesting, and I actually think that this is a pretty good idea. But, what happens when an editor violates the 1RR? It seems that this is a good idea anyways, but it should be recommended that if an editor violates it, they should be placed under a short block (say one day or so) at the start, and then have that increase to normal block times. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 16:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Sometimes they don't understand it completely or have difficulty with the subjective portions. Some that come to mind are when people think they're "in the clear" because they think something is an exception to 3RR, for example, weren't clear on partial reverts, or are simply editing a high-traffic page and didn't notice they were technically edit warring. 1RR is much clearer, imo. You revert once and if that fails, you go to the talk page. No counting involved. There's obviously always the block option, but this is something less harsh for those situations where there's a reasonable assumption that the person will try not to edit war for the 1RR-restriction period.

@RileyBugz: Violations would then subject to a block as usual. This is more for situations where, like I was saying to Jo-Jo Eumerus, there's a reasonable assumption that someone will try to behave. There are obviously plenty of situations where, despite being warned, someone just needs to be blocked straightaway. :P

--slakr^\ talk / 23:44, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gonna try canvassing some of the usual AN3 patrollers in case they'd think it useful too: @El C, EdJohnston, Coffee, and NeilN: --slakr^\ talk / 23:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's useful but it can be already done without changing policy (well, I do it anyways sometimes). I offer the editor the choice of being blocked for x days or going on 0RR or 1RR for y days where y > x. They invariably choose the revert restriction. This implements WP:CONDUNBLOCK without having the stain of a block. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I actually did sort of offer this as an option to an experienced editor I blocked for 3RR: unblock and a week or so of 1RR versus retain the 24-hour block—they ended up turning my offer down. Perhaps the duration of 1RR was just too lengthy. I suppose they didn't want to have that disadvantage for that long versus just a 24-hour block. But the problem with that, for me, is you have to wait for the editor to respond to the offer—I usually close an AN3 report as soon as I see it, whether the editor being reported responds or not. But I'm open to offer to established editors who violated 3RR a few days (say, 3 days) of 1RR to go along with an unblock from now on as a pilot project. Or maybe offer it instead of a block if they respond quickly. I'm willing to try it out, within reasonable time constraints. El_C 00:12, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, violating the 1RR option would have to come with serious deterrence: like a week-long block or something. El_C 00:13, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My only concern is that 3RR would lose its deterrent factor without a block as a given countermeasure. El_C 00:15, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are still plenty of grumpy admins out there who would just block ;-) I only make the offer if I feel the editor is trying to make a good effort towards finding consensus. Not just, "I'm right and I explained why I was right!" --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:28, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm generally meow! But self-improvement, I've heard of it.El_C 00:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that if they are genuinely trying to find consensus, and stop when warned, in most cases a block isn't required at all. While someone who violates 3rr should know they are inviting a block, it still falls to admin discretion whether a block is necessary to stop further disruption, even after policy gives the green light. Sometimes a good, non-template, cut it out message will stop it too, even if the template one didn't, particularly when it comes from an admin. (Obviously, if two people are edit warring, you want to make sure to treat them similarly, regardless of how lenient or strict that is) Monty ₈₄₅ 00:48, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've long thought that the best sanction for an isolated instance of edit-warring, where a good-faith editor has gotten caught up in a dispute and needs a break, is just to direct him or her to stop editing that article or that page for a specified period of time. That way the edit-warring cycle is broken, but the editor is still able to contribute productively on other topics. I have never understood why this idea has not enjoyed substantially more support. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:17, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, 0RR. Very handy as the editor can still participate on the talk page and keep discussion going. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:19, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(Of course, for the first 24 hours, that article that the 3RR applied to, there will have to be 0RR—we can't give them an extra fifth revert there.) But overall, 0RR for say, 3 days, instead of a 24-hour block, is an even more strict approach. El_C 00:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't even thinking of a variation on xRR necessarily. More like "go edit something else entirely for a day while things cool down." Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:48, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. That should be done more often, particularly with someone who normally builds good content but who let themselves get sucked into a fight. A block can follow if they are unable to take friendly advice from an uninvolved admin. Johnuniq (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In particular, a non-template/personalized warning/advice can be extremely effective, even if the person has ignored a template warning from another editor. Editors, and particularly experienced editors can get in a mentality where they ignore perfectly accurate template messages, thinking the template placer is just trying to win. Some people don't respond well to templates at all, even from uninvolved admins. Its not policy, and sometimes a template is still the right call, but we should all consider WP:DTR when it comes to any type of warning template being directed at an experience editor. Monty ₈₄₅ 02:49, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried the pilot project for the first time today. User chose four days of 1RR on all pages over a 24-hour block. I did block for 10 seconds, though, to note in the block log that this was the user's 2nd 3RR offense. As I mention to the user, the penalty for violating the 1RR is a week-long block, but the user is allowed to self-revert in case they forget. The major drawback is how to make sure they really keep to the 1RR—I just don't have time to watch over every edit they make. El_C 08:11, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Proposed: Minor change to inactivity policy notifications

