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Discord logs
Background
Wikipedia policy prohibits linking to personal information posted off wiki and also prohibits connecting and editor to accounts in other places (e.g. Twitter) unless the editor has disclosed that onwiki. Historically this has meant that IRC logs of Wikipedians are oversighted if posted onwiki and are considered personal private information. Recently there have been questions about whether or not Discord logs on servers linked to from Wikipedia (e.g. WP:DISCORD, Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones, Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers) should be oversighted as well. A few key differences between IRC and Discord are that Discord logs are kept centrally by the service, anyone who joins a server may access these past logs, and several Wikipedia linked Discord servers explicitly note that they are public. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Question
When, if ever, should Discord logs be eligible for removal (up to and including oversight)?
Possible answers
This is a non-exclusive list of answers someone may give to the question:
- Discord logs from any server marked as public on the Discord server may be quoted/linked.
- Discord logs from any server linked to onwiki and marked as public on the Discord server may be quoted/linked.
- Discord logs may be quoted/linked if the person has authenticated/linked their Wikipedia account
- Discord logs should be treated the same way as IRC logs
Discussion (Discord logs)
- I don't believe options 1 & 2 could be viewed as reasonably complying with OUTING policy, and I certainly don't want to change that, so I think that leaves us with 3 & 4. Option 3 is, functionally speaking, the status quo, to the very limited degree that posting of Discord logs has happened, without it being directly stomped on. There is a question as to whether that is wise, as well as being somewhat anomalous compared to the major IRC channels. I'll have a think as to whether option 3 or 4 is best, but I would note that option 3 should probably be nuanced to something like "public channels", so as to exclude moderated comments and so on. [Disclosure: Discord mod] Nosebagbear (talk) 14:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- To clarify my actual position, I think I shall support option 4, neutral option 3, and oppose 1 & 2 as against OUTING. That let's us be synced up with IRC (which may be advantageous if we split over a bunch of different off-wiki fora) and prevents some potential issues. Obviously if dubious stuff starts coming up then it should be taken to ARBCOM if it's bleeding onto Wikipedia. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- It's not an authentication issue. We have cloaks on IRC, so you can verify you are the holder of a NickServ registered account, but still IRC logs cannot be posted. Whether a Discord account is authenticated or not is mostly irrelevant IMO. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I lean 4. As ProcrastinatingReader notes, IRC has an authentication method as well and doesn't change anything about posting of content from there. I recognize that IRC has had it's own history and issue over this topic, some of it predating WP:OUTING. WP:OUTING requires that such offsite connections be disclosed "on Wikipedia", bolded, in the first sentence. It goes further in paragraph 4, including that editing under your own name or other easily searched identifier does not allow for posting off-site opinions or doing opposition research. That may be a hard line black and white take of the current wording, but if I am posting publicly on Facebook about editing Wikipedia and link an example of one of my edits (Therefor identifying myself to FB readers), but have made no such disclosure on Wikipedia, it is my understanding it would be forbidden to link or quote publicly by WP:OUTING. That the Discord servers denote their public nature is a privacy warning, a critical one, but it doesn't change anything about OUTING in my view, anymore than the fact Twitter or Facebook have public posts. *deeeeeep breath* Furthermore, the use of direct links to specific Discord messages should likely be disallowed entirely, as even if the particular message was posted by someone who has publicly disclosed their Discord account on Wikipedia, it will by nature expose comments from users who have not. Summary: Follow IRC-esque rules regarding "no posting of logs" on Wikipedia. Adhere to strict OUTING interpretations. Limited private disclosure as necessary and allowed under OUTING in paragraph 5 (I.e. to admins/functionaries/arbs/WMF/etc for reporting). Disclosure: Discord mod and server operator. -- ferret (talk) 16:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- Question - Isn't the Wikimedia Community Discord (and some of the others) technically "private servers", in the sense that the invite link is not technically public? For example, if Nitro subscribers were to use an emote from these Discord servers on another server, the emote will show up as being from a private server, not a public server. If my understanding is correct, options 1 and 2 are out of the question anyway for these servers. Epicgenius (talk) 19:06, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't know how Discord classifies them exactly, whether it indicates they are available in Discovery, Partner, or what. However the technical label within the service falls, the invite links are publicly viewable on Wikipedia. -- ferret (talk) 19:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Ferret: I believe it is classified by Discord as private and not partnered. A month ago I sent a screenshot as a joking response to a comment by Izno (a Discord mod), which showed an emote from the Wikimedia Community Discord server, followed by "Wikimedia Community - private server". I'm not sure if this is still the case. Epicgenius (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't know how Discord classifies them exactly, whether it indicates they are available in Discovery, Partner, or what. However the technical label within the service falls, the invite links are publicly viewable on Wikipedia. -- ferret (talk) 19:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I thought most IRC logs are revision-deleted per WP:RD1, as copying them here is a violation of the copyright policy. This does not apply to linked pages containing the original content. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:35, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- If there's a copyright argument to IRC copy and pasting, I'm quite confident that Discord falls into the same. Certainly there's no disclosure from every participant that their messages are free and clear to copy and paste. -- ferret (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- Well, IRC logs can't be linked to in their original form. Discord logs can. Linking to the original should be fine copyright-wise. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:42, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- If there's a copyright argument to IRC copy and pasting, I'm quite confident that Discord falls into the same. Certainly there's no disclosure from every participant that their messages are free and clear to copy and paste. -- ferret (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I think there are at least two separate issues in play. First is outing. It is difficult, given the point ProcrastinatingReader makes above regarding cloaks and authentication, to argue that Discord should be treated differently as far as outing goes. But there is something beyond outing that I have a hard time articulating succinctly.
Even if someone authenticates, even if someone discloses on-wiki what their Discord username is, and even if it's unambiguous that it's not outing, I think we should still at least discourage linking to what the person has said off-wiki. In doing so, we're recontextualizing things said in a space which is not governed by the same norms and expectations (nevermind policies and guidelines) that apply to on-wiki discussion. That doesn't mean some basic policies don't apply, but it's a very different platform for communication such that the context (not just of the words, but of the platform) matters an awful lot. It's not just "if you did nothing wrong you have nothing to hide"; the photos you post on facebook don't have to be incriminating for you to not want slideshow at a job interview or family reunion. The discordance (ahem) can be jarring and uncomfortable. Another analogy: Wikimania is subject to some basic behavioral policies like Discord, and similar outing policies. That doesn't mean it should be acceptable for anyone to record my casual conversations there and post them to Wikipedia. Yes, we should all be mindful to be sure we're not doing things that we would find embarrassing if recorded, but even a reasonably innocuous conversation can sound strange or worse if recontextualized in a more "serious" setting.
So while it's not so much an outing issue, I'd prefer to see some language about strongly discouraging these links or logs, if not disallowing them, except when it's necessary to, for example, provide evidence of egregious canvassing or harassment. And perhaps then it should only be sent to arbcom. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:02, 2 July 2021 (UTC)- Erring on the side of Option 4 based on the above. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:18, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 is safest. It is difficult not to accidentally breach OUTING while linking to any Wikipedian's offwiki activities. Social norms are different in different spaces, so repeating something said on Discord onwiki without context is problematic, while presenting the full context might expose and involve other people. Harassment taking place offwiki can be reported to Arbcom without posting logs onwiki. —Kusma (talk) 21:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- This discussion should consider the similarities and differences with the previous RFC about SUL onwiki at WT:Harassment/Archive 20#RfC: Clarification of OUTING. --Izno (talk) 22:35, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I would prefer a better definition of "personal information" this time around. It appears that RfC only covers information like names, ages, jobs, contact information, etc. Posting of private correspondence (chat logs) doesn't seem to fall within a normal definition of "personal information". The relevant policy appears to be Wikipedia:Harassment § Private correspondence. I'm of the opinion that what happens offwiki is offwiki (except if reported to ArbCom or T&S), and editors do not need to be worried about people prying into their private lives, nor do they need to feel like they're 'on the record' all the time. Offwiki political views or other such statements are irrelevant to ones Wikipedia account. To that end, I think it would be better if the relevant section is updated to codify existing practices (eg relating to IRC logs) better and more generally, as it seems to be a hole bigger than just Discord. Currently it appears the sometimes-enforced prohibition derives from an ArbCom principle on copyright status, but I'd be surprised if someone hasn't pulled the "fair use" card before. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:17, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Option 2.5Option 1. IRC gets to avoid having logs posted because they post "no public logging" in the MOTD. In IRC there is no way to "see the history" of the server unless you've logged everything. On Discord, history on a public channel is stored and visible to everyone who ever joins a server unless that history is deleted or hidden. I would like to see a combination of these two options that anyone who is authenticated and posts in a server publicly linked from onwiki can have their logs posted; as well as the ability for servers to choose to not have logs publicly posted onwiki. I'd also like to elaborate on WikiProject Tropical Cyclones thing which Barkeep mentioned as a reason for this RfC. For the past several months stealth canvassing has occurred from that (publicly accessible) server to onwiki by a certain authenticated user who I won't name at this time (due to the lack of clarity on WP:OUTING rules). This might look like it's just about a certain admin candidate who expressed certain views offwiki but this RfC would cover a lot more than that. Chess (talk) (please use{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 23:32, 2 July 2021 (UTC)- Why discourage authentication? —Kusma (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- If someone isn't authenticated there's no proof that the person on discord is the same person. I'd like to see at least some kind of protection against that possibility. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 00:19, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
- If someone isn't authenticated there's no proof that the person on discord is the same person. I'd like to see at least some kind of protection against that possibility. Chess (talk) (please use
as well as the ability for servers to choose to not have logs publicly posted onwiki
What do you envision for this? Is it simply a declaration? -- ferret (talk) 23:58, 2 July 2021 (UTC)- Same way IRC gets to say "no public logging" and have that respected. Put it in the rules of the server and what channels it applies to. Servers should make their expectations clear if they don't want logs going onwiki, but they should understand this means that this forces problems to go to ArbCom as a first resort. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 00:19, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
- Same way IRC gets to say "no public logging" and have that respected. Put it in the rules of the server and what channels it applies to. Servers should make their expectations clear if they don't want logs going onwiki, but they should understand this means that this forces problems to go to ArbCom as a first resort. Chess (talk) (please use
- I've struck my original !vote after reading what Only in death said. The premise of a lot of Option 4 !votes is that ArbCom will deal with reports of off-wiki harassment. I've seen people acting abusively on Discord and was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to ArbCom on that front to decide whether or not to deal with it. That was one of the premises of my !vote, that cases where people have linked themself to their onwiki identity in a Wikipedia related server can be dealt with my the community and that ArbCom would have the capacity to deal with grey areas where joe jobs are a possibility. But after hearing from another person who has had the experience (backed up by evidence) that ArbCom doesn't wish to deal with offwiki harassment I doubt that ArbCom would be able to effectively deal with these "edge cases". On another note, that !vote made me disagree with the current way that we deal with IRC logs as well and I would like to see some kind of change to that. A significant proportion of the Option 4 !voters voted the way they did because any other option would create an inconsistency between Discord and IRC. I believe what we really need is a change in the OUTING policy itself and not just a change that addresses Discord logs.
- It's tempting to discuss this in terms of "controversial political opinions" since the last event where Discord logs were posted onwiki dealt with a person who made comments promoting the destruction of Israel and calling the IRA's actions "justified" but editors should bear in mind that there are very real cases of abusive conduct on Discord. If an editor was to say "someone should get his stupid ass fired" about an indeffed user who was revealed to be a contributor to a YouTube channel? What if that editor pinged another editor and told them to track down the aforementioned indeffed user on a Discord server for that YouTube channel and to "get him fired" based on their onwiki conduct? These are cases where the community might take a different approach than ArbCom. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 01:29, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
- Why discourage authentication? —Kusma (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 2 I don't think the community can or should be subject to the strict masquerade that nothing exists in discussion other than the pages on this site. IRC logging was always problematic, both in IRC culture and in technical reasons. Discord pages are semi-officially endorsed by the community, have a publicly-linkable archive, and have user authentication to prevent Joe Jobs and other abuse. If a participant in the Discord does not want their account linked to other Discord servers or their real life identity, they already must take precautions; there is simply no real privacy benefit at stake here by prohibiting it on-wiki. There is concern about copyright when copying archival logs here, but linking to public Discord logs should always be permitted. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:44, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- I'm leaning toward option 3. While the server is "private", this is only a technicality of how Discord functions, as the invite link to the server is public. The mods have not disabled the ability to see message history, but they also have not disabled the ability to set a custom nickname, and so any user can create any nickname they want. The only way to verify if a user is who they say they are on Wikipedia is through authing. As for outing, Discord profiles can carry across dozens of servers (up to 200 with Nitro and 100 without). People who wish not to be outed may create an alt entirely for Wikipedia use and have their existing account just not join the Wikimedia server. Epicgenius (talk) 23:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- Eh, I don't see much point in doing anything other than treat it similarly to IRC, lest we then have to make further judgement calls for the Next Big Chat Platform that ends up getting used? - TNT 😺 00:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 Consistency between IRC and Discord should be used, if we change the discord outing rules we should also change the IRC outing rules.Jackattack1597 (talk) 18:16, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 While I see people above mentioning the fact that Discord users choose to authenticate as a argument I would like to point out that A) there is as far as I'm aware not a way to undo such authentication, and B) because of a Discord LTA currently almost all channels are locked to non authenticated users. -- Asartea Talk | Contribs 17:24, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 3 – this really isn't like IRC, as IRC servers don't maintain a public record of anything that was ever said, and is therefore generally unusable as evidence. This is more like Twitter. If you have publicly linked your Wikipedia account and your Twitter account via a link on Wikipedia, it is not a violation of WP:OUTING to refer to those tweets publicly. The same principle applies to Discord – if you have publicly linked your Discord account
via an edit on Wikipedia, your messages on Discord can be publicly discussed. More practically, handling Discord evidence as private means that the only way problematic behaviour that affects Wikipedia can be handled is via ArbCom. ArbCom has received far too many complaints about Discord already, and they should be handled by the community instead. For comparison, ArbCom almost never receives complaints about IRC, and when it does, they get referred to the IRC operators. ArbCom occasionally receives complaints about Twitter, but only handles them in cases when they cannot be publicly discussed. Going with Option 4 essentially puts ArbCom in charge of dealing with problematic behaviour (canvassing, harassment, etc.) on Discord. I don't think the Discord crowd wants that, and ArbCom definitely doesn't want that. Clearly establishing that Discord logs are public information is the best way to discourage misbehaviour. – bradv🍁 17:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)The same principle applies to Discord – if you have publicly linked your Discord account via an edit on Wikipedia, your messages on Discord can be publicly discussed.
This doesn't occur though, in the main. Linking is private via OAuth. -- ferret (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2021 (UTC)- Thanks for the correction. I struck the words "via an edit on Wikipedia". The point is that the identity of the account is proven, which is the reason for that line in the OUTING policy. – bradv🍁 18:01, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Already linked in this discussion, but Wikipedia_talk:Harassment/Archive_20#RfC:_Clarification_of_OUTING suggests even SUL is not considered sufficient for OUTING. It was particular to personal information, though. -- ferret (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Right. I don't think the name of an account on a Wikipedia-specific Discord channel, for the purposes of discussing Wikipedia with other Wikipedians, counts as personally identifiable information. If some changes are required to make this clear to people on Discord, or to change the governance structure, server settings, or advice to new Discordians, I would encourage the leadership to enact them. – bradv🍁 18:18, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure anything is required yet, at least for WP:Discord (I cannot speak for any other servers, the other two mentioned here or the 20+ others linked from Meta). The server is already very clear that anyone can read anything posted and to be mindful of it. Any changes required would need to result from how the community wants this handled (via this discussion). To be clear, in the end, I accept whatever the community wants. I've simply chosen to argue a more hardline take on OUTING, especially the paragraph dealing with opposition research. If the community feels otherwise, that's fine. The server itself cannot dictate the community's position and how to handle things on wiki though, hence the need for the discussion. Even the server declaring "Our logs are not to be posted on Wiki" (As suggested by Chess) is untenable UNLESS the community agrees with that position. -- ferret (talk) 18:28, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Right. I don't think the name of an account on a Wikipedia-specific Discord channel, for the purposes of discussing Wikipedia with other Wikipedians, counts as personally identifiable information. If some changes are required to make this clear to people on Discord, or to change the governance structure, server settings, or advice to new Discordians, I would encourage the leadership to enact them. – bradv🍁 18:18, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Already linked in this discussion, but Wikipedia_talk:Harassment/Archive_20#RfC:_Clarification_of_OUTING suggests even SUL is not considered sufficient for OUTING. It was particular to personal information, though. -- ferret (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for the correction. I struck the words "via an edit on Wikipedia". The point is that the identity of the account is proven, which is the reason for that line in the OUTING policy. – bradv🍁 18:01, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)
if you have publicly linked your Discord account via an edit on Wikipedia, your messages on Discord can be publicly discussed.
Discord accounts are not linked like this. On Discord you have a link to the user's Wikipedia account, but there is no disclosure or linking onwiki. The verification of this authentication is also in the hands of whichever user hosts the verification bot (ie, they could make up an auth and nobody else can verify it, unlike enwiki revision history). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:52, 4 July 2021 (UTC)- Presumably, a login checkuser could. -- ferret (talk) 18:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Sure, technically speaking, but the WP:Checkuser policy does not allow checks for the purpose of confirming/denying whether offwiki messages are authentic, or selfrequested checks. (nor should it) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:45, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Presumably, a login checkuser could. -- ferret (talk) 18:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
This is more like Twitter.
Hmm... If I (or someone with my name) made a Twitter, and on that Twitter set the bio to "Authenticated as "ProcrastinatingReader" on en.wikipedia.org" are any Tweets that account posts citable onwiki as if I wrote them, even if I don't make an onwiki link to that Twitter account? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)- If we say Discord is like Twitter, we should still discourage (or even prohibit) the quoting/linking to messages that are not connected to Wikipedia. It is one thing to publicly shame Discord users for attempted votestacking in an RfA, and a very different thing to link to their posts in an offtopic channel about whatever political or other opinions they hold (possibly in jest). It may be "public" that User X said "I hope Trump dies from COVID" or "We need a dictator now to fix climate change" or whatever on Twitter or on Discord, but it is nobody's business on Wikipedia. (There are some outrageously bad things that should get a user removed from Wikipedia by T&S, but that's not the type of things I'm talking about here). —Kusma (talk) 19:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that any of this really matters in practice. Imagine that you see something relevant on the Discord system. You could:
- Quote it on wiki
- Put a link to the log/archives on wiki
- Say "Well, I don't want to fall afoul of any policies, but let me just say that anyone who joins Discord can see everything ever posted, and I'm talking about a comment that was made at 19:34, 1 July 2021 (UTC)."
- All of these have the same end result, namely that anyone who wants to read it can. This policy is just about as privacy-protective as someone saying "Oh, noes, I'd never doxx someone on wiki. If you want to know that editor's name and his employer's phone number, you have to e-mail me instead". I don't know what the current practice is, but in the past, we haven't even been willing to warn people who post on wiki that they're willing to share personal information off wiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's why Option 4 isn't feasible. IRC doesn't have server-side logs, nor does it have pre-join scrollback. If you weren't in the channel when the message was sent, you can't ever read it. – bradv🍁 18:28, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Well, logging bots are very common on IRC. The #wikipedia-en channel prohibits them so there is no 'official' log, but any user can setup a logging bot, add it, and spread the URL around, and nobody would be the wiser. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- True, but the authenticity of the logs cannot be verified, and posting them on Wikipedia violates our copyright policies. The point is that, unlike Discord, messages can't be linked, and unless you maintained a log yourself, you can't read past comments. – bradv🍁 18:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- It violates an ArbCom principle on copyrights, but falls entirely within US law on fair use:
the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment ... or research ... is not an infringement of copyright
, which seems to cover both the archiving, and I would imagine that pasting a sentence or two of a user's IRC-expressed political views to oppose their RfA is "criticism". It's also of a "non-profit" nature that doesn't affect the "commercial value" of the "work". Not to mention, you could link to the full IRC log, and I can't see how this would be any different to linking to web.archive.org as far as copyright law is concerned. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2021 (UTC) - "Violates our copyright policy" has always been an unconvincingly lame excuse against the posting of IRC logs. —Kusma (talk) 19:08, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- It violates an ArbCom principle on copyrights, but falls entirely within US law on fair use:
- True, but the authenticity of the logs cannot be verified, and posting them on Wikipedia violates our copyright policies. The point is that, unlike Discord, messages can't be linked, and unless you maintained a log yourself, you can't read past comments. – bradv🍁 18:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Well, logging bots are very common on IRC. The #wikipedia-en channel prohibits them so there is no 'official' log, but any user can setup a logging bot, add it, and spread the URL around, and nobody would be the wiser. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's why Option 4 isn't feasible. IRC doesn't have server-side logs, nor does it have pre-join scrollback. If you weren't in the channel when the message was sent, you can't ever read it. – bradv🍁 18:28, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 3, with caveats. Since Discord is publicly logged and authenticated users have chosen to make an explicit, public connection between their Wikipedia and Discord accounts (FWIW almost everyone on Discord is authenticated) I don't think it makes sense to treat these messages as private information. Anyone who joins the server can read the entirety of the message history and the user authentication logs.With that said, we should still be mindful of privacy issues and not treat this as a carte blanche to engage in opposition research. Discord is a different environment from Wikipedia and some users may feel encouraged to share information there that they wouldn't post on-wiki (particularly because Discord messages can be deleted by the poster whereas Wikipedia edits generally cannot). I would not consider it appropriate to repost personally identifying information or otherwise sensitive material that has been posted on Discord but not on Wikipedia. Posting a log of someone discussing Wikipedia-related matters is probably fine. Logs of someone stating their real name or location, discussing personal issues, etc. are not fine, and should be eligible for revdel or oversight. Spicy (talk) 20:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 because it avoids having unofficial non-wiki platforms be de facto extensions of Wikipedia where we can block people for what they say on them (yes, I'm aware ArbCom can for other sites and that we've had ArbCom cases over IRC stuff, but that's been a long time ago...)I'm not a fan of the environment on the Discord. I'm not a fan of Wikipediocracy. I'm an IRC regular, but I also try to separate it from what actually happens on Wikipedia. The entire point of these off-wiki platforms is that they're a way for people who like Wikipedia and want some social aspect of it to talk, network, and discuss things without the strictures of the rules we have on here, and if we allowed linking to them, we'd effectively be expanding our rules to a non-en.wiki platform as, yes, we'd have someone inevitably be blocked for what they said there at some point. That's just how it goes. People can be jerks in chatrooms, oftentimes more so than they can be on wiki.The short of it: many people who are active on this site have preferred off-wiki ways to communicate, some of them open for the public to view forever (forums and Discord); others aren't publicly logged (IRC.) Traditionally we have not allowed people to link to these communications unless the user in question consented.I don't really see why we should treat Discord any differently than we treat other public off-wiki sites, and I'm very skeptical of any attempt to extend regulation of conduct off-wiki more than is absolutely necessary such as in cases of off-wiki harassment. Allowing linking to Discord logs would be a huge step in that direction, and I am very much not comfortable with it, even if it's not something that will impact me as much. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:08, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4. I concur with Ferret's comment above. Authentication by a private process whose results are not made publicly visible on Wikipedia itself (i.e. OAuth) is analogous to posting publicly on a Facebook or Twitter account about editing Wikipedia under a given account. WP:OUTING has historically made very clear that this FB/Twitter example is plainly insufficient for allowing quoting/linking of external comments, even if
an editor has posted personal information or edits under their own name, making them easily identifiable through online searches.
The defining factor is not accuracy nor ease of identification, but the location: public identification (PI) must have been made on Wikipedia itself, not simply in a semi-public location like Discord. As Izno raises above, the 2019 RfC established that PI made even on other Wikimedia wikis can be an insufficient form of PI for OUTING purposes, particularlyif it requires much "research" to find
or if it is non-consensual. Discord is even further removed from Wikipedia than other Wikimedia wikis are, so allowing quoting and linking from Discord without further and narrow stipulations (like the "too much research" or "consent" ones for other WM wikis) would constitute a major and inadvisable reduction in the policy's sensible requirement for on-wiki declaration. — Goszei (talk) 05:48, 5 July 2021 (UTC)- My comment above is mainly concerned with the identifying information tied directly through Discord accounts/links/usernames or posted in messages, but I want to also express my concurrence with several editors here (Rhododendrites, TonyBallioni, ProcrastinatingReader) who have commented on norms and the "wall" that should be maintained between the on- and off-wiki environment. The atmosphere created by opening the door to free posting and linking of off-wiki opinions, possibly out of context, would not benefit the encyclopedia -- what happens on Wikipedia should certainly be transparent, as Levivich opines, but the accountability of its editors should not extend to any and all online expressions. — Goszei (talk) 19:24, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- Copying/quoting them here is almost certainly a copyright violation. Linking I guess isn't terrible. I guess that translates to option 3?
Not relevant to the present poll, but I abhor the use of Discords or other off-wiki fora for discussing matters that should be discussed on-wiki. Stifle (talk) 10:21, 5 July 2021 (UTC) - I don't do Dischord, so I have no clue what the rules are, and what I'd like to see clarified is if accounts on WP-related Dischord have some vetting process to link them with WP accounts. If the accounts are confirmed as the same operator and the whole thing is viewable by the public I don't see the problem with linking or quoting. what I would expect however is that anything submitted here as evidence in support of a sanction had better be really egregiously out of line and not just "something you wouldn't normally say on-wiki." Dischord is not subject to WP's rules and neither arbcom nor the community should be acting as the thought police. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 Substantively, I'm in agreement with TonyBallioni, and believe the other options are flawed and inconsistent (per my comments above). More importantly, I'm concerned with any attempt to formally make thoughtcrime a violation of Wikipedia policy. What a user says in their private time offwiki - privately to their friends or publicly on their Twitter feed - is none of our business. Every user has probably at some point in their life expressed a comment, somewhere (online or in person), that they would not repeat here. Ultimately, all other options permit editors to do opposition research to effectively harass other editors without consequence. I do not think Beeble's 'strong discouragement' will work; such wording is toothless, and when it comes down to it someone will violate it, and it's unlikely others will challenge the posting, especially if the comment is unflattering, and even if it should not have been posted in the first place. Sometimes things are better left unknown, even if we can't consciously make the decision to ignore it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- Treat the same as IRC. The differences between IRC and Discord are real, in particular the authenticated log. I agree with Kusma that the "copyright" reason has always felt a bit flimsy. Ultimately though my line of thinking aligns with Tony. Unlike IRC where we're all on a single server with control of channels by individuals, in Discord's case we're on a multitude of servers with the whole server being under the control of individuals. Beyond the 3 discord servers I linked when formulating the question I am aware of at least 5 other Wikimedia/Wikipedia related discord servers none of them publicly advertised. So ultimately when the differences are real, I don't think they're real enough to overcome our general protections against OUTING (which as noted, offer limited protection on enwiki even against onwiki disclosure on other language wikis). Barkeep49 (talk) 02:04, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
- My thoughts on this are similar to what Kevin says in their close at Wikipedia talk:Harassment/Archive 20#RfC: Clarification of OUTING, and functionally I think that ends up with something similar to option 4. I also like TonyBallioni's take. Ironically, what follows is an adaptation of something I said in Discord, but I digress. Personally I find digging through old conversations for something to discredit someone with is smarmy. We should have a norm if not policy against doing that. Erring on the strict side has the benefit of disincentivizing rumor milling. Imagine if User:Example just started posting things on wiki about how bad those Wugapodes are and all the bad stuff I say, with quotes but links that don't work for some reason. Example explains (falsely) that I deleted them. It will be hard if not impossible to disprove, but if posting logs or quoting messages was disallowed (and redactable), we sidestep that whole issue. On the other side of the coin, it incentivizes responsible reporting. Rather than taking accusations to
the pilloryAN, the private evidence is sent to admins or arbcom who can figure out what if anything needs to be done before a frenzy rather than trying to clean up afterwards. — Wug·a·po·des 06:02, 7 July 2021 (UTC) - Option 4 per Wugapodes - been following this discussion for a while but their reasoning convinced me stronger than anyone else's. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:09, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 1/2. Lets be clear about this, the IRC 'rules' that prohibited logging were entirely in place to protect abusive IRC members from having their actions and statements challenged on-wiki. These were not channels that were unrelated to Wikipedia, they were specifically set up to deal with on-wiki issues, run by wiki-admins, donated to by the WMF and intricately tied in with WMF staff members (the history of WP-on-IRC is a dark and murky one that a lot of editors are going to be unfamiliar with). Some people may not have been around for the the issues of IRC logging, "throatpunching", Arbcom declining to do anything about an admin making comments about bathing an editor in acid - and keep in mind these are not examples of calculated abuse by secretive IRC members. They were just unpleasant people saying unpleasant nasty things and getting away with it for a long time because of secrecy rules that protected them. The actual outcome was of course that they were logged, and acted upon, but it took a far greater amount of effort to get any traction on them, and in the meantime they continued with their abuse. The Super Secret Sockpuppet hunting co-ordination etc (amongst other IRC groups) was arguably far more calculated abuse due to its secretive nature when it targeted editors.
- So when I see the same people who refused to do anything when IRC secrecy was abused, advocating for the same approach that led to abuse previously, who deliberately avoided doing anything about that abuse, arguing in favour of applying the same process here? They either learned nothing at all, or have an ulterior motive in keeping their own activity hidden. I will also take 'hopelessly naive' for a third option.
- And let us also be perfectly clear on this: Discord is logged, everything you do there, as well as your online identity (that you use for Discord) are kept and will be used against you if you step out of line. The only question is do you want it addressed on-wiki where your peers are likely to take a more understanding approach? Or do you want to go down a path where because of a prohibition here, you are discussed at say, Wikipediocracy, maybe a news article from a sympathetic journo. You have no protections against harressment or outing in other venues. By forcing people to seek redress elsewhere, you will end up (as has previously been the case) in attracting the attention of a group of people who rarely have any sympathy when it comes to abuse and are willing to be more direct in their attempts to bring it to light.
- This is another example of why the Outing policy is hopelessly unfit for purpose and needs to be adjusted to take account of reality and experience, not attempt to adjust reality to suit the outing policy. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
- The community has the power to amend the arbitration policy to broaden the scope of when offwiki evidence should be considered. If they wish users could ask prospective arbs a question about how they will handle offwiki evidence and vote for the ones that promise site bans for offwiki evidence like your examples. So I don't see why what the 2015 ArbCom did or didn't do is relevant.
where your peers are likely to take a more understanding approach
Let's be clear, the most recent onwiki Discord incident (that I know of) was quoting a user's offwiki political views at RfA, and people were not sympathetic. Are you saying fellow editors will be (or even should be?) sympathetic if actually problematic content is reported? IMO the problem here isn't really about problematic content, which should be dealt with appropriately, it's about non-problematic content. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:04, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4. Per TonyBallioni. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:04, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 per Wugapodes and Spicy. I especially strongly agree with Spicy's take on the environment Discord provides, as I myself am open to disclosing information about myself to a select few who were part of a conversation (or to any authenticated user in the server at the time, for that matter) on Discord, but not on Wikipedia. The RfC that Kevin closed (linked repeatedly above) also has comments on opposition research (
This RfC does not constitute a green-light to snoop around...
) and disclosing personal information from off-wiki venues in general, both of which I strongly agree with. Given that, Option 4 would be the only decent choice here that follows the RfC. My own take on the matter is that personal information, such as birth dates, ages, names, etc., must not be quoted/linked at all, no matter what. Additionally, ArbCom should be sent the particularly nasty or egregious comments (pertaining to Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects, including its users) made on Discord by an authenticated Wikipedian to decide what should be done to that user. Bringing those comments up in a publicly-viewable venue on-wiki (God forbid, ANI) for Wikipedians to lynch the user in Wikipedia's special version of cancel culture based on possibly out-of-context comments can and will start a mess and possibly cause damage that can't be undone, even after oversight, which can and will happen if we went with Option 1, 2, or 3. Disclosure: I moderate the RedWarn Discord server, which requires SUL authentication. My thoughts, however, focus more on my experience with WP:DISCORD. Chlod (say hi!) 07:01, 10 July 2021 (UTC) - Comment - I would worry about vague references to Discord that aren't specifically links. I get the argument for linking to specific messages being bad, but I wonder about if I said something onwiki like "per a discussion on WP:DISCORD a few hours ago". Or imagine I mentioned the channel specifically. Once or twice I've said something like that myself (like: "I asked for advice on WP:DISCORD and they directed me to policy XYZ"). I worry about such vague references being considered not that far away from direct links. Leijurv (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 5 : Discord chatroom logs are public and IRC chatroom logs should be as well — My opinion is probably not gonna count for much but I might as well chime in. Anything that could have been read by anyone present in the chatroom at the time of its posting should be available to be re-read by anyone. Any other policy that tries to implement a fake feeling of privacy through "you had to be there, now you'll never know" is completely ridiculous. As a good example, this is the way logging happens on Wikimedia projects. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 10:23, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 1 (aka Ben's "Option 5", applying this to IRC as well) per OID, Chess, and Ben. Public means public. The notion that on this public website, we would be prohibited from quoting or linking to something on another public website (or chat server, or message board, or a published print magazine, or whatever), just doesn't make any sense to me. If people on other websites don't want to be quoted elsewhere, they should lock down (make private) those other websites. Otherwise it seems like we're making a rule that people can say things in public and we have to pretend here that it didn't happen, simply to ensure that the speaker avoids any consequences here for what they said elsewhere. Balancing the competing values, I come out with: if you said it in public, you said it in public, and having everyone pretend like it didn't happen isn't helpful or productive in any way that I can figure. This especially true when we have a page in projectspace called WP:DISCORD that points editors to the Discord server. Even if the page says it's "unofficial," it's still part of the Wikipedia ecosystem by virtue of being linked in projectspace. We don't have a WP:WIKIPEDIOCRACY or a WP:WIKIPEDIAREVIEW or a WP:WIKIPEDIASUCKS, etc. In my view, the projectspace page, and that it's mostly moderated by admins, makes it at least quasi-official. (Same with WP:IRC.) Particularly where this is Wikipedia, where our strongest values are transparency and accountability. We keep a record of everything everyone does, of every change. All future generations will know it took me multiple edits to write this comment :-P Prohibiting linking/quoting to other public wikipedia-related conversations runs directly counter to those values of transparency-and-accountability-through-excellent-recordkeeping. Levivich 17:18, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
- Personally, I'm not strongly opinionated regarding which direction is taken for logging, as long the approach is made clear. (In any case, I think the question of what off-wiki actions can be used as grounds to evaluate an editor's overall characteristics is going to be more prominent.) I am concerned about maintaining the current minimum requirement for full participation in the English Wikipedia community, which is to be active on this web site. I wouldn't want on-wiki discussions to start pointing to external servers to lay out arguments for whatever topic is being discussed, or for off-site discussions to become the central point for decision-making. If IRC/Discord/Twitter/Facebook/Reddit/any external forum becomes essential to participate, this will have a significant effect on the editing community. isaacl (talk) 21:42, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with this, but will note that I have learned through my UCoC work that in quite a few communities this isn't true. That is substantial project coordination occurs in Telgram groups or through a particular affiliate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- I appreciate that many users like to use more real-time modes of communication. I'm not sure how well it would work with a global community the size of English Wikipedia's. Can you share any info on the size and number of time zones spanned by the communities you have in mind? If all of the interested parties are able to participate using another service, at least they still have a say. I fear, though, with the size of English Wikipedia, that wouldn't be the case. isaacl (talk) 01:51, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with this, but will note that I have learned through my UCoC work that in quite a few communities this isn't true. That is substantial project coordination occurs in Telgram groups or through a particular affiliate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- Shouldn't any copy-pasting of Discord logs into Wikipedia be immediately revdel'd on the spot as a copyvio? Leijurv (talk) 22:49, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4. Even if it is a public server, a Discord username can still be considered personally-identifying information, especially if someone uses a different Discord name than they use on-Wiki. The only possible mitigating circumstance is that unlike IRC, Discord requires a registration and it's harder to see someone's IP. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 00:28, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- Discord username is PII? Citation needed. Levivich 13:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- If my Discord username were my real name ("Alex Smith" or whatever), it could be. Sdrqaz (talk) 13:58, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- What ^^ said. PII is anything that allows you to personally identify someone. So any Discord ID that allows you pinpoint a person is PII. The mistake is in thinking that because something is PII it is also not public information. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- If you use your real name as your username on a public discord server, then you've already made it public. There are reasons to oppose this but privacy is not one of them: were talking about linking to public logs. Imagine the reverse argument: that people who use their real name as their username on Wikipedia can't have their contribs linked to on another website because it's PII. I mean, LOL that makes zero sense :-) The person choosing to use their name as their username would be the person who made the PII public, not someone who later links to it. Levivich 14:02, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- My understanding of policy was that if you looked up where "Alex Smith" lived on Facebook (say they disclosed they lived in a cottage in rural Kazakhstan) and you said that on-wiki and the "Alex Smith" on Wikipedia had not linked to their Facebook profile or given indication of their Kazakh abode, that would be outing. Even if "Facebook Alex" said "oh I'm an active Wikipedia editor called 'Alex Smith' too", linking to that on-wiki still would not be allowed. Couldn't you argue that that is roughly analogous to the Discord username problem, since "Facebook Alex" had made that information public? Sdrqaz (talk) 14:22, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- Oh yes that's my understanding of our outing policy too. But this isn't an RfC about giving people permission to link usernames on WP and Discord. One can link to discord server logs without doing that. Even that aside, Discord requires OAUTH authentication to post in (most?) channels, so that link between accounts is made public anyway and saved in public logs, using "official" WMF tools to ensure the link is correct. So much for outing, then, since Discord requires you to out yourself anyway? Levivich 14:30, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- My understanding of policy was that if you looked up where "Alex Smith" lived on Facebook (say they disclosed they lived in a cottage in rural Kazakhstan) and you said that on-wiki and the "Alex Smith" on Wikipedia had not linked to their Facebook profile or given indication of their Kazakh abode, that would be outing. Even if "Facebook Alex" said "oh I'm an active Wikipedia editor called 'Alex Smith' too", linking to that on-wiki still would not be allowed. Couldn't you argue that that is roughly analogous to the Discord username problem, since "Facebook Alex" had made that information public? Sdrqaz (talk) 14:22, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- If you use your real name as your username on a public discord server, then you've already made it public. There are reasons to oppose this but privacy is not one of them: were talking about linking to public logs. Imagine the reverse argument: that people who use their real name as their username on Wikipedia can't have their contribs linked to on another website because it's PII. I mean, LOL that makes zero sense :-) The person choosing to use their name as their username would be the person who made the PII public, not someone who later links to it. Levivich 14:02, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- What ^^ said. PII is anything that allows you to personally identify someone. So any Discord ID that allows you pinpoint a person is PII. The mistake is in thinking that because something is PII it is also not public information. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- If my Discord username were my real name ("Alex Smith" or whatever), it could be. Sdrqaz (talk) 13:58, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- Discord username is PII? Citation needed. Levivich 13:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 per TonyBallioni and Wugapodes. Link20XX (talk) 15:01, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 5 per Ben, Only in death, Levivich, and Iridescent here and here. I have thought a lot about this, considering the role the Discord server played in my RfA. My vote may thus be surprising, but in the Discord server I am on record saying "If you don't want to be revealed as being an asshole, don't be an asshole". My RfA showed the proof in that particular pudding, and in hindsight I see it as an inevitable spark for the discussion we're having now. Regardless of the officiality of the Discord server, it still wears the black W on a white field, is still staffed by admins, and has hundreds of members who have publicly linked to their Wikipedia accounts. It is part of the WikiSphere. Everyone in that server, as the landing channel hints, should be prepared for the consequences of their actions there. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 02:59, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 5 (no restrictions on posting public logs, per Ben). If you send a message to someone, you can't control what they do with it. If you send a message to a public board (like Discord), you can't control what anyone will do of it. And if that message is signed with your Wikipedia username in a Wikipedia-related forum you can't expect others not to make the link. The alternative isn't keeping this correspondence private; it's an absurd situation where everyone knows that "X said Y on Discord", but they have to pretend that they don't on-wiki. The fact that we sometimes (very inconsistently in my experience) apply a similar logic to IRC, email, Wikipediocracy, etc. is part of a legacy of well-meaning, but ultimately futile, hyper-sensitivity to privacy that we also need to shrug off. – Joe (talk) 08:45, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- But we don't allow public twitter messages to be used in this way. Why should someone have less protection on Discord than Twitter? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:06, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- We don't? For example, earlier this year someone was sanctioned at ANI for a BLP COI based in part on their tweets, which were linked to, quoted, and discussed in the ANI thread (and without which the COI may not have been so apparent... along with some of the editor's blog posts). This wasn't an OUTING violation because the editor had already linked the accounts (same with Discord auth). If we had a rule preventing quoting/linking the Twitter account, the community may not have been able to address the COI; that's the type of danger I hope we can avoid and why I'm supporting options 1/5. We've similarly seen Twitter, Facebook, etc. be linked/quoted on-wiki when dealing with off-wiki canvassing. To me, the other options (like 4) would make Discord be treated differently than other social media like Twitter. Levivich 15:35, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
same with Discord auth
and the same with IRC cloaks. But if we want to discourage people from using that authentication, this is good motivation. AFAIK linking to Twitter is only allowed if (a) it has been linked to from the English Wikipedia (authentication on Discord doesn't create a link in that direction) and (b) if it's being used to illustrate COI. At least that's what's outlined in the "specific situations" at WP:OUTING. The rest should be done through off-wiki channels (e.g. emailing an admin). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:23, 13 July 2021 (UTC)- But the reason why we require disclosure in one direction (disclosure on-wiki of the off-wiki account and not the other way around) is for authentication reasons (we can't be sure the off-wiki account is controlled by the wiki account holder unless the wiki account says so logged in on-wiki). By using mw:OAuth, Discord authentication satisfies this concern. OAuth is the key, for me, for why it's not an WP:OUTING concern. Levivich 16:43, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's not the only reason, no. If what you say were true, we would not say
If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Wikipedia, although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information are not considered outing. If the previously posted information has been removed by oversight, then repeating it on Wikipedia is considered outing.