Interested parties, please see Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Proposed: Minor change to inactivity policy notifications, an RFC which seeks to modify how and when administrators are given notification regarding pending removal of administrative permissions. –xeno^talk 19:57, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should redirects be automatically created when moving to draftspace?

I was just looking at WP:CHECKWIKI error 95, and I was pondering why MediaWiki creates redirects to draftspace when articles are moved there (my understanding is that such redirects are instantly eligible for deletion under WP:R3). I would be far more inclined to move articles to draftspace if it did not leave even more mess behind and draftification would seem a far less WP:BITEy way of dealing with poor quality (but not WP:CSD worthy) articles than immediately PRODing. I've run across quite a few editors who seem to have good intentions but haven't got the required WP:COMPETENCE (yet) and have been thoroughly trodden upon by the CSD/PROD/AfD stampede. Thoughts? TheDragonFire (talk) 12:21, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should notability be inherited with composition?

In the deletion debate page for Slate Star Codex (a blog), User:Exemplo347 maintains that Wikipedia:Notability (web)'s No Inherited Notability rule implies that a blog cannot be notable merely because articles on the blog have notability. This does not seem to match my reading of NIN, which seems entirely concerned with relations of association, not composition. Particularly since merging is considered an accepted alternative to deleting an article that is not independently notable, and the merge target of a bunch of articles on a blog would be an article about the blog (since a blog is the set of articles on it), and merging must preserve notability or be useless, it seems that logically notability must be inheritable along relations of composition.

My reading of Wikipedia:Notability (web) seems to back this up, as it says: "Similarly, a website may be notable, but the owners or authors do not "inherit" notability due to the web content they wrote."

Which seems to imply that the website itself does gain notability due to the article on it.

I see two alternatives: either, the NIN rule should be extended to say "In fact, even the website itself does not inherit notability due to the content that is on it.", or it should be extended to say "However, a website, being merely an aggregation of content, does gain notability from the articles on it, such that a website may sustain an article merely as an aggregation of individually notable content." FeepingCreature (talk) 21:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I took the opposite position to User:Exemplo347 on this question in that deletion debate. I completely agree with you. In the implausible event that we were to have three articles that were each about three different blog posts from the same blog, and the community judged that all three articles should be merged into one article about the blog, it would not serve any encyclopedic interests for editors to object to this on the grounds that "blogs aren't notable just because they have notable blog posts on them". The content of blog websites typically consists of about 99% standard blog posts, and maybe 1% "special" posts like About pages and maybe these days a "Please donate to me!" page. In other words, a blog is, to all intents and purposes, a collection of blog posts, and I would argue, notability should transfer from a blog post to a blog, and similarly should transfer to other things which are compositions of other things - like, for example, events that a person was notably involved in, and their life as a whole. (With the caveat in that case that when it comes to people notable for only one event, an article about them may not be appropriate.)--greenrd (talk) 22:09, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "Should notability be inherited?" issue is not something that can be settled by a post here. The process would require a Request for Comment discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability and ongoing discussions should not be put on hold while it is decided, as this process can take months. Exemplo347 (talk) 09:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was told to bring it up here on IRC. I agree that the deletion debate should not be held up by this; I just bring it up because it seems the rules are unclear on the topic. FeepingCreature (talk) 17:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The crux here is depth of coverage. If a RS merely links a blog post with minimal or no commentary about the blog itself that doesn't merit mention in the Wiki article about the blog, much less convey notability. The OP's statement, "In the deletion debate page for Slate Star Codex (a blog), User:Exemplo347 maintains that Wikipedia:Notability (web)'s No Inherited Notability rule implies that a blog cannot be notable merely because articles on the blog have notability" is not an accurate summary of this. VQuakr (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, the Single Purpose Account that started this post has suddenly appeared because I said a few passing mentions about a blog entry do not add up to significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. Never mind though, notability isn't inherited, according to WP:GNG and nor should it be. Exemplo347 (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you check my edit history, you will find that this "single purpose account" which btw carries the same name that I use literally everywhere else online was created back in 2008. I just don't edit much.