In that case, someone has already verified that it is their account, but we respect their wish not to connect the two. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:02, 13 July 2021 (UTC)- I'm not sure how being allowed to un-verify changes anything? But either way, we can honor that for Discord just as we do for any other off-wiki site. And even putting the linking-accounts thing to one side, we can allow linking to Discord logs without allowing OUTING... I can link to a message without saying which WP editor posted that message. Levivich 17:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure how being allowed to un-verify changes anything
you just said the purpose of not allowing linking is for authentication reasons. But it's not, as evident by our stance that even if someone has authenticated, if they've decided not to share it later that must be honored. It's not unauthenticating or "unverifying", after all; it's choosing not to share what one shared in the past. When someone decides to oversight it, they're not saying "actually, I'm not that person" they're saying "actually, I'd rather not share." — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how being allowed to un-verify changes anything? But either way, we can honor that for Discord just as we do for any other off-wiki site. And even putting the linking-accounts thing to one side, we can allow linking to Discord logs without allowing OUTING... I can link to a message without saying which WP editor posted that message. Levivich 17:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's not the only reason, no. If what you say were true, we would not say
- But the reason why we require disclosure in one direction (disclosure on-wiki of the off-wiki account and not the other way around) is for authentication reasons (we can't be sure the off-wiki account is controlled by the wiki account holder unless the wiki account says so logged in on-wiki). By using mw:OAuth, Discord authentication satisfies this concern. OAuth is the key, for me, for why it's not an WP:OUTING concern. Levivich 16:43, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- We don't? For example, earlier this year someone was sanctioned at ANI for a BLP COI based in part on their tweets, which were linked to, quoted, and discussed in the ANI thread (and without which the COI may not have been so apparent... along with some of the editor's blog posts). This wasn't an OUTING violation because the editor had already linked the accounts (same with Discord auth). If we had a rule preventing quoting/linking the Twitter account, the community may not have been able to address the COI; that's the type of danger I hope we can avoid and why I'm supporting options 1/5. We've similarly seen Twitter, Facebook, etc. be linked/quoted on-wiki when dealing with off-wiki canvassing. To me, the other options (like 4) would make Discord be treated differently than other social media like Twitter. Levivich 15:35, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- My argument is that whether it's Twitter, Discord, or anything else, rules like this don't offer any "protection" at all; just the impression of it. If you are posting on a public, off-wiki forum under a name that can be linked to your Wikipedia username, you should assume that people you talk to on-wiki are capable of finding it. And if they're not, Wikipediocracy will definitely do it for them if they think there's the slightest nugget of drama in it. If you don't want the two things to be linked, the only true solution is not to link them. The taboo against mentioning that link on-wiki is at best a means of obfuscation, but I think in reality just a polite fiction. – Joe (talk) 10:43, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- It is simply not true that there are no shades of grey here, as you seem to imply. While information may be out there and could be used by stalkers, we can be better than these stalkers and not link to everything that is technically out there. It is simply disrespectful (consider WP:5P4) to mention/link to all the idiotic stuff User:X said to you yesterday while ranting, whether in the pub or on Discord, to the entire Wikipedia community, which is a far more public area than many of the other technically public places on the Internet. Let's be better people on Wikipedia. —Kusma (talk) 11:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- "Wouldnt it be nice if everyone was nice" is no basis on which to formulate policy given the ample examples of where that is blatantly ignored. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:13, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- Personally I find talking behind people's backs to be far more uncivil than calling out people for acting badly off-wiki. It is not "stalking" to merely acknowledge what we all already know: that there are places, other than Wikipedia, where Wikipedians talk about Wikipedia. – Joe (talk) 12:03, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- The thing is, Wikipedians also use these places to talk not about Wikipedia, and there is no reason to ever bring up such conversation onwiki. More concretely, I find things like User:Chess bringing up Vami IV's non-Wikipedia related chat history during the latter's RfA to be wholly unacceptable and want this to be clearly disallowed going forward. Yes, it's all technically public, but if you want to shame people for whatever non-Wikipedia related thing they do offwiki, do it offwiki. —Kusma (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- I wasn't the first person who brought the candidate's Discord history up. Many people voted support because of their interactions with Vami on Discord. Would those support votes be disallowed as well? And for those unfamiliar with the context, that nominee said "oppressors exist to be killed by the oppressed" in an #offtopic discussion on WP:DISCORD about whether the IRA/Hamas were justified in their actions and brought up that the existence of Israel was "intolerable" in an on-topic channel with no prior discussion of Israel. These are not normal political beliefs. These are extreme political beliefs that were expressed in the quasi-official Wikipedia Discord server.
- I get that you're angry a candidate you supported lost their RfA and you want to prevent evidence from being brought up that could change the community's opinion in the future. But these comments were said in a Wikipedia related Discord server with a big old Wikipedia related logo with accounts authenticated with the user's Wikipedia related account. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 18:25, 14 July 2021 (UTC)- It's not that the candidate lost, I have no problem with that. There were reasons brought up to oppose the candidate that I found absolutely valid, based on recent onwiki evidence and mentioning actual issues with candidate edits or attitude. But "candidate says idiotic things in non-Wikipedia related chat" was one of the really low and unfair blows (bringing up onwiki POV-pushing or actual evidence of following a nefarious agenda would have been ok, or of evidence that the candidate's judgement is terrible in their actions on Wikipedia. There are already more than enough ways to sink an RfA without sifting through a candidate's chat logs in addition to everything they ever said onwiki). —Kusma (talk) 22:04, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
don't offer any "protection" at all
- The protection isn't that nobody can read it; it's protection on Wikipedia that we don't want people to post users' off-wiki conversations except in very specific circumstances. Basing policy on Wikipediocracy won't do seems scarily cynical.there are places, other than Wikipedia, where Wikipedians talk about Wikipedia
- presumably, then, if I go to Wikimania or Wikicon or a local meetup and record or transcribe (whichever allowed by law) the conversations people have over lunch, there would be no problem uploading those recordings to Commons and posting transcripts here? Most of the people involved have identified themselves by their username, after all. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:41, 14 July 2021 (UTC)- A rule that prohibited us from talking about anything anyone said at a wiki meetup, or posting video/audio recordings from meetups, would not make sense to me. We post videos from meetups all the time. Imagine if we had a zoom call and then couldn't quote the transcript of the zoom call or post the video of the call. Why don't we want to refer to off-wiki public recorded discussions on wiki? It's so very easy for people to create private safe spaces online for themselves if they want privacy. But public is public. Levivich 13:50, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- You missed the point of "over lunch." Yes, conference sessions can be recorded and posted. Likewise any other time people give their consent (although at Wikimedia meetups anyone can typically indicate when they don't want photographs of them to be posted via a colored lanyard or a sticker or something). The point is, Discord doesn't include just the "conference proceedings" part of the conference; it's also what's said over lunch where, yes, people can hear you and you still shouldn't say anything you wouldn't want other people to hear, but where we nonetheless treat it differently. In that context, it would be creepy and inappropriate to record conversations, even if people are self-identified by their username and even if people know they're where other people can hear. It's an imperfect analogy, granted. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- I actually think it's a pretty good analogy, but I disagree about this: there is no "over lunch," all of Discord is the "conference." All of it is being recorded and saved all of the time--all of it is public, all of it is logged--so it's all "the conference" part to me. "Over lunch" would be DMs or private servers/channels/whatever. What makes it "conference" and not "lunch" IMO is that it's linked from WP, the OAuth, and the public logs. Levivich 17:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- You missed the point of "over lunch." Yes, conference sessions can be recorded and posted. Likewise any other time people give their consent (although at Wikimedia meetups anyone can typically indicate when they don't want photographs of them to be posted via a colored lanyard or a sticker or something). The point is, Discord doesn't include just the "conference proceedings" part of the conference; it's also what's said over lunch where, yes, people can hear you and you still shouldn't say anything you wouldn't want other people to hear, but where we nonetheless treat it differently. In that context, it would be creepy and inappropriate to record conversations, even if people are self-identified by their username and even if people know they're where other people can hear. It's an imperfect analogy, granted. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- A rule that prohibited us from talking about anything anyone said at a wiki meetup, or posting video/audio recordings from meetups, would not make sense to me. We post videos from meetups all the time. Imagine if we had a zoom call and then couldn't quote the transcript of the zoom call or post the video of the call. Why don't we want to refer to off-wiki public recorded discussions on wiki? It's so very easy for people to create private safe spaces online for themselves if they want privacy. But public is public. Levivich 13:50, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- The thing is, Wikipedians also use these places to talk not about Wikipedia, and there is no reason to ever bring up such conversation onwiki. More concretely, I find things like User:Chess bringing up Vami IV's non-Wikipedia related chat history during the latter's RfA to be wholly unacceptable and want this to be clearly disallowed going forward. Yes, it's all technically public, but if you want to shame people for whatever non-Wikipedia related thing they do offwiki, do it offwiki. —Kusma (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- It is simply not true that there are no shades of grey here, as you seem to imply. While information may be out there and could be used by stalkers, we can be better than these stalkers and not link to everything that is technically out there. It is simply disrespectful (consider WP:5P4) to mention/link to all the idiotic stuff User:X said to you yesterday while ranting, whether in the pub or on Discord, to the entire Wikipedia community, which is a far more public area than many of the other technically public places on the Internet. Let's be better people on Wikipedia. —Kusma (talk) 11:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- But we don't allow public twitter messages to be used in this way. Why should someone have less protection on Discord than Twitter? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:06, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option 4 I just don't see the need to support these things and best to have these "conference" within Wikipedia. if they're in these lunch situations, then even less reason to support them. Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:06, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- Option four. To me, it doesn't really matter if you're certain that they're the same user or if they've indirectly outed themself using the OAuth system – the distinction between on-wiki and off-wiki behaviour is one that should be maintained. I am aware of at least one former administrator who was desysopped and banned due to conduct off-wiki, and another editor who was banned for similar reasons. Should behaviour on off-wiki platforms prove problematic, the Committee has been willing to take action against such individuals in the past, and they should now. To be honest, even if an editor outs themself on-wiki and you are working within the policy at OUTING, you should not be posting such opposition research anyway. I can think of an RfA, an RfB and a Committee candidacy that failed because of those reasons, which was regrettable. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:08, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- I think that nearly everyone has missed the point here, which is that we should not endorse any external platform for discussions that have any impact on what happens on Wikipedia. We shouldn't have done that previously for IRC (just look where that's got to) and we shouldn't do it now for Discord. Any discussion that is not on Wikipedia, or, if it needs to be private, via secure email with trusted functionaries, should not be taken into consideration here, and then it wouldn't matter what's said in Discord or whatever the flavour of the day is because it would be ignored anyway. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:29, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is that people can't un-see undesirable behaviour. If someone is uncooperative, aggressive, or unduly dismissive in some off-wiki venue, those witnessing it may well take it into account, and there's no way to avoid it. As I wrote previously, I do personally agree that discussions that lead to decisions on what happens on English Wikipedia should take place on English Wikipedia. I appreciate that some editors find it more effective to use a real-time discussion tool for preliminary discussions such as brainstorming. However in order to include the entire global community, we need to have patience to establish the consensus view. isaacl (talk) 01:19, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- I didn't miss the point, it's just not reasonable. You already carved out an arbitrary exception for email, so why should your particular off-wiki communication be preferred over others? It's not even particularly secure; I would bet few of us host our own SMTP servers, so most email gets routed through a major corporation's surver farm and is thus vulnerable to both data leaks and corporate introspection. You don't want to endorse any external platform, except that Discord isn't endorsed by Wikipedia or the WMF. I don't see anything at WP:IRC saying that it is an official mode of communication. They're no more official than TheWebsiteThatMustNotBeNamed, they just have fewer banned users. If by "endorse" you mean "has a project page" then that's a pretty low standard. Lots of in-person meet-ups have project pages and I wouldn't want to suggest that we "endorse" them all in any sense of the word or create that implication. Even if we could avoid that, they'll just get moved to Meta since they relate to the wider wikimedia ecosystem and you'll have a hard time getting MediaWiki.org to endorse a global on-wiki-discussion requirement. For all the hand-wringing about Discord and IRC these are fundamentally places where people with similar interest gather to talk about their shared interest. Unless you want to turn Wikipedia into a social networking site where I talk about the Pidgey cards I've been collecting or forbid me from playing chess with Kevin, you'll need to accept humans having social relationships. Trying to control how people choose to associate in their free time off the website is not only dystopian but futile. The best course is what we're doing right now: determine the relationship between off-wiki conduct and on-wiki discussion. Like WP:CANVAS it probably won't be a clear line but a set of considerations ranging from most to least acceptable. It's a nuissance, but it's far more sustainable than pretending nothing exists off Wikipedia. — Wug·a·po·des 22:06, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree it's fruitless to try to stop people from having conversations elsewhere, because social interactions are the norm. But I do think it's reasonable to strive not to provide privileged access to participants in other forums over those who participate solely on English Wikipedia. I don't want to have to participate on sites A, B, C and apps X, Y, Z in order to be able to influence decision-making or gain greater insight into the decision-making of others. Of course people will often kick around ideas in email, IRC, Discord, or whatever communication tool they use. Nonetheless I feel we should migrate discussion on-wiki as soon as possible, to be more inclusive of the entire English Wikipedia community. isaacl (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, but from the manufactured moral panic in this discussion one could easily get the mistaken idea that there is some massive off-wiki conspiracy taking place where things are decided in secret rooms with no oversight from the wider community. The Discord has apparently existed for quite some time before I joined a few months ago and at no point did I ever feel like I was unable to participate in Wikipedia decision-making; my participation has largely been making bad puns and answering newbie questions. I haven't used IRC in months and have managed to participate in Wikipedia decision-making just fine. I've responded to non-sensitive email requests on the emailing user's talk page instead of by email. We're arguing about a hypothetical situation that simply doesn't exist.How are we currently not being inclusive? One of the major arguments (repeated just below this comment) is that the Discord is public so it is very difficult for me to take arguments about "exclusivity" particularly seriously. Who is being excluded from what decisions? It feels like everyone's gotten together to complain about how the band kids always sit together, except instead of high schoolers its middle-aged and retired adults complaining about how the youngest segment of our editor base chooses to engage with the site. Many of the editors on Discord weren't even born when you and Phil started editing under your accounts; I was 10 years old when you made your first edit as Isaacl, and from your writing style at the time I would put money on me being your junior.Critique and reasoned discussion about how we should engage with the site is fine, but part of that discussion should be the recognition that this discussion is part of a pattern where editors socialized in the ways of the early internet try to avoid the reality that the internet has changed in the last two decades. Evidence is largely non-existent given our anonymity, and I haven't done a particularly systematic investigation, but it is my impression that opinions on this RfC are distributed by age---personal or account (probably both). Your essay, User:Isaacl/Consensus requires patience, is one of my favorites, but ours are not the only correct philosophies on how wikis prosper. Quite the contrary: wikis work because they can support multiple contradictory workflows and philosophies simultaneously. Many wikis like MediaWiki.org work well with real time communication strategies, while others like MetaWiki work best on glacial time-scales. While I agree that it is best for as much discussion to happen on-wiki as possible, it is disingenuous to say that it is the only way for a wiki to operate. If we want to be inclusive, and I believe that is our shared goal, we need to recognize that not everyone likes or works best using our favorite mode of communication. If we want Wikipedia to survive another 20 years, we need to figure out how we can engage younger internet users who did not grow up in the age of dial-up internet in our discussions and wiki-culture without explicitly or implicitly saying "our way or the highway". Regardless of the specifics, I believe there is something wrong with older editors saying "our favorite communication methods are privileged, but your favorite method has no such privilege and can be used in whatever character assassinations we want." — Wug·a·po·des 20:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't believe I've said that the only way for wikis in general to operate is through on-wiki discussion. In many (perhaps most?) situations, wikis are used solely to store info, not communicate between users. I agreed that people like all kinds of communication methods, and that's just the way it is. (*) However English Wikipedia isn't starting from scratch today, and so there are existing expectations. If the community decides it wants to alter the minimum requirements for full engagement, so be it; I just think the community should make a conscious decision around this and establish new expectations. (For instance, it would be really hard to jump back and forth between a real-time, logged messaging app and a talk page to discuss a dispute; the new standard might be for all conversation to take place on the messaging app, with the talk page used to host any desired wikitext examples that can be referred to from the messaging tool.)
- (*) Regarding using information from other venues to help make decisions on editors, that's a separate issue from changing the requirements for participation. Part of the problem is that dealing with behavioural issues in an large group conversation is terribly inefficient and frequently counter-productive as it engages in open speculation. For better or worse, though, it isn't going to change in the intermediate future. isaacl (talk) 21:36, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- I think we're in a heated agreement, and I'm sorry if I conflated your and Phil's points. To be clear, my point is that the rise of IRC never changed the minimal requirements for participation, and neither has Discord. It's simply the next iteration of that technology which routinely, and particularly on Wikipedia, is met with moral panic. A great example is xkcd 1227. In the 1800s commentators were concerned that letter writing would die out, that we would be so obsessed with reading books that we wouldn't talk to our compatriots. Of course, we still write letters, and we still talk to people on the train. Those morphed into how emails ruined our ablity to write letters, or how we're too invested in playing on our phones to talk to each other. It's an anti-pattern, and we should be aware of it. Centralized communication is useful, and since we all work on Wiki, coordinating on wiki is often easier. That's why it sticks around despite changes in other technologies. We should be aware of how new technologies can change the dynamic on wiki, but we should be wary of making them seem more consequential than they are (unless you do want more pictures of my pokemon card collection...) — Wug·a·po·des 01:33, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- Although they both occurred before either my time on Wikipedia or in paying attention to such things, the eastern European mailing list issues and WP:Esperanza are key influences on how English Wikipedia editors currently eschew off-wiki discussion forums to make decisions. I don't think a shift is imminent, nor do I think anyone is panicking, but it's something that I feel we should keep an eye on, if only to determine that new procedures would be desirable. (I'm guessing by "rise of IRC" you are referring to some point where participation on the Wikipedia IRC channels increased? IRC predates Wikipedia considerably and as I understand it, Wikipedia IRC channels predate the WMF.) isaacl (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, the Wikipedia IRC channels and the original mailing list predate almost everything, including the MediaWiki software.
- There are notes at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Tools in use about different communication methods. Every group/sub-group seems to have its own.
- There is also a mini-history of communication, mostly focused on the English Wikipedia, at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Discussion tools in the past. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:09, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- Although they both occurred before either my time on Wikipedia or in paying attention to such things, the eastern European mailing list issues and WP:Esperanza are key influences on how English Wikipedia editors currently eschew off-wiki discussion forums to make decisions. I don't think a shift is imminent, nor do I think anyone is panicking, but it's something that I feel we should keep an eye on, if only to determine that new procedures would be desirable. (I'm guessing by "rise of IRC" you are referring to some point where participation on the Wikipedia IRC channels increased? IRC predates Wikipedia considerably and as I understand it, Wikipedia IRC channels predate the WMF.) isaacl (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- FWIW, as someone who used the Wikimedia IRC channels before I started editing, I don't think much decision making is done in public channels, or think anyone needs to participate in those areas to be full users of the community. I got to know certain editors better, probably got better advice than I would onwiki, and it's much faster to request deleted revisions etc. But otherwise I don't think it makes a huge difference. If you're a content editor IRC is not as useful I think, but the Discord might help you find editors to collaborate with, review your FA, etc. I don't think this is particularly distinct from the real-world advantages gained by knowing people from other contexts. Overall I don't think offwiki venues provide meaningful advantage in the
influence decision-making or gain greater insight into the decision-making of others
area. That's true of the public IRC channels anyway, not necessarily the private ones. Personally I think English Wikipedia's "always on the record" that some editors pride is actually not a good thing anymore. The concept doesn't even correlate well to real world interactions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:12, 28 July 2021 (UTC)- To everyone, there's no need to keep pointing out that decisions are being made on English Wikipedia, as I agree with that. But this isn't a happy accident, as can be seen from Wikipedia's past history that Whatamidoing kindly provided, and the integral use of various communication tools by many groups. It's a deliberate decision, which we could choose to maintain or alter. Regarding gaining insight, there are other venues where editors don't feel constrained by English Wikipedia guidance in how they express themselves, and so feel more free to provide greater detail in their thoughts. I appreciate why that's the case, yet my personal preference remains that we should encourage this type of info to be discussed on-wiki. isaacl (talk) 01:15, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
- I think we're in a heated agreement, and I'm sorry if I conflated your and Phil's points. To be clear, my point is that the rise of IRC never changed the minimal requirements for participation, and neither has Discord. It's simply the next iteration of that technology which routinely, and particularly on Wikipedia, is met with moral panic. A great example is xkcd 1227. In the 1800s commentators were concerned that letter writing would die out, that we would be so obsessed with reading books that we wouldn't talk to our compatriots. Of course, we still write letters, and we still talk to people on the train. Those morphed into how emails ruined our ablity to write letters, or how we're too invested in playing on our phones to talk to each other. It's an anti-pattern, and we should be aware of it. Centralized communication is useful, and since we all work on Wiki, coordinating on wiki is often easier. That's why it sticks around despite changes in other technologies. We should be aware of how new technologies can change the dynamic on wiki, but we should be wary of making them seem more consequential than they are (unless you do want more pictures of my pokemon card collection...) — Wug·a·po·des 01:33, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, but from the manufactured moral panic in this discussion one could easily get the mistaken idea that there is some massive off-wiki conspiracy taking place where things are decided in secret rooms with no oversight from the wider community. The Discord has apparently existed for quite some time before I joined a few months ago and at no point did I ever feel like I was unable to participate in Wikipedia decision-making; my participation has largely been making bad puns and answering newbie questions. I haven't used IRC in months and have managed to participate in Wikipedia decision-making just fine. I've responded to non-sensitive email requests on the emailing user's talk page instead of by email. We're arguing about a hypothetical situation that simply doesn't exist.How are we currently not being inclusive? One of the major arguments (repeated just below this comment) is that the Discord is public so it is very difficult for me to take arguments about "exclusivity" particularly seriously. Who is being excluded from what decisions? It feels like everyone's gotten together to complain about how the band kids always sit together, except instead of high schoolers its middle-aged and retired adults complaining about how the youngest segment of our editor base chooses to engage with the site. Many of the editors on Discord weren't even born when you and Phil started editing under your accounts; I was 10 years old when you made your first edit as Isaacl, and from your writing style at the time I would put money on me being your junior.Critique and reasoned discussion about how we should engage with the site is fine, but part of that discussion should be the recognition that this discussion is part of a pattern where editors socialized in the ways of the early internet try to avoid the reality that the internet has changed in the last two decades. Evidence is largely non-existent given our anonymity, and I haven't done a particularly systematic investigation, but it is my impression that opinions on this RfC are distributed by age---personal or account (probably both). Your essay, User:Isaacl/Consensus requires patience, is one of my favorites, but ours are not the only correct philosophies on how wikis prosper. Quite the contrary: wikis work because they can support multiple contradictory workflows and philosophies simultaneously. Many wikis like MediaWiki.org work well with real time communication strategies, while others like MetaWiki work best on glacial time-scales. While I agree that it is best for as much discussion to happen on-wiki as possible, it is disingenuous to say that it is the only way for a wiki to operate. If we want to be inclusive, and I believe that is our shared goal, we need to recognize that not everyone likes or works best using our favorite mode of communication. If we want Wikipedia to survive another 20 years, we need to figure out how we can engage younger internet users who did not grow up in the age of dial-up internet in our discussions and wiki-culture without explicitly or implicitly saying "our way or the highway". Regardless of the specifics, I believe there is something wrong with older editors saying "our favorite communication methods are privileged, but your favorite method has no such privilege and can be used in whatever character assassinations we want." — Wug·a·po·des 20:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- Re
You already carved out an arbitrary exception for email, so why should your particular off-wiki communication be preferred over others?
: well one big difference is that email is private, and the public Discord servers are public. But in fact, we have no rule against disclosing private email communications on-wiki (AFAIK anyway; Wikipedia:Private correspondence was a failed proposal), but we have a rule about not disclosing public IRC conversations, and may soon have a rule against linking to public Discord logs. That's really backwards, eh? Levivich 15:54, 26 July 2021 (UTC)- Publishing private e-mail messages would have to comply with copyright law, which is a barrier to posting them on wiki. I don't know what terms the Discord system sets for copyright, but that would have to be investigated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- IME posting emails is generally frowned upon even if not explicitly forbidden. I cannot find any project-wide discussion that rejected the proposal you linked, and from the talk page it seems that the authors never decided to see it to completion. It seems that the 2008 draft proposal was in response to the arbitration committee stating unequivocally in 2007 that private correspondence should not be posted on-wiki without permission. See July 2007, reaffirmed December 2007, where they link the posting of private email to a violation of the copyright policy. Regardless of how backwards you think these rules may be, as I said above, we should have a norm if not policy against digging through old off-wiki correspondence to find things to discredit people with per project-wide consensus. Despite the occasional exceptions (see WP:IAR) you point out, we have a robust norm against posting off-wiki correspondence regardless of the mode, and even UPE have had evidence from undisclosed Twitter or Facebook accounts redacted because of this. Quite simply, it would be backwards to give carte blanche to posting Discord links or logs when such behavior is at the very least discouraged for all other modes of communication. — Wug·a·po·des 20:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, that norm needs changing. Copyright is the silliest fig leaf (of course quoting an email doesn't violate copyright, and no, we don't own the copyright to every word or every sentence of an email we write... entire paragraphs or emails, maybe, but then there's fair use to consider... copyright is so overcited on this website). "Option 5" is right on: public communications are public communications; prohibiting them on-wiki seems to me to be a contortion to allow people to escape any on-wiki consequences for public off-wiki behavior. Levivich 21:06, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that copyright concerns are overblown. (I feel there is a good case to be made for an implicit licence being provided for many group conversations. Plus copyright enforcement is about protecting the author's rights for commercial exploitation, which is non-existent for the vast majority of messages.) However in the interest of not marshalling inaccurate arguments in favour of this conclusion: a writer does own the copyright to every specific expression of ideas in a message that is written, and explicitly quoting someone is literally copying their words. The writer doesn't own the underlying ideas, though, so paraphrasing is fine, and even using the same words is fine when there are limited ways of saying the same thing. isaacl (talk) 21:48, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- Copyright definitely constrains what we can do in large-scale ways. You could normally quote a small section of an e-mail message without running afoul of copyright, especially if you comment on it; however, you couldn't routinely publish long e-mail exchanges – or, more relevantly, whole logs of every comment posted to any chat or social media system – without suitable copyright licensing being in place. I see this as a surmountable problem, but it's still a problem.
- Given that we've blocked and de-sysopped editors for what they've said on IRC in the past, I think that concerns about not being able to punish people for bad behavior if we can't copy their words directly to the wiki (rather than sending it via e-mail to arbs or similar) are overblown. I've no doubt that it's frustrating to a few busybodies, but we seem to be able to manage overall. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:07, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- Context matters. People routinely quote entire message exchanges on mailing lists and bulletin boards. As this is the norm, expectations are set appropriately and thus anyone participating is implicitly agreeing to this behaviour. In the general case, people communicating with each other haven't consented to posting the contents in other venues, but in specific cases, such as people working up a proposal, the nature of the work implies an agreement. But the issue isn't really copyright, which as I said is more about protecting the author's rights to profit from their work and doesn't prevent paraphrasing, but privacy. Open discussion forums should make it clear what the ground rules are regarding privacy. isaacl (talk) 02:21, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- Whether or not you believe they're overblown, the links I gave show that your premise is flawed, and as isaac points out your conception of copyright is flawed to start with. I don't particularly care about the copyright status of email; I pointed to them because you said
we have no rule against disclosing private email communications on-wiki
which is not accurate since the arbitration committee has said it is a violation of copyright. You may disagree or wish to change it, but that doesn't change the fact that your starting premise is flawed. If your ham-fisted principle,public communications are public communications
, enjoyed consensus we would not have WP:OUTING. For all your concern about on-wiki consequences for off-wiki behavior, you have aboslutely no regard for off-wiki consequences of your unflinching support for the right to post my tweets. When people have expressed concerns in this thread about privacy or outing, you blow them off as if having your information posted on one of the ten largest websites in the world forever is a minor inconvenience (ironic, considering you make a point in your rationale of how revisions are stored forever). Post your social media accounts and email publicly, right here, if it's no big deal. I'm sure you would love for us to comb through your posts; you have nothing to hide yes? Of course this is rhetorical, because I assume you're intelligent enough to know that you're being disingenuous. There is something unsavory about actively lobbying to make it easier to harass people while working very hard to maintain your own anonymity. That alone would be gross, but not only are you using simplisitc slogans to advocate for decimating an editor's ability to have a private life, every time someone points out how incoherent your arguments are you shift the goalposts or move on to a new argument that contradicts your last one.Your original opinion (which you repeat here) is that not posting off-wiki communications on wiki is somehow designed to prevent on-wiki consequences for off-wiki conduct. Nevermind that I and others have pointed out how this can acctually incentivize proper reporting, let's assume you're right: if so, I still wouldn't trust your opinion because you gave your own counter example in reply to Barkeep ("For example, earlier this year someone was sanctioned at ANI for a BLP COI based in part on their tweets, which were linked to, quoted, and discussed in the ANI thread...We've similarly seen Twitter, Facebook, etc. be linked/quoted on-wiki when dealing with off-wiki canvassing"). So clearly you know that we can and do santion people on-wiki for off-wiki conduct, but incorporating that nuance and assuming people are sane enough to apply WP:IAR would undercut the asinine tautology you keep repeating. Moving on, you later say that we should be allowed to out people's real names ("If you use your real name as your username on a public discord server, then you've already made it public" which points out how frivolous this argument is because if taken to its logical conclusion we could post anyone's real names because if you choose to use your real name on Facebook or your driver's license you've made it public, sorry) because you say that we have no rule against linking editors who use their real names to their external contributions ("Imagine the reverse argument: that people who use their real name as their username on Wikipedia can't have their contribs linked to on another website because it's PII. I mean, LOL that makes zero sense :-)"), except that we do have such a rule. When someone points that out to you, you reverse course ("Oh yes that's my understanding of our outing policy too") and show a complete lack of understanding of this RfC or its context saying that Discord requires OAuth (it doesn't) and that this isn't an RfC about linking WP and discord usernames (it is, unless you just want to be able to post random discord links with no context). Rhododendrites does a good job of pointing out the flaws in your argument, and it again illustrates how you keep interpretting OUTING however you want without regard for what it actually says. Now, here, you say that somehow the norm of not posting off-wiki communications doesn't extend to email (it does) based on a proposal that was never put up for community discussion, and when that is pointed out you move on to saying that pointing to the copyright policy is invalid (by making inaccurate claims about copyright law as isaac covered). Arguing with you about this is tiring, which presumably is the point (see Gish gallop: "The technique wastes an opponent's time and may cast doubt on the opponent's debating ability for an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved"). If you seriously think that there are no consequences to indiscriminately posting off-wiki communications and radically altering our OUTING policy, I really don't know what to say, but to speak candidly, given your anonymity, I think you do understand the consequences. If that norm needs changing, be the change and post your social media accounts for inspection. Until you out yourself or make a consistent argument I'm really not interested in continuing this conversation with you. — Wug·a·po·des 00:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)- Tbh I didn't read all of that. If you want to believe that quoting someone's email constitutes copyright infringement, go ahead. Linking to Discord logs, which is what this RFC is about, certainly doesn't raise any copyright issues, so copyright is not relevant. Similarly, OUTING is not relevant because Discord uses OAuth to link Discord usernames with Wikipedia usernames. So that's not an issue. Discord isn't comparable to email because Discord is public and email is private. Discord isn't comparable to IRC because IRC doesn't do server-side logging. If you want to think I'm disingenuous for believing that we should treat public communications like public communications, go ahead. I'm still supporting options 1/5. Levivich 01:20, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that copyright concerns are overblown. (I feel there is a good case to be made for an implicit licence being provided for many group conversations. Plus copyright enforcement is about protecting the author's rights for commercial exploitation, which is non-existent for the vast majority of messages.) However in the interest of not marshalling inaccurate arguments in favour of this conclusion: a writer does own the copyright to every specific expression of ideas in a message that is written, and explicitly quoting someone is literally copying their words. The writer doesn't own the underlying ideas, though, so paraphrasing is fine, and even using the same words is fine when there are limited ways of saying the same thing. isaacl (talk) 21:48, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, that norm needs changing. Copyright is the silliest fig leaf (of course quoting an email doesn't violate copyright, and no, we don't own the copyright to every word or every sentence of an email we write... entire paragraphs or emails, maybe, but then there's fair use to consider... copyright is so overcited on this website). "Option 5" is right on: public communications are public communications; prohibiting them on-wiki seems to me to be a contortion to allow people to escape any on-wiki consequences for public off-wiki behavior. Levivich 21:06, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree it's fruitless to try to stop people from having conversations elsewhere, because social interactions are the norm. But I do think it's reasonable to strive not to provide privileged access to participants in other forums over those who participate solely on English Wikipedia. I don't want to have to participate on sites A, B, C and apps X, Y, Z in order to be able to influence decision-making or gain greater insight into the decision-making of others. Of course people will often kick around ideas in email, IRC, Discord, or whatever communication tool they use. Nonetheless I feel we should migrate discussion on-wiki as soon as possible, to be more inclusive of the entire English Wikipedia community. isaacl (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: This proposal is hard to understand. Which is the most permissive and which is the most restrictive? Please ping me if required since I do not watch this page. If anything, Option 5 (which sounds like the least restrictive) sounds like the best choice. Leaderboard (talk) 12:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
- 1&/or5 Vami's post in compelling. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:53, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- Option 5 per Ben, et al. If it's public, it's public, fine to post, common sense. Of course, posting a link between two identities could still very well be outing if it hasn't been made public by the user. Benjamin (talk) 00:32, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
- Option 3. As I said above, if someone doesn't want their activity on Discord linked to their activity on Wikipedia, they shouldn't link their Discord account to their Wikipedia account. I cannot imagine anyone thinking that they have an expectation of privacy when they've linked their accounts in order to post on a publicly-logged server. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:22, 18 August 2021 (UTC) - Option 3. I'm concerned though by the framing of this debate as Discord vs IRC. Wikipedia-related discussions are now held on a smorgasbord of platforms not run by WMF, not just IRC and Discord but also Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and more. We don't seem to have a coherent rule on what is acceptable cross-posting from such off-site discussion channels to Wikipedia. I would suggest to make the policy coherent along the lines of:
- Any publicly logged channel where Wikimedia policies are explicitly stated to apply (e.g. other WMF wikis, and public mailing lists and Telegram channels where mw:Code of Conduct applies) should be considered "on-wiki" and can be quoted;
- Logs from other publicly logged channels can be posted as evidence if the editor in question has previously declared an identity link;
- Private logs can only be posted on-wiki by permission of the person making the comment (if crucial to an investigation by e.g. ArbCom, such evidence can be emailed to the investigator privately)
Why do Wikipedia editors dislike pseudoscience so much?
I'm not here to oppose Wikipedia:Psci, and I'm not saying that it's unreasonable, but I just sometimes wonder: Is there philosophical or moral reason why Wikipedia editors hate pseudoscience so much? Most other encyclopedias (edit: e.g. Britannica) I've read don't attack pseudoscience that much (but they still note when something is unscientific), but why does the typical Wikipedia editor do so? (Some editors are very short tempered to such people.) Félix An (talk) 01:27, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- Other encyclopedias can't be edited by the proponents of pseudoscience. It gets a little old pushing back against nonsense. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:44, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- Presumably because it is diametrically opposed to the goal of an encyclopedia. Pseudo-, which means "false, not genuine, fake" is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do here. Zoozaz1 talk 01:47, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- It befouls the very concept of science, substituting some mixture of superstition, folly, and outright fraud for actual scientific inquiry into truth. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:51, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- Honestly I think the answer to this should be common sense but basically pseudoscience ruins the reputation of the encyclopedia.CycoMa (talk) 01:50, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- Pseudoscience topics can be suitable for Wikipedia provided that they are Notable (as evidenced by many independent reliable sources) and clearly LABELED as pseudoscience or as being outside the mainstream canon (for example see Heim theory). What must never be done is to imply that pseudoscience topics are in the scientific mainstream, although this is what their proponents often try to do. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:39, 19 June 2021 (UTC).
- Honestly I think the answer to this should be common sense but basically pseudoscience ruins the reputation of the encyclopedia.CycoMa (talk) 01:50, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- A more interesting question is "Why do followers of pseudoscientific topics like promoting them as not pseudoscientific?". Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- User:Johnuniq - I think that is a relatively easy question to answer. That is because it is often difficult for people without a scientific education to tell pseudoscience from science (and it isn't always easy with a scientific education). And often pseudoscience, unlike science, has simplistic answers. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:21, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- That is for sure the root problem. Wikipedia goes ahead and calls pseudoscience what it is, and people whose income is dependent on selling healing crystals or tiger penis wine don't like seeing it clearly stated that it's a bunch of nonsense. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- That's what makes it so dangerous, it's nonsense disguised as science. —El Millo (talk) 04:49, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- If the only information about a topic comes from within a WP:walled garden of true believers the topic will not be suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:10, 19 June 2021 (UTC).
- That's what makes it so dangerous, it's nonsense disguised as science. —El Millo (talk) 04:49, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- I can think of two reasons. In Medicine, where I work, money is a major factor. The "dietary supplements" industry rakes in several billion dollars a year, but it's pennies on the dollar compared to what gets spent on real medicine, and they know it. But the other factor, I think, is that some forms of pseudoscience are akin to a religious belief for some people (and indeed, there are some new (ie within the past century) religious movements that incorporate pseudoscience. "Toxins" is just the new word for Haram or Traif, "natural" just means the same as Kosher or Halal. Hyperion35 (talk) 15:23, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- That is for sure the root problem. Wikipedia goes ahead and calls pseudoscience what it is, and people whose income is dependent on selling healing crystals or tiger penis wine don't like seeing it clearly stated that it's a bunch of nonsense. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- User:Johnuniq - I think that is a relatively easy question to answer. That is because it is often difficult for people without a scientific education to tell pseudoscience from science (and it isn't always easy with a scientific education). And often pseudoscience, unlike science, has simplistic answers. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:21, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- For those who have access to Netflix, I recommend a watch of Behind the Curve for an explanation of why flat-earthers believe what they do. Sdrqaz (talk) 01:39, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- Because one set of POV pushers mostly beat the other set. There is a way to cover the topics with more neutrality, as mentioned above like real professional encyclopedias. But as Beeblebrox mentions this one can, for the moment, be edited by anyone. Pros and cons to everything! PackMecEng (talk) 01:43, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- Wikipedia provides an environment where bad reasoning is discouraged. Personal attacks, red herrings, argumentum ad populum, to mention just a few instances, will not work here. (Insofar, it is similar to science, which has high standards for reasoning too, but slightly different ones.) That means that in a discussion between two "sets of POV pushers", the side with the good reasons on their side will beat the bluffing windbags. This is what happened: climatology beats denialism, medicine beats homeopathy, physics beats perpetual motion, evolution beats creation. Of course, the people who are not competent enough to tell good reasoning from bad will only see that one side won, but not be able to make out the pattern. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:00, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- That is a good theory but I am not so sure that is what really happens in practice. Each side seems themselves as the one true bastion of reason and the other size as crazy POV pushers. As noted above and below our pseudoscience articles tend to go to far in one direction or another pushing them outside neutrality. Your statement sounds alarmingly like you are trying to right great wrongs. I only mention that because I do consider you a close friend on here and just want to help. PackMecEng (talk) 15:26, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
I am not so sure that is what really happens in practice
Of course not, because you don't look at the actual reasoning and try to determine whether it is good or bad, using expert knowledge about quality of arguments as well as about the scientific subjects in question. If you did, you would see the difference and be sure that is what really happens in practice.- The right-great-wrongs thing does not make sense. The only wrong I am trying to right is wrong content of articles based on bad sources or original research. That obnoxious one-sided fake friendship thing of yours is also wrong, of course, but I have no way of making that right. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:50, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Again right great wrong is an editing style. You keep harping on that your arguments are obviously right so we need to stomp down and push the POV way to the other side. So instead of making an encyclopedic article it becomes a pov hit piece. Your view is apparently the exact same as the pov pushers for the other side and just as much of a problem for creating an encyclopedia. Again you are not looking at this objectively with the aim of creating encyclopedic content, rather from a perspective of someone that is fighting the great wrongs of the other side. It's not a sides thing, it is an encyclopedia thing my friend. Fight as you may, we are still buddies though. Don't worry! PackMecEng (talk) 17:22, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Your comments about being friends read like passive aggressive harassment to me. Also, you're grossly mischaracterizing Hob's points. Taking those two facts together, this discussion really strains my ability to AGF here, and I wouldn't be surprised if Hob's ability to do the same was null.
- Even if you're being completely sincere, it really doesn't look like you are.
- And to be clear: I don't have any issue with you. We can be buddies, if you like (as long as you add a song or two to my little collection). I'm just explaining what I'm seeing here, because I think you might benefit from a third opinion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:33, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah the friend stuff is a bit of fun since they get so uppity about it. I have no problem with either of you! But I do think they get a little blinded by their opinions of pseudoscience which leads to unencyclopedic editing. It's a distinction that Hob and others truly seem to be missing in this discussion. Yes, by all means describe pseudoscience as what it really is. That does not mean that every other sentence needs to be alone the lines of "and its a terrible such and such". It's repetitive and just bad writing style in general, let alone for an encyclopedia. That is the issue I have with all people that have strong feelings for or against pretty much anything and why WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS fits so well to describe the situation. Heck I remember we had to have a full RFC to remove one sentence out of like 3 or 4 from the lead of a pseudoscience article, not because it was wrong but because it was already said 3 other times in the same section. It's tiring dealing with both sides honestly and that's why people with strong feelings gave up there. PackMecEng (talk) 20:49, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- I've heard a few editors express this sentiment, but I've never seen an example of this in action, except on dangerous medical pseudosciences, where it's absolutely warranted. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:59, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Without an example to point to, I would think it is completely possible to make sure a few running sentences can be worded as clear attributed claims and assertions to the pseudoscience, followed by the necessary rebuttals based on sound science and medicine. I agree in the area of bad medical pseudoscience that there needs to be more "break points" in the narrative of the pseudoscience to call out to why it is wrong/bad/etc, but again, doesn't need to be a per-sentence rebuttal. Should be a thought-by-thought aspect. --Masem (t) 21:43, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- I agree. What I was saying is that I occasionally see it claimed that many of our articles on pseudoscience do stop every other sentence to refute the BS, or that they use intemperate language to do so, but I've never once been shown an example of either.
- In my entire Wikicareer, I've seen exactly two examples of skepticism going too far. One was so long ago I can't even remember what it was about, and the other time was when I butted heads with JzG and SlimVirgin about the definition of "conspiracy theory". You can read that whole shebang through several sections here, and you can check the article to see that my preference (to not state that all CSs are categorically false in the lede) won out.
- That's the biggest difference I've seen between skeptical editors and fans of pseudoscience; skeptics can and will change their minds, even if things get heated and heels get dug in, so long as the evidence is there. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:19, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Which also brings up a point that likely dominates individual discussions: editors (both new and old) tend to qualify which "category" ("skeptic" vs "fanatic" vs "Anti-pseudoscience") an editor is on simply by which side they argue, which may not always be true, and that itself can cause problems. Arguing for a nuanced approach rather than a hard "refute" mode is not necessarily the sign of a "fanatic", but perhaps an editor seeing to balance what can be said from RSes. Its a good idea to remind all editors that we comment on content, not commentators, and if there is a behavioral issue (a "fanatic" that won't drop the stick, for example) that's where AN/I comes into play. This is probably not as major a factor overall here, but knowing how I see it come up all the time in other discussions related to neutrality on pages where we're talking ideological issues, I'd expect it is a frequent occurrence. --Masem (t) 22:35, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Sometimes we get new users who would be "on the side" of skeptics, but for the fact that they do not behave in the way required of Wikipedians, especially WP:IDHT and WP:NPA. They never stay long because they are even opposed by the people who are against pseudoscience. On the other hand, there are some profringe editors who are able to stay longer because they can stop themselves at the right moment, or are good at Wikilawyering and stay just below the sanctionable limit. They still try to turn articles into fringe propaganda pieces again and again, they whitewash criticism away, you have to explain to them the same basic principles again and again in different Talk pages, and that is a very good reason to categorize them on the dark side - their goal is a different, lower-quality Wikipedia. But usually, bad behaviour, disrespect of rules, and short Wikipedia life closely correlate with a profringe position. In any case, that "simply by which side they argue" thing is not strictly true. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Which also brings up a point that likely dominates individual discussions: editors (both new and old) tend to qualify which "category" ("skeptic" vs "fanatic" vs "Anti-pseudoscience") an editor is on simply by which side they argue, which may not always be true, and that itself can cause problems. Arguing for a nuanced approach rather than a hard "refute" mode is not necessarily the sign of a "fanatic", but perhaps an editor seeing to balance what can be said from RSes. Its a good idea to remind all editors that we comment on content, not commentators, and if there is a behavioral issue (a "fanatic" that won't drop the stick, for example) that's where AN/I comes into play. This is probably not as major a factor overall here, but knowing how I see it come up all the time in other discussions related to neutrality on pages where we're talking ideological issues, I'd expect it is a frequent occurrence. --Masem (t) 22:35, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Without an example to point to, I would think it is completely possible to make sure a few running sentences can be worded as clear attributed claims and assertions to the pseudoscience, followed by the necessary rebuttals based on sound science and medicine. I agree in the area of bad medical pseudoscience that there needs to be more "break points" in the narrative of the pseudoscience to call out to why it is wrong/bad/etc, but again, doesn't need to be a per-sentence rebuttal. Should be a thought-by-thought aspect. --Masem (t) 21:43, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- I've heard a few editors express this sentiment, but I've never seen an example of this in action, except on dangerous medical pseudosciences, where it's absolutely warranted. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:59, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah the friend stuff is a bit of fun since they get so uppity about it. I have no problem with either of you! But I do think they get a little blinded by their opinions of pseudoscience which leads to unencyclopedic editing. It's a distinction that Hob and others truly seem to be missing in this discussion. Yes, by all means describe pseudoscience as what it really is. That does not mean that every other sentence needs to be alone the lines of "and its a terrible such and such". It's repetitive and just bad writing style in general, let alone for an encyclopedia. That is the issue I have with all people that have strong feelings for or against pretty much anything and why WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS fits so well to describe the situation. Heck I remember we had to have a full RFC to remove one sentence out of like 3 or 4 from the lead of a pseudoscience article, not because it was wrong but because it was already said 3 other times in the same section. It's tiring dealing with both sides honestly and that's why people with strong feelings gave up there. PackMecEng (talk) 20:49, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Again right great wrong is an editing style. You keep harping on that your arguments are obviously right so we need to stomp down and push the POV way to the other side. So instead of making an encyclopedic article it becomes a pov hit piece. Your view is apparently the exact same as the pov pushers for the other side and just as much of a problem for creating an encyclopedia. Again you are not looking at this objectively with the aim of creating encyclopedic content, rather from a perspective of someone that is fighting the great wrongs of the other side. It's not a sides thing, it is an encyclopedia thing my friend. Fight as you may, we are still buddies though. Don't worry! PackMecEng (talk) 17:22, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- That is a good theory but I am not so sure that is what really happens in practice. Each side seems themselves as the one true bastion of reason and the other size as crazy POV pushers. As noted above and below our pseudoscience articles tend to go to far in one direction or another pushing them outside neutrality. Your statement sounds alarmingly like you are trying to right great wrongs. I only mention that because I do consider you a close friend on here and just want to help. PackMecEng (talk) 15:26, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- Wikipedia provides an environment where bad reasoning is discouraged. Personal attacks, red herrings, argumentum ad populum, to mention just a few instances, will not work here. (Insofar, it is similar to science, which has high standards for reasoning too, but slightly different ones.) That means that in a discussion between two "sets of POV pushers", the side with the good reasons on their side will beat the bluffing windbags. This is what happened: climatology beats denialism, medicine beats homeopathy, physics beats perpetual motion, evolution beats creation. Of course, the people who are not competent enough to tell good reasoning from bad will only see that one side won, but not be able to make out the pattern. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:00, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
OP, "Most other encyclopedias I've read"... which ones? How many general purpose encyclopedias except for us and Britannica are out there anymore? I mean... Colliers? Funk & Wagnal's? Encarta? I kind of have to question your experience. If you're talking about the many specialized encyclopedias out there, music encyclopedias and biology encyclopedias and comic book encyclopedias, I'm not sure how they relate to what we do... If you're talking about Encarta etc., I mean these articles are like 15 years old at least, so... if you're talking about just Britannica, well, I dunno, who knows why they do what they do. Maybe it's not that we're too hard but that they're too soft. Ask them. Herostratus (talk) 03:03, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think that most Wikipedia editors hate pseudoscience. I for example think that articles on any pseudoscience should explain that it has no support in science, then explain to readers what it is about in a neutral tone using reliable sources. The tone of many of these articles is preaching, which harms the credibility of what articles say. If I read the Journal of the Plague Year and want to know more about how doctors of the time treated it, I don't need to be reminded every other sentence that their methods were not based on science and didn't work. I'm smart enough to know that modern medicine has improved since the 1600s.
- In my experience, the most anti-pseudoscience editors have backgrounds in GMO research, chemicals and agribusiness, since a lot of often unfair criticism comes from pseudoscience. Hence the Genetic Literacy Project ("Science not Ideology"), which has overlapping support with climate science denial websites. Since the runup to the 2016 U.S. election, a lot of these editors have broadened their interests into U.S. politics.
- Bear in mind though that since some readers may rely on Wikipedia articles to treat illnesses (even though they shouldn't), we need to take extra care that claims that have no support in science are never given credibility.
- TFD (talk) 04:28, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- This right here. Wikipedia definitely should not show any type of legitimacy to pseudoscience, but that doesn't mean we should treat the topics with hostility or contempt in Wikivoice. There are ways to still write neutrally to present what the theory/concept is behind the psci - without necessarily commenting on its bad science - and then going into a breakdown of how its been refuted or the like from appropriate scientific RSes. Instead, we sometimes treat these topics as if they are morally reprehensible in wikivoice, which is a problem. We can stay completely out of giving pseudoscience any weight while staying neutral in tone while writing about them. --Masem (t) 06:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- The topics definitely are "morally reprehensible", but I agree that we should not use the encyclopedia's voice to say this. A major problem, as is made clear by comments above, is that pseudoscience supporters regard any information on the ineffectiveness of pseudoscientific medical practices, however well sourced, as attacking and non-neutral.
- @Masem:
write neutrally to present what the theory/concept is behind the psci - without necessarily commenting on its bad science - and then going into a breakdown of how its been refuted or the like
. I thnk this is impossible (or at the least very difficult) to do without violating WP:STRUCTURE, since it will appear as one section for the proponents and one for the opponents, which is explicitly (and rightly) prohibited. You cannot present pseudoscience neutrally without incorporating the evidence that it is not correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)- While it is likely impossible to generalize to all cases, I would expect in a reasonable neutral article on psci that the pseudoscience at the basis of the matter would be only a section, elements like its history and impact/reactions/etc. fleshing out the rest of the article. And keeping to the fact that we're sticking to RSes and not to primary works, we would then only briefly summarize enough of the pseudoscience in one shot as to give context to these other sections of the article, and then following that in the same section, the refuting sound science fact that disproves the psci. If for some reason there's many parts of the psci then there it would make sense to present one facet, then the refuting RSes, then another facet and the refuting RSes, and so on. We do not need to set constant flags that the psci topic is false/mistaken/bad (This is what leads to the apparent hostility). We can use wording to be clear anything said about the psci concept is not in Wikivoice and part of what the pseudoscience theory is, and making sure that after brief summaries we're there with the refuting text, its still clear WP is not treating the psci in any way as true. I do agree we do not want one big section that lets the psci topic be introduced without addressing its problems overall, but we also don't need to be at the per-sentence rebuttal level either. Its a tonal balance. --Masem (t) 13:42, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- With medical topics, it doesn't matter how neutrally you phrase "X is unscientific nonsense that has no medical use" (i.e. Homeopathy), you are still going to get supporters and exponents of those things complaining about it. There's simply nothing we can do about that. Black Kite (talk) 14:08, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- While it is likely impossible to generalize to all cases, I would expect in a reasonable neutral article on psci that the pseudoscience at the basis of the matter would be only a section, elements like its history and impact/reactions/etc. fleshing out the rest of the article. And keeping to the fact that we're sticking to RSes and not to primary works, we would then only briefly summarize enough of the pseudoscience in one shot as to give context to these other sections of the article, and then following that in the same section, the refuting sound science fact that disproves the psci. If for some reason there's many parts of the psci then there it would make sense to present one facet, then the refuting RSes, then another facet and the refuting RSes, and so on. We do not need to set constant flags that the psci topic is false/mistaken/bad (This is what leads to the apparent hostility). We can use wording to be clear anything said about the psci concept is not in Wikivoice and part of what the pseudoscience theory is, and making sure that after brief summaries we're there with the refuting text, its still clear WP is not treating the psci in any way as true. I do agree we do not want one big section that lets the psci topic be introduced without addressing its problems overall, but we also don't need to be at the per-sentence rebuttal level either. Its a tonal balance. --Masem (t) 13:42, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- I know of hardly any, if any, anti-pseudoscience editors with backgrounds in GMO research and agribusiness. Even if there is "overlapping support" of the Genetic Literacy Project and climate science denial (I haven't seen any evidence), some people are pro-(part of)-science for the wrong reasons. Some people on the political left support climate science mainly from being anti-corporation (Big Oil), which then leads them into denialism with GMOs, which they perceive as benefiting big corporations. The same thing happens at least as much on the right with reversed polarity (especially regarding climate science). Crossroads -talk- 20:43, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- User:Jytdog for one works in biotechnology at a univerity.[21][22] A number of other editors report similar backgrounds on their user pages. Note his edits on Himalayan salt: he added additional cites that health claims are baseless. Himalayan salt is sold in specialty sections of grocery stories are purchased because some chefs recommend it and it has a pleasing pink hue and some people erroneously think it has health benefits. But there's no need to turn this into an article about pseudoscience. (If you are interested, you can read through the edit wars and discussion page.) Some people buy pink lemonade. We don't need paragraphs explaining that it tastes no different from yellow lemonade and has no additional health benefits.
- The Genetic Literacy Project was (GLP) founded by Jon Entine who began his pro-GMO advocacy as a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute which advocates climate change denial. I found it ironice that the GLP would accuse anti-GMO activists of denialism and anti-science, comparing them with climate change deniers.
- TFD (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Given that there are actual RSes that point out that there are claims that pink Himalayan salt provides health benefits (and which go on to say these are hooky), it makes 100% sense to include that those claims exist and then include MEDRS sourcing to refute them. Jytdog (and presumably others) did not pull this nonsense out of thing air to add because they are anti-pseudoscience - there was actual documentable (via RSes) pseudoscience to cover and properly refute. As soon as you point to sources that make the claim that pink lemonade had health benefits over normal lemonade, then the same issue can be raised at that page. --Masem (t) 21:58, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- This right here. Wikipedia definitely should not show any type of legitimacy to pseudoscience, but that doesn't mean we should treat the topics with hostility or contempt in Wikivoice. There are ways to still write neutrally to present what the theory/concept is behind the psci - without necessarily commenting on its bad science - and then going into a breakdown of how its been refuted or the like from appropriate scientific RSes. Instead, we sometimes treat these topics as if they are morally reprehensible in wikivoice, which is a problem. We can stay completely out of giving pseudoscience any weight while staying neutral in tone while writing about them. --Masem (t) 06:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- A broad answer is that since most Wikipedia editors are interested in accruing knowledge, there will be an intense dislike of falsehoods and lies and such. Additionally, pseudoscience generally disrespects and actively opposes values like verifiability, NPOV, accuracy, etc. A more focused answer is that many Wikipedia editors work in scientific fields or in fields that are essentially applied science, like medicine or engineering. So for us, we have experience in decisions based on science and evidence, and in having a responsibility to make those decisions carefully. We're often more aware of the costs of pseudoscience. And finally, I think you also have to take into account that most forms of pseudoscience, at some point or another, wind up involving conspiracy theories against actual scientists and people who work in these fields. My patience for hearing that I gleefully watch people die of cancer because I won't agree to cover Laetrile is so infinitesimal that Planck would have difficulty finding it. Hyperion35 (talk) 15:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- I think we are all pretty constant. -Roxy . wooF 15:44, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
- To iterate on this point, WP editors should be interested on the how and why a piece of pseudoscience came about and/or why it is maintained despite science and medicine pointing out why it is flawed. e.g. how can people still believe in the Flat Earth theory? We are not going to document, in a great extent, the theory itself, but the reasons why - as documented in our reliable sources - why the theory continues to propagate or the like, and that helps to keep these topics neutral without conceding too much toward inclusion of the pseudosicence. --Masem (t) 21:41, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes. We are biased
Yes. We are biased.
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Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:
So yes, we are biased. We are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience. And we are not going to change. References
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- I'm aware of that essay, and I've even made a minor contribution to it. I'm mainly wondering why the editors are sometimes impolite regarding pseudoscience. Félix An (talk) 13:41, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
- Because the editors trying to whitewash pseudoscientists and promote pseudoscience are frustrating otherwise patient users trying to maintain a neutral tone. I literally see multiple talk page posts each day that fall into the following categories:
- "Edit Request: take the words "pseudoscience" out of this article because I know it's real."
- "Wikipedia is a liberal/skeptical/atheist cesspool and it sucks and nobody believes it.
- "Please look at this geocities blog that confirms that [pseudoscience] is not pseudoscience, but very real."
- Almost all of them get reasonable responses from the regulars, but about 1/2 of those responses result in the (almost inevitably) brand-new editor going on a tear about how stupid, biased, ignorant and stupid (and did I mention stupid?) we are for not doing what they want. Of the remainder, about 1 in 10 results in the new editor trying everything they can to get the editors that answered them blocked.
- On top of that, every once in a blue moon, we get an experienced editor show up who will inevitably hurl aspersions at every regular watcher of that page, make dire threats about getting us sanctioned, go on and on about how we're ruining Wikipedia, and eventually end up ranting and raving about how Wikipedia is a cesspit.
- So yeah, it's a little tiring to work on pseudoscience-related articles. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:48, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
- Because the editors trying to whitewash pseudoscientists and promote pseudoscience are frustrating otherwise patient users trying to maintain a neutral tone. I literally see multiple talk page posts each day that fall into the following categories:
I’d be interested in seeing the reasoning behind the OP’s conclusion that Wikipedia editors dislike pseudoscience. Brunton (talk) 08:14, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Well said User:Guy Macon, not all heroes wear capes. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 08:19, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Guy Macon, that response is brilliant. I might steal that for a subpage of my profile! doktorb wordsdeeds 09:09, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- It already is Guy's subpage: User:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased., with three WP shortcuts and the redirect Wikipedia:All your bias are belong to us. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:58, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Furthermore, I released it under CC0 instead of CC BY-SA 3.0 specifically so that anyone can use it as if they thought of it themselves without attributing it to me. Information wants to be free. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:34, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- It already is Guy's subpage: User:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased., with three WP shortcuts and the redirect Wikipedia:All your bias are belong to us. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:58, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- It's not a question of hatred but of describing topics with accuracy in mind, aiming for a good encyclopedia. Describing science and its methods properly would be unrealistic here but scientific method and epistemology may help. Science aims to be universal as well as to test its tenets, correct them and revise its knowledge and textbooks. This allowed it to gain a certain reputation and led to advances in technology, medicine, etc. Conversely there are belief systems that when contradicted by evidence or confronted for the lack of evidence to support them, can come up with science-like apologetics or already were based on science-like, but discredited methods or untestable tenets (in some cases, prescience, protoscience). The demarcation line can be difficult to draw in some cases but is also often obvious. In the latter case, critical sources usually are easy to find and it's part of a respectable encyclopedia's role to educate. This may also avoid unnecessary harm that can result from dangerous practices or the failure to recognize them as lacking evidence, especially if it also leads to the avoidance of more reliable or safer solutions that exist (medicine comes to mind). It is also common for pseudoscientific arguments to be used in attempt to justify ideologies of all types, including some that are divisive or harmful to education, peace, the environment, etc. The last two points touch ethics, possibly partly answering the part about morality. Some argue that ethics should be outside of science, but it certainly can be informed by science and is unavoidable as part of its process. Many universities have good introductions to the scientific method and pseudoscience on their sites. —PaleoNeonate – 17:03, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- Are you kiddin me? I LOVE pseudoscience! It's one of my favorite things, alongside conspiracy theories. The way adherents create their own little worlds, the amusing stupidity on display by some of the more vocal and less-well-educated believers, the narratives of Fighting For The Truth™... It's fascinating stuff. And each one has a puzzle in terms of discovering how and why it's flawed, or occasionally, even if it's flawed. Pseudoscience is awesome and I love it.
- I just wish people knew better than to believe it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:38, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- That's basically the whole point of our systematic bias, which is a combination of external and internal factors, most that we cannot resolve since it all stems from sourcing. All we can do is recognize that we do have this bias and that should be of concern when we are looking to points of tone and neutral writing style, not necessarily content, on these topics. We can maintain an impartial, dispassionate voice in writing about psuedoscience while still treating them with the implicit bias of underlying sourcing that these are "wrong" and reflect bad science or poor critical thinking. It is just often difficult to do when we have the supporters and avid followers of that psci areas wanting better promotion of that (eg the recent mess on the Wuhan lab leak stuff). --Masem (t) 17:43, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's pretty obvious that competent Wikipedia editors should hate pseudoscience - it denies the basic concept of an encyclopedia based on accepted, confirmed knowledge. Having said that I think that there are editors who convert that hatred into unencyclopedic, non-factual activity. As one example from many years ago I remember editing an article about a homeopathic society that was established well before homeopathy had been debunked, and others insisted on it containing a long screed about how homeopathy is now considered pseudoscience (as it is) rather than consisting of content about the history of the society, to the extent that more of the article consisted of the former rather than the latter. Of course such content belongs in our article on homeopathy, which was linked, but we don't need to reproduce it everywhere as if this was an encyclopedia for small children who are incapable of recognising bunkum when they see it. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:11, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- There's a point where someone can treat science as a religion. The role of science is to find theories than can predict future events rather than a search for absolute truth. In that sense they are turning science into a religion. I don't hate Babylonian astrologists or shamans. I just think they tried to interpret the world and were wrong. People who look for wisdom in their teachings are misguided. I think articles should say that without preaching, which is more typically associated with religion and belief systems than objective science. TFD (talk) 20:43, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Pseudoscience is a species of cultural pathology and is as worthy of study as any other pathology is. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:16, 21 June 2021 (UTC).
Why do Wikipedia editors like the word pseudoscience so much?
I think a legitimate question is: Why do Wikipedia editors like labeling things as "pseudoscience" so much. Outside our Wikipedia bubble it's not that common of a word, but we so often use it in the first sentence of an article. Like, "So and so is the pseudoscientific practice of blah blah blah."
(My spellchecker (Firefox) is underlining the word pseudoscientific.) Really we should be defining the subject before going off on its pseudoscientificness.
Here's a current example from an article:
Astrology is a pseudoscience that claims to divine information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects.[1][2][3][4]
That might be better written as:
Astrology is the practice of attempting to forecast information about human affairs and earthly events by studying the movements and positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets.
That's more fair to its long history as a protoscience. (I'm not an expert on the topic, but I assume that many early astronomers were astrologers, as many early chemists were alchemists.) And the 2nd paragraph makes it clear that modern astrology has no basis in science. (Though if we took the word "pseudoscience" out of the first sentence we should put something in the 1st paragraph the way Brittanica does when it says Astrology is "diametrically opposed to the findings and theories of modern Western science."
I suspect part of pseudoscience's ubiquity here stems from constant fighting over categorization of certain articles, and the title of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience. But in the majority of cases I think it would be more clear to our readers if we used plain language like "So and so is not supported by science" or "So and so contradicts many scientific principles" or "So and so contradicts many scientific principles" instead of "So and so is pseudoscience." ~Awilley (talk) 00:14, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Pseudoscience is easy to identify. A topic in mainstream science will be extensively cited in the science citation databases, all of which deal only with reliable sources. If the topic is not in those it is outside the mainstream and likely to be pseudoscience. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:21, 22 June 2021 (UTC),
- Definitely a non-sequitur, but I'll reply. It certainly would be convenient if we had a canon of scientific knowledge. But reality isn't as tidy as you describe. There's plenty of undiscovered truth that hasn't yet found its way into the scientific literature, and plenty of what was once considered common knowledge that has since been overturned. As Carl Sagan said, "Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking." ~Awilley (talk) 01:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- I am talking about what is in the current mainstream. If somebody has their own little nugget of undiscovered truth then it is up to them to get it into the mainstream by means of scholarship and research that is accepted by the scientific community. Until then, Wikipedia will regard it as fringe. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC).
- That's because astrology is pseudoscience, and utter horseshit. That is the current status of astrology, and our article needs to reflect that. You can, after making it clear to the reader that this is considered nonsense by anyone with half a brain, discuss the history of astrology and the like. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:07, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Astrology is nonscience. Astrology makes no scientific claims whatever. By the way, it isn't Wikipedia's job to "make it clear to the reader" what is or isn't "considered nonsense by anyone with half a brain." If that were the case, all of our Christianity articles would say that the belief that a human was resurrected from death after being in the earth three days, then physically floated up into the sky where he's still up there hanging out with angels and saints, AND that everyone who doesn't believe this is going to be tormented in a lake of fire for eternity is considered nonsense to anyone with half a brain. And has caused a HELL (pun intended) of a lot more real world damage than people believing that what time of the year your birthday happens to be might influence your personality (not at all far fetched - there are social implications of this that share common patterns). Of course, we all know that that would not be allowed to stand for more than about two seconds. (maybe that's one of the reasons for all you zealots' crusading against "easy targets" - new age and anything that comes from dark-skinned or squinty-eyed populations - frustration that you can't target western religion, because that's off limits?). Firejuggler86 (talk) 16:12, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's because astrology is pseudoscience, and utter horseshit. That is the current status of astrology, and our article needs to reflect that. You can, after making it clear to the reader that this is considered nonsense by anyone with half a brain, discuss the history of astrology and the like. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:07, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- I am talking about what is in the current mainstream. If somebody has their own little nugget of undiscovered truth then it is up to them to get it into the mainstream by means of scholarship and research that is accepted by the scientific community. Until then, Wikipedia will regard it as fringe. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC).
- While I'm no fan of pseudoscience, I would say that awilley has a point. It seems that our internal lingua of marking things as "pseudo science" has crept into the lead of lots of articles.. I do think that that is problematic. Many in the general public have never heard of the term pseudo science I presume and they would never qualify things organically as such. This means that the term probably isn't good for the first sentence/lead of an article. Descriptors like "a custom", "a practice" , "a religion" or "a speculation/theory" seem much better to me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:53, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Xxanthippe, I find that pseudoscience is not always easy to identify. More specifically, I find that some reliable sources use 'pseudoscience' as a kind of general insult for anything they disagree with, without using the word precisely and correctly. It's easy to find sources, for example, that say economics is a pseudoscience. Or religion. The main problem with calling everything a pseudoscience is not that you can't find some source, somewhere, to back it up, but that it's usually WP:UNDUE outside of things like homeopathy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- And how do you identify which things are "like homeopathy"? Is it easier than identifying pseudoscience? There is no problem with having terms the applicability of which is difficult to decide; there is no restriction saying that everything needs to be easy.
- You seem to have your own definition of pseudoscience which is different from that of reliable sources. You are second-guessing reliable sources here:
some reliable sources use 'pseudoscience' as a kind of general insult for anything they disagree with
. Of course, you are free to do that, but your opinion cannot be used as a foundation for policy. If you think a reliable souce is not as reliable as others believe, you know which Wikipedia page to go to to have it pegged down. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:20, 23 June 2021 (UTC)- By "things like homeopathy", I refer to subjects about which many reliable sources say that the subject is pseudoscience, or they provide a description of the subject that is sufficiently similar to the first sentence of our article on Pseudoscience ("statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method") that it is no stretch at all to use the term.
- One can find the occasional claim that art history is pseudoscience, that economics is pseudoscience, that religion is pseudoscience, but these sources form a tiny minority. We do not need to have these sources rejected as unreliable to note that their views are undue, and contradicted by others.
- My own views appear to align with reliable sources such as https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Pseudoscience_Wars/SqOPw9Yq-MEC
- As is surely obvious, "pseudoscience" is a term of abuse, an epithet attached to certain points of view to discredit those ideas, complemented by "pseudoscientist" to designate the practitioner. ... On the imagined scale that has excellent science at one end and then slides through good science, mediocre science (the vast majority of what is done), poor science, to bad science on the other end, it is not the case that pseudoscience lies somewhere on this continuum. It is off the grid altogether. The process of demarcating science from non-science is a central and quite general aspect of all scientific activities, but pseudoscience attracts particular vehemence as compared to, say, non-science. Scientists rarely spend much energy arguing that the Catholic Church or Vietnamese literature is pseudoscience; they are just not science—and devotees of those domains are quite happy with that designation. Pseudoscience is different. This is a combative notion deployed to categorize (and, its users hope, weaken or eliminate) doctrines that are non-science but pretend to be… WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:35, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
non-science but pretend to be...
is the defining factor. Non-science that does not pretend (claim) to be science is not pseudoscience. It fails the definitive test. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:24, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Xxanthippe, I find that pseudoscience is not always easy to identify. More specifically, I find that some reliable sources use 'pseudoscience' as a kind of general insult for anything they disagree with, without using the word precisely and correctly. It's easy to find sources, for example, that say economics is a pseudoscience. Or religion. The main problem with calling everything a pseudoscience is not that you can't find some source, somewhere, to back it up, but that it's usually WP:UNDUE outside of things like homeopathy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Definitely a non-sequitur, but I'll reply. It certainly would be convenient if we had a canon of scientific knowledge. But reality isn't as tidy as you describe. There's plenty of undiscovered truth that hasn't yet found its way into the scientific literature, and plenty of what was once considered common knowledge that has since been overturned. As Carl Sagan said, "Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking." ~Awilley (talk) 01:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- In answer to the original question of this section, I think in some cases it may be intellectual laziness or the inability to effectively argue the point without resorting to simplistic labelling. I may be wrong, but that is an impression I get. There are cases where the term is quite appropriate, but it does appear to be overused, and sometimes applied like a blunt instrument. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:38, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
I also agree with many things User:Awilley is saying, including having a point in overusing the label of pseudoscience, and as Firejuggler86 says, Astrology for example is a nonscience-- so there is no need to label as pseudoscience something that is clearly distinct from science. Just like religions are. And Wikipedia is at its best by describing religions without constantly labelling them as something scientifically unproven. User:WhatamIdoing also is persuasive in that the label of pseudoscience is an amorphous and biased label. I think we should find a better way to describe topics, especially non-western cultures/traditions, without being derisive. Al83tito (talk) 07:23, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
- Al83tito
Astrology for example is a nonscience-- so there is no need to label as pseudoscience
- The very article you link to contains several citations to reliable sources that label it as pseudoscience. We do rely on reliable sources for selecting what to say and what not.
- There may be reliable sources that call astrology a "nonscience", and/or deny that it is pseudoscience. Can you cite them? (Please keep WP:BURDEN in mind.) Paradoctor (talk) 18:28, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
- Two points:
- In a typical ontology, all pseudoscience is a subcategory of non-science. (Bad science is still part of science, but 'pretend science' is part of the 'all the things that aren't science' category.)
- It may be too simplistic to describe astrology as only being a pseudoscience. I expect that Western authors have spent more effort over the centuries condemning it as sinful than as pseudoscientific.
- — WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
- Two points:
- I have no problem with astrology being both. It is Al83tito who wants to avoid the pseudoscience label on the grounds that the nonscience label applies.
- More to the point: We go by what the sources say. It's that simple. There is really nothing to discuss. Paradoctor (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Yes, this answer is inefficient
The article on Feng-shui is far from a flat, historical and scientific study of the phenomenon, across countries and centuries. Rather, it gives the impression of a leaflet writen by a preacher deprived of some market share by another preacher. Geomancy has been used to build cities, palaces and tombs. But the good preacher doesn't care. His target is the cheap house decorating pendants sold by the bad preacher around the corner. In the CJK world, geomancy has been criticized from ages, as can be seen in the Dream of the Red Chamber, and so many other sources. But the good preacher doesn't care. His pet books, writen here and now by his pet preachers, are circumscribing his horizon. Across the centuries, a lot of social unrest has arisen around the motto "powerful people are monopolizing favorable places". This is not even alluded to. And now, the most important question: why are there people who are not convinced by the argument: "pray with us, or be branded as a laundry ball advertizer" ? Pldx1 (talk) 15:30, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- No. We are not going to treat on Feng-shui as if it is anything other than complete bullshit. And we already do a great job of discribing the history of Feng-shui. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
- I recommend WP:FIXBIAS and to post suggested changes at the article's talk page instead of here, —PaleoNeonate – 01:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Dear User: PaleoNeonate. My previous post was not about the Feng-shui article, but about the "ineffectiveness" of preaching against Feng-shui. To be proud of being biased is ridiculous, and rather counterproductive. Once again, many cities, palaces and tombs were planned and built using Feng-shui. The existence of Beijing, Xi'an, etc. is a rather massive fact, and deserves scientific and respectful studies. Even including the fact that Feng-shui did not prevent the Summer Palace from being ransacked by the opium soldiers. Shouting "bullshit" ... and rearranging other people's posts won't change the story. Pldx1 (talk) 08:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Guy Macon, you know how to make stuff don't you? @Pldx1's mention of laundry balls reminded me that it's summer, and the world still doesn't have a machine that will get fine sand out of swimsuit fabric. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- We already know how to do that. Let it dry, suck up the sand with a shop vac (I recommend Ridgid[27]), and follow up with a trip through a standard washing machine. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:50, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. I can give it a try. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:41, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
- We already know how to do that. Let it dry, suck up the sand with a shop vac (I recommend Ridgid[27]), and follow up with a trip through a standard washing machine. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:50, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Guy Macon, you know how to make stuff don't you? @Pldx1's mention of laundry balls reminded me that it's summer, and the world still doesn't have a machine that will get fine sand out of swimsuit fabric. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Guy Macon:
No. We are not going to treat on Feng-shui as if it is anything other than complete bullshit.
Would you say the same of religion generally? 156.57.13.133 (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2021 (UTC)- (Answering because this involves my essay at WP:YWAB.) Ignoring for the moment the fact that Feng shui is not a religion, as long as religion does not make testable claims, Wikipedia does not say or imply that the religion is valid or invalid. We just describe what some people believe. Thus we would say "Latter Day Saints consider Joseph Smith to be a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah". We would never say that Smith actually was a prophet, nor would we ever say that the claims about Smith being a prophet are bullshit.
- The claim is untestable; no scientific measurement will ever tell you whether or not someone speaks on behalf of God. On the other hand, Smith made claims (detailed in our Archaeology and the Book of Mormon article), which are testable, and are bullshit. (And I should add that many members of the LDS church get along fine worshiping their God without believing the bullshit.) Wikipedia make no exception for religious bullshit. We don't care whether you believe bullshit because you are deceived, because it is part of your religion, because a politician told you it was true, or because you are just plain stupid.
- Feng shui is indeed bullshit. There is zero evidence that Qi actually exists and abundant evidence that it doesn't work the way feng shui says it does. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:35, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Dear User: PaleoNeonate. My previous post was not about the Feng-shui article, but about the "ineffectiveness" of preaching against Feng-shui. To be proud of being biased is ridiculous, and rather counterproductive. Once again, many cities, palaces and tombs were planned and built using Feng-shui. The existence of Beijing, Xi'an, etc. is a rather massive fact, and deserves scientific and respectful studies. Even including the fact that Feng-shui did not prevent the Summer Palace from being ransacked by the opium soldiers. Shouting "bullshit" ... and rearranging other people's posts won't change the story. Pldx1 (talk) 08:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
pseudoscience vs religious belief
- I would like to ask people to examine how we write articles on pseudoscientific beliefs and compare that to how we write articles on religious beliefs.
- In articles about religious beliefs (even fairly fringe beliefs), we tend go out of our way to be respectful to believers. We are able to neutrally describe the belief as being a belief - without feeling a need to editorialize and caution the reader by noting that non-believers find that belief utterly ridiculous.
- This isn’t how we write articles about pseudoscientific beliefs. With pseudoscientific beliefs we sometimes go out of our way to note that non-believers find it ridiculous.
- My question is - why? Why don’t we write articles about pseudoscientific beliefs using the same neutral tone and language that we use when we write about religious beliefs? Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Blueboar: the problem is repeatedly that what appears to be a neutral tone to one editor/reader does not to another. I think that the articles on Christian Science and Traditional Chinese medicine are neutral – too neutral in places in my view – but I suspect that believers in either would take a different view. Certainly it has been a constant battle to get any criticism into some of the articles on traditional Indian medical systems, and believers are constantly adding bits to articles about plants used in these systems that violate WP:MEDRS and have to be removed. So the key question is "who defines neutral"? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- At Wikipedia:All your bias are belong to us I have, with the invaluable help of the Wikipedia community, documented places where wikipedia has been accused of being biased against holocaust denial, acupuncture. laundry balls, creationism, conspiracy theories, etc. It is fascinating how few items on my list have not generated such complaints. Note that the complaints have resulted in a more favorable treatment of the subject exactly zero times.
- As it says on that page, saying that "Wikipedia is biased" or that "Wikipedia fails to follow its own neutral point of view rules" is not a set of magic words that will cause Wikipedia to accept your favorite conspiracy theory, urban myth, pseudoscience, alternative medicine or fringe theory. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:58, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- "we tend go out of our way to be respectful to believers", not really. We make things clear that religious beliefs are religious beliefs. When religious beliefs overlap with the real world, and are held in spite of evidence, we call them out as such, like faith healing. Or when Mormons claim that Native Americans are descendants of a lost tribe of Isreal, we also clearly label it as not accepted by anyone that knows anything about archeology/genetics. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:13, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- But we don't say that the Mormon religious beliefs are pseudoscientific. We say that there's no scientific evidence, which is a more normal/less fight-y way to disagree. We don't try to slap derogatory labels on their religious stories. The same is true for origin stories when we're writing about Native American people. We may say that the traditional belief is that the tribe originated in this or that way, and that genetic research indicates this or that instead, but we don't say that these are pseudoscientific beliefs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- Pseudoscience is just one type of non-science and the term should be restricted to examples that fit the definition. Religion is usually not pseudoscience. One of the characteristics of pseudoscience is that it is claimed to be science, but is not. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:13, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. And this is the reason why starting the said article with the assertion
Feng shui, 風水, is a traditional pseudoscientific practice [1] [2] [3] originating in ancient China
is as misleading as possible. Traditional practice, at least according to Wikipedia, began around 4000 before our era, that is to say a few millennia before Matthew [2-3] started to preach. It was not only well before the emergence of the concept of science but, on the contrary, this protoscience, that is, all these attempts to collect and organize facts and interpretations, formed the path which has led to science and technology today. Extracting the metal from an ore leaves out some slag. But describing cartography, astronomy, compass etc. as only bullshit, seems to be the biggest bullshit ever. Pldx1 (talk) 14:19, 23 June 2021 (UTC)- A simple test for pseudoscience could be: do the practitioners claim that the practice is based on scientific principles, or that their claims have been tested following scientific methodology? If they make such claims, and they can be shown to be invalid, then it is pseudoscience. If they make no such claims then it is another form of non-science. (feel free to test this hypothesis). Mislabelling other forms of non-science as pseudoscience is a disservice to our readers. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:07, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Pbsouthwood, looking at Talk:Feng shui#"Pseudoscience" and the rest of the talk page, I don't get the impression that editors care whether they are using the word precisely, so long as they can use this derogatory word. The first source cited in Feng shui is titled "Superstition and the Chinese Real Estate Market", and its main point is to say that superstitions related to feng shui have a significant effect on real-world prices, but we're not citing it to say that it's a superstition or that it affects real estate value; we're citing it to say that it's a pseudoscience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
- Using an inappropriate term to label something with the intention to give the readers an inaccurate impression is extremely undesirable and fails neutrality. It is unfortunately a common tactic of fallacious argument, and many of the perpetrators may not even realise what they are doing, Competence is required, but not always evident.