That said, you are outright ignoring my point. WP:GNG (web) says specifically that notability is not inherited between associated topics; a blog and a blogpost is a bit more than an association. At the very least, WP:GNG (web) is unclear and should be amended. FeepingCreature (talk) 13:34, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:INHERIT specifically says that "parent notability should be established independently; notability is not inherited "up", from notable subordinate to parent", which seems to cover exactly this question. Of course, WP:INHERIT is an essay, not a guideline, but the principle seems to me to make sense. If we say that something which is composed of notable constituent parts is itself notable, we start running into all sorts of problems: if I create a blog today which has the text of Pride and Prejudice as its only content, I would argue that it shouldn't be notable, but the interpretation put forward by user:FeepingCreature above would suggest that it is. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:09, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that a blog that contains the text of Pride and Prejudice is a poor example. A more relevant example would be if a blog that posts, say, serial fiction, should gain notability if a specific update chapter is discussed in the media.

You're right in the case of parent notability. However, I believe the case is different here from all the examples listed because a blog is the natural unit of organization of its blog articles, but (for instance) the AFT is not the natural unit of organization of an Einstein. Would Einstein's works ever be merged into his AFT page? That, I believe, is the one case in which inheritance upwards is not just possible but necessary.FeepingCreature (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see how this case differs from the Einstein/AFT chapter case. What I don't see is how the case you are proposing differs from the Pride & Prejudice case. Why is it that you think that a blog which posts already-notable fiction should not inherit notability from that fiction, while a blog that posts fiction which is not yet notable should inherit notability if the fiction does become notable? Do you likewise think that an album should become notable if songs from it gain notability but there continues to be no coverage of the album? Should an album containing already-notable songs be automatically considered notable? I don't see that the exception to WP:INHERIT that you are arguing for is at all clearly defined at the moment, and its fuzziness potentially contains many things which I think are not notable and should not become notable... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:45, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good example! I do think that an album whose songs are notable but that does not receive individual coverage should become notable, because if there was an album whose songs were notable but not significantly notable, then the album page would be the natural page to merge those songs into, and this would lead to the odd sequence of "pages are made for song, pages are insufficiently notable, pages are merged into single page for album, content on page has enough notability to sustain an article but is deleted because the topic of the article does not have independent notability at all."

[edit] Ah, I think I see the issue you mean. I think if there's a topic that has notability for an independent page, then this notability should not also get to be double-counted for the containing subject; that would indeed violate the spirit of WP:GNG and the examples. In a sense, the notability is "expended" to sustain the page. :) My concern is only about topics that are sub-notable and hence merged into a container article. FeepingCreature (talk) 21:04, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to suggest something slightly different. I agree that for an album with only one notable song, the album should not become notable, similarly to how living people not in the public eye should not become notable for one event. However, if there are two (or more) songs covered on Wikipedia from an album, regardless of whether one of them is individually sub-notable or they are both notable but are simply both stub articles with little possibility for expansion, then notability concerns should not prevent the most logical merge of the two articles, i.e. into an album page, if that is desired by the community. And the same should go for blogs and blog posts, I think. Indeed, I now think a personal blog by a living person, at least, should not be deemed notable by us merely for having one notable post, for similar reasons as the reasons why we have the BLP1E policy.--greenrd (talk) 22:57, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense. My concern is mainly with merges invalidating notability, which invalidates merges as a tool for combining sub-notable pages. FeepingCreature (talk) 10:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