I have not looked into feng shui, so I don't know if the practitioners make any claims that can be used to justify labelling it as pseudoscience. I accept that it is not science, but who claims that it is? Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:22, 25 June 2021 (UTC) - You don't understand; Abrahamic religions are the only legitimate religions and deserve to be treated with respect because Europe, being primarily Christian, is the most important continent in the world. Christianity deserves the most respect, then the rest of the Abrahamic religions, then the rest of the world religions. If Chinese people make a claim about the functioning of the world not testable by science, that's pseudoscience. But if a Christian person makes the claim that it's possible to turn wine into the literal blood of Jesus, well that's a religious belief that we need to respect. There is no room for us to respect all world beliefs by instituting a Wiki wide standard that for something to be considered pseudoscience, it must claim to be science and not actually be scientific. It doesn't matter what so-called "reliable sources" say about the definition of pseudoscience. What matters is that we can call beliefs held by uncivilized Chinese or Indian people "pseudoscience" and that we call beliefs held by civilized peoples "religion". Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 21:49, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- Using an inappropriate term to label something with the intention to give the readers an inaccurate impression is extremely undesirable and fails neutrality. It is unfortunately a common tactic of fallacious argument, and many of the perpetrators may not even realise what they are doing, Competence is required, but not always evident.
- @Pbsouthwood, looking at Talk:Feng shui#"Pseudoscience" and the rest of the talk page, I don't get the impression that editors care whether they are using the word precisely, so long as they can use this derogatory word. The first source cited in Feng shui is titled "Superstition and the Chinese Real Estate Market", and its main point is to say that superstitions related to feng shui have a significant effect on real-world prices, but we're not citing it to say that it's a superstition or that it affects real estate value; we're citing it to say that it's a pseudoscience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
- A simple test for pseudoscience could be: do the practitioners claim that the practice is based on scientific principles, or that their claims have been tested following scientific methodology? If they make such claims, and they can be shown to be invalid, then it is pseudoscience. If they make no such claims then it is another form of non-science. (feel free to test this hypothesis). Mislabelling other forms of non-science as pseudoscience is a disservice to our readers. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:07, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. And this is the reason why starting the said article with the assertion
But we don't say that the Mormon religious beliefs are pseudoscientific.
We call creation science a pseudoscience. I'm not sure what our main article about Mormon beliefs about Native Americans is, but I'm of the opinion that if it's not referred to as "pseudohistory", and any lines of evidence touted by Mormons as confirming it labelled "pseudoscience", then it's not neutral enough.- Religious convictions are not the same thing as pseudoscientific beliefs, and should not be treated the same way. This is why I'm okay with not defining the broader belief of creationism as a pseudoscience. But pseudoscience which is based on religious convictions should not have any special privilege in relation to pseudoscience stemming from secular beliefs. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:01, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
- Pseudoscience is just one type of non-science and the term should be restricted to examples that fit the definition. Religion is usually not pseudoscience. One of the characteristics of pseudoscience is that it is claimed to be science, but is not. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:13, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- But we don't say that the Mormon religious beliefs are pseudoscientific. We say that there's no scientific evidence, which is a more normal/less fight-y way to disagree. We don't try to slap derogatory labels on their religious stories. The same is true for origin stories when we're writing about Native American people. We may say that the traditional belief is that the tribe originated in this or that way, and that genetic research indicates this or that instead, but we don't say that these are pseudoscientific beliefs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
- "we tend go out of our way to be respectful to believers", not really. We make things clear that religious beliefs are religious beliefs. When religious beliefs overlap with the real world, and are held in spite of evidence, we call them out as such, like faith healing. Or when Mormons claim that Native Americans are descendants of a lost tribe of Isreal, we also clearly label it as not accepted by anyone that knows anything about archeology/genetics. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:13, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Blueboar: the problem is repeatedly that what appears to be a neutral tone to one editor/reader does not to another. I think that the articles on Christian Science and Traditional Chinese medicine are neutral – too neutral in places in my view – but I suspect that believers in either would take a different view. Certainly it has been a constant battle to get any criticism into some of the articles on traditional Indian medical systems, and believers are constantly adding bits to articles about plants used in these systems that violate WP:MEDRS and have to be removed. So the key question is "who defines neutral"? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
- Assimilating the whole Feng-shui topic, across countries and millenia, to a pseudo-science is just another religious belief, as unfounded as to affirm the Real Presence of Christ in what president Biden ingests every week. But why people so proud of being biased would care? To say the least, it seems rather ludicrous to criticize people of the past ages for not using what took millennia to emerge from their attempts to record, classify, and tentatively extract some general rules. This amounts to require people from the past to not discover the compass until the full emergence of Maxwell's theories. This amounts to require people from the past to not wonder where to put their dwellings. Probably, they should have waited a few millennia under rain or frost and then enlist the services of a modern architect. Maybe one from Florida and/or from Fukushima? Such an attitude is ignorant of the process which led from protosciences to modern sciences. To quote the famous [2-3]
- The legitimate, sure and fruitful method to prepare a student to receive a physical hypothesis is the historical method. To trace the transformations through which the empirical material accumulated while the theoretical form was first sketched out; describe the long collaboration by means of which common sense and deductive logic have analyzed this material and molded this form until one is exactly adapted to the other: this is the best way, surely even the only one , to give those who study physics a fair and clear vision of the very complex and living organization of this science (Duhem 1954, p. 268) .
- In other words, metal mining should not start by discarding the ore as an impure and shameful substance. But why people so proud of being biased would care? Pldx1 (talk) 12:15, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
- Obviously, Feng-shui became a pseudoscience only after the considerable success of modern science. Beforehand, it was just a traditional practice, not a pseudoscience. It is pseudoscience now. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
- It's fine to call pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology and mythology, respectively, what they are, including in relation to religion. Origin myth and flood geology, for instance. —PaleoNeonate – 13:27, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
Clarifying my question
I think that pseudoscience should still be opposed. The thing is that I think some skeptics are impatient (for lack of a better word) with editors who promote pseudoscience. I think those people are people too, and we should more respectfully let them learn from their mistakes. Félix An (talk) 13:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
The battle
I've seen out of line nastiness on both sides. A part comes from wiggle room in the meaning(s) of the term. The core meaning is something that claims to be science but isn't. And so the main meaning is "falsely claiming to be science" which makes it a PEJORATIVE. But there is enough wiggle room in the term to allow people who are on the warpath against belief systems that aren't science-based to let them (try) to apply that PEJORATIVE to bash the target of their choice, even where the belief makes no claim to be scientific. I'm a very skeptical, very scientific atheist and so I am surrounded by belief-based stuff that I consider to be baseless at best. And though I always nicely call "baseless" or BS on those when I hear them (except I don't touch religion) I feel no need to bash those things. And in Wikipedia, that includes not stretching the use of the pseudoscience term to apply it to beliefs that do not generally claim to be based on science. Plus one solution to many eternal wiki-battles is that our mission is to be informative. Wikilawyered-in value-laden words are generally not informative. There are always better, more informative words to use than value-laden words.
The other side of the wiki-battle is to prevent things going in appearing as fact or scientific that aren't. And until we evolve policies and guidelines to reduce that, wikilawyering can get that type of stuff in. Which, of course, certainly raises the blood pressure of the people trying to keep that out. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
- @North8000, I ran across this on the definition of Pseudoscience when an editor questioned whether the term is actually derogatory, and it lines up with your thinking: "definitions of pseudoscience range widely among authorities depending on their personal criteria for an acceptable scientific method, and the only consistently clear quality of pseudoscience is that the term is derogatory".[28]
- That said, I don't object to using value-laden words in articles – if they're DUE. What we shouldn't be doing is saying "All the serious sources say this is <your choice: religious, paranormal, superstition, performance art, fraud, whatever>, but I found one guy who says it's pseudoscience, so the article needs to start off by saying it's pseudoscience". The same principle applies for all value-laden terms (including the reverse: if most sources say it's pseudoscience, then that's what we say, even if you find one guy claiming that it's not). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing:I was wrong in calling it (flatly) value-laden. If it's something that clearly claims to be science but isn't, then that falls within the core definition of the term and then the term is informative / providing information. And in the example you gave, where sources overall strongly call it that, then certainly it should be used. But I happened to drop into the article which is more typical of the endless battles on certain types of articles. Basically trying to wikilawyer it in as a "bash" based on 1 or 2 biased (= unreliable) "WP:RS" opponents. North8000 (talk) 18:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's always value-laden. The value it's laden with is that science is good and lying is bad. Words can be objective and still laden with human values. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: I don't see how lying relates to this in general. The most common situation is a sincere belief that has no scientific basis. E.G most religion. Then there are people who sincerely believe that there is science supporting that belief. My sister who mistakenly believes that there is a scientific basis for astrology is an example of that. They don't understand what science is. Probably the most extreme is snake-oil stuff where they know that their claim is baseless, and they know that their claim of it being science-based is false. IMO this is the rare case of being outright lying.North8000 (talk) 04:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- Intentional fraud and quackery are not uncommon in the 'product' range.
- Your definition ("belief that has no scientific basis") is not pseudoscience. To be pseudoscience, you'd have to claim that your sincere belief was actually scientific. The guy who claimed that his car never needed gasoline is pseudoscience. The person who says they feel better when they look at a beautiful piece of artwork, or when they engage in a religious ritual, or when they wear red clothes, may have a sincere belief that has no scientific basis, but they're not claiming that their belief is based on science. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- Part of the problem here seems to be the use of the weasel word "is claimed to" (by who?) in the definition of pseudoscience. The same underlying belief (feng shui, say) may be promulgated by some people without claiming it is science, but by others who represent that it is. So people eager to claim that things "are" pseudoscience can dig up sources where people present it as science, and people eager to claim the opposite can dig up sources where people are not presenting it as such.... CapitalSasha ~ talk 16:56, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- Good point. IMO if the claim isn't widespread amongst proponents, then IMO the pseudoscience term is not informative and IMO should be left out.
- @WhatamIdoing: I agree 100%. For my example which you were discussing, I was not saying that it is pseudoscience and agree with you that it isn't. We may have been involved on the same one. I briefly visited Feng shui. But an editor was unleashing a continuous barrage of false accusations of wiki-violations at everyone wh disagreed with them. My choices were endure it, take them to ANI or leave, and I chose leave. North8000 (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- As did I. Some editors are pushing their version of the truth in a very agressive way. The problem of that is that it makes other, well-intentioned editors to leave this project. As such, it causes Wikipedia to be more partisan, which is a bad thing for an encyclopedia. That is worrisome. Secondly, on the Feng Shui-article: the version we had five years ago was more neutral, only with an elegant judgement at the end of the lead:
Modern reactions to feng shui are mixed. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience states that some principles of feng shui are "quite rational", while noting that "folk remedies and superstitions... [have been] incorporated into feng shui's eclectic mix".
- That invites so much more to read the rest of the article, as opposed to say "this whole concept is a bunch of lies" in the first sentence. After all, why would anyone read it further if it is a bunch of bullcr*p anyway? And finally, please take a look how the Brittanica discusses homeopathy. I think Wikipedia can learn from that.Jeff5102 (talk) 09:20, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
- I prefer our approach to homeopathy. Brittanica is trending towards Lying by omission – everything they say is true, but some very important things they don't say are also true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
- As did I. Some editors are pushing their version of the truth in a very agressive way. The problem of that is that it makes other, well-intentioned editors to leave this project. As such, it causes Wikipedia to be more partisan, which is a bad thing for an encyclopedia. That is worrisome. Secondly, on the Feng Shui-article: the version we had five years ago was more neutral, only with an elegant judgement at the end of the lead:
- Part of the problem here seems to be the use of the weasel word "is claimed to" (by who?) in the definition of pseudoscience. The same underlying belief (feng shui, say) may be promulgated by some people without claiming it is science, but by others who represent that it is. So people eager to claim that things "are" pseudoscience can dig up sources where people present it as science, and people eager to claim the opposite can dig up sources where people are not presenting it as such.... CapitalSasha ~ talk 16:56, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: I don't see how lying relates to this in general. The most common situation is a sincere belief that has no scientific basis. E.G most religion. Then there are people who sincerely believe that there is science supporting that belief. My sister who mistakenly believes that there is a scientific basis for astrology is an example of that. They don't understand what science is. Probably the most extreme is snake-oil stuff where they know that their claim is baseless, and they know that their claim of it being science-based is false. IMO this is the rare case of being outright lying.North8000 (talk) 04:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's always value-laden. The value it's laden with is that science is good and lying is bad. Words can be objective and still laden with human values. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing:I was wrong in calling it (flatly) value-laden. If it's something that clearly claims to be science but isn't, then that falls within the core definition of the term and then the term is informative / providing information. And in the example you gave, where sources overall strongly call it that, then certainly it should be used. But I happened to drop into the article which is more typical of the endless battles on certain types of articles. Basically trying to wikilawyer it in as a "bash" based on 1 or 2 biased (= unreliable) "WP:RS" opponents. North8000 (talk) 18:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
- My experience and opinions on the matter are a close match to what North8000 describes above. Any attempts to question the evidence are labelled as original research and attempts to undermine a reliable source, and any attempts to question the logic of these claims is labelled as off topic, disruptive, or personal, rinse and repeat. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:23, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
A proposal (pseudoscience)
So... pseudoscience is a term that sparks passionate opinions. Proof of that is that even though this wasn't started as a policy proposal, we all jumped to discuss the matter here.
This is how I see it:
- Some wikipedians find it very important that claims of science that are actually unfounded, be clearly labelled as such in the articles.
- Some wikipedians find the use of the term "pseudoscience" an often derogatory term that should be used much more sparingly.
No one objects to calling something being "scientifically unproven" or there being "no scientific evidence" for it.
It seems to be that those terms could replace the term of "pseudoscience"; it would achieve the goals of the first group, while also achieving greater neutrality in the tone and precision in the language, as seen by the second group.
And, the term pseudoscience could still be used, when an article is tested against this question (as proposed above): do the practitioners claim that the practice is based on scientific principles, or that their claims have been tested following scientific methodology?
Could this be a reasonable proposal for all? In my view this would be a great way to build consensus around this matter in our community. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 07:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
- Corrected the header. It is not "the" proposal, just "a" proposal.
- (I was not aware that this was still going on. Just read all the contributions since my last one.)
- I suggest that we continue as before instead:
- If high-quality reliable sources call it "pseudoscience", Wikipedia does.
- For that matter, if high-quality reliable sources call it "schnorglebompff" instead, Wikipedia does.
- If high-quality reliable sources are divided on the matter, some saying it is pseudoscience and some saying it is not pseudoscience, Wikipedia says they are divided.
- If some high-quality reliable sources say it is pseudoscience and some do not, that is actually the same as case 1.
- Your proposal suggests we should second-guess the reliable sources and avoid a term they use, because some of us do not like it, and on top of that, that we do WP:OR to use it when we do like it. We shouldn't do that, and it should be obvious that we shouldn't. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:41, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with the foundational principle that we ought to base wikipedia on what the authoritative sources say, instead of our personal beliefs.
- There are some (surmountable, with good will and intellectual humility) challenges to the practical application of this principle.
- It is entirely possible that a good number authoritative sources don't use the pseudoscience term, but it easy for the lack of use of the term in some sources to go unnoticed, and for the sources that do use the term to be very noticed. (and the scientifically-proven selection bias can be a factor impacting the source selection by editors)
- Also, some judgement calls can be too quickly discredited with an argument of no original research, but all wikipedia articles require of judgement/editorial calls.
- The most basic is that we are supposed to summarize from multiple sources into our own words- that requires of an intellectual effort that is not necessarily original research. I suspect that there will be an array of reliable sources that talk about the unreliability of astrology (for the record, I don't have any interest in astrology); some may say that that "there is no evidence" that it is accurate, and other sources may call it a "pseudoscience". So it is still the call of the editors to take the overall consensus of the scientific literature, with different sources using different wording, and summarize it in our own words. In those instances I think it valid to have a conversation along the lines I was suggesting above, to discuss about wording that we would all believe to accurately portray the scientific consensus, while being seen as neutral by the greatest number of editors.
- Another is how much weight different aspects of a topic are given. So it is not just about whether astrology is described as a pseudoscience, but where and how prominently in the article it is mentioned. The weight that something is given can carry its own bias, even if there are valid underlying sources. Having a reasoned deliberation on how prominently to talk about astrology as pseudoscience, is very much a subjective decision that does need of thoughtful conversations in good will. There is risk of bias in either direction: in underplaying something, and also in overemphasizing it.
- For example, in a maybe parallel discussion going on now in the Idea lab ( Should slave ownership be mentioned in the first sentence of articles about slave owners?) some of us were suggesting that the lead paragraph should focus on what about the person makes that person notable: if they were notable for being owners of enslaved people, then that belongs in the top paragraph. If they were notable for another reason, and they also happened to be owners of enslaved people, that information still belongs in the article, but not in the top paragraph.
- Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 12:42, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
- I like your last point a lot -- if something is notable primarily as a pseudoscience, then it can be called that in the lead sentence, but if it straddles the line between pseudoscience and, say, traditional or religious belief, and the pseudoscientific aspect isn't the primary part (e.g. some kind of religious belief system that has attracted pseudoscientific justifications that then become part of the system itself, but don't make up its primary substance) then the pseudoscience part should be later in the article. CapitalSasha ~ talk 02:44, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
There are some (surmountable, with good will and intellectual humility) challenges to the practical application of this principle
You seem to be saying that your challenge against my reasoning is "surmountable, with good will and intellectual humility". I guess this is just an accident.- So, there may be selection bias for sources which use the term. So what? There may also be selection bias in the other direction.
- Same with judgement calls. All you are saying here can be added, with equal justification, on both scales and is therefore devoid of power.
- There is nothing wrong with weighing the sources: if every source we can find says "this is pseudoscience", we repeat it a few times. If half the sources mention the term and the other half doesn't, we say that depending on which aspect the sources want to focus on, they call it "pseudoscience" or "myth" (or whatever they do call it). If there is only one source calling it "pseudoscience", we name the source: "X calls it pseudoscience".
- It is like Blind men and an elephant: if pseudoscience is the trunk, religion is the tail, myth is the ears, interest groups are the tusks, worldview is the legs, and politics is the belly, those who want to eliminate the word "pseudoscience" are demanding that we should not mention the trunk when describing the elephant.
- Since the beginning of Wikipedia, that word, and every other word with a negative flavor, as a description of fringe ideas has been the target of proponents of those fringe ideas as well as of dogmatic fence-sitters who reject any categorizing of beliefs by credibility (to pick one representative subgroup of that group: postmodern sociologists), and by people who see a little merit in what the first two groups say. This is just the newest round of that conflict. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Hob Gadling: if my words have offended you, I am sorry, it was not my intention. I come at this with as much good will and neutrality as I can. I meant my words with sincerity and not as an underhanded jab at you or anyone. Al83tito (talk) 08:23, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- Offended is the wrong word. It is just that I have heard pretty much this same thing every week for fifteen years on some Talk page or other. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Hob Gadling: if my words have offended you, I am sorry, it was not my intention. I come at this with as much good will and neutrality as I can. I meant my words with sincerity and not as an underhanded jab at you or anyone. Al83tito (talk) 08:23, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- On the original proposal: "No scientific evidence" is not an adequate substitute for "pseudoscience". There is no scientific evidence for many things, and yet they are not pseudoscientific.
- On the numbered list's point 4 ("If some high-quality reliable sources say it is pseudoscience and some do not, that is actually the same as case 1"): I'm not sure exactly what this means. For example:
- "If some sources say homeopathy is pseudoscience, and others don't mention any sort of science or efficacy at all, and instead only talk about the business and marketing aspects of the industry, then..."
- "If some sources say homeopathy is pseudoscience, and others say that it is best classified as a traditional European treatment that 96% of people never use, then..."
- In the first example, a source that is silent on any given quality doesn't "undo" what other sources say about that specific quality. The pseudoscience-focused source doesn't contradict the high-profit-margins source, and the high-profit-margins source doesn't contradict the pseudoscience classification. Both of these are true.
- In the second example, the sources disagree with each other (a little bit), and the solution is about determining what's WP:DUE, not treating the second source as having nothing to say on the subject. (In the example of homeopathy, that probably means mentioning both views somewhere, with the more common view [i.e., pseudoscience] being first and more prominent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
- I do not see any disagreement in the second example. "Pseudoscience" and "traditional European treatment that 96% of people never use" are almost orthogonal properties, meaning that there is almost no correlation. Actually, if something is a traditional treatment, it is more likely to be pseudoscience than not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Hob Gadling:@WhatamIdoing: thank you for your responses. I agree with you that most of these areas that area labelled as pseudoscience in Wikipedia, don't hold water when evaluated scientifically. So I believe we agree on the substance. I don't have an agenda about these topics (astronomy, acupuncture, etc.), I am just an interested editor hoping to have a collegial deliberation to find out how we can refine our processes for making determinations on how to label subjects in Wikipedia. @WhatamIdoing: I further agree with you that not all reliable sources can be used to determine how to label a subject -- your point that for example an article on the business of homeopathy may not delve into what homeopathy is, is well taken. @Hob Gadling: your point that it is easy for sources to be cherrypicked to advance many differing opinions, is also well taken. I wonder if we could still find a way that enable us as a community to make a more objective, and more consensus-building determination on what the reliable sources say overall.
- One possible more objective way would be to create a list of a subset of sources. For example, the five top other encyclopedias, plus the top five Google Scholar search results, plus the top five New York Times search results. We try to exclude those sources that (per the "business of homeopathy" point above) don't provide a description of the subject (if the top-fourth and top-fifth listed sources are stricken out, then we look at the sixth and seventh to fill the "top five"). Most importantly, we list/commit to them before knowing how they describe the subject, so that we remove as much as possible individual predispositions to any outcome. Then we go and see how they describe the subject, and determine how do the sources predominantly describe it. This is a rough idea; don't take it as a template purporting to be complete and final, but see if the spirit of it has something going for it, to then build upon.
- I'm sure this rough idea has flaws (how do we agree on that "objective list" in the first place? Wouldn't some editors pre-research lists and propose only the ones that are in their favor?), and some other practical kinks to be sorted out. But, is there any kernel of it that something better could be built from it?
- At a personal level I don't care for astrology, or many other systems of belief and superstition. But as a member of humankind as and enthusiastic contributor of Wikipedia desiring to compile and preserve all human knowledge, I think that many of those are important subjects with a long and rich history, and I just want to participate in developing practices that make those articles the best they can be according to Wikipedia's principles. From this deliberation, I would much rather have come out of it a clarified and consensus-driven process, than predetermining any result in any individual case. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 10:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think that the demarcation problem can be solved by simple algorithms like that. The system is not broken and does not need a fix. If there have been wrong decisions in individual cases, they can be fixed individually, not by applying a rigid mould. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- That would have the effect of outsourcing editorial judgement to Google's algorithms, which isn't going to work (even if we all got the same results in the same order, which we won't).
- OTOH, I think that our usual approach (e.g., scholarly publications trump magazine articles) basically works, as long as editors are more committed to high-quality sources than to getting a favorite term incorporated by any method necessary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think that the demarcation problem can be solved by simple algorithms like that. The system is not broken and does not need a fix. If there have been wrong decisions in individual cases, they can be fixed individually, not by applying a rigid mould. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- At a personal level I don't care for astrology, or many other systems of belief and superstition. But as a member of humankind as and enthusiastic contributor of Wikipedia desiring to compile and preserve all human knowledge, I think that many of those are important subjects with a long and rich history, and I just want to participate in developing practices that make those articles the best they can be according to Wikipedia's principles. From this deliberation, I would much rather have come out of it a clarified and consensus-driven process, than predetermining any result in any individual case. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 10:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
"Pseudoscience" has a widely accepted definition which is claims to be science but isn't. If a source uses it based on some other unusual meaning, that doesn't mean that that should be used in Wikipedia, usually because group of editors wants to bash the subject. There is no mandate to use it in Wikipedia. "WP:reliable source"s are often unreliable in many contexts and there is no mandate to use them. Somewhere we need to end this mess by saying that the meaning of pseudoscience in Wikipedia means claims to be science but isn't.North8000 (talk) 13:47, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- In other words: fuck reliable sources, Wikipedia editors know better. Except those Wikipedia editors who disagree with you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:09, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Hob Gadling, I don't think that's what he meant. I think he meant that if, merely by reading the text, it's obvious that the source is applying a label sloppily, then we should apply some Wikipedia:Editorial discretion and not use that source, or if a source uses "A" when the more common word is "B", then we should write what the source clearly meant, rather than copying their exact wording.
- Have you heard the story about a London club, which banned dogs? To accommodate a blind member, they then adopted another rule: "Any dog leading a blind person shall be deemed a cat." Is the service animal really a cat? No. Could you find at least one publication that claimed it? If the story's true, then yes.
- This is hopefully much more extreme that we would encounter in a reliable source, but this sort of thing does happen, especially when you're looking across a wide variety of sources. The accepted definition of a term will change over time; what was normal, becomes autism, becomes Asperger's, and eventually becomes autism again.
- One thing that might help is to prefer sources that are directly about the subject's classification. For example, I've got a browser tab open for Feng shui that says modern Western feng shui is (or at least involves) pseudoscience. I'm satisfied that I have a solid source for that claim. The first citation for the word pseudoscience in the article, however, is to a magazine article:
- whose main subject is how much feng shui affects real estate prices in Chinese cities, and seems just to toss in the label pseudoscience in passing, and
- was written by someone who wrote a book, published last year by Oxford University Press, in which he classified feng shui as superstition instead (immediately after the paragraph in which he classified astrology and homeopathy as pseudoscience, so it's not like he forgot that pseudoscience was a thing).
- I would guess that @North8000 would encourage us to remove the magazine article from that sentence (and perhaps substitute in another, although there are already three there). I wonder whether you would recommend that we use such a weak source for such a contentious claim, or if you'd be inclined to apply a little editorial discretion in that situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- Just as I said, you think you know better than he reliable source: you believe that the label was applied "sloppily" because the same author used a different word in another source. But something can be a pseudoscience and a superstition and a myth and a tradition and a business and a lot of other things at the same time. That is what I tried to explain with the blind-men-and-an-elephant reasoning. The logic of your attempt to override the reliable source is invalid. And that is exactly what I am talking about: Wikipedia editors putting their own understanding above that of the source by flimsy reasoning.
- I say: No, wrong. Reliable sources win. There may be rare cases where it is so obvious that the RS meant something else that all editors can see it. In those cases, consensus can override the RS. But when I fight six profringe editors who claim that the RS meant something else that what it wrote, I do not want them to be able to point to a Wikipedia rule saying that "editorial discretion" is stronger than the RS when it comes to the word "pseudoscience". --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:09, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- No, I think that this is a case of "scholarly source trumps magazine article" and "source directly about the specific subject trumps passing mention". Isn't that what you'd recommend? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- If the scholarly sources explicitly say it is not pseudoscience, then, yes, by all means, remove the source with the passing mention!
- You folks are playing bait-and-switch here: at first, the subject is a general rule like deciding whether something can be called pseudoscience by checking the
definition which is claims to be science but isn't
, and when people argue against that by revealing that it is just an attempt to allow original research in a special case, you replace it by a concrete example - in this case probable feng shui again - and argue thatscholarly source trumps magazine article
decides that case. What do you need the exemption from the OR rule for, if the case is already decided by existing rules? - We should !vote on the proposal. No red herrings anymore. It needs to be called exactly what it is: a special exemption from WP:No original research for the use of the word "pseudoscience". If you want to use the word "pseudoscience" in an article, Wikipedia editors need to demonstrate that the idea in question claims to be science, and Wikipedia editors need to demonstrate that it is not science. Reliable sources have no say in the matter, only the research of Wikipedia editors is allowed as a criterion. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:17, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
- There are a couple of scholarly sources that explicitly say that feng shui is not pseudoscience, but I'm not sure that I trust them enough to say that they're "high quality". More relevantly for that subject, it seems that feng shui means multiple things to multiple people, so that the thing we call feng shui in the 21st century in the US is fairly described as pseudoscience (I have a high-quality source for that), but the mostly different thing that they called feng shui in the 16th century in China was a mix of paranormal superstition (e.g., angry ghosts) and practical folk science (e.g., if you build a house in a flood plain, then expect it to get flooded). In other words, it's more complicated and nuanced than it would seem from a passing mention.
- Nobody is asking for a special exemption for this word. We might, however, be asking whether a special exemption already exists in the other direction – if, e.g., it wouldn't be good enough to label an actor as being a porn star, or to label a publication as being anti-Semitic, on the basis of a passing mention in a magazine article that's mostly about something else, but that kind of weak source would somehow be good enough for labeling a centuries-old collection of ideas as being pseudoscience.
- Remember: Other sources exist, so there's no need to fear that the word pseudoscience won't appear somewhere in Feng shui. The questions instead are whether you want that word backed by a magazine article that mentions it in passing, or by scholarly sources, and whether you want it presented according to due weight (meaning: if 10 high-quality sources say "mostly superstition" and only two say "mostly pseudoscience", then both get included, but superstition is presented more prominently than pseudoscience). This is how we'd do it if we were talking about other subjects. Should we treat pseudoscience like other subjects, or should it have a special rule that gives it preference? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
- No, I think that this is a case of "scholarly source trumps magazine article" and "source directly about the specific subject trumps passing mention". Isn't that what you'd recommend? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- Hob Gadling, so you built an insulting and profane answer upon your failure to understand what I wrote. WhatamIdoing understood and illustrated what I wrote. To expand on the point, the common meaning of "myth" includes something that is false, but there are less common meanings that do not include "false". So if a source says "The Holocaust is a myth that states that..." while that statement could be technically true, by the common meaning of the term it is not accurate, and based on sticking to the common meaning of the term in order to be informative, if one source says "The Holocaust is a myth that states that..." there is no wiki-mandate for including that. North8000 (talk) 21:22, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- If a source says something like that, using a niche meaning of the word "myth", then it is not due for the subject of the Holocaust.
- But this has nothing to do with the proposal under discussion. The proposal suggests a special rule for the word "pseudoscience": Whether something is pseudoscience or not is not determined by its appearance in reliable sources but by Wikipedia editor's original research. Editors need to check for one condition (is it science?) and for another condition (does it claim to be?). That is a lot more work. And you seem to want to expand that OR exemption to the word "myth". If this happens, we will soon have a whole list of terms with their definite Wikipedia definitions. None of those terms will be used in articles unless editors do research on whether the RS used the term right. This will not be Wikipedia anymore.
- But maybe you do not want that. Maybe you want pseudoscience to be a special case. Then the question is: why should this specific word be treated differently from every other word? The fans of specific pseudosciences always want to exclude the word from their articles. Those fans would be the ones who profit from such a special anti-pseudoscience rule, and they would push for such a rule. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:09, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- Well to start with, merely being "not science" is not an insult / value laden characterization. But the common meaning which in essence is "falsely claims to be science" is a value laden word. So maybe we should just recognize and treat it the same as other value-laden words is the answer. Try to minimize use, and require particularly stron sourcing for it to be used. North8000 (talk) 14:34, 28 July 2021 (UTC).
- Either this does not change anything, since we already have rules about "value-laden words", or it makes the job of users trying to keep fringe ideas down more difficult by giving PROFRINGE editors a weapon they can use in any random situation because "particularly strong sourcing" is vague. I can already see, say, climate change deniers rejecting sources using the word by arbitrarily claiming that the source is not "strong" enough.
- The problem is that the word "pseudoscience" usually accurately describes the fact that some idea is bad. Giving the word "pseudoscience" the value-laden label "value-laden" and demanding that it be used less means that articles describing bad ideas become less accurate. It means protecting bad ideas from criticism. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- Ideas can be, and frequently are, bad or wrong without being pseudoscience. When the idea is bad or wrong but not technically pseudoscience, we should use other words to indicate that it is bad or wrong. English has plenty of words that can be used to condemn bad ideas. We don't need to overuse this one, especially on the basis of a weak source when we have high-quality sources in hand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
- When I wrote,
the word "pseudoscience" usually accurately describes the fact that some idea is bad
, I did not mean that usually, when an idea is bad, the word "pseudoscience" would accurately describe it. I meant that the word "pseudoscience", when it is actually used, usually accurately describes the fact that some idea is bad. Of course, not everybody who uses the word does so correctly, and that is why I said "usually" instead of "always". - Before you explain something very obvious to someone, you should ask yourself, "does this person really need this explanation? Could it be that they already understand that? Maybe I should have a look at what they actually wrote." In your case, I did that and, unfortunately, came to the conclusion that I needed to explain those obvious things to you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:11, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
- When I wrote,
- Ideas can be, and frequently are, bad or wrong without being pseudoscience. When the idea is bad or wrong but not technically pseudoscience, we should use other words to indicate that it is bad or wrong. English has plenty of words that can be used to condemn bad ideas. We don't need to overuse this one, especially on the basis of a weak source when we have high-quality sources in hand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
- Well to start with, merely being "not science" is not an insult / value laden characterization. But the common meaning which in essence is "falsely claims to be science" is a value laden word. So maybe we should just recognize and treat it the same as other value-laden words is the answer. Try to minimize use, and require particularly stron sourcing for it to be used. North8000 (talk) 14:34, 28 July 2021 (UTC).
- Hob Gadling, so you built an insulting and profane answer upon your failure to understand what I wrote. WhatamIdoing understood and illustrated what I wrote. To expand on the point, the common meaning of "myth" includes something that is false, but there are less common meanings that do not include "false". So if a source says "The Holocaust is a myth that states that..." while that statement could be technically true, by the common meaning of the term it is not accurate, and based on sticking to the common meaning of the term in order to be informative, if one source says "The Holocaust is a myth that states that..." there is no wiki-mandate for including that. North8000 (talk) 21:22, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- The notion in the OP of this subsection that "scientifically unproven" is a valid substitute for "pseudoscience" is either hilariously naïve or POV pushing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- @MPants at work: Let me amend and clarify then. No, they are not the same: spiritual beliefs are scientifically unproven. Homeopathy is likely pseudoscience. The difference, in my view is that not all scientifically unproven subjects claim to be making scientific assertions. For something to be pseudoscientific, as I understand the definition, first it must portray itself to be making scientific assertions. Generally:
- Systems of belief or superstition would be best characterized as scientifically unproven.
- Systems of (claimed) fact may be characterized as pseudoscience when their claims run contrary to science.
- There is a place in Wikipedia for labelling some things as pseudoscience (homeopathy possibly), and but not others. Mythology, religion, divination, superstition, being more systems of belief, would not "rise" to the level of pseudoscience.
- But that is just my opinion. Others have other opinions. I think both "sides" believe that the reliable sources support their views, and both sides probably think that the sources overwhelmingly support their point of view. Rather than each side bring supporting proof of their position (my expectation would be that each side would find proof for what they already believe), we can agree on an approach that is a bit more neutral: commit to a list of reliable sources without doing cherrypicking, and then see what they say as potentially representative sample. For example the five top other encyclopedias, the top five google scholar results, and the top five New York Times search results. For any subject that could be potentially labelled at pseudoscience, see what the results say. I am not predetermining an outcome, just suggesting a process, based on reliable sources and with the advantage of being more trustworthy for a greater number of editors. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 22:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
- It's not claiming to be factual that makes something pseudoscience. It's claiming to be scientific. If a colorblind person claims that his shirt is green, when it's really pink, then his factual claim is wrong, but he's not engaging in pseudoscience. If a group of researchers claim that their new experimental drug works, and the next trial proves that it doesn't, then their factual claim is wrong, but they're not engaging in pseudoscience.
- Pseudoscience sounds like "If you use the same size and shape of bottle as this guy in the 1800s, and you tap your water solution on a padded, leather covered box the same number of times that he did, then the water will develop a 'memory' of the miniscule amount of arsenic that you put in it, and it's been scientifically proven that drinking a few drops of that water will cure anxiety." WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Agreed! Al83tito (talk) 00:48, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- Also, "Mythology, religion, divination, superstition, being more systems of belief, would not "rise" to the level of pseudoscience.". Again, that depends completely on whether their adherents attempt to present them as science. A religious belief system is clearly not in itself pseudoscience. Creation science or Intelligent design, however, clearly are, as they attempt to validate religious beliefs in terms of science. Black Kite (talk) 00:41, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- @Black Kite: Thank you, you make interesting thoughtful points. I think I agree and I will take it in. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 00:48, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- @MPants at work: Let me amend and clarify then. No, they are not the same: spiritual beliefs are scientifically unproven. Homeopathy is likely pseudoscience. The difference, in my view is that not all scientifically unproven subjects claim to be making scientific assertions. For something to be pseudoscientific, as I understand the definition, first it must portray itself to be making scientific assertions. Generally:
- If reliable secondary sources describe something as pseudoscience then that is how Wikipedia should describe it. If anything, we are sometimes too tentative in labelling pseudoscientific woo as such. Reyk YO! 12:50, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- However we should be only using reliable secondary sources which have the appropriate expertise to identify what is "pseudoscience". This means we should not be relying on mainstream media that merely use the word because they think it applies, though if they are reporting the determination of an expert or three, then that's good. And while it is important to call out any notable false or mistaken scientific claims where the demonstration of that false/mistaken nature has been proven out by proper scientific method elsewhere (eg as in the original cold fusion experiments), as to make sure WP does not propagate bad science without clarity that it is bad science, we should not be in the business of being anxious to label things as "pseudoscience" , given the subtleties and complexities of the definition of that term against other types of bad/mistaken science. --Masem (t) 15:23, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with what @Masem says, and I'd add "especially when there are stronger sources saying the same thing". In many cases, we don't need to rely on weaker sources for this content, so why should we? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- However we should be only using reliable secondary sources which have the appropriate expertise to identify what is "pseudoscience". This means we should not be relying on mainstream media that merely use the word because they think it applies, though if they are reporting the determination of an expert or three, then that's good. And while it is important to call out any notable false or mistaken scientific claims where the demonstration of that false/mistaken nature has been proven out by proper scientific method elsewhere (eg as in the original cold fusion experiments), as to make sure WP does not propagate bad science without clarity that it is bad science, we should not be in the business of being anxious to label things as "pseudoscience" , given the subtleties and complexities of the definition of that term against other types of bad/mistaken science. --Masem (t) 15:23, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
- As well as stuff that is scientifically unproven, there is stuff that is scientifically disproven. Take Easter Island as a bit of a honeypot for pseudoscience, but also a century or more of scientific development. So someone writing a hundred years ago about Easter Island being a mountain top and the last dry remnant of a lost continent was in accord with the science of the day. Then Metraux visited the place and saw that the broad roads heading down the mountain and into the deeps were actually old lava flows, and in the 50s someone mapped the fallen statues and found they were mostly just above the current coast line, such a clear correlation that the coast now has to be pretty much where it was in the statue building era. Anyone now regurgitating the lost continent stuff is either very out of date or pseudo scientific, on a par with the racist trope of mere pacific islanders couldn't have moved such large stones, it must have been aliens or a "more advanced civilisation". But there was a time when it was the best fit to the known data. ϢereSpielChequers 15:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Policies on lists of fictional characters
I recently nominated List of Warriors characters for deletion. After a discussion on policy, it became clear to me that my nomination was not supported by policy, so I withdrew it. But I wanted to discuss the underlying policies here more broadly.
The article in question, which describes characters from a kids series with dozens of books, had grown to a remarkable 440,000 bytes long in March before being cut down to its current 35,000 by some very diligent editing. Clearly, the March version had some issues with WP:FANCRUFT. But under our policies on WP:SIZE and WP:CSC, these kinds of articles are allowed to exist even if they cite zero independent, reliable sources. Why? Because they are considered extensions/splits of the main subject of the article. So if Warriors (novel series) is notable, then List of Warriors characters is acceptable. This follows from WP:CSC #2, which states that standalone lists can work if "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria."
Of course, this issue affects many franchises. Look at List of The Sopranos characters, or List of Warrior Nun Areala characters, or take your pick from Category:Lists of fictional characters by medium.
These pages present a number of issues. They are magnets for bloat, tons of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, un-encyclopedic writing, and general fancruft. Because of this, they regularly need attention from experienced editors, who must either spend hours trimming them down and re-instituting WP:SUMMARY style, or else nominate them for deletion (as I did), sparking pushback from page editors. These pages strike me as a basic loophole in our notability criteria, that allow huge lists to proliferate without ever coming close to meeting the WP:GNG. Some individual fictional characters are certainly notable - Tony Soprano, for instance, or Severus Snape - they should have standalone, linked articles. I would propose modifying the WP:CSC criteria to say explicitly that lists of fictional characters are not covered by the criteria. I'm interested to hear what others think about this issue. Ganesha811 (talk) 17:52, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just as a general observation - this isn't a problem exclusive to character lists, this slow accumulation of cruft is an issue that affects huge numbers of our articles on fiction. I've had an eye on Elder race for a while because it is really badly exhibiting the symptoms, but I'm not really sure what to do with it: the article consists of a rather self contradictory intro where it lists a load of thing that an elder race may or may not be, followed by an enormous list of 90 examples, all unsourced, most not notable enough for their own article. It's a difficult issue to address because these articles are always going to attract drive-by edits adding their favourite character/example/thing to an existing list. Perhaps we need some stronger sourcing requirements for inclusion in lists of fiction things or a clarification of criteria 2, e.g. each item must have been discussed in a manner that relates to the list in at least one source? "Does not warrant a standalone article" doesn't mean "has no coverage at all". 192.76.8.91 (talk) 19:06, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Lists of characters should be still be striving for some type of sourcing, and if that sourcing simply doesn't exists from reliable sources, then there's very little reason to have a long detailed list of characters when they can be summarized in the main body of the article. We don't expect the list of characters to necessary meet the same level of notability as the work itself, but WP:V is still a required facet, and just using the primary work as the source doesn't cut it (articles should be based on third-party sources). Likely what has happened is that while we have significantly pared down on how much standalone fictional character articles, those meant for deletion end up merged into these lists, with all content left uncheck, and create the long lists. These pages do need to be within WP:NOT#PLOT aspects too.
- But I know that trying to say that these lists need to show more notability goes against WP:NLIST and has been a long-standing issue. I don't think its necessarily the existence of stand-alone lists but the amount of cruft they accumulate that needs to be addressed first and foremost. --Masem (t) 13:32, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that WP:CSC allows for a somewhat loophole to subvert WP:GNG, which very passionate editors can cite to add information that does not meet WP standards. Although WP:SPLITLIST does set forth that articles need to be kept "as short as feasible for purpose and scope," and that "too much statistical data is against policy," I think these principles can get lost in areas like fictional characters where editors are very passionate about adding information they find important. I'm not sure about a singular WP:CSC carveout for fictional character lists, because I think the problem is broader and should apply to more than one specific category. I agree with Masem that the underlying cruft needs to be addressed first. Fancruft and over-reliance on WP:CSC should not allow for the subversion of the basic principles of WP:V and WP:RS, which are meant to protect the integrity of all information on WP. Kind regards, PinkElixir (talk) 13:47, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, I've been objecting to this for a while now. The reasoning seems to be that Captain Blamtastic being notable automatically entitles List of Captain Blamtastic characters to an article. As well as, no doubt, List of Captain Blamtastic locations, List of Captain Blamtastic villains, and List of fictional weapons in Captain Blamtastic. None of which require sourcing because the parent article allegedly contains the required sources (it doesn't) and dependent articles acquire sourced status through some vague notion of trickle-down referencing. The result is fans writing a lot of reprehensible TV Tropes garbage that can't be verified and is all original research. Reyk YO! 14:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- The cruft around Harry Potter includes not only List of Harry Potter characters, which is so long it needs an alphabetized index and most of which are redirects to article sections, but also List of supporting Harry Potter characters, none of which have articles and which includes several character profiles that are longer than many blps and mention everything that character ever did. I do not understand why we would need a standalone list of non-notable fictional characters. I'd support requiring fictional characters to be notable enough for their own articles for inclusion in list articles. A list with no lengthy descriptions within the parent article should be plenty. —valereee (talk) 14:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
- There are cases where in a list of characters, some of the characters may be sufficiently notable for a standalone, but other characters at the same level of importance to the work are not (case in point is Characters of Overwatch (but this is where I know we've tried to drop 3rd party sourcing all over the place) - in such cases, it makes no sense to omit the characters at that level just because they aren't notable. What is essential is two fold: that these lists need to be limited in how "deep" they go: major and maybe the next minor level of characters (eg if we're talking a TV show, the characters played by the starring and recurring roles and not limited use cameos or roles) to keep the cruft in check to start, and that their creation should be based on if a good chuck (but not necessarily all) can be sourced to third-party RSes. We shouldn't be trying to be complete character lists for a work if that's simply not supported by sources (which in 99% of the time, they aren't). --Masem (t) 16:54, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think that's a question of Wikipedia:Balancing aspects, rather than verifiability or notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- There are cases where in a list of characters, some of the characters may be sufficiently notable for a standalone, but other characters at the same level of importance to the work are not (case in point is Characters of Overwatch (but this is where I know we've tried to drop 3rd party sourcing all over the place) - in such cases, it makes no sense to omit the characters at that level just because they aren't notable. What is essential is two fold: that these lists need to be limited in how "deep" they go: major and maybe the next minor level of characters (eg if we're talking a TV show, the characters played by the starring and recurring roles and not limited use cameos or roles) to keep the cruft in check to start, and that their creation should be based on if a good chuck (but not necessarily all) can be sourced to third-party RSes. We shouldn't be trying to be complete character lists for a work if that's simply not supported by sources (which in 99% of the time, they aren't). --Masem (t) 16:54, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: I was reading through this thread and noted the link to Elder race. I PRODed that article after doing some searching for any sources which discuss the trope as a literary phenomenon (or a phenomenon in fiction more generally). I actually meant to RfD it, but the caffeine still hasn't kicked in yet, so I'll do that if someone contests the prod (which I expect). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:07, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- @MPants at work: I don't think you'd have much luck getting an article deleted at RfD either...Interestingly your thoughts are the exact opposite of what I'd do, I was tempted to remove the enormous unsourced list of examples and turn it back into a stub containing the information that was present when the article was written, which does seem to have been sourced to the encyclopaedia in the "literature" section. I did think of prodding it, but the encyclopaedia suggested that there might be some decent sourcing out there (I couldn't find it though). 192.76.8.91 (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- That was my issue. I thought there would be sources which were easy to find covering this, but to my surprise, this trope (as common as it is) seems to have very little coverage in the sources.
- My suggestion about trimming it to the list is based on the fact that I know several of the entries are explicitly described as "elder races" in the works in which they appear; if that were the criteria, we could maintain such a list in an encyclopedic manner.
- But that's literally the only way I can see this article not running afoul of our policies. The lede as it currently stands is just 1/2 OR and 1/2 wordy-expansion of the sourced content from the encyclopedia. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- @MPants at work: I don't think you'd have much luck getting an article deleted at RfD either...Interestingly your thoughts are the exact opposite of what I'd do, I was tempted to remove the enormous unsourced list of examples and turn it back into a stub containing the information that was present when the article was written, which does seem to have been sourced to the encyclopaedia in the "literature" section. I did think of prodding it, but the encyclopaedia suggested that there might be some decent sourcing out there (I couldn't find it though). 192.76.8.91 (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm specifically looking at this bit from the original comment by @Ganesha811:
- > these kinds of articles are allowed to exist even if they cite zero independent, reliable sources. [...] This follows from WP:CSC #2, which states that standalone lists can work if "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria."
- I don't think that's true. It's possible to fail notability even if independent reliable sources exist.
- CSC #2 is meant to cover things like a "List of minor Pokemon characters", in which we know something about the subject, but editors don't agree that it's enough for standalone articles. One common reason for this is editorial judgment, but another is that the independent sources don't contain Wikipedia:Significant coverage. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
What specific policy changes could we propose?
Masem, PinkElixir, Reyk, Valereee, IP editor - thank you all for your thoughts. I'm glad to see that this is an issue that others have noticed as well. What specific policy changes would help fix this? IP 192.76.8.91, I agree it is part of a larger issue, but it may be too heavy a lift to re-think how we approach all fiction - if we go one step at a time, we will probably get further. Do you all think that a change to WP:CSC criteria #2, saying "This criteria does not apply to lists of fictional characters/elements" would be effective? Or perhaps a requirement that lists of fictional characters be sourced to *secondary* sources only, so that huge amounts of primary-sourced WP:OR are no longer allowed? What other changes might work? Ganesha811 (talk) 13:06, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Starting with CSC#2, I think there needs to be emphasized that such lists when created still must meet WP:V with thorough sourcing to third-parties (and lists only sourced to primary works or poor RS are thus not appropriate), and when talking about fictional works, WP:NOT#PLOT still applies: these are not lists to get around the limitations on plot regurgitation that apply elsewhere. Thes are policy level set points that absolutely can be used there. Any further advice can then be included in WP:WAF (writing about fiction) to spell out what these lists should focus on, avoiding trivial level characters or details, etc but based on the principles of CSC#2. --Masem (t) 14:39, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Complying with WP:V does not require third-party sources.
- This is one of the fundamental problems with this type of discussion, which turns up once or twice a year:
- Fact: Any given sentence/list entry about a book/fictional universe can fully comply with WP:V (and all related sourcing rules) if the content can unambiguously be found in the book itself.
- Fact: Most editors want independent/third-party sources in articles. (NB: Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. We're basically talking about sources that the subject didn't create or pay to have created.)
- Problem: There is no rule that says absolutely every article must contain a citation to an independent source. There isn't technically even a rule that says it must be possible to add a citation to an independent source to absolutely every article.
- We have recommendations, and encouragement, and even a few written rules that say articles about certain subjects (e.g., businesses) must be verifiable in independent sources, but there isn't an overarching, absolutely-no-exceptions-even-for-your-special-subjects-we-really-mean-it-this-time rule that says that at least one fact in every separate page must be verifiable in independent sources.
- Because of this situation, IMO if you want this article to comply with that standard, then we need to first create a rule that requires it. Until we make such a rule, we'll continue to have these discussions, with the one side correctly saying that each sentence is fully verifiable in an appropriate (primary+non-independent) source, and the other side complaining that it does not meet the unwritten, exception-riddled rule that most articles, about most subjects, under most circumstances, "should" contain an independent source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Are you not describing WP:N? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- No. WP:N (you probably mean the GNG subsection of it) is a guideline, which some editors believe means that following it is optional. Also, there are alternative notability rules that undercut it. For three typical examples, consider:
- Wikipedia:Notability (academics), which says you can write an article about any university employee whose "academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions" – and the method of determining this is: a Wikipedia editor says so. Consider also "The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity", which has the same rule for figuring out whether the person is notable. As far as PROF is concerned, once you meet these allegedly "objective" requirements, the entire article can be sourced exclusively to the subject's CV.
- For Wikipedia:Notability (sports), which says nearly all professional athletes are notable. For most popular sports, an athlete is notable if he is paid to play a game even for one second. Under those rules, it's perfectly fine to determine notability from the team's website, and to use only the team's website to source the article. (In practice, that's not what experienced editors usually do, but it's "legal".)
- Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Entertainers says any actor who has had "significant roles in multiple" films/shows is notable. All you need to prove notability is the film credits (which are a primary+non-independent source). For American actors, "multiple" is generally interpreted as "two".
- We don't actually have a general rule requiring an independent source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- No. WP:N (you probably mean the GNG subsection of it) is a guideline, which some editors believe means that following it is optional. Also, there are alternative notability rules that undercut it. For three typical examples, consider:
- WhatamIdoing, I'm not sure you're correct in saying that "Complying with WP:V does not require [secondary] sources." WP:V, under 'Original research', says "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources. While primary sources are appropriate in some cases, relying on them can be problematic." Meanwhile, WP:NOR states "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."
- Taken together, this suggests to me that articles primarily based on primary sources are not allowed under current policy. I think these cruft-accumulating lists of fictional characters are exactly the sort of problematic issue the policies caution us about. In-depth descriptions of fictional characters may be "verifiable" in the most literal sense of the word, but they usually are not verifiable in reliable, secondary sources, which is a real problem. Wikipedia is not a plot sponge. Ganesha811 (talk) 20:52, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Ganesha811, I didn't say that, because I know that Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. We will never make progress on this subject if editors can't keep those two separate concepts straight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, fair enough, you're right - "third-party" sources are not necessarily the same as "secondary" sources. But I'm not sure what difference that makes to the rest of my reply - articles based primarily on primary sources are clearly discouraged by current policy. Ganesha811 (talk) 21:14, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Third-party reliable sources are very frequently not secondary sources. Most of the content in your local newspaper is primary, for example.
- It's also possible to have a secondary source that is not independent. A meta-analysis of your own prior research, or an analysis of all the reasons why your grandfather was the best _____ ever, would be secondary but non-independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, fair enough, you're right - "third-party" sources are not necessarily the same as "secondary" sources. But I'm not sure what difference that makes to the rest of my reply - articles based primarily on primary sources are clearly discouraged by current policy. Ganesha811 (talk) 21:14, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Ganesha811, I didn't say that, because I know that Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. We will never make progress on this subject if editors can't keep those two separate concepts straight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Actually, WP:V does say "Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." (under WP:SOURCE). "base" here wouldn't mean every source has to be independent (which by nature has to be third-party for fictional works), but that should imply a significant majority of content should be based on those independent sources. When coupled with WP:NOT#PLOT, that strongly implies that lists of characters that only stay to in-universe aspects and otherwise dont include external sources are violating two key policies. --Masem (t) 21:50, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, WP:V makes a recommendation to have articles WP:Based upon independent sources. However:
- you know that recommendation is routinely ignored, and sometimes vehemently rejected, in all of the cases I mention above, and
- that still doesn't mean that "any given sentence/list entry about a book/fictional universe" isn't fully compliant with WP:V.
- If we want every article to contain a citation to an independent source, we will have to change a policy to say "Add one or we will eventually delete it, even if you have an SNG rule/WikiProject opinion/20-year-long tradition that says you don't have to bother". And to make it happen, editors will have to agree that this is the right approach, even though that approach has some obvious downsides (e.g., making it much harder to write articles about professors who don't hire publicists). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think we need a change in V or NOT, if we are specifically codifying issues with fictional works. The fact that WP:V is ignored does not mean it is right. A lot of our issues on fiction are a combination that pre-WP:N days, these were some of the most popular and largest pages that were written (it was routinely joked that we had more on Pokemon than severe world topics) and we're still seeing these linger, and that there's the monkey-see, monkey-do aspect that newer editors see these lists and think that's appropriate (or they're coming from TV Tropes or Wikia and think the same ideas work). We want to try to tackles these, but in the least disruptive manner to those that have maintained those. That we can do by altering CSC and WAF - guidelines, not policy - to be explicit about the expectations for lists of characters or similar material.
- Also to keep in mind, we are specifically targetting the plot-related elements of a work. I can expect that you can find any random list of TV episodes and outside of ratings, it will be mostly unsourced. In that list, ignoring the short summaries, all those items (episode title, air date, etc.) are all things that can be sourced to the primary work, but that's because that's not the "fiction" of concern here. What we are worried about is keeping the short summaries concise there, and that's the type of thing that has to propagation to all elements involving a work's plot, whether on the main page about the work, a list of episodes, or a list of characters. NOT#PLOT specifically warns about this, and WAF echoes that. Unless you can provide the secondary or independent or third-party sourcing (it really doesn't matter), we do not want long summaries of a plot as that's just not encyclopedic. That's why when WP:V and WP:NOT are combined here, it clearly asserts that we should not be going into extreme depth about characters if they aren't discussed by outside sources, even if we can absolutely source that all to the primary work. --Masem (t) 01:43, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- Again: WP:V is not being ignored for any individual sentence or list entry in that entire page. WP:V is the policy that says you can source a novel's plot to the novel itself, remember? Every single sentence in that entire page complies with WP:V. WP:V is about individual claims, not whole articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, WP:V makes a recommendation to have articles WP:Based upon independent sources. However:
- @WhatamIdoing: Are you not describing WP:N? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think it's realistic to rethink our entire approach to fiction in this discussion (which would be a herculean task), my thoughts were that I don't see why we should restrict this reform exclusively to lists of characters, I think that whatever is decided here should apply generally to lists of fictional elements be it locations, items, powers, storylines or whatever. Masem's thoughts sound very reasonable, I think we need some kind of clarification to point two along the lines of "It should be noted that "not notable enough for a standalone article" does not mean that lists of unsourced or primarily sourced material are acceptable. Each entry should be supported by secondary sourcing that demonstrates why it belongs in the list." (The wording could really use some work). Whether this should just apply to fiction things or more generally I'm not sure. 192.76.8.91 (talk) 19:36, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sure, I see what you're saying - lists of fictional characters came to mind first, probably because they are more common than other lists of fictional things. The discussion could be renamed "Policies on lists of in-universe fictional things" or similar. Ganesha811 (talk) 20:55, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- 192.76, could you make up an example of something a secondary would need to say to justify the inclusion of an item in a list? Imagine that you're writing a List of Harry Potter characters or one of the Lists of superheroes. What's the minimum that you want the source to say, to demonstrate that Harry Potter, or Superman, or whatever other obvious content belongs in the list? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- Actually, inclusion in those two lists would be very different metrics. For the superhero list, since that's cross media, I would expect that inclusion must be based on either WP having a standalone article on the character specifically or multiple RSes that speak about the hero. Whereas for HP characters, that would be a level of discussion needed by consensus, but I would say it would have to start with all significant recurring characters in the books, major one-book figures, and the like. --Masem (t) 14:02, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's not answering my question about what a secondary source would need to say to justify its inclusion. The statement is "Each entry should be supported by secondary sourcing that demonstrates why it belongs in the list." Your proposal here about "significant recurring characters in the books, major one-book figures, and the like" means "use primary sources", and therefore does not answer my question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think there's an ambiguity with the request in the specific example of List of supporting Harry Potter characters. Would
secondary sourcing that demonstrates why it belongs in the list
be a source that calls the character in question a "supporting character"? Or is it simply enough secondary sources that prove the character is relevant enough to be considered "supporting"? —El Millo (talk) 19:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)- @Facu-el Millo, a secondary source provides some level of analysis. I'm not convinced that a sentence that says "Alice is a supporting character" counts as analysis. A paragraph or two that blathers on about something that would please your literature prof would count, but merely labeling all the characters except the protagonist as not being the protagonist doesn't sound like an analysis to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I was asking in order for it to be unambiguous and clear that there was no need for a reliable source to explicitly refer to the character as a "supporting character", that being significantly covered by reliable sources was what was required to be considered supporting, not as opposed to protagonist, but as opposed to minor or non-notable. —El Millo (talk) 01:19, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Facu-el Millo, a secondary source provides some level of analysis. I'm not convinced that a sentence that says "Alice is a supporting character" counts as analysis. A paragraph or two that blathers on about something that would please your literature prof would count, but merely labeling all the characters except the protagonist as not being the protagonist doesn't sound like an analysis to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think there's an ambiguity with the request in the specific example of List of supporting Harry Potter characters. Would
- That's not answering my question about what a secondary source would need to say to justify its inclusion. The statement is "Each entry should be supported by secondary sourcing that demonstrates why it belongs in the list." Your proposal here about "significant recurring characters in the books, major one-book figures, and the like" means "use primary sources", and therefore does not answer my question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Actually, inclusion in those two lists would be very different metrics. For the superhero list, since that's cross media, I would expect that inclusion must be based on either WP having a standalone article on the character specifically or multiple RSes that speak about the hero. Whereas for HP characters, that would be a level of discussion needed by consensus, but I would say it would have to start with all significant recurring characters in the books, major one-book figures, and the like. --Masem (t) 14:02, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- 192.76, could you make up an example of something a secondary would need to say to justify the inclusion of an item in a list? Imagine that you're writing a List of Harry Potter characters or one of the Lists of superheroes. What's the minimum that you want the source to say, to demonstrate that Harry Potter, or Superman, or whatever other obvious content belongs in the list? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sure, I see what you're saying - lists of fictional characters came to mind first, probably because they are more common than other lists of fictional things. The discussion could be renamed "Policies on lists of in-universe fictional things" or similar. Ganesha811 (talk) 20:55, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
Interesting findings with potential policy implications
Are admins aware of the findings just out from a recent trial on the Portuguese WP?
Long story short: Workload for admins is down more than 70%, account registrations are up, and editor retention and content contributions have been solid for the last three quarters since they turned off IP editing last October.
[[30]]
Tony (talk) 09:34, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- The business of IP editing has been discussed previously I think, don't know where though. I have always thought that IP editors should be allowed a trial period before deciding on a signup but other than that I think stopping IP editing is probably a good thing, on balance, especially if the metrics are as you say.Selfstudier (talk) 09:50, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- Does the study assess article quality (changes)? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:25, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't believe it does; that would be a subjective minefield, or would at least involve very tricky methodology. My question is: if someone wants to make worthwhile contributions, why not via a username (which is not outing oneself). It would bring a sense of responsibility and accountability. That would make admins' lives a bit easier too, I suspect. Tony (talk) 12:01, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Tony1 and Jo-Jo Eumerus: There is a way to more-or-less "objectively" assess changes in article qualty: ORES at https://ores.wikimedia.org/ui/ . This is an AI type application that "predicts" how a real person would rate the article based on certain inputs. I don't think they actually give the inputs (to prevent gaming the system), but these might include things like the number of words, # of references, sections, photos, infoboxes, nasty tags, external links, etc. It's a pretty good system as far as consistency of ratings, and updating (every version can be rated). Just as a demo I went to https://ores.wikimedia.org/ui/ , selected ptwiki and "article quality". I also input "59678632, 61772850" the permanent article version IDs, for "Porto" for the last version in October 2020 and for today's version (at ptwiki). The ratings turned out to be very similar - let's say "no change" for this one article. Well, it woulda helped if I read Portuguese! More likely articles to look at to see changes would be shorter and less viewed articles, or just a random sample of "new articles started Sept. 2020" vs "new articles started July 2021". It would be a lot of work to do right for a random sample of articles, but it could be done. (Maybe even do a cross-wiki comparison of the same articles over the same period, say pt vs es or en). Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:07, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't believe it does; that would be a subjective minefield, or would at least involve very tricky methodology. My question is: if someone wants to make worthwhile contributions, why not via a username (which is not outing oneself). It would bring a sense of responsibility and accountability. That would make admins' lives a bit easier too, I suspect. Tony (talk) 12:01, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think admin workload is already down on enwiki compared to a few years ago thanks to tools like edit filters, sophisticated bots and more comfortable scripts. For example, page views of WP:AIV have dropped from 589,000 in 2016 to 434,000 in 2020, despite 2020 being a year with a lot of people sitting at home with nothing to do but be online. On the other hand, there were 56 million edits in 2020 compared to 52 million in 2016. So overall edits have increased by ~8% but access to AIV has decreased by ~35% in the same time. I don't think we need to ban IP editing to really lessen the admin workload when there are so many other tools already doing that job. Of course, I also object to the idea on a philosophical level but that's a different discussion. Regards SoWhy 15:02, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- Some earlier research on the impact of IP editing, which I believe still holds up: m:Research:Value of IP Editing. --Yair rand (talk) 18:17, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- Annoyingly it didn't assess admin workload on the issue I most wanted to see - Checkuser requests, SPI (equivalent) backlogs, and similar. en-wiki already has too few active CUs, so any expansion on that aspect is a major negative to me. @Tony1: - presumably this hasn't notably affected, say, deletion closes, and a variety of other admin-tasks on pt-wiki, so how can a % be put on admin workload? Beyond that, some blocks take me ages to assess, others are under 3 minutes - I didn't see anything in the report trying to go as nuanced as assessed average time for various tasks, so even within the "blocks" section, how could an accurate workload figure be calculated? Nosebagbear (talk) 22:54, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- My expectation would be that IPs who vandalize focus such efforts on popular or controversial topics. If we are going to move in the direction of reducing IP editing, I would start with articles with the most potential for mischief (high-viewership, MedRes, politics, fringe theories). BD2412 T 02:25, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is not really true. Popular/controversial articles do attract a lot of vandalism as a side effect of attracting a lot of attention in general, but people will also vandalize stuff they're studying in school, pages off Random Article, really anything. In many cases the lower profile actually encourages it, because the vandalism is more likely to stick around indefinitely. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:50, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Many ip edits are very valuable, corrections by people with expert knowledge, and so on. Most are not. If it were technically possible, I'd favour a limit of say 10 on edits by any ip address, allowing experts to edit occasionally. After that you are told you need to register. Johnbod (talk) 15:05, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Another idea, aside from the technical limitations that might prevent it, is to allow IPs to edit as they do now. However, after a certain number of reversions in a given IP range, the range becomes flagged and registration becomes a requirement. The flag can then be set to exist for only X amount of days or weeks, and increases in duration with each repeat violation. Just thinking of a way to have the best of both worlds. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:18, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Except as we know, mobile editors aren't see all of these notices, so they'd just be wondering why they weren't allowed to edit Nosebagbear (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- True, but if it can be implemented in such a way as to simply direct them to the registration page (or a custom registration page with an explanation of why they were sent there), that might be a suitable replacement for missing the warning notices. Also, the same argument could be said about IP ranges that get blocked for vandalism: "What if they missed the notices?" Yet we still block them as needed. --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:20, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GoneIn60: There it's a question of damage. On a IP where significant vandalism has been occurring (enough to trigger a block), were we not to do the block, the odds are high for any specific future edit in the near future will also be problematic. Whereas, on an IP that has had 10 edits and not been blocked, then the likelihood is actually significantly lower than normal that any future edit would not be productive. Therefore the damage calculus when you can't communicate is entirely different. I, and others, also spend an inordinate amount of time handling the current non-communication cases, and would rather not have our work in that regard doubled. I'd be less hostile to a compromise solution like this than complete scrapping if you could get the WMF to sort these issues Nosebagbear (talk) 06:34, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nosebagbear, in the proposed scenario, the threshold could be something absurdly high like 10 reversions in a 72-hour period, which is a clear indication something's amiss with their editing behavior. The IP can still communicate by registering an account. This roadblock (for lack of a better term), would just be an additional hurdle they'd have to climb to continue editing. It's the inconvenience factor that would hopefully waste some of their time in return for wasting some of ours, without outright discriminating against IPs. Plenty of room to play with thresholds to ensure we are capturing the most disruptive of the bunch and at the same time reducing false positives. Appreciate your insight, however, and given your comments perhaps there's more to consider that I don't have the experience to weigh in on. --GoneIn60 (talk) 10:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GoneIn60: sorry I misread and thought you said edits, not reversions. If that's technically possible without too much work, I'd have no particular objection to that - even on a lower standard than 10/72hr, perhaps something like 6/72hr. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:27, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nosebagbear, in the proposed scenario, the threshold could be something absurdly high like 10 reversions in a 72-hour period, which is a clear indication something's amiss with their editing behavior. The IP can still communicate by registering an account. This roadblock (for lack of a better term), would just be an additional hurdle they'd have to climb to continue editing. It's the inconvenience factor that would hopefully waste some of their time in return for wasting some of ours, without outright discriminating against IPs. Plenty of room to play with thresholds to ensure we are capturing the most disruptive of the bunch and at the same time reducing false positives. Appreciate your insight, however, and given your comments perhaps there's more to consider that I don't have the experience to weigh in on. --GoneIn60 (talk) 10:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GoneIn60: There it's a question of damage. On a IP where significant vandalism has been occurring (enough to trigger a block), were we not to do the block, the odds are high for any specific future edit in the near future will also be problematic. Whereas, on an IP that has had 10 edits and not been blocked, then the likelihood is actually significantly lower than normal that any future edit would not be productive. Therefore the damage calculus when you can't communicate is entirely different. I, and others, also spend an inordinate amount of time handling the current non-communication cases, and would rather not have our work in that regard doubled. I'd be less hostile to a compromise solution like this than complete scrapping if you could get the WMF to sort these issues Nosebagbear (talk) 06:34, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- True, but if it can be implemented in such a way as to simply direct them to the registration page (or a custom registration page with an explanation of why they were sent there), that might be a suitable replacement for missing the warning notices. Also, the same argument could be said about IP ranges that get blocked for vandalism: "What if they missed the notices?" Yet we still block them as needed. --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:20, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm presenting on this topic at Wikimania this year and am writing it up as a paper at v:User:Wugapodes/WikiBreathing, so I'm not going to write much here particularly since the last time I reviewed this author's work I got no response. That aside, I've found that IP edits are valuable for more than their immediate contributions. These edits create meatball:PageChurn which brings pages to the top of recent changes and watch lists and prompt editors to regularly review articles that would otherwise be forgotten. Further, as SoWhy suggests, I support the findings of Kiene, Monroy-Hernández, and Mako Hill (2016) who found that technical tools are an important system for communities responding to rapid growth. The use of edit filters and ClueBot have reduced the workload of volunteers in general and allowed more time for review of good faith but imperfect contributions. — Wug·a·po·des 22:07, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think we can come up with better ways to churn the list, particularly given the sporadic nature of IP edits, which will leave some topics untouched even where they merit revisiting. BD2412 T 02:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would have thought so too, is there such a thing as lists of articles with no edits in (some time period)? Selfstudier (talk) 08:40, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles or Special:AncientPages? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 12:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. How can people not care about Kummer's function? Tsk.Selfstudier (talk) 14:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles or Special:AncientPages? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 12:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- For me, it's really useful to have IPs popping up with bad edits on news developments (e.g. TV show has just been renewed for a new season). It lets me know that I need to do a Google News search and write up the new development properly. I would hazard a guess that many of these IPs would not bother to drop their note in the lead saying "This is coming back for season 3" if they had to register for an account (or remember the bloody password to the account they registered 3 years ago...). There is no adequate substitute to this atomically precise page churning (even a Google Alert search wouldn't substitute because it would give a lot of false positives on minor developments; and a pageviews analysis would also not substitute because spikes aren't always major developments). — Bilorv (talk) 23:10, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would have thought so too, is there such a thing as lists of articles with no edits in (some time period)? Selfstudier (talk) 08:40, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think we can come up with better ways to churn the list, particularly given the sporadic nature of IP edits, which will leave some topics untouched even where they merit revisiting. BD2412 T 02:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Are there any recent (ie, last 5 yrs) studies re IP editing on Wikipedia? (eg on how much IPs contribute towards building an article.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:30, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
Page moves are edits and can count as reverts?
A discussion at AE raised the question of whether a page move can be considered as a revert. There was a semi consensus that it could be but that the policy is not 100% clear on the point. Comments? Selfstudier (talk) 19:03, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: page moves are not "edits", they are "actions". Please note, WP:3RR calls out "actions" in the edit warring policy. If some arbitration remedy only applies to "edits" and you think it should apply to "edits or actions" you should seek clarification or amendment to the remedy. — xaosflux Talk 19:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, it says
An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert.
So... a revert is an edit that undoes another editor's action(s)? If you make the distinction between edits and actions then page moves seem not to be coverred. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:47, 13 August 2021 (UTC)- @ProcrastinatingReader: as far as the edit warring policy goes, it specifically calls out:
A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors...
- this demonstrates that while edits and actions (such as page moves) are different, for the purpose of reverts in the scope of the edit warring policy they are equally relevant. — xaosflux Talk 21:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)- I don't follow your reading, xaosflux, unless you're saying a move is an admin action? If a move isn't an edit, it can't be an edit that reverses someone else's action. (nb I'm only disagreeing with the reasoning here, not the principle; of course move warring is the same thing as edit warring) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: yes, I'm saying that it is an administrative action - as in an action done in the administration of the encyclopedia - not necessarily only an action performed by a sysop. The same could be said for other non-edit actions such as: repeatedly changing a page's content model, repeatedly changing the current version of a file, or the marking as reviewed and unreviewed of a page. To be clear I'm 100% in agreement that the edit warring policy applies if editors are repeatedly reversing "moves". — xaosflux Talk 21:19, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't follow your reading, xaosflux, unless you're saying a move is an admin action? If a move isn't an edit, it can't be an edit that reverses someone else's action. (nb I'm only disagreeing with the reasoning here, not the principle; of course move warring is the same thing as edit warring) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: as far as the edit warring policy goes, it specifically calls out:
- Well, it says
- Page moves are definitely "edits." Differentiating between "edits" and other "actions" is wikilawyering IMO (that is, making a distinction without a difference). A change to content is a change to content, and the article's title is definitely part of "content." Levivich 19:50, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Levivich Yeah, I would agree, but the problem is that the ARBPIA 1RR restriction (which is the issue here) states "One Revert Restriction (1RR): Each editor is limited to one revert per page per 24 hours on any edits made to content within the area of conflict." and one could argue that changing the page name doesn't change its content (I probably wouldn't, but you certainly could). Black Kite (talk) 20:13, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I certainly could, hell I could argue about anything, I'll argue about whether water is wet. But if I did, no one would agree with me, because everyone agrees that water is wet and also that title disputes are content disputes, and therefore titles are content, and therefore a change to a title is a change to content, and therefore a move is an edit. Levivich 20:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'd use the term "semantic quibble" rather than "wikilawyering", but I think the core thing here is that yes, whatever label we choose for page moves, they're clearly something that you can't war over any more than you can over an article's wording. (If anything, the controls should be even tighter, because moving a page is more disruptive.) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:54, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Levivich Yeah, I would agree, but the problem is that the ARBPIA 1RR restriction (which is the issue here) states "One Revert Restriction (1RR): Each editor is limited to one revert per page per 24 hours on any edits made to content within the area of conflict." and one could argue that changing the page name doesn't change its content (I probably wouldn't, but you certainly could). Black Kite (talk) 20:13, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: I suppose some better context for this discussion may be helpful? This is VPP, so is there a specific policy that you have a question about or want to make a change in? VPP is not the correct forum to debate remedies imposed upon the community by arbcom cases. — xaosflux Talk 20:59, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I just followed the suggestion from Ymblanter there, he suggested an RFC here, it's supposed to be for policy, right? Although the AE case is the immediate context, I didn't post this here with the intention of further debating that case, I am guessing there are several potentially affected policies if we did want to be able to count page moves as reverts.Selfstudier (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is that this seems to be asking for a clarification of what Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel_articles#ARBPIA_General_Sanctions encompasses - RfC's are not the way to clarify arbcom remedies - WP:ARCA is. The remedy calls for a very exacting control to be imposed as the committee would have found it necessary to create the control after finding that the community policy was insufficient for the specific conflict. — xaosflux Talk 22:54, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I am only asking what people think about defining page moves as edits (nothing to do with Arbpia at this point it is mainly about edit warring) so that they then can be counted as reverts without a debate, if there is agreement on that, then we can have a look at what policies need fixing up (here's an example, not saying we should do this but Guild Wars Wiki:One-revert rule is specific, "Undoing page moves ("move warring"), recreating deleted pages, and similar activities are also considered reverts." Selfstudier (talk) 23:13, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is that this seems to be asking for a clarification of what Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel_articles#ARBPIA_General_Sanctions encompasses - RfC's are not the way to clarify arbcom remedies - WP:ARCA is. The remedy calls for a very exacting control to be imposed as the committee would have found it necessary to create the control after finding that the community policy was insufficient for the specific conflict. — xaosflux Talk 22:54, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I just followed the suggestion from Ymblanter there, he suggested an RFC here, it's supposed to be for policy, right? Although the AE case is the immediate context, I didn't post this here with the intention of further debating that case, I am guessing there are several potentially affected policies if we did want to be able to count page moves as reverts.Selfstudier (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- For non arbcom-remedy purposes, I don't see any reason we need to call a "move" an "edit" as opposed to an action. The edit warring policy already covers both edits and actions, though it could be spelled out better. Perhaps improving: An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert. to An edit,action, or a series of consecutive edits or actions that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert. ? — xaosflux Talk 01:48, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- The crux of the matter seems to be whether the article title is part of the article content. I think it would be an absurd situation if section titles were content but the article title was not. Following from this, I believe that a page move is clearly an edit even if it is also an action. But the main thing is that warring over the title should not come with a get-out-jail-free card based on the meaning of "edit". One way or another, this needs to be clarified. Zerotalk 05:08, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Zero0000: what policy is ambiguous over the term "content"? — xaosflux Talk 07:47, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Heh, I did try to find out what the definition of content was and gave up but I am no expert in these things.Selfstudier (talk) 08:48, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: @Selfstudier: The policy page WP:Edit warring uses the concept "content" multiple times without ever defining it. My idea is to add a statement that the page title is part of its content so that nobody can claim it isn't. Zerotalk 01:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- WP:Article titles is classified as a content policy in both its categorisation in Category:Wikipedia content policies and position on {{Wikipedia policies and guidelines}}, however it is not the same sort of content as article prose - as evidenced by the need for distinct policies and guidelines. Thryduulf (talk) 12:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Zero0000: what policy is ambiguous over the term "content"? — xaosflux Talk 07:47, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's rare that you can change a title without a change in content. Doug Weller talk 13:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Of course titles are covered by 3RR or any of the other edit-warring stipulations, including all 1RR restrictions, ArbCom sanctions, and the like. The clear purpose of all such restrictions on reverts is to prevent people from fighting in the article space over matters that should be resolved on talk pages first. Any back-and-forth anything (use literally any words you want here, "action", "edit", whatever) is covered by all policies. If you're making back-and-forth changes to anything with someone else, you're edit warring, and subject to whatever restrictions are coming your way. --Jayron32 18:20, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- The defense, move not an edit/not content, failed in the case giving rise to the question I posed at the outset. So there now exists a consensus along the lines of the comment above which can be pointed to in the future should the need arise. Still, it seems reasonable to go ahead and implement Xaosflux suggested amend above? Selfstudier (talk) 07:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Consensus vs Guideline
Does a consensus substitute for a non-existing guideline? An example in point is the consensus in aircraft crashes to not name survivors, dead, or those who miss the plane unless they are WP notable. In 1960 New York mid-air collision, for example, addition of the sole survivor's name gets reverted with reference to the consensus, but there is no named guideline for this. Jay (Talk) 11:02, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nearly all decisions made about content are on the basis of consensus, rather than anything spelt out exactly by a guideline. Indeed, guidelines themselves are simply a reflection of consensus when it needs to be spelt out explicitly. I find this a rather strange question for a long-standing admin to be asking, so maybe I am missing something? Phil Bridger (talk) 11:46, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have gone by guideline where possible. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." If train or boating disasters, or shooting events articles do not have a restriction on naming victims or survivors, what is the applicability of a local consensus for aircraft accidents, in the absence of a guideline? (I'm a long standing admin, but I've had my breaks.) Jay (Talk) 14:34, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Unless there is some guideline or specific consensus calling for the inclusion of the name of survivors (rather than just something we do sometimes), then choosing not to include them is not overriding a guideline or a consensus. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have gone by guideline where possible. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." If train or boating disasters, or shooting events articles do not have a restriction on naming victims or survivors, what is the applicability of a local consensus for aircraft accidents, in the absence of a guideline? (I'm a long standing admin, but I've had my breaks.) Jay (Talk) 14:34, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Provided that no policy or guideline mandates or prohibits a particular action, then a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS rules the day, and attempts to change that without discussion may be swiftly reverted. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:26, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Consensus carries up a hierarchy. It starts with consensus on one article, so long as there is no wider principle violated, then the consensus for that one article stands. If there is a consensus that covers a group of similar articles, then individual articles in that group should not override that wider consensus, and likewise, if there is a site-wide consensus, then consensuses decided at the "group of articles" level cannot override the site-wide consensus. That's the essence of what WP:LOCALCONSENSUS says... If there is a wider, further reaching consensus on an issue, obey that. If not, it's decided on the article level. --Jayron32 12:44, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- For purposes of this discussion, I am now clear that a consensus is acceptable as long as there is no conflict with a guideline. For the specific example of naming people based on events, WP:BIO1E says: "When the role played by an individual in the event is less significant, an independent article may not be needed, and a redirect is appropriate." Per WP:R#ASTONISH, the target should try to make sure to have a mention of the redirect title, to avoid the element of surprise. Hence, I will go with when a guideline implies supporting something, a local consensus should not oppose it. Jay (Talk) 10:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Copyright suppression and loss of inordinately large amounts of revision information
When revisions are suppressed, tools like WIKIBLAME don't work. In addition, valuable information on the revision history, which may be important to SPI investigations, or for researchers outside WP are lost. Without getting into BEANS territory, it seems that if a piece of copyrighted work is inserted, and it remains, the only solution to remove it is to essentially expunge every occurence of it in the revision history - an example can be found here, where over a year's worth of revision histories are suppressed.