China/Taiwan issue at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)

I invite you to discuss drafting the guideline update on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) regarding the China/Taiwan issue. The location is Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)#China and Taiwan naming issue. --George Ho (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Repeating defamation in WP

I read User:Mwalcoff's legal comments about Jerome Kerviel from 9 years ago, and was wondering if any policy has been made about the topic. He provided a long list of legal cases to support his premise that repeating a libel is still libel, even when the source of the original libel is given. Another legal expert in a recent article made the same argument, and added cases where just linking to the original libel can be considered repeating it, and thereby become a libel. So can WP editors repeat a libelous statement in someone's bio?

There are actually at least 3 hypothetical questions that can be created from that:

1. Presume a RS website makes an allegation about a person (the subject of a WP bio) and they get sued by that person for libel. The suit makes the MSM news. Can, or should, WP give cited details about the lawsuit and repeat the original allegation?

2. Same facts as above, but what happens if the RS website also subsequently admits the allegation was false and publicly apologizes, which also makes the news. Can or should the original allegation be repeated?

3. Same facts as #2, but now make the website an unreliable source per WP guidelines. Maybe even a blacklisted source for WP to cite. Can the original allegation be repeated? --Light show (talk) 02:38, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this sort of thing involves a delicate mix of legal considerations, policy considerations, and good editorial judgement. Case by case judgments may be unavoidable. I started to write a more detailed response, with a bunch of hypotheticals, but I don't think we can really cover enough possibilities to really be useful. I think the handling of things at Donald Trump–Russia dossier provides a good example of how we can balance those concerns. While we could probably include more details of the allegations from a legal standpoint, even if the statements are clearly libelous (assuming they are false), editorial discretion dictates that we describe things in more general terms, without getting into the salacious details of the allegations. Monty ₈₄₅ 03:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If we're worried about legal implications of such actions, we have to force the Foundation to make a clear statement on such. We should not speculate one way or the other on the legality of such serious issues. I agree that, if legality were not a concern, we still have an obligation to use sound editorial judgement, but we're all just a bunch of randos on the interwebz here. If its a legal concern, there is one entity who needs to make a clear statement, and that's The Foundation. --Jayron 32 03:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But if legal implications are not a factor, and only editorial policy is considered, could anyone then comment on the 3 questions? --Light show (talk) 04:15, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Then you would discuss it on the article talk page of the specific subject, and come to a consensus with other editors on how to proceed. --Jayron 32 04:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Any notable allegation about a public figure may be stated, as an allegation, provided that we give the best evidnce as to its level of accuracy (disproven, under investigation, admitted lie, etc). It doesn't matter how unreliable the source is. The allegation itself may be a lie, but the statement that the allegation was made isn't. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it absolutely matters that the source for the allegation is reliable!!! If the New York Times reported that "Jayron32 accused Od Mishehu of molesting chickens" and we cited the New York Times that would be fine. If I, as some rando on the internet, posted on my website "Od Mishehu molests chickens", we would NOT republish that. The reliability of the sources ALWAYS matters. --Jayron 32 04:34, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Could that imply some relevance to question 3? --Light show (talk) 04:42, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No idea. My statements here in the general should never be construed as evidence one way or the other in solving any content dispute in the specific. I was only saying that, insofar as we did report such a thing (if we did) that sourcing should be reliable and probably also expressly attributed. However, please do not take these statements as an endorsement of anything in any specific dispute. --Jayron 32 04:45, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not. My main question is only about general policy guidelines, if any. --Light show (talk) 04:48, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the allegation is notable, then you can repeat it, along with any necessary statements of unreliability/flasehood, and link to third-party sources which discuss it; if the allegation itelf isn'tt notable, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DATING Guideline Proposal

Wikipedia is now read and used by people in most of the countries of our small world. I myself is using Internet more or less ten hours per day; of those hours I use WIKIPEDIA around 90%! Unfortunately there is an important item that is overlooked in your (our, of course) encyclopedia: How do different people write the dates? Here are some examples: October 9th 1970: 10.9.70, 10.09.1970, 9th October 1970, 9-10-70, 09.10.1970, 9. Okt. 1970 (Scandinavian). I believe there are many other styles that I do not recall at the moment.