Obviously the opportunities for abuse are rife. I wonder if it could be improved upon with a tool that allows specific text in a revision history to be removed, so that diffs still work, but with the suppressed text replaced perhaps by template:redacted, so that the objectionable text would just look like (Redacted)? 69.172.145.94 (talk) 19:26, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @69.172.145.94: just as a helpful note, because it made me interpret your comments very differently. Suppression is what Oversighters do, copyright problems as you discuss are dealt with by revision deleting "revdelling". Nosebagbear (talk) 09:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- In my opinion: If copyrighted material is believed to fall short of WP:NFCC, but still complies with the legal definition of fair use, then we should not redact the offending revisions. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:41, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just to add: We keep plenty of things in the history which are policy violations (e.g. POV pushing, statements not sourced to reliable sources, etc.) so we should only redact when it is not legal for us to host it or when the benefits of redaction outweigh the costs. I would put legal NFCC violations and contributions by banned users in the latter category; when there are no other significant edits, then sure, get rid of it, but not when redacting it also throws out legitimate diffs from other users. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:34, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not only is "fair use" very difficult to define enough to tell if it is fair use (it's a weighing test, not a bright line in the sand), the fact that something has been deleted from the article makes it harder (in this not-a-lawyer's eyes) to argue that it meets fair use. The first of the four tests for fair use gives some leeway for "nonprofit educational" use, and when the material is part of the current version of the article, we can claim that it's presence serves a clear educational purpose. However, if we're not revdeling previous invocations simple to maintain access to the history of revisions of that article, that would seem harder to argue as being "educational". --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:48, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just to add: We keep plenty of things in the history which are policy violations (e.g. POV pushing, statements not sourced to reliable sources, etc.) so we should only redact when it is not legal for us to host it or when the benefits of redaction outweigh the costs. I would put legal NFCC violations and contributions by banned users in the latter category; when there are no other significant edits, then sure, get rid of it, but not when redacting it also throws out legitimate diffs from other users. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:34, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- +1, we should reduce the revdeling. Levivich 21:13, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I feel like this should be a policy change - copyright is fundamentally not so fatal a problem that it requires us to throw out revision histories. As long as it's not on the content page, no reasonable court is going to conclude that the project is wilfully or recklessly trying to infringe the IP rights of the copyright holders, ie as user:King of Hearts said. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 01:33, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Assuming we're talking only copyright text (like the revdel'd lyrics above), we do need to balance how much revdel is needed versus how much we could defend fair use. The issue with something like the copyrighted lyrics is that the whole of those were included which is pretty much against one of the four factors in considering fair use (the extend of material used) as well as the potential commercial value. It would different if we were talking, say, someone that copy-pasted 4 paragraphs out of 20 from a NYTimes article - that would be something while against our copyright policy, would not make sense to revdel away since there's some potential fair use factors to be defended. Only when the copyvio is very much whole and clearcut should we revdel. --Masem (t) 03:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Masem:, surely there must be better ways to revdel than a binary yes/no decision? If the objectionable content is the copyrighted text - we already have the redacted template for that. The binary choice is what's fundamentally problematic about this. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 03:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- The issue is that something like the full lyrics would remind in the article's history from the point of their insertion, and that history is searchable. A partial copyright violation that can be revdel isn't as bad as a problem, but if we're weighing all fair use factors, full inclusion of a work that has commercial value (like lyrics) means we've failed 2 of 4 fair use evaluations, and that's probably a good reason to strip via revdel. --Masem (t) 03:33, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Masem:: Except this puts the person evaluating the revdel into being in a position of a legal scholar beyond most legal scholars. You may think a 4 paragraph chunk out of a 20 paragraph piece is fine, but in Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, the court ruled against using 400 words out of a 500 page book, a fraction of a percent of the work. --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:21, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Which is why that if such revdel situations come up, where one is talking dozens of diffs to be revdel that would clearly impact the history of the article, there should be an AN-type discussion to try to judge the weight of the potential history disruption to the copyright necessity. No, most admins aren't copyright lawyers either, but a group judgement towards how bad this looks is better than nothing, and most admins do know the value of respecting copyright. --Masem (t) 12:26, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I sigh at the idea of making removing copyvios even more cumbersome. Were we to go down the path you suggest, it should be as a remedial effort -- i.e., we revdel, and then if there are any concerns voiced about said revdel or active need for general access to the history that was revdel'd, the revedeling can be reviewed, rather than being something that had to be gone through every time such a revdel had taken place. --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:35, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Which is why that if such revdel situations come up, where one is talking dozens of diffs to be revdel that would clearly impact the history of the article, there should be an AN-type discussion to try to judge the weight of the potential history disruption to the copyright necessity. No, most admins aren't copyright lawyers either, but a group judgement towards how bad this looks is better than nothing, and most admins do know the value of respecting copyright. --Masem (t) 12:26, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Masem:, surely there must be better ways to revdel than a binary yes/no decision? If the objectionable content is the copyrighted text - we already have the redacted template for that. The binary choice is what's fundamentally problematic about this. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 03:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- My understanding is that there are two issues. Violation of the copyright by including the copyrighted material, and the development of a derivative work based on that copyrighted material. Even if the material is removed from the article, there's still an argument that it remains in history and that the subsequent versions, by building on the copyrighted material, are in turn derivative works. - Bilby (talk) 07:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Correct me if I'm wrong but I think most copyright revdel is done contra revdel policy, or at least with apathy toward it, meaning no one checks if the revdel would be policy compliant. Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:42, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- On reading that, I agree that revdel is not appropriate if there has been an intermediate edit (so the above example is an inappropriate revdel use). That said, we then are left with no mechanism of dealing with flagrant copyright issues (what we'd be uncomfortable keeping even taking a broad view of fair use) that may have been added long in the past. This might be a question to ask WMF legal about - while we can revdel immediate copyright violations without issue, are we risking WMF's legal place by leaving these older copyright vios in place? --Masem (t) 13:04, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- One example that comes to mind is Syrian Kurdistan, where 30+ revs were deleted in January because of one sentence deemed "too close paraphrase" (which isn't even a copyright violation, it's plagiarism). Levivich 13:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Isn't the obligation to remove content upon receipt of a DMCA request? Until then, the publisher is protected. So I don't see why it's a legal problem at all. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:33, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- And on the other end, even for sizable and blatant violations, if there have been say hundreds of revisions in the interim, revdels have been declined. So, I think it would be fair to say that copyvio revdel, as it is done currently, is neither consistent nor policy compliant. I think it would help to get clarification on what cv-revdel is, exactly. Is it no more than non-compulsory good practice or is it required? Is it a legal issue or need it only be done if the owner requests a takedown (or maybe the revisions need to be permanently deleted from the server if the owner requests)? Which is more important, making sure all revisions are publicly attributed (a case can be made that attribution is present after revdel, only more restricted, though that's not what revdel policy says), or making sure all copyright violations are hidden from the public? Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's why I suggested now might be a good time to contact WMF Legal to ask about this situation - in that should we worry about clear, well-beyond fair use copyright violations that may exist hundreds of revisions in a page's history, in terms of WMF's legal concerns? If they do feel this is an issue, then we need to talk about fixing up revdel to address that situation. If they don't think this is a problem, then absolutely the current state of copyvio revdels (in which at least one intermediate has been made that retains the copyvio) is unnecessary per REVDEL policy. --Masem (t) 14:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- On reading that, I agree that revdel is not appropriate if there has been an intermediate edit (so the above example is an inappropriate revdel use). That said, we then are left with no mechanism of dealing with flagrant copyright issues (what we'd be uncomfortable keeping even taking a broad view of fair use) that may have been added long in the past. This might be a question to ask WMF legal about - while we can revdel immediate copyright violations without issue, are we risking WMF's legal place by leaving these older copyright vios in place? --Masem (t) 13:04, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Masem:, @Usedtobecool:, @ProcrastinatingReader:, I agree that it'd be a good idea to get WMF legal's view on this. However, I don't think Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises is relevant law here - in that case, actual harm was done, and the main purpose of the infringing work was to, in the view of the court, acquire profit whilst informing the public of the memoir. In the case of granular revision deletion and suppression, the text is not actually going to be present, it would be redacted as revdels already are. I also object to the notion that revdels should be a "shoot first ask questions later" policy. In your experience, how many revdels are actually challenged? For most editors, going after an admin, asking them to review a revdel, especially if its just to do an SPI or whatever is a hassle - with no guarantee of any results. Admins are frankly already heavily burdened - having to follow up on bespoke requests to review revdels would be a major time sink. This whole problem would be avoided by judicious use of revdel along with a more granular tool that doesn't wholesale delete revisions. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 20:37, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- The idea of a granular revdel is simply something that doesn't exist in the mediawiki source. All a revdel can do is hide the whole of the change (including the page that results from it), the user that made it, and/or the edit summary. --Masem (t) 21:21, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hence, the need for a technical patch to the MW source code. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- It still wouldn't work. Let's say an editor inserter 20k of words of copyright and super-close plagarism to be a problem, but lets assume this was prose rather that a clear block of material like the lyrics. Other editors then may come along and add material internally and external to that block ,perhaps unaware of the issue about copyright. Now even if we could partially revert just the copyviols, that would leave those other contributions in the cold. --Masem (t) 03:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hence, the need for a technical patch to the MW source code. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- The idea of a granular revdel is simply something that doesn't exist in the mediawiki source. All a revdel can do is hide the whole of the change (including the page that results from it), the user that made it, and/or the edit summary. --Masem (t) 21:21, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Masem:, @Usedtobecool:, @ProcrastinatingReader:, I agree that it'd be a good idea to get WMF legal's view on this. However, I don't think Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises is relevant law here - in that case, actual harm was done, and the main purpose of the infringing work was to, in the view of the court, acquire profit whilst informing the public of the memoir. In the case of granular revision deletion and suppression, the text is not actually going to be present, it would be redacted as revdels already are. I also object to the notion that revdels should be a "shoot first ask questions later" policy. In your experience, how many revdels are actually challenged? For most editors, going after an admin, asking them to review a revdel, especially if its just to do an SPI or whatever is a hassle - with no guarantee of any results. Admins are frankly already heavily burdened - having to follow up on bespoke requests to review revdels would be a major time sink. This whole problem would be avoided by judicious use of revdel along with a more granular tool that doesn't wholesale delete revisions. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 20:37, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- This would require several things: confirmation that we'd be clearly safe on copyright grounds with whatever method we went to; technical methodology if we're opting for anything other than "revdel less"; technical methodology that was sufficient so that workload did not increase. I think all of those are going to be too big hurdles to jump. The copyright situation is going to vary, wildly, depending on circumstances. Then it would be a significant mediawiki patch, plus the testing, and I think proving it's necessary could be tough. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct - Enforcement draft guidelines review
- Full announcement in other languages
The Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee would like comments about the enforcement draft guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). This review period is planned for 17 August 2021 through 17 October 2021.
These guidelines are not final but you can help move the progress forward. Provide comments about these guidelines by 17 October 2021. The committee will be revising the guidelines based upon community input. Comments are invited at Wikipedia:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement draft guidelines review or at the draft review talk page on Meta in any language, talk pages of translations, local discussions, round-table discussions, conversation hours, through other forms of outreach, and by email to ucocprojectwikimedia.org.
Input from Wikimedia communities has been gathered throughout the UCoC project. The collected material was reviewed by a drafting committee of 11 volunteers and four Wikimedia Foundation staff members. They met over several months to produce the enforcement draft guidelines for a comprehensive community review. The input collected will be used to further refine the guidelines.
Discussions will be summarized and presented to the Drafting Committee every two weeks. The summaries will be published here.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- As you might know I have been serving on a committee that has been writing how the Universal Code will be enforced. While a lot of work has been done, there is a lot of work to be done, and crucial questions remain open. I am hoping that we can get a wide range of English Wikipedians contributing feedback and offering answers to the open questions from the committee. Notably many of the details around what can/will be enforced on a local basis and what can/will be enforced by a global body remain undecided. This has historically been something many on English Wikipedia have strong opinions about, from many perspectives, and I hope that those many perspectives are represented in the feedback process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
24 hour wait proposal
Proposed modification to WP:BLOCK:
That once an account is blocked by an administrator, other administrators must wait at least 24 hours before unblocking that account.
During the initial 24 hours, the account may only be unblocked by the initial blocking administrator or due to community consensus.
While unblock may be requested at any time by the account blocked, as normal - as stated above, during the initial 24 hours, the request can not be approved except by the initial blocking admin, or by community consensus.
(Note: This does not affect anything “above” the admin level, like arbcom taking over a block, or steward action, etc.)
Added for clarity: The initially blocking admin (just like the community) can obviously give consent that some other uninvolved admin may unblock during that initial 24 hour period (such as specifically asking for help with a technical blocking issue). In such a case, they do not have to be the one to actually press the unblock button. They can also set clear criteria for unblocking, such as: "If xyz is done, then any uninvolved admin may unblock", such as in the case of a username block.. - jc37 19:30, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
I think we’ve all seen it. An editor is blocked, and another admin says I don’t think so, and unblocks, and drama ensues.
I would like to see blocking and unblocking to have a bit more thoughtful approach.
There is somewhat a precedent for this: when asking for a return of the admin tools, bureaucrats now wait 24 hours before returning them. This happened due to an event where a lone bureaucrat decided to return tools while others were declining, or at least thinking about whether this should be done.
So a 24-hour wait time was put into place.
I think that this would be of similar value here.
Yes, this would potentially make all uncontested blocks a minimum of 24 hours.
Given that blocks are “preventative not punitive”, I think there is a value to taking time to ask why someone was blocked and to discuss before unblocking.
Finally, just adding that “there is no deadline”, and that 24 hours is a rather short period of time. And after that initial 24 hours, someone could still unblock.
And in the case of a community overturned block, a note can be placed in the block log.
This last point is important. When you feel that you have been inappropriately blocked and an admin unblocked you, and the initial blocking admin refuses to agree. You are left with a block log giving no real sense of what is accurate. It could easily be seen in the minds of some that: 2 admins, each with a contrary view = no consensus.
But the community overturning = consensus.
So I think if the blocking admin is aware that this block is going to stand for 24 hours, they are also going to be a bit more thoughtful about placing a block. That is potentially 24 hours of discussion, not just about the blocked individual, but about the admin’s action as well.
This should help with potentially over-quick actions and reactions. And should help at least some with that “second mover advantage” that is heard spoken about.
And if the community keeps needing to be called in to undo an admin’s blocking action, I think it’s likely that they are more likely to see the community take a look at whether the admin should have the tools at all.
I think that this would create heightened awareness across the board.
I look forward to your thoughts. - jc37 03:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Discussion (24 hour wait proposal)
- Support – as proposer. - jc37 03:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Snow close this has no chance of ever passing. For "An editor is blocked, and another admin says I don’t think so, and unblocks, and drama ensues.", that's covered by WP:WHEELWAR. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank youfor sharing your thoughts. Though when I look at the close here (a restriction even stricter than the one I propose here), I kind of doubt your assertion of "no chance". I look forward to the thoughts of the rest of the community. - jc37 03:58, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jc37: See what llywrch (talk · contribs) had to say about that: Further, I'll admit that I did not know it was policy to first discuss an unblock with the blocking admin. I've been around Wikipedia so long (I became an admin before many people here even joined Wikipedia) that I believe I've internalized the Tao of Wikipedia, & thus don't review policy pages when I'm confident what the right action should be. I promise not to reverse a block without consulting the involved admin again. Emphasis mine. Having more policy that already covers existing policy serves no purpose. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:12, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's presumptuous to cast a "snow close" as a first !vote. My initial reaction was also "fo nucking way," but once I read the proposal, it made me think, and now I'm no longer sure how to !vote. I look forward to reading others' thoughts. Levivich 04:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank youfor sharing your thoughts. Though when I look at the close here (a restriction even stricter than the one I propose here), I kind of doubt your assertion of "no chance". I look forward to the thoughts of the rest of the community. - jc37 03:58, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support - WP:WHEELWAR does not preclude the initial reversal of an administrative action, It precludes the reinstatement of that reversed action (often called the "
1st2nd mover advantage"). This proposal would effectively table that advantage for 24 hours and, I believe, significantly reduce the drama surrounding its exercise.--John Cline (talk) 05:09, 18 August 2021 (UTC) - Support the general principle that there should be a minimum of 24 hours before a block can be reversed by another admin as a unilateral action. If an admin is blocking someone, a 24 hour time out will cool things down more often than not. It might also stimulate discussion BEFORE the block is undone, which I'd like to see. That being said, the way this proposal is written seems to imply that all blocks now, at the minimum, need to be 24 hours long. I would assume that was just ambiguous until I read that the proposer acknowledges that this will "potentially make all uncontested blocks a minimum of 24 hours". I don't like this and I'd like to see lee-way granted to admins to be allowed to give blocks shorter than 24 hours. I'd also like to see some sort of mechanism for people to appeal blocks that they felt were unjustified even after they expire. While blocks are supposedly meant to be preventative and not punitive in all honesty being blocked feels like a "black mark" for a lot of people and is often treated as one. This is relevant to this specific proposal as I'd like to see a check on admins who might otherwise hand out bad 24 hour blocks with the knowledge that they can't be appealed. Likewise this would deal with an admin that would repeatedly perform 24 hour blocks to get around the scrutiny that would apply to a longer block. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 05:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC) - The generally supported view in the past was that it should be easy to reverse contentious administrative actions, restoring the status quo, with an ensuing community discussion to determine consensus going forward. In the case of editors who have had their sanctions lifted, this helps avoid shifting the onus to proving the sanctions are unnecessary, as opposed to the default situation where sanctions must be justified. The question at hand is whether or not maverick reversals are a greater concern than poor initial actions, and if the resulting tradeoffs in dealing with one versus the other are worthwhile. Note a fixed moratorium period means that unjustified blocks will be locked into place. I would urge everyone to carefully consider the principle of giving editors the benefit of doubt, which might be better served without a moratorium on reversal of sanctions. isaacl (talk) 06:04, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- On balance, I think the consequences of a poor block (such as a new editor being incorrectly labelled as a sockpuppet) are likely to have a greater impact that the consequences of a poor unblock, where the discussion on imposing sanctions can take place in much the same way (with the notable exception of the direct participation of the unblocked editor, but generally they would have been still able to participate indirectly). Thus I do not support a 24-hour moratorium period. However I am open to other procedures to ensure that unblocks receive some due consideration by more than one administrator. isaacl (talk) 20:01, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support - I think. Interested to hear further views, but this in a sense just reinforces the existing policy that blocking admins should be consulted before their blocks are reversed. And, importantly, it avoids the sort of confrontational back-and-forth blocks and unblocks which we saw recently. Of course, there are sometimes blocks which are blatantly ill-considered, but the option of unblocking by consensus of the community remains for those cases, in the event that the blocking admin is away or refuses to back down. So yes, for now I'd support this for unilateral unblocks. I may reconsider if anyone makes a strong counterargument though! — Amakuru (talk) 08:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support. I wasn't expecting to support, but having actually read the proposal I think the requirement to slow down and discus things before unblocking is a good one. It does allow for the original admin to unblock sooner (accidents and misunderstandings happen) and for another admin to unblock when there is a community consensus (although I'd prefer that to be specified as a clear community consensus. Although not specified, I can't imagine a block being overturned sooner when the blocking admin explicitly gives permission or explicitly raises no objections will get anyone into trouble. I see these as adequate safeguards against misuse. Thryduulf (talk) 10:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose the detail that all blocks themselves would have a minimium length of 24h. DMacks (talk) 10:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @DMacks, a minimum length of 24 hours is not a consequence of this proposal, as the blocking administrator or community could unblock before then. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:25, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- As the proposal says, "Yes, this would potentially make all uncontested blocks a minimum of 24 hours.". Others have noted that we woud potentially have deferred action or require a bunch of us to SNOW pile-on for what should be routine unblock for curable situations, such as rename for a username violation or retracted legal threats. DMacks (talk) 04:21, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @DMacks, I don't think that's true, though. There's nothing here that would prevent an admin from issuing a one-hour block. It's just the longer-than-24-hours blocks that would have an effective minimum. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's quite possible. I was going first by the strict reading of the proposal and proposer's initial statement about it. If the proposer wishes to clarify or change that detail of the explanation, or the proposal itself to circumvent that detail, I'd be happy to re-consider this aspect of my objection. But I also object to this proposal even with the more liberal reading. DMacks (talk) 06:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- @DMacks, I don't think that's true, though. There's nothing here that would prevent an admin from issuing a one-hour block. It's just the longer-than-24-hours blocks that would have an effective minimum. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- As the proposal says, "Yes, this would potentially make all uncontested blocks a minimum of 24 hours.". Others have noted that we woud potentially have deferred action or require a bunch of us to SNOW pile-on for what should be routine unblock for curable situations, such as rename for a username violation or retracted legal threats. DMacks (talk) 04:21, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @DMacks, a minimum length of 24 hours is not a consequence of this proposal, as the blocking administrator or community could unblock before then. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:25, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support "administrators must wait at least 24 hours before unblocking that account." (absent manifest error).Selfstudier (talk) 10:23, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Alternative: address unblocks w/o discussion I agree there is a problem. However, I'd prefer a change to allow an uninvolved administrator to have the option to undo an unblock (i.e. re-block) when the unblocking admin did not follow WP:RAAA and discuss first with the blocking admin:
Administrators may disagree, but administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought, and (if likely to be objected to), where the administrator is presently available, a brief discussion with the administrator whose action is challenged.
As it is today, unilateral unblocks are cemented due to WP:WHEEL. Any ensuing discussion will have WP:NOTPUNITIVE creep in after hours pass, claiming the editor in question is no longer a threat. Welcome to the WP:UNBLOCKABLES. The other issue with a non-negotiable 24 hour wait are reversals where there is "good cause" and not "likely to be objected to" by the community, as currently allowed by WP:RAAA.—Bagumba (talk) 11:00, 18 August 2021 (UTC) - Comment. At the very least, "may only be unblocked by the initial blocking administrator" should be "may only be unblocked with consent of the initial blocking administrator". It doesn't make a difference who actually performs it. I'm not convinced of the need for this. In my experience, precipitate blocks are a lot more common than precipitate unblocks. Zerotalk 11:49, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- +1 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:06, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose As Headbomb noted, we don't need more rules when the problem was because someone had been unaware of the existing rules. We also don't really need "an editor is blocked during an ANI about them, and drama ensues". Then again, once it has reached ANI the drama has probably already ensued. Anomie⚔ 11:59, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose as this provides an incentive to block for 24 hours or less. In some circumstances this would likely mean that blocks would be shorter and in other circumstances it might mean that they're made longer because it's covered under this provision. If a block is wrong and it's a 3 hour block that user is entitled to relief just as much if a block is wrong and is a 3 week block. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's an interesting point. Perhaps some of the admins who frequently review unblock requests (eg @Yamla and NinjaRobotPirate) can comment on how frequent it is to see actually bad blocks being overturned on appeal, so obviously bad that there is no discussion with the blocking admin? Similarly, how often does the "quick unblock of legitimate block" issue occur? (I suspect both are rarities.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: Of the admins that have performed unblocks in the time period covered by the recentchanges table, in order of number of unblocks, you want Oshwah, Cabayi, 331dot, and Deepfriedokra (I'm the fifth on the list). !ɘM γɿɘυϘ⅃ϘƧ 11:35, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Exclude the m:Global renamers from that list who I suspect are unblocking following the renaming of a soft-blocked user (I know I am), and you're top of the list. Cabayi (talk) 17:17, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: Of the admins that have performed unblocks in the time period covered by the recentchanges table, in order of number of unblocks, you want Oshwah, Cabayi, 331dot, and Deepfriedokra (I'm the fifth on the list). !ɘM γɿɘυϘ⅃ϘƧ 11:35, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- By my (and possibly others') reading, it makes blocks <24h disallowed, not just essentially un-overturnable. DMacks (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- As I mentioned, people playing games (in your example, with block lengths) are likely to looked over more often / more closely by the community. I would imagine the community would frown on such things.
- I didn't put an actual minimum in the proposal, but if commenters here support blocks to be "de jure" a minimum of 24 hours, and not just " de facto" (in my initial estimation, at least), then I have no doubt that whoever closes this will take that into account. - jc37 17:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's an interesting point. Perhaps some of the admins who frequently review unblock requests (eg @Yamla and NinjaRobotPirate) can comment on how frequent it is to see actually bad blocks being overturned on appeal, so obviously bad that there is no discussion with the blocking admin? Similarly, how often does the "quick unblock of legitimate block" issue occur? (I suspect both are rarities.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- ? @Jc37: is this meant to apply only in cases where the block is directly applied to a registered user account? — xaosflux Talk 17:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I Specifically said "account", because IP addresses have their own set of challenges - jc37 17:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jc37: what about the directly applied part? A registered account could be blocked by autoblock for example. — xaosflux Talk 17:55, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think I see what you mean. And yes, "directly" blocked was the intent, but even so, if there are weirdnesses like that, I would imagine the blocking admin wouldn't have an issue with an unblock. And just for clarity (since I think someone mentioned it above) - "...may only be unblocked by the initial blocking administrator or due to community consensus..." - obviously "the community" is not doing the actual button pushing, they are allowing for it by their consensus, and so too, the initial blocking adsmin could, during the initial 24 hours, say that someone else could do the actual button pushing to unblock, should that be necessary (I used the word "approved" in the next sentence). Such as, like in your example case, if they wanted help with a weird technical issue with a block. (I think I saw a discussion on one of those situations recently.) - jc37 18:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jc37: thanks, that at least alleviates opposes I had lined up (e.g. if you range blocked something, and I got autoblocked - I don't have to wait for you specifically or a new timer for relief) - I'm seeing from a practical perspective that "consent of the originally blocking admin" is actually more important than "by" them (perhaps they reply on their talk by mobile that it is OK, but can't get to the buttons = etc); and it seems obvious that any uninvolved admin should be able to execute a community consensus that emerges for a reversal. — xaosflux Talk 18:42, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think I see what you mean. And yes, "directly" blocked was the intent, but even so, if there are weirdnesses like that, I would imagine the blocking admin wouldn't have an issue with an unblock. And just for clarity (since I think someone mentioned it above) - "...may only be unblocked by the initial blocking administrator or due to community consensus..." - obviously "the community" is not doing the actual button pushing, they are allowing for it by their consensus, and so too, the initial blocking adsmin could, during the initial 24 hours, say that someone else could do the actual button pushing to unblock, should that be necessary (I used the word "approved" in the next sentence). Such as, like in your example case, if they wanted help with a weird technical issue with a block. (I think I saw a discussion on one of those situations recently.) - jc37 18:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jc37: what about the directly applied part? A registered account could be blocked by autoblock for example. — xaosflux Talk 17:55, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I Specifically said "account", because IP addresses have their own set of challenges - jc37 17:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose Sometimes there are bad blocks. For example, say I were to get in a conflict with another editor, lose my temper, & block them -- & it's clear that was the real reason for the block. (Note: not that I plan on doing this, ever.) Should that editor be forced to wait 24 hours to be unblocked because I abused my permissions as an admin? I should hope not. -- llywrch (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- And the community could/should address that. The community does not have to wait 24 hours to act. - jc37 18:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose - WP:NOTBURO. So a block is placed - a reasonable request for unblock is submitted and the person has to remain blocked for however many hours are left to go. That actually turns WP:PREVENTATIVE blocks into WP:PUNITIVE ones. This also completely ignores that fact that everyone still has a life in the real world. No one is required to be on-wiki at a specific time. If an admin is not available when the 24 hours are up what then? Other problems abound but I will close by noting the notion that 24 hours is a short period of time is not borne out in reality. MarnetteD|Talk 18:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nearly everything you mention is already covered by the proposal or already existing policy and/or processes. I am curious to hear what "other problems abound". If there are reasonable issues, they are worth discussing and ironing out. - jc37 18:25, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- To repeat the community have real lives. Your proposal means everyone would have to be online 24/7 to discuss the issue ASAP. MarnetteD|Talk 19:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- That is as appliacable (or not) as the current situation on Wikipedia. - jc37 19:34, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- No it is not the current situation. No one deserves a WP:PUNITIVE block due to the red tape that is the basis of this proposal. MarnetteD|Talk 00:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Blockees in some cases wait for discussion even now before being unblocked. That's no more or less "punitive" than this is. - jc37 01:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- No it is not the current situation. No one deserves a WP:PUNITIVE block due to the red tape that is the basis of this proposal. MarnetteD|Talk 00:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- That is as appliacable (or not) as the current situation on Wikipedia. - jc37 19:34, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- To repeat the community have real lives. Your proposal means everyone would have to be online 24/7 to discuss the issue ASAP. MarnetteD|Talk 19:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose for largely pedantic reasons. Template:Uw-ublock is a form of block where someone's username is inappropriate, though not maliciously so. If they pick a new username, we should be free to unblock them immediately without waiting 24 hours. There's also the chance that obviously the wrong account was blocked. Outside of situations like that, 24 hour blocks rarely get overturned when posted to cat:unblock. By the time you've contacted the blocking admin, discussed the matter with them, and then decided what to do, the block has probably expired. --Yamla (talk) 19:09, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment I like the spirit of the proposal, but there may be unresolvable problems with the implementation. There are two separate classes of blocks. For blocks of new users, most of the time an uninvolved admin should be able to unblock (even within 24 hours) if the reason for the block is addressed. Username blocks can be undone with a username change, certain types of disruptive editing blocks can be undone if there is a pledge to stop the disruption. For blocks of established users (the "unblockables") this is likely to just change arguments at ANI to be over whether a discussion has achieved consensus or not. Those blocks tend to cause discussion at ANI already, so this proposal won't really cause more discussions. However, I don't see a need to change the presumption in these cases from "editor will be blocked and unblocked, and then potentially sanctioned per discussion" to "editor will stay blocked pending discussion". Overall, I don't see this as workable, but I am willing to be convinced otherwise. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:16, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe it needs to be spelled out more clearly in the proposal that the initial blocking admin does not need to actually "push" the unlock button. I'm not intending that existing policy is changed where an admin may say: "if xyz happens, any uninvolved admin may unblock". So that should cover things like username blocks. - jc37 19:22, 18 August 2021 (UTC) - Added the clarification to the proposal. - jc37 19:32, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think this should be best practice, but if it were made iron-clad policy, there'd probably have to be a list of exemptions, like in WP:3RR. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:06, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support
Oppose, but I'm close. This proposal would need a carve out for situations where the blocking admin had given a carve out such as "happy for any admin to unblock once you promise to change that signature". I'd also make an exception where there is consensus at the drama boards. I.E. I agree that one admin reversing another's block within 24 hours is a problem if the blocking admin hasn't left conditions that the blocked editor has met.ϢereSpielChequers 20:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC) - Support Solves a legitimate loophole in WHEEL that contributes to the problem of UNBLOCKABLES. I don't find the opposition convincing. We don't need to wikilawyer about "well what if a borderline username block gets applied on a Thursday and the blocking admin goes out for a long weekend while every other contributor experiences a power outage making them unable to comment on the legitimacy of the block?" If an administrator cannot apply common sense to a general rule with an explicit goal, then they should not be an administrator, and I find it ironic that NOTBURO is being brought up to say how the most kafka-esque scenarios demonstrate that this proposal is unworkable. Unfettered personal power is alluring, but we should not shy away from imposing constraints on our own power for the general wellfare of the project. Letting subtle vandals, abusers, and other policy violators continue their disruption while our hands are tied by WHEEL is worse than a borderline block lasting a couple hours while we discuss it, and I simply cannot get behind the idea that the opposite is true. In general I think this proposal is in the right direction, and I support limiting second-mover advantage in blocking given how it contributes to the problem of UNBLOCKABLES. The specifics can be worked out through practice and common sense like every other policy. — Wug·a·po·des 20:58, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps it's just me: when I think of editors with popular support who are thus difficult to block, I don't think of subtle vandals. For popular editors who are violating policy, I don't think a moratorium is going to alter the underlying difficulty with trying to deal with behavioural issues in a large group conversation. I appreciate that it would give slightly more recognition to the need for patience in group conversations to let more people weigh in. But those considering a block to be a net negative and so would have unblocked earlier will likely still reach that conclusion at the end of 24 hours and proceed to unblock. (If the moratorium is to actually be effective, then in most cases it will have to last the whole 24 hours and not just a couple of hours.) Perhaps along the lines of my proposal for circuit-breaker criteria for arbitration enforcement, there should be criteria that will trigger the need for a consensus agreement to unblock. I'm not sure what that criteria should be, though. isaacl (talk) 21:26, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not going to go to that mat for this proposal because I have better ways to waste my time than arguing with strawmen. Changing the dynamic of the discussion isn't the goal, the point is to create a circuit breaker to hold accountable admins who make snap unblocks despite having not read the blocking policy in a decade. The proposal is functionally identical to the alternative you described in 2018: "If these conditions are not in place, then an administrator must first announce their planned action at the enforcement noticeboard and wait for a set period of time before enacting it". We've discussed on my talk why proposals like this will fail, and I'm well aware that the merits have little to do with it. — Wug·a·po·des 22:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- If unblockables are a problem, they're a social one. The underlying issue with WP:WHEEL is that you rarely end up with consensus to reinstate the action; it either ends up with consensus against, or no consensus. Apparently it doesn't even take that much to distract the discussion sufficiently so it reaches no consensus.
- If the community, including the admin corps, can't unite on taking a certain difficult action, I'm not sure any amount of policy is going to change that fact. This proposal just defers the cowboy unblock to 24 hours later rather than immediate, unless the discussion shows an emerging clear consensus in support of the block. If it shows a preliminary consensus against, or an unclear consensus, the door is sufficiently open for an admin to proceed with an unblock without being in a policy no-no area. Unless, of course, you trust the admin corps to be reasonable, in which case such a rule as the one proposed should be unnecessary anyway. And on that note, I do find it a bit weird that the premise of this change seems to be that we don't trust our own admins to restrain themselves. If that's indeed true, should those individuals be admins at all? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think the issue is one of restraint, but different interpretations of policy and consideration of context when deciding if a block should be made. Since consensus doesn't scale up, the community is unable to agree upon guidance, and so administrators have a large grey area to negotiate. isaacl (talk) 22:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Consensus-based decision making on Wikipedia is a fairy tale; it bears no resemblance to actual consensus-based decision making models. We have no shared values or inclusion criteria. We have no well defined process for dealing with disputes. We have minimal incentive to participate in the first place. "Consensus" on Wikipedia is the collective opinion of those who have the time and desire to bear the abuse of random internet strangers for no pay and minimal reward, far removed from a convention of defined membership assembled to make decisions within a predefined area of expertise. In our consensus model, the rational response when faced with staunch opposition is to go do something else, but if you do then you literally let the most abusive people win. We frequently end up with no consensus to reinstate the action because the people most motivated to stay and fight are those who disagree with the action regardless of the actual level of support in the wider community.In these cases delaying action is useful (see meatball:DelayAction) and something we routinely do in other domains. We have a 24 hour hold on re-sysops at BN; we withhold particular tools from editors until they've been around 4 days; we rate limit page moves; we use pending changes to delay the posting of edits; we use edit filter warnings to delay potentially harmful page edits; we have a minimum duration for site ban discussions; etc. Delaying action works because it gives those least invested in an issue time to review it before the series of events reaches a point where review is useless. If there's been a rapid block-unblock cycle I know that a re-block isn't going to happen because of WHEEL so why waste my time commenting on the original block or unblock? I'll just get harassed by sycophants. We delay actions all the time, and we are all well aware that it is not a useless strategy, rather, it is a tool that counters the social dynamics that privilege snap decisions that undermine the value of giving level-headed peer review from a broad section of the community. — Wug·a·po·des 22:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps that's an issue because a higher percentage of blocks of "unblockables" ($DEITY, I hate that word) turn out to be bad. And indeed, perhaps that's because a significant number of blocks are bad, but it's only the "unblockable" (gah!) ones that get analysed in detail. Who knows? Black Kite (talk) 22:25, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- And maybe they should. And if the community needed to take a look everytime such things happened, not just in those cases, maybe they would... - jc37 22:48, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps it's just me: when I think of editors with popular support who are thus difficult to block, I don't think of subtle vandals. For popular editors who are violating policy, I don't think a moratorium is going to alter the underlying difficulty with trying to deal with behavioural issues in a large group conversation. I appreciate that it would give slightly more recognition to the need for patience in group conversations to let more people weigh in. But those considering a block to be a net negative and so would have unblocked earlier will likely still reach that conclusion at the end of 24 hours and proceed to unblock. (If the moratorium is to actually be effective, then in most cases it will have to last the whole 24 hours and not just a couple of hours.) Perhaps along the lines of my proposal for circuit-breaker criteria for arbitration enforcement, there should be criteria that will trigger the need for a consensus agreement to unblock. I'm not sure what that criteria should be, though. isaacl (talk) 21:26, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose. I don't see why "2nd mover advantage" is a problem. It is analogous to BRD, where the 2nd mover is the one reverting an edit. It's a valid action because it restores it to what it was (which is likely to have been what the consensus is). 22:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
- In the context of this proposal, I disagree with assuming that it's likely the consensus is to keep the editor in question unblocked. There's no reason a priori to think this will be true. isaacl (talk) 22:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Due to 3RR, BRD is often ignored, and so such "second mover advantage" doesn't really exist in that case. So I dunno if that is a valid analogy. - jc37 22:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is the WP:RAAA policy is violated, with the presumption being that the original block was warranted (emphasis added):
Administrators are expected to have good judgment, and are presumed to have considered carefully any actions or decisions they carry out as administrators. Administrators may disagree, but administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought, and (if likely to be objected to), where the administrator is presently available, a brief discussion with the administrator whose action is challenged.
—Bagumba (talk) 04:11, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- In the context of this proposal, I disagree with assuming that it's likely the consensus is to keep the editor in question unblocked. There's no reason a priori to think this will be true. isaacl (talk) 22:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose There are plenty of episodes in the archives where an admin makes an obviously bad block, and then goes offline. No way should an editor remain blocked for 24h because of an error (yes, it might be <24h because of community consensus, but that takes time to form, especially when America is asleep). Black Kite (talk) 22:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Do you believe, if this were implemented, that admins would not become more conscientious of that? I think that that might be an additional feature of implementing this. That admins should become more thoughtful about blocking. The idea that one should block someone, then disappear, just doesn't seem like a great thing to want to have continue. This is one example of "heightened awareness", that I mentioned. - jc37 22:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Personally, I don't think this change would provide incentive for an administrator to give additional consideration for blocking. I think knowing that a block can be quickly reversed by one person is more of an incentive to build a sound rationale. Knowing that the community will discuss the block for 24 hours provides incentive to make a quick block and then pass the responsibility to the community to decide what to do next. isaacl (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think the community would rather quickly lose patience with needing to repeatedly review and subsequently overturn a particular admin's blocks. If one's blocks are repeatedly overturned by the community, what would you think might be discussed next? I think that this adds much more transparency to blocking than currently exists. But YMMV, of course. - jc37 23:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think it's going to be just one admin making blocks that get reviewed by the community, as that's not what happens now. If the community starts having to discuss many disputed blocks, it will look for a way to streamline procedure to select the most important cases to review. isaacl (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Something like a BRV? Interesting idea. - jc37 01:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think it's going to be just one admin making blocks that get reviewed by the community, as that's not what happens now. If the community starts having to discuss many disputed blocks, it will look for a way to streamline procedure to select the most important cases to review. isaacl (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think the community would rather quickly lose patience with needing to repeatedly review and subsequently overturn a particular admin's blocks. If one's blocks are repeatedly overturned by the community, what would you think might be discussed next? I think that this adds much more transparency to blocking than currently exists. But YMMV, of course. - jc37 23:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Personally, I don't think this change would provide incentive for an administrator to give additional consideration for blocking. I think knowing that a block can be quickly reversed by one person is more of an incentive to build a sound rationale. Knowing that the community will discuss the block for 24 hours provides incentive to make a quick block and then pass the responsibility to the community to decide what to do next. isaacl (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Do you believe, if this were implemented, that admins would not become more conscientious of that? I think that that might be an additional feature of implementing this. That admins should become more thoughtful about blocking. The idea that one should block someone, then disappear, just doesn't seem like a great thing to want to have continue. This is one example of "heightened awareness", that I mentioned. - jc37 22:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support Wikipedia administration should not be, nor appear to be a capricious game (especially not one of who knows who), as the quick unblock cycle does. Policy already says in RAAA what is to be expected of the block, that is is given in careful, capable, good faith in furtherance of the project. That's because blocking is not to be done lightly. If the blocking administrator is acting so poorly, or unable to carry out their expected duties, so that they can't hold the block against the community consensus, they should to be taken to task by the community on the record (and ultimately they will imperil their right to exercise such judgement), and the mis-blocked user should be given the community's dispensation and apology, on the record. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:48, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support - if this prevents WP:WHEELWAR & puts a little dent into WP:UNBLOCKABLES. -- GoodDay (talk) 23:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose Policy already requires discussion with the blocking admin. It also says if 2 admins cannot agree taking the matter to
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard is recommended
. It is not however required and the uninvolved admin may reverse the decision, I may support a proposal that strengthens this recommendation to a requirement depending on the wording. Reversing an admin action is not a wheel war. While wheel warring is not a common problem admins making mistakes once in a while is far more common. Sometimes a bad decision needs to be reversed, no need for this arbitrary duration of time. Also if I block someone for 24 hours, it cannot be reversed? HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 00:01, 19 August 2021 (UTC)- HighInBC - It can in the initial 24 hours: by the community, by you (as the initial blocker), or by your consent. - jc37 23:31, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jc37, that doesn't seem to cover the many blocks that slip through the cracks not noticed by the community... Huggums537 (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- With this, "not noticed" is much less of an option, because it helps shine a light on all blocks, not just those of well-known editors. - jc37 01:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jc37, that doesn't seem to cover the many blocks that slip through the cracks not noticed by the community... Huggums537 (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- HighInBC - It can in the initial 24 hours: by the community, by you (as the initial blocker), or by your consent. - jc37 23:31, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose A few points:
- Admins make mistakes. Under this policy, if an admin makes a mistake and then logs out for the day without realizing their error, the innocent blocked user is blocked until their return or until 24 hours have passed. That's a horrible result.