Why not make the WIKIPEDIA dates «standardized» in a way that all (maybe almost all) countries that use the latin alphabet will recognize? This standard will also be completely unambiguous (I hope). The style I here propose is what I personally have made a standard in all my articles, pictures ++ in my computers:

9.Oct.1970. In shorthand: d.mmm.yyyy

If this is possible to implement I believe there will be a lot less confusion about the factual date.

Another question is the timestamp. Should it be hh.mm.ss or mm.hh; or ss.mm.hh, mm.hh. Should we use 24 hours or 12 hours +AM/PM day? I should like to know other readers opinions. (Not only English-US readers are enjoying our efforts!) Andy-Phil. 07:23, 23 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy1111no-phi (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia timestamps display as whatever you've set them to display as here; there's no global format. Regarding dates in articles, we use the appropriate format for the variant of English in which the article is written (9 October, 1970 or October 9 1970) as appropriate, with the month always written out to avoid ambiguity, and in very exceptional circumstances UTC format (1970–10–09). The full range of acceptable date formats is here. Scandinavian etc date formats are irrelevant; this is English Wikipedia, so we only use formats which are in use in the English language except when they form a part of a direct quotation or an article about date formats. ‑ Iridescent 07:46, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifications about WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E and terror attacks

This is somewhat related to the recent discussion at Talk:2017 Westminster attack over whether to merge the suspect's article into the attack's article.

There are several questions here:

Do WP:BDP and/or WP:BLP1E apply to recently deceased criminals (or suspected criminals)? This one should be fairly straightforward. I've been convinced that the answer is no, but plenty of people do seem to think otherwise.
What constitutes a "significant event" as described in WP:BIO1E and WP:BLP1E? Does "significant" == notable, or is it more strict? If the latter, what would be a good bar of significance in relation to terror attacks?
Even if a subject passes the barrier of WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E, would they possibly still be better off covered in the article on the event (or vice versa, the event being merged to the subject's article) if there does not end up being coverage outside of the event and size permits? This is especially pertinent for deceased subjects, where there will not be a trial.