- Good unblocks happen in less than 24 hours all the time. We don't tend to hear much about those, but they are far more common than the high-drama one that was clearly the catalyst for this proposal. Knee-jerk policy proposals are almost always a bad idea.
- WP:WHEEL gives what we call a "second mover advantage". So, currently, the person doing the unblock has the protection this would give to the first mover. Neither is optimal, but allowing reasonable disagreement over a block is obviously preferable than forcing a bad block to stand for no good reason.
- Meaning, in case it wasn't clear, this throws WHEEL out the window. This is not a minor change, it's huge. I don't think those proposing and supporting it have really considered the massive cultural shift this would cause, where blocks are now the sacred word of god and cannot be disturbed unless and until the blocking admin agrees or a consensus emerges, the latter usually taking more than 24 hours to arrive at, so that's rather pointless.
- This also completely fails to consider one of the most common kinds of blocks: username-only blocks in which the blocked user is entitled to simply change their name and return to editing as soon as that is done.
- Just a terrible idea all around. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:09, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Did you read the entire proposal? I ask because several of the things you mention are addressed, in particular username blocks. - jc37 00:39, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- The proposal is a bit of a disorganized jumble so, no, I missed that, but now that I've looked again, the way you have written it, the blocking admin would have to explicitly say they were ok with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Isn't this already implicitly done when the blocking admin sets the block as either hard or soft? This is a question, not a statement.--John Cline (talk) 05:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- The proposal is a bit of a disorganized jumble so, no, I missed that, but now that I've looked again, the way you have written it, the blocking admin would have to explicitly say they were ok with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Did you read the entire proposal? I ask because several of the things you mention are addressed, in particular username blocks. - jc37 00:39, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support - Seems like a no brainer that addresses some very serious issues with our blocking policy while not really losing anything in return. It also helps tamp down on "rogue admin" actions that are usually not helpful to anyone involved and forces more thought and consideration by everyone involved. PackMecEng (talk) 00:21, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose per Beeblebrox and others. Paul August ☎ 00:23, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose. A detriment to common sense. Will lead to dumb rules lawyering. El_C 00:35, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- On 24 February 2012 I was the victim of a bad block. On the basis of this personal experience I strongly oppose this or any other measure that would have a chilling effect on unblocking.—S Marshall T/C 00:38, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- 2012 was also when I got my first and only block, which was basically made to (badly) make a point, and was therefore overturned in less than ten minutes. I can't imagine how unfair it would've been to force the admin who unblocked me to go begging for permission from the admin who was clearly in the wrong, and to just sit there and wait were they not available. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- It is interesting (to me at least) that both of those admins are no longer around, and both apparent stopped editing around the time of an arbcom case. I wonder, had this been in place, and so, if their use of the admin tools might have had more scrutiny, that neither block might have happened. We assuredly will never know. But I do think, attempting to change the current culture around blocking might not be a bad thing. - jc37 01:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've been blocked on two other occasions: in 2008, for 1 minute, by mistake; and a couple of months ago, I was indefinitely blocked from WilliamJE's userspace on the basis that he's indefinitely blocked from mine and MJRoots felt that reciprocity was in order. But my 2012 block was an interesting case: I was blocked by a sitting arbitrator! It took exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes for my block to be reversed by unanimous consensus on AN, and that experience has coloured my view of arbitrators ever since.—S Marshall T/C 01:10, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Both of these blocks seem to be WP:POINT violations. That's the sort of thing any admin ought to be able to undo immediately, the type of admin who would make such blocks would only be encouraged by this, knowing that even if they were wrong they had a defacto 24 hour block. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- And the community would likely take a very dim view on such action and said admin is not likely to keep the tools very long. One benefit of this is that it helps shine a light on such nonsense. - jc37 01:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Both of these blocks seem to be WP:POINT violations. That's the sort of thing any admin ought to be able to undo immediately, the type of admin who would make such blocks would only be encouraged by this, knowing that even if they were wrong they had a defacto 24 hour block. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- 2012 was also when I got my first and only block, which was basically made to (badly) make a point, and was therefore overturned in less than ten minutes. I can't imagine how unfair it would've been to force the admin who unblocked me to go begging for permission from the admin who was clearly in the wrong, and to just sit there and wait were they not available. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Conditional: Oppose for blocks 48 hours or shorter, or when the blocking admin consents to have their block overturned when conditions are met, whether explicitly (e.g. "feel free to unblock if...") or implicitly (e.g. username block). Support for all other cases, as long as this consensus is not overly difficult to obtain. So a consensus on a user talk page or any other page is just as valid as a consensus on a major noticeboard, and if two admins support unblock with none opposing, it should suffice for a third admin to come along and unblock. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:39, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose. Some blocks are just BAD and need to be undone as soon as possible. Someone said it will prevent rogue admins from going rogue--but that cuts both ways. The blocker may well be the rogue admin. Drmies (talk) 01:37, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I assume you were referring to me on the rogue admin comment. So it really does not cut both ways, the rogue admin action for the block happens either way. The results for that admin are also about the same, consensus against the block and the block being undone although possibly a little later. The proposal does however prevent a rogue admin action on the back end with the unblock though, which is the main thrust of complaint. PackMecEng (talk) 01:46, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support It actually does something about "The Unblockables", and is generally a reasonable policy. Yes, it might be a little slow in some very specific cases, but very little on Wikipedia is actually urgent. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 02:10, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose – WP:RAAA already provides the right advice on how and when to overturn blocks, and places the emphasis on administrator discretion. Taking away such discretion and adding additional rules is not an improvement, and will instead lead to endless rules-lawyering rather than good adminning. – bradv🍁 04:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is when the unblocking admin did not consult with the blocking admin first and has no obvious "good cause" to have reversed. Aside from WP:WHEEL, it seems the only option to to take the unblocker to Arbcom, as AN/ANI when an WP:UNBLOCKABLE is involved will likely stall.—Bagumba (talk) 04:46, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- If a block is against consensus it probably shouldn't be happening anyway, and should be reversed. And yes, ArbCom is always available in cases where administrators are not exercising proper discretion, such as by ignoring the advice at WP:RAAA. This is especially true when it comes to the so-called "unblockables". – bradv🍁 05:16, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- The problem is when the unblocking admin did not consult with the blocking admin first and has no obvious "good cause" to have reversed. Aside from WP:WHEEL, it seems the only option to to take the unblocker to Arbcom, as AN/ANI when an WP:UNBLOCKABLE is involved will likely stall.—Bagumba (talk) 04:46, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose bureaucratic and context-blind. Genuinely bad blocks can happen. – Teratix ₵ 06:26, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Do we have any data? How often and how soon are blocks unblocked and why? How many bad blocks in a given month? How many bad unblocks? Levivich 06:43, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose... unless all admins are utterly flawless and robots. Human Beings tend to be prone to making mistakes. The Banner talk 06:48, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose. Blocks can be shorter than 24 hours, obviously bad blocks should be undone immediately, and there is no problem that this proposal would fix. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose per WP:NOTBURO, and what others have stated, above. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:12, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose There are some bad blocks that should be undone straightaway, we shouldn't have to wait for the blocking admin to come back online. Making the blocked user wait 24 hours is not fair (At the risk of stating the obvious, "there is no deadline" applies to building the encyclopedia as a whole and is not a good idea in this situation).-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support. A first step to adressing the unblockables problem. If a block is really bad, the community will quickly come to that conclusion. Sandstein 14:01, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sandstein, this overlooks the bad blocks that are never even seen by most of the community... Huggums537 (talk) 20:27, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Huggums537, all unblock requests are public and therefore seen by the community, or at least many admins, at Category:Requests for unblock. If nobody escalates them to a community noticeboards from there, they can't be that bad. Sandstein 07:40, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sandstein, I understand your point about unblock requests being public, but the vast majority of the community is disinterested in Category:Requests for unblock, a place where mostly a small concentrated group of admins participate, so community input is virtually non-existent in this situation, and assuming that all blocks can't be bad just because nobody in the community escalates to a noticeboard once again ignores the fact that the community can't escalate what the community isn't aware of in the first place. That's like saying if nobody had ever found out about 9/11 then it couldn't have been that bad. Huggums537 (talk) 18:06, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
- Huggums537, all unblock requests are public and therefore seen by the community, or at least many admins, at Category:Requests for unblock. If nobody escalates them to a community noticeboards from there, they can't be that bad. Sandstein 07:40, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sandstein, this overlooks the bad blocks that are never even seen by most of the community... Huggums537 (talk) 20:27, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose I think this creates more problems than it solves. If two admins disagree on whether a block is valid, it's obviously contentious - it ought to be discussed. Ideally, those two admins would discuss between themselves, and then go to AN if they can't agree, but if one of them has blocked then logged off for the night that can't happen. It strikes me as perverse that we would enshrine in policy a 24-hour minimum block period for situations like that. (As for the '2nd mover advantage', I just think that's the wrong way of looking at this - this isn't about tactics and gaining an advantage, it's about treating users fairly and minimising disruption.) WP:BLOCK already calls for discussion, but when that isn't possible there needs to be some scope for taking immediate action when really necessary. If the first admin logs back in and sees what has happened, they can go to AN and get more community input. Girth Summit (blether) 14:08, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Don't need more bureaucracy to deal handle a comparatively rare scenario. If it's a bad block, should be undone quickly; if it's good, it just shouldn't be undone. I'd rather we deal with the consequences of making improper decisions instead of adding more lawyering and then also dealing with the decisions made. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose A solution in search of a problem. --Jayron32 14:53, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I do not like this idea at all. It's addressing the problems of an inherent 2nd mover advantage by switching to an inherent 1st mover advantage, which has its own, much more significant, problems. This doesn't come up all that often, and hard cases make bad law. The default status should never be "when in doubt, the block stands". If consensus forms that a block is necessary, then unblocking without a new consensus to overturn is already not allowed. If there is no consensus that a block is necessary, then blocking early just to establish new hard-to-modify facts on the ground is wrong. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose Blocks exist as a preventative, not punitive measure. If the editor is unblocked and not causing further disruption, the goal has been met. I'd support a recommendation to Admins that TWO admins should agree on the need for an unblock when the blocking admin is not around or being obstinate. Slywriter (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose 24 hours is an arbitrary delay and, sometimes, time is of the essence. For example, I recall an editathon where the organiser was blocked due to a misunderstanding. Bad blocks are common and we should not compound them with unnecessary delays that might have serious consequences. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose As explained above, stuff happens and leaving a bad block in place for 24 hours because rules would not be desirable. Johnuniq (talk) 23:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose as far as I can tell, this proposal lacks the data to prove that bad unblocks are a bigger problem than bad blocks. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose Suppose I get up on the wrong side of the bed tomorrow and decide that anyone who makes proposals I disagree with should be blocked. How long should the OP stay blocked, and how much community time should be wasted forming a consensus that I was wrong? Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ok, let's presume all of that. What happens next? And next after that? I see a lot of hand wringing about the single blocking event like it exists in a vacuum. But it doesn't. If this proposal is not in place, and you did that and someone immediately unblocked, and you disappear, and come back later in the day and apologize. How does that look to the community? Kerfuffle, but not much harm, who cares. meanwhile, your blatant disregard for policy goes largely unscrutinized. And you do that again, and again, and even arbcom declines. Not "enough" disruption to the project. "let the community look into it more."
- Now what changes if this is implemented? Now we have an editor blocked. let's say it took the 2 hours and 30 minutes mentioned above for the community to unblock me. How does that look to the community? Still no harm no foul? and like in the previous example, you keep doing this to different people. I think the community, now much more engaged, would sanction you. because now your bad blocks are more clearly disruptive, and face more heightened scrutiny, even when not done to well-known editors. Even when on the periphery of Wikipedia's paths.
- And next after that other admins see this. they're not blind. and we start to see a behavour shift.
- Yes we currently have bad blocks. but quite a lot, if not most, of those are preventable. self-discipline happens if we encourage it.
- But with no motivation for this, this will not change and we will continue to have these issues. And that's just the issues with the initial blocker. Then we have the unblocker examples...
- And anyone who thinks these things only happen every 5 years, is clearly not looking. But then Wikipedia can be a big place that people can potentially get away with quite a bit if they think no one is watching, or is too busy to care.
- Anyway, I welcome your thoughts on all of this. - jc37 13:43, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jc37:
And anyone who thinks these things only happen every 5 years, is clearly not looking.
Looking where? Where can we find out how many times an editor is unblocked within 24hrs by an admin other than the blocking admin without the blocking admin's consent? Can you identify three times this happened in the last year, for example? A lot of people are suggesting this is very rare, and that's my impression, too, but if you're saying it happens more often, there should be multiple examples for us to draw from, no? Levivich 15:02, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Jc37:
- Oppose a policy for a rare freak circumstances is not in the spirit of Wikipedia. We stay away from building nitty gritty policies, because that's bureaucracy. Admins should already take reasonable care and consideration for their actions. I would be surprised if this was an issue even one more time in the next five years. Creating an onerous requirement that is unlikely to have an actual effect is foolish. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 07:35, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose. I think Wugapodes and a few others make good points, but the costs nonetheless outweight the benefits; there's too many instances I can think of where this would become a hindrance, and only a few where it would be beneficial. We do have an unblockables problem, and a second-mover advantage, but really this is a social control for that problem that already exists in a milder form; we're supposed to talk to the blocking admin before unblocking. Higher expectations to adhere to that would go a long way. Vanamonde (Talk) 07:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose. Instruction creep. Hard cases make bad law. Stifle (talk) 08:36, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Vehemently oppose. (1) What Stifle has said immediately above. Wikipedia needs less, not more, bureaucratic attempts to tie down and define every situation, rather than following common sense. (2) Why should a good faith editor who has been wrongly blocked have to remain blocked because of some rule about administrator conduct, irrespective of the merits of the block? (3) I wonder how many of the editors who have supported this proposal regularly review unblock requests. In my experience the principle of deferring to the opinion of the blocking administrator is already applied too heavily, with editors who should be unblocked languishing under blocks because the blocking administrator's opinion is given precedence over everyone else, and that one administrator happens to be at the block-happy end of the spectrum of administrator opinion. Maybe some of the supporters if this proposal are happy with it, but I suspect most of them simply don't know how it works, because they don't regularly review unblock requests. We need less of the idea that a blocking administrator has some kind of veto, not more. JBW (talk) 14:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose - E.g. sometimes an obviously incorrect or mistaken block occurs and the administrator behind it is otherwise occupied. There are a plethora of other examples that could be made. It would also allow coy punitivity by simply feigning unavailability. This might be arguable on better grounds with the corollary that a blocking administrator must monitor a block with an eagle's eye for twenty-four hours after making it (but neither of the ideas make sense due to practical realities). Honestly, the major thing this does is promote the authority and control of individual administrators, something they are already given quite enough of through the simple ability to make a block and impose other restrictions. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 16:47, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support: the second-mover advantage is real and ridiculous. If this swings it too far the other way then we can re-review, but watching admins descend into the same "technically it's not wheel warring if I only revert once" that we see GAMErs use to avoid the letter of WP:3RR is depressing. Additionally, you're already supposed to make a non-trivial effort to contact the blocking administrator, and if you don't wait at least close to a day then that systemically disadvantages those of us who don't have the free time to be active every four hours. It's not reasonable to undo someone's actions because they're sleeping or working or so on when they would succeed in opposing it if they were online. — Bilorv (talk) 22:43, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Probably oppose per the thoughts of several editors above, such as JBW. I do think WP:RAAA needs some more teeth. As it stands right now the section might as well not exist. A rule that says "should" or "very rarely" or similar is toothless because it'll get wikilawyered. Maybe better wording at WP:RAAA would help, or ArbCom setting precedent by willing to review dodgy reverts. This 24 hour hold doesn't really solve a problem; at best it delays the cowboy action until 24 hours later, and in the process may well allow a genuinely bad block to stand while the wheels of consensus turn. The side effects of this change likely outweigh any potential benefits this particular change would provide in tackling an unblockables problem. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Since several editors mention their support as a way to deal with the "unblockables" it should be noted that the group that term applies to are few in number. This proposal would apply to everyone indiscriminately and will be used on 1000s (and even more than that over time) of editors. That is like using a ten ton bomb to get rid of an aphid. The potential to drive editors off the project who are blocked in this "punitive" manner has to be taken into account. I would rather put up with the annoyance of the "unblockables" than mistreat others in this fashion. MarnetteD|Talk 00:12, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- This isn't the right solution, but that doesn't mean the few UNBLOCKABLES are not a real and big problem also. Since they're prolific, longtime editors, their behavior is recognizable and acts as a subtle—even if unintentional—campaign to drive away productive editors, especially when combined with enabling WP:COWBOYADMIN actions.—Bagumba (talk) 11:22, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Speaking as the person who wrote WP:UNBLOCKABLE, I agree entirely with MarnetteD's comments. They are very real, this just isn't the right solution to stopping them. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:17, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Since several editors mention their support as a way to deal with the "unblockables" it should be noted that the group that term applies to are few in number. This proposal would apply to everyone indiscriminately and will be used on 1000s (and even more than that over time) of editors. That is like using a ten ton bomb to get rid of an aphid. The potential to drive editors off the project who are blocked in this "punitive" manner has to be taken into account. I would rather put up with the annoyance of the "unblockables" than mistreat others in this fashion. MarnetteD|Talk 00:12, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose: (Summoned by bot) per NinjaRobotPirate and others, this might be good practice but clumsy as an edict. There are too many instances outlined above where this would be iniquitous and/or counter-productive. The NEED for this has not been demonstrated and introducing new rules based on rare circumstances is usually not a good idea. Butterflies & wheels - Hammers & Nuts - or as MarnetteD says, ten ton bombs & aphids come to mind. Pincrete (talk) 15:59, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Butterflies & wheels? You are welcome to your opinion, but this is a rather simple change, and I don't consider this topic a "small matter". - jc37 23:24, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment from proposer - Just a general comment to answer several questions at once -
- First, if you look back over this discussion, I never once have used the term "unblockable". What I stated at the top was "I would like to see blocking and unblocking to have a bit more thoughtful approach." - In other words the rather quick blocking and unblocking that goes on. Terms like 'unblockable', and 'cowboyadmin' are just symptoms of a much larger problem. We really need to change the culture on Wikipedia around blocking.
- As for examples, I think it would be a mistake to list specific blocks in this discussion. For one thing, it would be far too easy to cherry-pick examples (for and/or against), and also, that sort of thing would be likely to derail this discussion. But besides that, there are currently 1076 pages in the AN/I archives, 335 in the AN archives, 291 in AE archives, many listings on Wikipedia:Editing restrictions, 17 years of arbcom cases, this page, and untold numbers of unblock requests that happen on talk pages and in emails, etc. Even if I had not been an admin for 15 years, an editor before that, and a reader before that, I think it would be fairly obvious, just from statistical probability alone, that we have had more than 3 or 4 of such issues (the "one every 5 years" assertion). I mean, we've heard about more than 3 in even this discussion alone...
- As for making the blockee wait. I think trying to use examples from the current blocking culture, is just not applicable. If this was in place, we would have a different blocking culture based upon it. And this isn't a maybe, or I guess. I remember back before WHEEL was implemented. We had a different blocking culture back then. WHEEL changed it. This would change it too.
- Now I don't doubt there will be those opposed to such a change. For example, some admins who may not want to see a loss of or shift in what they may perceive as a certain type of "power". Other editors, who don't trust the community to overturn an admin's block, whether quick enough, or at all, and fear that this could mean that they will be "stuck" being blocked for the full 24 for a "bad block". - I said it above and I'll say it again - If we don't change the expectation to be more thoughtful in blocking, we will continue to have bad blocks. This will change that expectation. "Block then disappear", would be seen as inappropriate. That would increase accountability. and so on. This rather simple change adds accountability to both the blocker and unblocker.
- I know there are people who are going to support or oppose for whatever reason they choose (whether or not they actually read the whole proposal, or much less, this whole discussion), but I am heartened to see quite a few thoughtful comments throughout. I think, whatever the outcome, discussion on this is important. I look forward to your continued thoughts on this. - jc37 22:55, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- If the goal is to encourage greater deliberation, then I suggest addressing it as early as possible. For example, we could have a procedure where, unless certain criteria are met such as vandalism, ongoing edit warring, or other situations requiring rapid action, administrators must post an announcement of an intent to block along with their rationale on a central noticeboard, with a notification on the talk page for the user in question. The block could only be placed after a defined amount of time had passed, to allow for additional consideration of the circumstances. Note this probably won't help with what I think is the most common type of bad block, where an admin considers a user to be disruptive enough to require an immediate block but others disagree, since it would fall under the criteria to bypass the announcement. In the short term, having announcements might decrease the number of blocks made, but in the longer run it may help build up a greater understanding of reasonable community expectations on behaviour. isaacl (talk) 00:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Interesting suggestion, and for borderline or questionable blocks, I would hope that people would do that now. Though, as you imply, it's not necessarily currently "required". That said, I'm not sure we could list all the user-case exceptions. And in trying to, would we run afoul of BURO, among other things. - jc37 00:48, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's not necessary to list every exceptional situation in detail to meet the goal of encouraging more deliberation on blocks. I don't think it's a regular practice today for an administrator to announce a planned block if there isn't a current discussion on the matter. The cultural shift with this process would be to slow down all non-urgent blocks by default, not just ones that some deem to be borderline or questionable, to allow for further reflection. isaacl (talk) 03:16, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Interesting suggestion, and for borderline or questionable blocks, I would hope that people would do that now. Though, as you imply, it's not necessarily currently "required". That said, I'm not sure we could list all the user-case exceptions. And in trying to, would we run afoul of BURO, among other things. - jc37 00:48, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- If the goal is to encourage greater deliberation, then I suggest addressing it as early as possible. For example, we could have a procedure where, unless certain criteria are met such as vandalism, ongoing edit warring, or other situations requiring rapid action, administrators must post an announcement of an intent to block along with their rationale on a central noticeboard, with a notification on the talk page for the user in question. The block could only be placed after a defined amount of time had passed, to allow for additional consideration of the circumstances. Note this probably won't help with what I think is the most common type of bad block, where an admin considers a user to be disruptive enough to require an immediate block but others disagree, since it would fall under the criteria to bypass the announcement. In the short term, having announcements might decrease the number of blocks made, but in the longer run it may help build up a greater understanding of reasonable community expectations on behaviour. isaacl (talk) 00:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose I'm pretty firm on the "never unblock without discussion" principle, but I don't see why we need to add bureacracy to this process. To be blunt, I've never seen a positive come from adding an hour limit to ban/block/unblock additions to policy on the initial block side; I doubt they'd have much more positive impact on the unblock side. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:04, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support I think added time to actually force admin-to-admin discussion will be beneficial for the future of the project. Right now,
lots and lots ofthere have been instances where some admins ignore the "mandatory discussion" and reverse blocks. I think any policy which forces introspection and time to consider decisions will be a good thing.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:23, 22 August 2021 (UTC) (Edited 11:05, 23 August 2021 (UTC)) - Oppose I am somewhat surprised by @Shibbolethink:'s comment above - direct reversal of contestable blocks (as opposed to username etc etc) without communicating is rare. As a percentage of blocks it's tiny - I'm one of the "unblock gang" and we see a huge number of blocks that another admin is processing, and they aren't jumping the wagon. So I would like them to back up their accusation that "lots and lots of admins" are ignoring the requirement - that would be of huge interest, and misconduct shouldn't be made anecdotally. In regards to my reasoning - there are cases where that talk time simply shouldn't be done, and comes with significant damage. Examples include: mis-hit targets (victim rather than perpetrator), one of whom was significantly distraught given that they'd asked for help and been blocked. Waiting would have served no-one. Or cases where the admin has indicated they won't be around for at least a couple of days from the time of assessing. This rule is blunt, and doesn't handle edge cases, so whoosh, out it goes. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nosebagbear, I'll admit I was exaggerating in the heat of my comment with "lots and lots" which is an unfair descriptor, I've struck it. I am referring to the few very notable incidents that have recently occurred at ANI, where during an ongoing discussion one admin blocked, and another admin immediately unblocked. It's probably in the single digits over the past month, but they caused a lot of community uproar and I'd rather not rehash them here. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 11:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- They were indeed of major controversy, but there the issue appears to be more one of enforcement. It was like the Community didn't want to have to deal with the admin unblock issues while simultaneously everything else. I think it would have been worth doing in the various instances, as someone should be able to make a damn good case to ANI to justify doing it. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:02, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nosebagbear, I'll admit I was exaggerating in the heat of my comment with "lots and lots" which is an unfair descriptor, I've struck it. I am referring to the few very notable incidents that have recently occurred at ANI, where during an ongoing discussion one admin blocked, and another admin immediately unblocked. It's probably in the single digits over the past month, but they caused a lot of community uproar and I'd rather not rehash them here. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 11:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support we shouldn't need this, but it would go some way to reducing the second mover advantage in the case of controversial blocks and the unblockables problem. For other types of contentious admin actions it is routine for the outcome to be decided by some sort of discussion (e.g. deletion review for deletions), whereas for blocks it's not unusual for a single admin to decide to unblock. Hut 8.5 17:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose A move in the wrong direction. We should be making admin actions and blocks in particular less sticky, not more so, The current reules are admittedly incomprehensible and incompatible, making provisions for an admin reversing another , once, and for an admin never doing it at all unless there's a discussion, with the default in the discussing being that the block stands. . At this point in the development of WP I do not think we have to do with the privileged unblockable admins of 10 or 15 years ago--with much of the change due to arb com's willingness to desysop even the most popular admins. What we have to deal with today are admins applying their private views and prejudices, and defying any other admin to overturn them. (I recognize I have an unusual view for an admin: I am a very active admin, but I almost never block, and I make it clear that any admin may reverse what I've done a long as they tell me. I deal with trolls, by removing what they write, and if this is done fast enough blocking is a needless formality. Too many admins define "disruptive" as "insisting on a subject position I disagree with." The protection we have against such admins is that the majority who are more sensible and have a properly limited view of their role can reverse them. DGG ( talk ) 06:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- DGG - To paraphrase, what you just described is - "Gotcha", then "Gotcha back". One of the very things that this proposal is intended to prevent, or at least slow down. If admins know they will have greater scruntiny, they will be less likely to even do the first "gotcha". I too do not do as much in the way of blocking as I have seen that some others do. But this isn't about you or me being thoughtful in our actions, it's those (such as those like you describe), that we as a community need to look over and address. - jc37 07:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- This won't address them ,it will mpower them. It will let any prejudiced admin freeze an article in its preferedform for 24 hours. They can't do it directly, by protecting the article in their preferred form, but they can do it indirectly, by blocking those who would change it. DGG ( talk ) 08:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- The difference being that an unblock request would go before the community. No more taking actions only seen by a few. and the commuity is likely to take a dim view of that kind of nonsense. A quick road to losing the tools. As I said, this isn't just about well-known editors. Thiis is to shine a light on all blocks and unblocks. not just the ones to make it to AN/I - jc37 10:24, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jc37, not all unblock requests get the same community attention, and so in that respect there would still exist the "taking actions only seen by a few". So, since you are speaking of "dim views", the light being shined on all blocks and unblocks does not appear so bright in that regard. Huggums537 (talk) 21:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- You left out the word "currently". Having this in place would change the culture of blocking and add 'light', because of the many concerns highlighted above. If an admin shows a pattern of abuse (blocking or unblocking), it'll be a lot easier to see with this in place. - jc37 01:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jc37, I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this rule would change anything about the current culture of blocking as far as community interest and input is concerned. I agree 100% the blocking culture may change procedurally for admins, but you can't make a community show interest in a topic they haven't historically showed interest in simply by making such an insignificant shift in admin procedure. Huggums537 (talk) 07:45, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- One need even only to look at the comments from the opposers in this discussion to see that the community is very much concerned about this. - jc37 09:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jc37, I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this rule would change anything about the current culture of blocking as far as community interest and input is concerned. I agree 100% the blocking culture may change procedurally for admins, but you can't make a community show interest in a topic they haven't historically showed interest in simply by making such an insignificant shift in admin procedure. Huggums537 (talk) 07:45, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- You left out the word "currently". Having this in place would change the culture of blocking and add 'light', because of the many concerns highlighted above. If an admin shows a pattern of abuse (blocking or unblocking), it'll be a lot easier to see with this in place. - jc37 01:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jc37, not all unblock requests get the same community attention, and so in that respect there would still exist the "taking actions only seen by a few". So, since you are speaking of "dim views", the light being shined on all blocks and unblocks does not appear so bright in that regard. Huggums537 (talk) 21:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- The difference being that an unblock request would go before the community. No more taking actions only seen by a few. and the commuity is likely to take a dim view of that kind of nonsense. A quick road to losing the tools. As I said, this isn't just about well-known editors. Thiis is to shine a light on all blocks and unblocks. not just the ones to make it to AN/I - jc37 10:24, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- This won't address them ,it will mpower them. It will let any prejudiced admin freeze an article in its preferedform for 24 hours. They can't do it directly, by protecting the article in their preferred form, but they can do it indirectly, by blocking those who would change it. DGG ( talk ) 08:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- DGG - To paraphrase, what you just described is - "Gotcha", then "Gotcha back". One of the very things that this proposal is intended to prevent, or at least slow down. If admins know they will have greater scruntiny, they will be less likely to even do the first "gotcha". I too do not do as much in the way of blocking as I have seen that some others do. But this isn't about you or me being thoughtful in our actions, it's those (such as those like you describe), that we as a community need to look over and address. - jc37 07:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose No for so many reasons. Headbomb and other users say them, so I see no need to echo them. 🐔 Chicdat Bawk to me! 10:40, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support My thoughts mirror those presented by Wugapodes. !ɘM γɿɘυϘ⅃ϘƧ 11:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Strong Oppose No valid reason for it. Adding bureaucracy and limiting admin discretion. If a person can convince a reviewing admin that they understand the reason for the block, will not repeat the disruptive/vandalistic edits, and will edit constructively, then what is the purpose in making them wait other than bullying or punishing? I was pinged here based on my unblocks. Most if not all of my unblocks are for user name violations. Once the user has changed their user name, no purpose is served in not unblocking at once other than to WP:BITE and to subject them to unneeded bureaucratic nonsense. Also, per too many above to actually list.
To answer, I have never overturned a so-called "bad block". I generally find the block was valid at the time. I seldom see the reason for the block even remotely addressed. This is trying to impose a remedy applied to specific situation (We all know what it was.) to every unblock. Absolutely not. If a block of less than 24 hours will serve the purpose of stopping disruption, then should we not use the minimum means necessary to do so?@HighinBC: Look! Oxford comma! --Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)- Adding what JBW said above, "We need less of the idea that a blocking administrator has some kind of veto, not more. " --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- If I am understanding your comments, that's all already covered in the proposal. And the blocking admin doesn't have a 'veto" at all. _ jc37 16:59, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Adding what JBW said above, "We need less of the idea that a blocking administrator has some kind of veto, not more. " --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose as overly bureaucratic and a solution searching for a problem. 331dot (talk) 13:49, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Some data. That should be all unblocks on non-IPs performed this year within 24 hours of blocking, where the unblocking admin isn't the same as the blocking admin. (I haven't tried to filter out username blocks.) For comparison there were 60259 total non-IP blocks this year and 1035 total unblocks. —Cryptic 14:31, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, @Cryptic:. Of those 1035, about 5 were reversals of blocks thought inappropriate by the unblocking admin and without an unblock discussion indicated. Most were user name problems that had been addressed --Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:37, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for collating this. Interesting information. And it would appear, (since we've established that this proposal would not affect username blocks due to the blocking admin pre-setting unblock criteria in those cases), that there clearly is an issue to be addressed. I wonder how many out of the over 60k blocks were never even looked at by the community. - jc37 09:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose only because I'm against anything or anyone who wishes to enforce policy that imposes a strict and WP:POINTy "the power of my block shall stand for 24 hours no matter what". This is far too power hungry for my taste, and the only real world purpose it would serve is to feed the ego of a blocking admin that their power is set in stone for an uncontested amount of time. This also does not account for the facts that an unblocking admin who does not discuss is just as likely to ignore a 24 hour rule as they would be to ignore any other rule, and if an unblocking admin truly were doing something extremely controversial, they would be dealt with by existing process anyway. Huggums537 (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose, no need to include more bureaucracy. SunDawntalk 03:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose (Summoned by bot) because this is an unhelpful unneeded rule. Beeblebrox (and maybe others) mentioned that several good (non-username) unblocks happen in a 24 hour period and looking through the data a bit I find that they are right. The proposal notes
This should help with potentially over-quick actions and reactions
, however by doing so it increases the number of too-slow actions. In addition, we don't need to lengthen the block time of users that were either victims of a bad block or have a good appeal within 24 hours. The proposal tries to solve a specific case or cases of bad unblocks but does so by changing how all unblocks work. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 23:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose- as others have mentioned, this seems like a solution looking for a problem. Mandating a minimum of 24 hours' duration for a black is a bad idea as well; I've seen blocks of 12 hours or even as shourt as one or two hours do the job just fine, depending on the situation. Reyk YO! 10:10, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment The unblock that sparked all this was done by an 18+ years admin who said they weren't in the habit of keeping up with policy changes and so didn't realize unblocking without discussion was a problem now. How does new policy help in such a case? —valereee (talk) 12:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose per WP:AJR. If there's an epidemic of admins inappropriately unblocking accounts then let's talk about how we deal with that, but this proposal is a knee-jerk reaction to one incident, and one which a mandated minimum block length would not have solved anyway. The issue was an admin not familiar with the rules; adding more rules for them to not be familiar with isn't going to help. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 09:57, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Certain parts of WP:HYPOCRISY and WP:BOOMERANG are not in Wikipedia's best interests
WP:HYPOCRISY and WP:BOOMERANG are WP:ESSAYs. Whereas, this page is WP:Village pump (policy). We have no policies about hypocrisy or boomerangs or shooting yourself in the foot... these are all "just" the viewpoints of some editors, without global consensus; other editors with different viewpoints are free to write counter-essays (such as WP:WOOPS). Discussing the viewpoints in essays and counter-essays can certainly be productive, but not on this page. (non-admin closure) Levivich 15:48, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- 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.
The idea of this article is that if you are guilty of misconduct, you shouldn't report someone else, or else you might get banned or something. But we can see that the net result of applying this essay is that two editors guilty of misconduct are not brought into the scrutinizing eye of the community. We want the pot to call the kettle black, because the net result will be that misconduct on both sides is dealt with. This essay is essentially advocating in favor of co-conspiracy. I won't report you, and you won't report me, so we can both continue to be disruptive. Self-advocacy on Wikipedia represents a kind of conflict of interest. I admit that the existence of self-concept is part of humanity, that it is unreasonable to expect editors not to self-advocate, and that without some seriously powerful mind-altering substances, this is not going to go away. We have difficulty disengaging our egos, but institutionally favoring self-advocacy over community advocacy, as the WP:POTKETTLE essay does, is a step in the wrong direction.
I already hear the rebuttals. This article is against self-advocacy, not in favor of it! If you report someone else and not yourself, you're self-advocating, and this is what the article speaks out against. The reason this reasoning fails is because it is made within the egotistical frame of mind. It observes that an editor, in their own self-interest, is actually not acting in their own self-interest, and proceeds to propose a more effective way of acting in their own self-interest. It fails to observe that even though the hypocritical user thought they were acting in their own self-interest, they were actually acting in Wikipedia's interest, because now the community has the opportunity to scrutinize accuser and accusee alike. MarshallKe (talk) 14:24, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- MarshallKe, This essay isn't about reporting people (that one is WP:BOOMERANG), it is about communicating with other users (quote: "When reminding another user of a policy or guideline"). And the essay is absolutely right, if the person bringing up a policy is violating it themselves that dilutes the impact of the notification. No one is going to listen to a hypocrite. - MrOllie (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2021 (UTC) noting for the archives that when I added this comment, the section heading did not mention BOOMERANG MrOllie (talk) 15:33, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- So nobody is going to listen to a hypocrite. Is that in the best interest of Wikipedia, or is that just immature thinking? We're not here to impose poetic justice on people, we're here to write an encyclopedia and to stop disruption. MarshallKe (talk) 14:54, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- MarshallKe, is your browser showing you a different version of the page than mine? I can't see anything in it that comes anywhere near to saying what you think it says. JBW (talk) 15:00, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- MarshallKe, the point is that if a person isn't going to be listened to anyway, any warnings they issue will only cause more disruption. The project will be better off if they wait for someone with clean hands will deal with the situation. - MrOllie (talk) 15:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Don't we want a hypocrite to show themselves rather than stay in hiding? MarshallKe (talk) 15:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Show themselves where? Again, this essay is not about reporting people to noticeboards. - MrOllie (talk) 15:12, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, let me ask you the question without invoking the essay. Do we or do we not want a hypocrite to reveal themselves, or do we want them to hide? MarshallKe (talk) 15:15, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's like asking "don't we want murderers to murder people, so we know they're murderers, rather than hide the fact that they are murderers by not murdering anybody?" If you're not accusing others of things that you are guilty of, then you're not hiding your hypocrisy, you are simply not being a hypocrite. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:23, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think that's a comparison. The comparison would be "we want murderers to accuse other murderers so they both get justice" MarshallKe (talk) 15:25, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's not the hypocrisy they're hiding, it's their violation they're hiding. It's not hypocrisy that is the problem, it is the violation. MarshallKe (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- It looks like WP:HYPOCRISY hasn't been changed in well over a year, and that current version is very much discussing how to act in discussions, rather than turning anyone in on anything. As for my previous statement, it actually is a comparison; it's the presence of the word "like" that takes to out of the realm of metaphor. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:44, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's like asking "don't we want murderers to murder people, so we know they're murderers, rather than hide the fact that they are murderers by not murdering anybody?" If you're not accusing others of things that you are guilty of, then you're not hiding your hypocrisy, you are simply not being a hypocrite. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:23, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- The WP:BOOMERANG essay has a section "How to avoid shooting yourself in the foot". Don't we want hypocrites to shoot themselves in the foot? MarshallKe (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- No, we want them to do what that section advises: calm down, respect policies and talk things out rationally on talk pages. Our objective should be to maximize the number of productive editors, not find people to sanction. MrOllie (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- You're not getting it, are you. These are not states of existence that exist in a person from birth. These are choices people make about their actions they will decide to do or not do. The purpose of the essay is to remind people to make the right choices. We don't want people making bad choices. If we can help them not make a bad choice we don't have to sanction them at all. That's a win-win situation. --Jayron32 15:27, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I am definitely not pretending to fail to understand, I am genuinely failing to understand. I'll accept that this was the point of the essay, and instead I will point out Wikipedia:Shoot yourself in the foot, which is in support of my original point. MarshallKe (talk) 15:34, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hypocrites shoot themselves in the foot whether we want them to or not, look at ANI or AE for proof. It is a question of fact and other editors opinions whether someone deserves a boomerang. On balance, if an editor thinks twice before complaining, I think that's a good thing.Selfstudier (talk) 15:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, let me ask you the question without invoking the essay. Do we or do we not want a hypocrite to reveal themselves, or do we want them to hide? MarshallKe (talk) 15:15, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Show themselves where? Again, this essay is not about reporting people to noticeboards. - MrOllie (talk) 15:12, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Don't we want a hypocrite to show themselves rather than stay in hiding? MarshallKe (talk) 15:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- So nobody is going to listen to a hypocrite. Is that in the best interest of Wikipedia, or is that just immature thinking? We're not here to impose poetic justice on people, we're here to write an encyclopedia and to stop disruption. MarshallKe (talk) 14:54, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Sorry that I selected the wrong page to post this in. MarshallKe (talk) 15:50, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @MarshallKe: It's no big deal, but I think you'll get much further collecting your thoughts on these topics into an essay of your own (or improving/expanding an already-existing essay) than in starting a noticeboard discussion about it. See, e.g, same discussion on this page from 11 years ago, which ended with an editor writing, "Just call it a rebuttal essay and tag it as an essay." You're not the first and you won't be the last to raise these issues, not by far. Yet, still, we don't really have a WP:NOBOOMERANG essay, which we could probably use. Levivich 16:02, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Are we now banning the word "manned"?