These questions have arisen because there is no real consistency with which these policies/guidelines have been applied in this topic area. For example, the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks: the two in the Charlie Hebdo shooting (Chérif and Saïd Kouachi) do not have an article or individual articles, but the suspect in the Porte de Vincennes siege does (Amedy Coulibaly, and so does his wife Hayat Boumeddiene, who may have helped plan the attacks but did not participate). Similarly, the suspect in the 2016 Nice attack (Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel) has an article, but the one in the very similar 2016 Berlin attack (Anis Amri) does not. Of course, some of this may be chalked up to differences in coverage making some meet WP:GNG and some not, but in many cases, those who do have articles have little more than what is already present in the articles on the events, and would be better covered there in context instead of in a standalone article. ansh 666 22:38, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – Actually, per WP:PERPETRATOR: "A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there is an existing article that could incorporate the available encyclopedic material relating to that person." {MordeKyle} ☢ 23:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point, but I am uneasy about WP:PERP. The phrasing is weird - what does "The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—" mean, exactly - and I'm not sure it copes with the passage of time: if we had it in 1963/4, would we still have the Lee Harvey Oswald article? Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 13:06, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure Lee Harvey Oswald is a good example, he assassinated the president of the United States. I would think that is a prime example of someone who would have their own article. He had enduring coverage in the media at the time. The coverage of this subject will not last beyond maybe a week at most, which we have seen over and over with these attack. Unfortunately, much like school shootings, these run of the mill terror attacks have become routine, and no longer cause continued coverage or extended notability. 2016 Ohio State University attack and 2016 Berlin attack are very similar. Their names have had no real lasting notability. The one recent one of this nature where the suspect has his own article was the 2016 Nice attack which was perpetrated by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. It is quite arguable that he does not need his own article, as he has had no lasting notability, however, he kill nearly 90 of people and injured nearly 500. That's pretty extraordinary. I do however think he does not need his own article as the stand alone article does not really add much more than is covered in the article for the attack. You are right about the wording though, which is the same reason we are here talking about WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E. I've also had some rather large problems enforcing other parts of BLP, including WP:BLPCRIME. The wording in some of these policies are rather clumsy sometimes. A lot is left open to interpretation, which could be the intention. {MordeKyle} ☢ 19:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – I think this is asking the wrong questions (since the underlying question is "when should there be a seperate article for a perp.?"). As implied by MordeKyle, the question should be, "what useful purpose is served by a seperate article?", "is the reader likely to ever search for the perp., independent from the event", and "is the volume of info sufficient to justify a seperate article". There are notable exceptions to the general answer of "no" to this question. No one would ever have heard of L. H. Oswald were it not for one event, but the level of coverage subsequent to the event has made him "of interest" in his own right. It is nearly impossible for editors to assess the historical importance of an event as it is unfolding, but excuse me for being cynical, as any event unfolds, it inevitably appears to be the most important thing to have happened "since sliced bread". I'm UK, and affected by the "Westminster" attack, it is easy for anyone to come up with "most important event since ...." analogies, but I'm also old enough to remember all the IRA "events", which equally seemed unprecedented at the time (and which neither I nor most others can any longer remember very well). Having been involved with some of the examples of inconsistency above, I have to say that the inconsistencies lie far more with level of "emotional response" to the event than rational application of WP principles. My response to this question therefore is that there needs to be demonstrable NEED for a seperate article, based on volume of info available, rather than any evaluation of the seeming importance of the event as perceived as the event is unfolding. We also aren't meant to ask such mundane, practical questions, but it is worth asking, "which is more practical for editors?", my experience of being involved with some of the more notorious events of the last 12-ish months is that 'perp' articles often become the home of careless, PoV, speculative editing, while more experienced editors focus on the 'event' article. If perp. articles simply become the 'reject shop' for unqualified speculation that would never find its way onto the main article, what useful purpose are they serving? IMO there is no need to change policy, simply to apply it more consistently. Pincrete (talk) 02:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Responding to these, I'm just addressing concerns that came up during the discussion. If you think those are more important, feel free to introduce them there. ansh 666 02:34, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Responding directly to the policy questions 1) I have always presumed that ALL BLP guidelines exist not only for the cynical reason that WP might get sued, but also because we understand that getting things wrong with BLPs can do real harm. We extend those to 'recently deceased' for similar reasons. Therefore IMO, it matters not a hoot whether the recently deceased is a Nobel prize winner, or a mass-murderer, if we get something wrong about Genghis Khan, we simply get something wrong, but living (or recently deceased), are entitled to more care (even if they appear to be unworthy of it at the time). 2) It really is impossible to gauge a 'significant event' as the event is occurring. That policy was devised to cover people like L.H.Oswald, and Princeps, but I doubt that anyone at the time could possibly gauge the significance of the event, neither should we with 'unfolding events'. 3) No, unless there is a demonstable need to do so. Pincrete (talk) 03:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CommentFor perpetrators: It states that the perpetrator should have their own page if the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event. Masood was the main perpetrator and was especially unique in that he did not fit the typical profile of a terrorist due to his age, and the act was the largest terror attack in London in over a decade. Not every incident would warrant a perpetrator having their own entry, Masood does.MeropeRiddle (talk) 02:45, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cynic's respone perhaps, but ...... There is always something unique about each event, each perp . 'Orlando' was the "biggest attack on gays since the Holocaust". But that still doesn't answer the basic question, "Why is the perp. noteworthy, independent of the event?" If there is not sufficient, reliable, non-trivial info about the perp., what useful purpose is served?. We may yet find an enormous amount about Masood, or (just as likely), there is nothing much more to know. The significance of the event is ultimately academic in relation to this if he himself is not the subject of study/research. Pincrete (talk) 03:07, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think WP:RECENTISM needs to be kept in mind. After an attack like Westminster, emotions are high and people are looking for answers, so the dead culprit of the attack is going to be reported on heavily. But editors should be asking, in a few months after emotions have cooled down, is that person's detailed identity really separate from the incident itself? A lot of time, the answer is no. Hence, I would really suggest editors take caution with BLP1E, particularly related to terrorist attacks, and simply wait on creating the article on the perp until better rational analysis can be made if the person is really notable on their own. --MASEM (t) 16:53, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

I interpret both WP:BDP and WP:BLP1E as applying to recently deceased perpetrators. There is nothing to suggest that it does not apply so exemptions should not be implied unless explicitly mentioned.
I would interpret a significant event to be one that is more notable than the general notability guidelines. I'd consider a terror attack to be a significant event.
I'd agree with this. Most of the information relating to the perpetrator in the Westminster attack is going to be related to the investigation and aftermath of the attack, so would in my opinion be more appropriate in the article in question. If it becomes too big then a new article as usual would in my opinion be the step. Calvin (talk) 12:49, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - BLP stands for Biography of living persons, and should not generally apply to the recently deceased. If you want to make it apply to the recently deceased then we need more guidelines on what falls into that category versus what doesn't. This is far too broad...

"Generally, this policy does not apply to material concerning people who are confirmed dead by reliable sources. The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death—six months, one year, two years at the outside." (from: WP:BDP)

Extensions are then included in the next paragraph but just use the wording "particularly" when it comes to the example of "contentious or questionable material about the dead". This I can agree with if it is the only exception used. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - User:Ansh666's third point is illustrative: "Even if a subject passes the barrier of WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E, would they possibly still be better off covered in the article on the event". Combined with that and the tone of the original points (Does it apply? If it does, can we redefine "significant" somehow? If we can't do that, can we just ignore it?) makes we think that we are actually talking about WP:PERPETRATOR, not WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E.

Given that, would it be more productive to put a reference to WP:PERPETRATOR into WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E as an exception and then talk about WP:PERPETRATOR here instead? It would be better than working out how to twist WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E.

Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not redefining "significant" - we aren't even clear on what it means in the first place, which leads to the strange inconsistencies I mentioned. And yes, part of it is how WP:PERPETRATOR seems to contradict WP:BIO1E/WP:BLP1E, and what we should do about it. ansh 666 18:44, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PERPETRATOR cites an example of John Hinckley which would mean that the perpetrator of a notable incodent warranted having their own page. It also mentions that their own page is warranted if there are reliable secondary sources that devote significant attention to the individual's role. There are hundreds of news articles dedicated specifically to Khalid Masood which would further demonstrate that he warrants his own biography. The perpetrators of the London attack from 2005 all have their own biography page as well, and his was the largest attack since then. Masood also was unique in that his age was atypical and news reports are now saying that because of his, they need to adjust their profiling techniques, another reason why his biography should be seperate. I dont think every perpetrator warrants their own biography, but this attack was glibal news, and he was the main perpetrator, he clearly does. An example of people who currently don't would be any of the 8 people arrested following this incident, such as his girlfriend. 2602:30A:C0D3:4FA0:E4CD:DC03:3C8E:3F4F (talk) 20:06, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fix guidelines

I've posted this to Jimbo's talkpage here: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Suggested_fix.

Long-time users habitually cite "Subject fails wp:PROF" even in the face of the fact that the wp:PROF guideline itself is designed merely as an alternate means of establishing notability in cases where a potential academic bio subject doesn't prove notable otherwise, viz., through there being sufficient reliable secondary sources per wp:BIO. These users' awareness of this language at these guidelines indicates their lack of candor in promoting their favored work around WP's actual guidelines. This needs to be fixed by rewording the guidelines at wp:BIO and wp:PROF, etc., to indicate that academics and the like are to be held to a higher standard in certain cases than other potential subjects.

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:09, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COSMETICBOT update RFC under way

Please see Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#WP:COSMETICBOT update for the discussion. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:01, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

v t e Narrow-gauge railways in Europe
Sovereign states	Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Kazakhstan Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands North Macedonia Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Kosovo Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Transnistria
Dependencies and other entities	Åland Faroe Islands Gibraltar Guernsey Isle of Man Jersey Svalbard

v t e Narrow gauge railways in Europe
Sovereign states	Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Kazakhstan Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands North Macedonia Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Kosovo Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Transnistria
Dependencies and other entities	Åland Faroe Islands Gibraltar Guernsey Isle of Man Jersey Svalbard