An editor has been mass replacing the word "manned" by a range of other terms on the grounds of using gender-neutral language, but I see nowhere in the policy that this verb is banned or even deprecated. In many cases there is not even a gender issue since, historically, forts, castles, garrisons etc. were defended by men anyway. One problem is there is no obvious gender-neutral word that replaces it and so, in some cases, the meaning is being changed without checking the sources. For example, a Baltic watchtower was described as "manned", but this was changed to "used" which is quite a different meaning. "manned" in this context means "continuously occupied", whereas "used" could mean troops just utilised it to store equipment without occupying it to provide observation and report. I don't have a problem in principle with gender-neutral language as long as it does the job and doesn't confuse, but AFAICS there is no ground for changing every occurrence of the verb especially if it changes the actual sense or if it is entirely "men" doing the "manning". Bermicourt (talk) 10:50, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well in a military context when you talk about a structure, garrisoned would work in most cases. It wouldnt work where you talk about manned emplacements (you dont garrison an object). Do you have some article examples? Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:58, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Is there a policy about using gender neutral language? I found WP:GNLP which is an essay about using such language in WP policies. Is it tucked away inside some other policy? Selfstudier (talk) 11:08, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- There probably isn't a written-down rule, no. Rules generally codify general practice, and there's probably not an accepted general practice on this particular question yet. However, for the word "manned" in particular, I'd let editors change it and I'd recommend OP do so also. It they make a mistake (as in the "used" example you describe above), probably change it to something that does work, such as "garrisoned" as suggested above.
- We're going thru a long term cultural change on stuff like this. It's complicated and stressful and can be contentious, and sometimes people go a little off the rails in order to get ahead of things, and that cam be annoying. However, my opinion is that getting ridding of "manned" is not one of these. It's easy enough to use another word that sounds just as natural ("crewed", for instance), there's no good counter-argument (as there is for continuing to use "actress" or "she" for ships), and it's something that people mostly seem to be coming around to agree on. I don't think it's banned or anything, but I think it's probably a good idea to stop using it in new writing, and if an another editor wants to go around changing it, you should let it go. Right or wrong, it's not a fight you're likely to win.Herostratus (talk) 11:41, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Is there a policy about using gender neutral language?
: There is the guideline MOS:GNL. It doesn't explictly apply here, so the question would be whether its spirit should or not.—Bagumba (talk) 14:04, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- There should not be mass changes to remove the word "manned" where it is perfectly accurate. There is no point in changing it to a gender neutral term if only men were involved, and it will cause confusion with readers. There is no need to use a gender neutral term if the gender is not mixed but is entirely one gender. However for generic topics or modern situations where there is not only men, then "manned" is not suitable anymore. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:09, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Herostratus: that's a pretty poor argument to be pushing. Functionally whatever was in first should apply, unless there is specific good reason for it to change (one example could be a particular navy went for phrasing as "crewing", and their media picked it up). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:34, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- That seems eminently reasonable. Another suitable word in a mixed context might be "crewed". But again, it has a specific meaning so we can't just replace any occurrence of "manned" in a mixed setting with "crewed". Bermicourt (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Even if it is accurate in some instances, the idea that we should have a separate term for the same action when done by men and when done-by-people-who-could-include-men-but-weren't-necessarily-entirely-men carries a sexist implication -- that there is something inherently different about when men do it. Also, if we accept "manned" as meaning "staffed, exclusively by men", then that throws other terms definitions into question. If we talked about an "unmanned space flight", might there have been women aboard? So yes, there is a point in changing it to a gender neutral term even in cases where only men were involved. --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:42, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- WP should not be proactive in adapting gender-neutral language or similar language shifts compared to the rest of society (a similar case has been raised over "man-made disasters" too). When society does shift, then we absolutely should, but we should not lead. Yes, we generally should include neutral language in broader terms, but this shouldn't mean stripping out long-standing language or terms-of-art used in the respective fields. --Masem (t) 13:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Unfortunately when it comes to gender stuff there are enough activists around that they seem to have been generally successful in overriding Wikipedia:Advocacy. Anomie⚔ 13:37, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- The Wikipedia "Typo Team" page lists violations of the Manual of Style, including articles using the word "manned" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Typo_Team/moss#Manned). This in turn references these two driving sources: MOS:S/HE and the NASA style guide. I agree it can be tough to find a suitably subtle replacement, and the cited example ("manned" to "used") was probably a sloppy update. That being said, I interpret the consensus to avoid "manned" or "unmanned" except for some specific cases (like UAVs) and historical instances. At the conclusion of this, I would still like to see the word "manned" on the Baltic Sea watchtower, Kühlungsborn page updated as appropriate. CaptainAngus (talk) 13:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- NASA switched to "crewed" years ago. Get with the times, people. No more patriarchal language. It's not a Wikipedia thing, it's an English-language thing. Welcome to the 21st century. Levivich 13:37, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- As long as it can be shown that this is what is more commonly accepted in English language, great. The problem is that we tend to have editors that try to fight for these language changes without demonstrating proof that the shift has widely happened. (Eg a similar recent case is the language around "committed suicide" that was at a recent RFC). We definitely need to shift language as wider adaptions are made, but we just have to avoid being proactive and at the whim of a few editors. --Masem (t) 13:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- In general, sure, but for gendered language that ship has already sailed. I think we can just avoid using patriarchal language because it's the right thing to do. We don't need to be the last English-language publication on Earth to give it up. When I say "Welcome to the 21st century," I mean that ship sailed a long time ago. It's not "chairman" or "fireman" anymore, it's not "manned" or "man-made" anymore, all of that is gone already and this has been happening for decades now. It's not even a new change anymore. I mean really, everyone who thinks "manned" is a word that should be used needs to get with the times. Just like singular they is a thing, so is all gender neutral language. The human race is just done assuming male is the default. And so is Wikipedia. Or at least we should be. This was published a few days ago for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Levivich 13:59, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just because a word stems from "man" doesn't necessarily mean it is gendered nor needs to be replaced. Eg there was a recent discussion somewhere about "manmade-disasters" of which there is no implication there of gendered language in the larger media, nor a concise replacement for it. But where there is clear, external sources like other MOSes that show this, then absolutely we should strive to follow. The key is that we follow, not lead here. --Masem (t) 14:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Just because a word stems from "man" doesn't necessarily mean it is gendered nor needs to be replaced.
Yes it does, that's exactly what it means, and that's what I mean when I say get with the times. We aren't leading on this, we're being too slow to follow. "Man" is no longer a generic word for "person." That change happened in the English language the 20th century, everything since has just been clean up. Heck, "man" doesn't even mean "person with a penis" anymore, and even that change isn't new in 2021. Levivich 14:27, 21 August 2021 (UTC)- The thing is, there are still cases of words in English that use "man", intended to refer to or relating to any human, but where there is yet a readily accepted gender-neutral equivalent, eg like manslaughter. We know numerous accepted cases of gender-neutral equivalents out there and that's what GNL gets to, but where there isn't yet clear guidance in reliable sources to follow, we should not be trying to invent that ourselves. As soon as it can be shown readily that there is a gender-neutral accepted version, and concensus agrees that exists, then yes, we should be using that, but there's still many many edge cases that are not simply "substitute 'man' for a neutral term" that resonate what happens in external sources. --Masem (t) 15:06, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- So what uses of the term "manned" can't be replaced by words like "crewed," "stationed," or "staffed?" Levivich 15:21, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Unmanned aircraft. ~Awilley (talk) 15:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- FAA already changed it to "uncrewed." [31]. So did Canada [32]. So did Wikipedia: Uncrewed vehicle. Levivich 15:40, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- However, the US DoD has yet to transition to this language ("site:af.mil 'uncrewed'" gives only 8 results, for example, "site:navy.mil 'uncrewed'" is only 21; whereas both with "unmanned" gives 26,000 and 52,000 respectively. When and where to use gender neutral language is going to be topic dependent. --Masem (t) 15:48, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- That said, I see that as of June 2021 the DOD has a style guide to push these towards "crewed" (per Rhod's link below). But that means we're in a period of transition here and should be careful. --Masem (t) 15:52, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Aerial vehicle not crewed by person who may or may not have a penis? Sounds snappy. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:42, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- FAA already changed it to "uncrewed." [31]. So did Canada [32]. So did Wikipedia: Uncrewed vehicle. Levivich 15:40, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Unmanned aircraft. ~Awilley (talk) 15:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- So what uses of the term "manned" can't be replaced by words like "crewed," "stationed," or "staffed?" Levivich 15:21, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- The thing is, there are still cases of words in English that use "man", intended to refer to or relating to any human, but where there is yet a readily accepted gender-neutral equivalent, eg like manslaughter. We know numerous accepted cases of gender-neutral equivalents out there and that's what GNL gets to, but where there isn't yet clear guidance in reliable sources to follow, we should not be trying to invent that ourselves. As soon as it can be shown readily that there is a gender-neutral accepted version, and concensus agrees that exists, then yes, we should be using that, but there's still many many edge cases that are not simply "substitute 'man' for a neutral term" that resonate what happens in external sources. --Masem (t) 15:06, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just because a word stems from "man" doesn't necessarily mean it is gendered nor needs to be replaced. Eg there was a recent discussion somewhere about "manmade-disasters" of which there is no implication there of gendered language in the larger media, nor a concise replacement for it. But where there is clear, external sources like other MOSes that show this, then absolutely we should strive to follow. The key is that we follow, not lead here. --Masem (t) 14:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- In general, sure, but for gendered language that ship has already sailed. I think we can just avoid using patriarchal language because it's the right thing to do. We don't need to be the last English-language publication on Earth to give it up. When I say "Welcome to the 21st century," I mean that ship sailed a long time ago. It's not "chairman" or "fireman" anymore, it's not "manned" or "man-made" anymore, all of that is gone already and this has been happening for decades now. It's not even a new change anymore. I mean really, everyone who thinks "manned" is a word that should be used needs to get with the times. Just like singular they is a thing, so is all gender neutral language. The human race is just done assuming male is the default. And so is Wikipedia. Or at least we should be. This was published a few days ago for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Levivich 13:59, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- As long as it can be shown that this is what is more commonly accepted in English language, great. The problem is that we tend to have editors that try to fight for these language changes without demonstrating proof that the shift has widely happened. (Eg a similar recent case is the language around "committed suicide" that was at a recent RFC). We definitely need to shift language as wider adaptions are made, but we just have to avoid being proactive and at the whim of a few editors. --Masem (t) 13:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- The Guardian and Observer style guide, NASA style guide has used it since the early 2000s, NARA style guide, [one of the] DoD style guides (haven't come across the others yet), ABC style guide (AU), MIT News style guide, ... and the WikiProject Spaceflight style guide includes it already. That NASA uses it is obviously a big deal considering the context in which this term is used. A few articles in reliable sources about this, too, some relating to the change in the NASA style guide: The Atlantic, Slate, Washington Post, Independent... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:02, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- No changing it en masse to contexts where it is awkward or does not fit, etc does not make sense. We are not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS we are here to build an encyclopedia. Spy-cicle💥 Talk? 14:34, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Can you give an example of a context where changing "manned" is awkward, does not fit, or does not make sense? Levivich 14:57, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich, I think don't think that there are very many synonyms for Manning the rail. "The crew manned the rail while parting company" might be hard to re-write without the gendered word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- "The crew saluted at the rail while parting company" is not only gender neutral but IMO a clearer description. I believe US, UK and probably all the other anglophone navies have officially moved to gender neutral language now. Levivich 03:33, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that's an exact synonym. Technical jargon sometimes doesn't behave like everyday English words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's true and we're not supposed to write using WP:JARGON. I wouldn't suggest we change the title of the article manning the rail but when describing the ritual, there are gender-neutral options. There are always gender-neutral options. Levivich 05:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich, I'm doubtful about that last sentence. What's your gender-neutral option for "person with a masculine gender identity"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's true and we're not supposed to write using WP:JARGON. I wouldn't suggest we change the title of the article manning the rail but when describing the ritual, there are gender-neutral options. There are always gender-neutral options. Levivich 05:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that's an exact synonym. Technical jargon sometimes doesn't behave like everyday English words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- "The crew saluted at the rail while parting company" is not only gender neutral but IMO a clearer description. I believe US, UK and probably all the other anglophone navies have officially moved to gender neutral language now. Levivich 03:33, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich, I think don't think that there are very many synonyms for Manning the rail. "The crew manned the rail while parting company" might be hard to re-write without the gendered word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- Can you give an example of a context where changing "manned" is awkward, does not fit, or does not make sense? Levivich 14:57, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think the word can or should be banned but I do think that gender neutral terms such as "staffed", "crewed", etc should be preferred whenever there is a suitable term available. I think that this should be included in the MOS. I think that replacing unnecessarily gendered terms is legitimate normal copyediting, and should be encouraged, but it should not be done in a rapid, thoughtless or automated way. Sometimes "manned" or "unmanned" will still be appropriate terms, particularly in historical contexts and/or where we are specifically talking about men. Care should be taken to pick appropriate replacement terms. Obviously, anything automated that might fiddle with quotations or phrases of official terminology is going to do much more harm than good. --DanielRigal (talk) 15:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Banned? It's no more banned than "forsooth", but as NASA indicates it's historical or archaic. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:19, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- WP:RGW applies here. A while back, I came across someone who said that using the word "blacklist" on Wikipedia was offensive. It is true that some sources now regard this as deprecated.[33] However, Wikipedia still has a spam blacklist.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 15:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ianmacm, It seems the devs are planning to rename it: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254646 MrOllie (talk) 15:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have a different take on who may be trying to RGW. It rather seems, those who insist on holding the fort for "manned" are attempting to 'right the great wrong' of writing guidance against unnecessary, archaic, or ambiguous gendered terms, which is widely deprecated by published style guides, and Wikipedia's guide. And why would it not be deprecated: generally, using something like, the individual word "man" to mean "human", or "manned" to mean "crewed", is unnecessary, archaic, and/or ambiguous, as the style guides say, and thus generally poor writing. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:07, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think its more to the point that WP should not be leading or creating language shifts but should only follow, and when we follow, it definitely no longer is a RGW issue. But when editors come to insist language must be shifted but fail to show evidence of widespread shift (eg the recent RFC on "committed suicide"), then that effort to push the language change does feel like a RGW, and editors that are resisting that are simply making sure we have the proper evidence from style guides or other such documents to be sure we're following and not leading. It's not about holding onto arachic and discriminator terms because they want to maintain that discriminatory aspect, but simply that if it isn't a well-document practice in other style guides, then WP shouldn't be doing it either. (But that's clearly not the case demonstrated here for "manned"). --Masem (t) 13:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- More the point? But that point is irrelevant, here. In no way is Wikipedia leading the charge, Wikipedia's guidance follows the published guidance -- that part of guidance was not invented on the pedia. So, your point seems irrelevant, and whether or not you are raising the irrelevant point to hold on to the archaic, or the discriminator, that rather looks like its effect. You place a burden for one term, but place no burden the other term -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- In the specific case of "manned" we are following - sources have been provided to prove that we are following, and that's what I think editors that were questioning "Why shift from 'manned'?" wanted to be clear about, not that they were holding onto an archaic word because they wanted to. I doubt any editor in this discussion intentionally wants WP to stick to gender-discriminating language as long as we follow the lead from others; just that we didn't have that documentation readily in one place until now. --Masem (t) 13:58, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- To the extent that's the question, the question, the accepted and sourced guidance implies, is not "why shift from manned?" -- it's "why not shift from manned?" -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- If you ask the question that way and you don't provide the sources that show that other style guides/RSes have routinely shifted away from archaic language, then that looks like you are begging the RGW issue of making WP be progressive, which we shouldn't ever be. This is essential the situation around the "committed suicide" language debate (where there is some but not sufficient/universal reason to shift from that language for WP's purpose, as determined at the last RFC. --Masem (t) 14:29, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- No. If anything, it is your argument that is trying to 'right the great wrong' of the Wikipedia style guide, which is backed up by multiple style guides. "Committed suicide" is obviously irrelevant with respect to gender-neutral guidance, and raising it, here, is plain distraction. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:38, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not opposing shifting from "manned", and I'm speaking on very general terms about WP and shifting language, what the requirements should be since we're not supposed to be progressive or a leader here. Please don't assume bad-faith here. --Masem (t) 14:42, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- No ABF. Unless, what you did in the comment prior to mine was ABF. Is that what you tried to do with your 'begging RGW' claim backed by a non-gender example? It makes little sense to take a general stance to apply to a different more specific context, when the more specific has already been adopted in Wikipedia guidance. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- If you ask the question that way and you don't provide the sources that show that other style guides/RSes have routinely shifted away from archaic language, then that looks like you are begging the RGW issue of making WP be progressive, which we shouldn't ever be. This is essential the situation around the "committed suicide" language debate (where there is some but not sufficient/universal reason to shift from that language for WP's purpose, as determined at the last RFC. --Masem (t) 14:29, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- To the extent that's the question, the question, the accepted and sourced guidance implies, is not "why shift from manned?" -- it's "why not shift from manned?" -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- In the specific case of "manned" we are following - sources have been provided to prove that we are following, and that's what I think editors that were questioning "Why shift from 'manned'?" wanted to be clear about, not that they were holding onto an archaic word because they wanted to. I doubt any editor in this discussion intentionally wants WP to stick to gender-discriminating language as long as we follow the lead from others; just that we didn't have that documentation readily in one place until now. --Masem (t) 13:58, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- More the point? But that point is irrelevant, here. In no way is Wikipedia leading the charge, Wikipedia's guidance follows the published guidance -- that part of guidance was not invented on the pedia. So, your point seems irrelevant, and whether or not you are raising the irrelevant point to hold on to the archaic, or the discriminator, that rather looks like its effect. You place a burden for one term, but place no burden the other term -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think its more to the point that WP should not be leading or creating language shifts but should only follow, and when we follow, it definitely no longer is a RGW issue. But when editors come to insist language must be shifted but fail to show evidence of widespread shift (eg the recent RFC on "committed suicide"), then that effort to push the language change does feel like a RGW, and editors that are resisting that are simply making sure we have the proper evidence from style guides or other such documents to be sure we're following and not leading. It's not about holding onto arachic and discriminator terms because they want to maintain that discriminatory aspect, but simply that if it isn't a well-document practice in other style guides, then WP shouldn't be doing it either. (But that's clearly not the case demonstrated here for "manned"). --Masem (t) 13:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- WP:RGW applies here. A while back, I came across someone who said that using the word "blacklist" on Wikipedia was offensive. It is true that some sources now regard this as deprecated.[33] However, Wikipedia still has a spam blacklist.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 15:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Not sure that NASA is an authority on Wikipedia practice. They're just one of the thousands of national agencies around the world. Bermicourt (talk) 13:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Wikipedia already has guidance in accord with NASA's and multiple other style guides. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- NASA are only an authority on US space flight, not the worldwide English language in general. Bermicourt (talk) 15:02, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- NASA is in accord with Wikipedia guidance and multiple other style guides on use of the English language. What's in issue is not disapproving NASA's guide (although it seems rather 'don't like it' to do so), it is analyzing under Wikipedia's gender-neutral guidance, which is in accord with multiple style guides. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- NASA are only an authority on US space flight, not the worldwide English language in general. Bermicourt (talk) 15:02, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Anyone mass-changing "manned" better know what they are doing. It sounds like they are most interested in eliminating and the replacement word is a secondary concern. It does require skill and knowledge of the topic area. If they are not doing a good job, they should stop doing it. -- GreenC 15:06, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's just one of those situations that is impossible to solve satisfactorily. But... a binding RfC to deprecate "manned" would fail at like 50/50. On that basis a mass effort to change it would not be at all a good idea, anymore than a mass effort to change "like" to "such as" or vice versa, or "burned down" to "immolated" or vice versa, and so on etc etc etc. Like most phrasing, it remains up to the individual writer. Like it or not that's the current situation on the ground, and mass efforts are for when there's consensus.
- Someone could start an RfC to prove this. But we can see from the above that it would fail, so why bother.
- That said, if someone does it an individual article you are watching, You should let it go, if it's done properly. After all, you are rowing upstream, and some (if only a minority) think it's archaic and not a good look for the project, or are even annoyed by it. Why fight. It's not important. But you can per WP:BRD, and nobody can really gainsay you absent a consensus to on the talk page of that individual article. But enh... just don't. Herostratus (talk) 17:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Agree with Masem, it is not Wikipedia's place to lead this charge, when the majority of contemporary sources replace the term then Wikipedia should follow, but for the time being manned is still very much used and should not be deprecated. I find the argument of following in house style guides for government agencies unconvincing, when the majority of publishing houses and news outlets make the change we should. Looking at one widely used military source, Janes, a search for "manned" throws up 50,832 results whilst "crewed" gets 33,153 results. *Cavalryman (talk) 05:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC).
- Typical Wikipedian attitudes, bending over backwards to rules-lawyer why we can - and should - continue to Do The Wrong Thing, and why those who want change are Wrong and Stupid.--Jorm (talk) 05:53, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- People mostly are discussing what other publications do, what consensus exists here or doesn't, whether or not we're getting ahead of a trend, if not whether we should, what's kind and inclusive and what's woke and annoying, what's idiomatic English and what isn't, and like that. I'm not seeing a lot references to arcana of any rules, so no call to be such a sourpuss. Herostratus (talk) 08:49, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- We already have MOS:GNL. This is a lot of words, and I think many people may have missed Bagumba above pointing out this guideline. It works perfectly well (although I wish we'd get rid of the ships exception)—anyone who wants to replace instances of "manned" with "crewed" is welcome to do so, so long as they don't do it in proper nouns or similar circumstances. That's really all that needs to be said. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- So what happens when it gets rolled back per WP:BRD? I'm not seeing a consensus that a person doing would necessarily be in trouble. So maybe there is more to be said. Herostratus (talk) 01:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- BRD isn't justification for overriding a guideline. In practical terms, if someone reverts, the best thing to do is probably just to drop the stick, but if someone wanted to push the issue and the other editor deliberately insisted on violating the MoS, that'd be cause for taking them to ANI. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:18, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- So what happens when it gets rolled back per WP:BRD? I'm not seeing a consensus that a person doing would necessarily be in trouble. So maybe there is more to be said. Herostratus (talk) 01:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- There isn't the minutest bit of evidence that "manned" has a gender implication. Since words mean what people use them to mean, I suggest you search for expressions like "manned by a woman", "manned by N women" (N being a number such as "two"), "manned by a female". Very large hit counts are unreliable, but I see more than half a million. This issue is manufactured out of whole cloth. Zerotalk 09:35, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I suppose I don't really care if an editor replaced manned with crewed with a sensible result, I think I might object if a bot appeared on the scene and started doing it.Selfstudier (talk) 10:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think a bot could easily figure out if it should put in "crewed" or "garrisoned" or recast the sentence tho. So that's not going to happen. A big campaign by humans could be put together. I would consider that heavy-handed also tho. Herostratus (talk) 01:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Let's not forget those birth attendants, who probably ushered many of us into this vale of tears - but what are we going to do about domesticated canines or large hirsute felines or bovine quadrupeds? More seriously, female Lord Mayors of London, choose to remain 'Lords' so the idea that "one size fits all circumstances", or that de-gendering is inherently virtuous, is just silly. Pincrete (talk) 11:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think you're just "crying wolfe" here. You must mean Lady mares?? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:41, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not to mention Lady Town Criers: [34]. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:01, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think you're just "crying wolfe" here. You must mean Lady mares?? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:41, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- Let's not forget those birth attendants, who probably ushered many of us into this vale of tears - but what are we going to do about domesticated canines or large hirsute felines or bovine quadrupeds? More seriously, female Lord Mayors of London, choose to remain 'Lords' so the idea that "one size fits all circumstances", or that de-gendering is inherently virtuous, is just silly. Pincrete (talk) 11:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think a bot could easily figure out if it should put in "crewed" or "garrisoned" or recast the sentence tho. So that's not going to happen. A big campaign by humans could be put together. I would consider that heavy-handed also tho. Herostratus (talk) 01:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Policy requiring all user interfaces to display talk page links
I don't know where I've been, but I just today realized that if you're logged out on mobile, article pages apparently contain no link to the article talk page at all. So a big percentage (more than half?) of the people reading/editing articles don't have a link to the talk page. We've raised similar problems with mobile apps (see WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU), but apparently this is also a problem affecting everyone using a mobile browser while logged out. Maybe I am just having a brain fart and missed where the link is, but if not, I can't be the only one who thinks this is totally unacceptable.
The proposal: should we have a policy that requires all editing/reading user interfaces (mobile browser, desktop browser, apps, whatever) to prominently display a link to the talk page on every apage? (This would be a policy by the community that would mostly bind developers, not editors. I haven't thought through how the policy would be enforced, but I'm hoping that devs would just follow the policy in future software releases without objection if the policy was enacted.)
I don't know if anyone agrees with this idea so I have not added an RFC tag to this thread in case the proposal dies on the vine. Levivich 15:17, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- That would be a function at Mediawiki and less about an en.wiki issue? --Masem (t) 15:20, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm specifically suggesting enwiki pass this policy, that is, that it should be a requirement by the enwiki community applicable to enwiki pages. Other projects can do what they want. I'm suggesting our project create a rule, wfhich anyone creating a user interface for our project must follow (whether it's a volunteer editor or a WMF employee). Levivich 15:23, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- The mobile app is trash, this is already widely known and we have already been asking the foundation to unfuckulate it. That being said there is no mechanism for this project to actually bind the foundation to a local policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:22, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- What Beeble says really. While this isn't necessarily a bad idea, a page setting out the community's minimum expectations that any software client connecting to the Wikipedia sites must conform to, the real question is what do we do if this proposed policy is violated? How is it enforced? Really, there is only one enforcement mechanism, and that is to disable editing from the app. If that thing is desired, and TBH I would probably support such a proposal until the WMF fixes all those bugs, then we should just go and propose that directly. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:29, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Although, this seems to be a problem with Minerva (the mobile web platform) too. Just for the talk link issue, we can probably use JS to add that, and it'd work on any modern browser. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:36, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah that's the whole point, it's not just the app it's also the mobile browser (see third sentence of OP). I think a policy would be step #1, and then we can talk about implementation (which is different for the app than the browser). I don't see enforcement as an issue really; it's not that kind of policy. It's using policy to set a technical specification, really. I don't think WMF devs (paid employees) would ignore enwiki policy, and enwiki devs (volunteer editors) definitely wouldn't. Levivich 22:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Writing up such a specification and making sure it's complete would require a lot of people to participate in drafting. It would probably be the first enwiki policy that sets rules that we can't really enforce or implement ourselves. (I guess we could implement some using JavaScript but that's about it.) Even if MediaWiki devs adhere to it, it's a very unusual place for it to be. Maybe slightly less unusual as a global specification (set on metawiki), but meta RfCs seem to be a bit more draining and have less activity, so probably better luck doing it on enwiki if done at all, at least in the first instance. I guess I'm pretty neutral on the idea personally; I see some pros and cons. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:00, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Levivich, you're right. Visit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa while logged in and below the title you see "Article Talk. Now visit the same page while logged out and it's gone. You're not missing it, there is no "talk:" to be found even in the page source. I just filed phab:T289409 for this. If the devs don't pick this up we could always hack this into MediaWiki:Common.js, but let's await the response from the devs first. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 23:01, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah that's the whole point, it's not just the app it's also the mobile browser (see third sentence of OP). I think a policy would be step #1, and then we can talk about implementation (which is different for the app than the browser). I don't see enforcement as an issue really; it's not that kind of policy. It's using policy to set a technical specification, really. I don't think WMF devs (paid employees) would ignore enwiki policy, and enwiki devs (volunteer editors) definitely wouldn't. Levivich 22:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
"I'm specifically suggesting enwiki pass this policy"
Are you planning to rewrite the CC by-sa licence, and have all contributors (past and future) sign up to your rewrite? Because unless you do, there is no requirement for anyone reproducing Wikipedia content to include talk page links. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- The mobile app is trash, this is already widely known and we have already been asking the foundation to unfuckulate it. That being said there is no mechanism for this project to actually bind the foundation to a local policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:22, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm specifically suggesting enwiki pass this policy, that is, that it should be a requirement by the enwiki community applicable to enwiki pages. Other projects can do what they want. I'm suggesting our project create a rule, wfhich anyone creating a user interface for our project must follow (whether it's a volunteer editor or a WMF employee). Levivich 15:23, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Related discussion Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Dealing with mobile editors who_appear to be ignoring warnings/refusing to discuss has been ongoing for almost 2 weeks.—Bagumba (talk) 23:55, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Imagine my surprise at learning that not only do mobile app users not get notifications, but mobile IP editors don't even have a talk page link. How have we been operating like this for 20 years?! 🤯 Levivich 00:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think the mobile app is that old, but yeah, it took a moment for the community to beome aware of the extremely serious issues with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:56, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose this is the wrong forum for this. Local projects (like the English Wikipedia) can make all the "policies" they want - but these policies don't apply outside the project - such as to mediawiki software developers or the WMF. Just imagine if every single project that uses mediawiki software started making software policies! As this could really only be limited to things that community can control (on-wiki configs, upstream configuration values that are community options) this is a non-starter. It certainly is a discussion that should continue - but this is the wrong forum. — xaosflux Talk 10:36, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enable Article / Talk tab bar for mobile anon users is the right forum, no? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Alexis Jazz: assuming no one from WMF is going to try to block us (I did post one question there) - think that is the right direction - we certainly don't need a community "policy" to request a configuration change that has consensus. And "all user interfaces" is a much further stretch. — xaosflux Talk 15:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Why is "policy" in scare quotes? The reason to make it a policy and not just a consensus request is to ensure all future clients include links to talk pages; i.e. to make sure this doesn't happen again. The phab ticket shows that this came up in 2013 and it hadn't been switched on because the devs apparently weren't sure if there was consensus for it. So if there had been a policy documenting the global consensus in 2013 (or at any point since), this would have been fixed already. We should make our basic functionality requirements for editing clients into a policy to document global consensus that can guide developers in the future. Levivich 06:10, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: the editors of enwiki don't create clients (in their capacity as editors, what they do when they are not editing we can't really know) - what do you want this policy to do? Say I create a new client the day after this goes live and start using it, how are you going to enforce this local policy? — xaosflux Talk 10:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I want this policy to do the same thing every other policy does: document global consensus. Why? So everyone knows what global consensus is. How do we enforce the WP:IAR policy? We don't. A policy doesn't need an enforcement mechanism to be helpful. "...editors of enwiki don't create clients ... Say I create a new client ..." ... well, which is it? If editors don't create a new client, and the WMF does, the WMF will follow this policy. We don't need to enforce it on the WMF. Although we could enforce it by blocking non-compliant clients. But that really won't be an issue, because the WMF will absolutely follow community consensus when it comes to coding clients, and, as you say, editors don't create their own clients (usually, anway). Levivich 15:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: the editors of enwiki don't create clients (in their capacity as editors, what they do when they are not editing we can't really know) - what do you want this policy to do? Say I create a new client the day after this goes live and start using it, how are you going to enforce this local policy? — xaosflux Talk 10:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Why is "policy" in scare quotes? The reason to make it a policy and not just a consensus request is to ensure all future clients include links to talk pages; i.e. to make sure this doesn't happen again. The phab ticket shows that this came up in 2013 and it hadn't been switched on because the devs apparently weren't sure if there was consensus for it. So if there had been a policy documenting the global consensus in 2013 (or at any point since), this would have been fixed already. We should make our basic functionality requirements for editing clients into a policy to document global consensus that can guide developers in the future. Levivich 06:10, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- FYI
That VPR thread has been closed by RoySmith—Bagumba (talk) 15:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Alexis Jazz: assuming no one from WMF is going to try to block us (I did post one question there) - think that is the right direction - we certainly don't need a community "policy" to request a configuration change that has consensus. And "all user interfaces" is a much further stretch. — xaosflux Talk 15:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Lets break down this policy proposal a bit more, it wants to:
requires all editing/reading user interfaces (mobile browser, desktop browser, apps, whatever) to prominently display a link to the talk page on every article page?
So does this include very popular applications like WP:AWB? How about a skill on my smartspeaker that reads me an article? Maybe I'm reading wikipedia using a Wikipedia:Syndication client - so now I'm not even allowed to read articles because my client doesn't have a displayed link to a talk page? How will preventing someone from creating some new innovative reading client that doesn't include such a link further our mission? — xaosflux Talk 11:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)- AWB would be improved by adding a link to the article talk page if for no other reason than convenience. I think Huggle already has one but I don't have it installed anymore. Levivich 15:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enable Article / Talk tab bar for mobile anon users is the right forum, no? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support I am speaking as a long time editor who does 99% of my editing (including this edit) using Android smartphones and also using the misnamed but fully functional "desktop" site on my phone. For well over a decade, the WMF has failed to bring mobile interfaces and apps up to bare minimum standards of collaboration. There are literally billions of operational smartphones in service which are capable of collaborative editing on the desktop site but the WMF foolishly redirects all of these potential editors to the crippled mobile apps and interfaces. The only reason that I can think of is that a lot of people are getting fat paychecks for perpetuating an ongoing failure. I support whatever technical measures that the English Wikipedia can implement to restrict or prevent usage of these deeply flawed mobile apps and interfaces, and to redirect mobile users to the fully functional desktop site, which should be renamed the "Fully functional site" or something similar. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support Lets show a message like "
Due to your client's failure to implement essential functions of this site you are unable to edit using it. To edit please use a web browser or a client that was actually finished being made.
"... but you know, more diplomatic. As for this being the wrong forum, I don't agree. We already have edit filters that identify certain clients like the mobile client, we just have to block their editing. The devs will get the message when users start complaining that it does not work. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 09:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC) - I think I've supported a very similar thing at WP:VPR just yesterday. I support making all clients/sites fully functional, and I also support blocking all edits from non fully functional clients/sites. —Kusma (talk) 09:43, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Support. This wouldn't be an empty gesture. For one, it will clearly state that the enwiki community think that it is important that all editors can and do communicate with each other. I can't believe that even needs to be stated, but given the years of WMF inaction on this issue, apparently it does. And for another, while xaosflux is correct that we can't control what MediaWiki developers do, we can control who we let edit this project. I hope we don't have to use the nuclear option of enforcing this policy by preventing logged-out mobile users from editing, but if the situation doesn't improve we will have to start considering it. – Joe (talk) 09:49, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe: did you see that this policy wants to apply to all
reading user interfaces
as well? So this is far beyond editing. — xaosflux Talk 11:45, 23 August 2021 (UTC)- I didn't, thanks, and yes I think preventing people reading Wikipedia in talkless interfaces would be a step too far. – Joe (talk) 12:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I believe that, intentionally by design, there is no such thing as a "reader client," meaning every client that allows reading also allows editing, so that "anyone can edit." That's why the basic client... browsers... include an "edit" button. But they don't include a "talk" button, and that's a problem. Levivich 15:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: the RSS syndication client, clients that integrate in to things like smart speakers, integrations in to things like including the lede on Google Search results -- these are all examples of UI's that don't even have write interfaces - but they are all reader clients, that can access article content and certainly don't display links to an article talk page. — xaosflux Talk 15:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Putting aside whether those examples are "reader clients" or "user interfaces", let's specify "editing clients" and/or "editing user interfaces." I.e., wherever there is an "edit" button there should also be a "talk" button. Levivich 16:04, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: the RSS syndication client, clients that integrate in to things like smart speakers, integrations in to things like including the lede on Google Search results -- these are all examples of UI's that don't even have write interfaces - but they are all reader clients, that can access article content and certainly don't display links to an article talk page. — xaosflux Talk 15:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe: did you see that this policy wants to apply to all
- Support as is it wastes time and energy for editors to post explanations/guidance/warnings for contributors who cannot respond. Can this proposed policy be implemented at enwiki? Using an edit filter? If so, please restart this as an RfC with a specific proposal (that x be done to alert contributors that they need to use a non-broken client). Johnuniq (talk) 10:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq: did you notice that this policy says it will apply to any client used by any reader as well? So even someone who never edits or intends to edit, should have their client blocked somehow? — xaosflux Talk 11:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's probably not what Levivich means, not least because it's impossible for the community to disable reading through non-web clients, and I think his proposal has enforcement distinct from the policy itself. Of course, if there is community desire for such a policy, it will need to go through drafting stages to get the wording right between all interested editors. This seems like a discussion to decide whether we want to make such a policy, rather than suggesting creating a page with the content:ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
{{policy tag}} All editing/reading through user interfaces (mobile browser, desktop browser, apps, whatever) is required to prominently display a link to the talk page on every article page. [and other provisions]
- Yeah this proposal did not propose any specific text for the policy, or a name for the policy, or even if it's a new policy or an addition to an existing policy. All those are details to be figured out after the initial question: do we want this to be a policy at all, in any form? Levivich 15:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's probably not what Levivich means, not least because it's impossible for the community to disable reading through non-web clients, and I think his proposal has enforcement distinct from the policy itself. Of course, if there is community desire for such a policy, it will need to go through drafting stages to get the wording right between all interested editors. This seems like a discussion to decide whether we want to make such a policy, rather than suggesting creating a page with the content:
- @Johnuniq: did you notice that this policy says it will apply to any client used by any reader as well? So even someone who never edits or intends to edit, should have their client blocked somehow? — xaosflux Talk 11:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Moral support This should absolutely be a function in all versions of the software. That it isn't needs to be remedied. I note that this is above our heads here at en.wiki, but it is something the Foundation and the Devs need to fix ASAP. --Jayron32 12:32, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Tagging on to Jayron32's "moral support"... I think we should rather deprecate/discontinue the mobile app itself. It's so deeply flawed it's tantamount to malware. In any case the reason for its existence is pretty much obsolete. Mobile phones and tablets have all been capable of running proper web browsers for probably the last decade! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Using the desktop (web) interface on a phone sucks. The only reason people (including myself) use it to edit is because the alternatives suck more. As many people have pointed out, mobile is how most people access the internet these days. And by "these days", I mean the last decade. So it's critical that we improve our mobile support.
- That being said, people need to realize that mobile imposes many physical constraints. Screen real-estate is limited. Touch screens offer far less accuracy than mice. Processors are slower than on desktops. Virtual keyboards suck compared to real ones. Bandwidth is limited (and usage is often billed by the MByte). Connectivity is transient. Wide variability from one device to another. On the other hand, mobile devices often have features that desktops lack. Interfaces based on voice commands, swipe gestures, hand motions, or device orientation. Cameras (often more than one). GPS. Compasses. It's silly to think (at least given current software development technology) that a single app will be optimum on all platforms. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I just want to emphasize that this is about all mobile interfaces, including the browser, and not just the apps. So anyone reading Wikipedia on a regular phone browser doesn't see a talk page link right now, and that's by design (see below). Levivich 15:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Tagging on to Jayron32's "moral support"... I think we should rather deprecate/discontinue the mobile app itself. It's so deeply flawed it's tantamount to malware. In any case the reason for its existence is pretty much obsolete. Mobile phones and tablets have all been capable of running proper web browsers for probably the last decade! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Practically, I think it would be preferable not to word this as a mandatory requirement for clients, but a specification for clients intended to serve as a user's sole access to Wikipedia that if not met could lead to blocking of the client's access. There are many types of interfaces that access Wikipedia; ones that are designed to be complementary to others may not need to provide talk page links. For example, although it's not apparent to me from Huggle's manual if it provides links to the corresponding talk page for the article it is displaying, I think it's assumed users are accessing Wikipedia through other methods that do provide access. WikiBlame is a reading interface that has no inherent need to show links to talk pages. As per the traditional open source community ethos, individual users are free to create clients that are optimized to their personal needs. However if a client ends up getting used by a broader population whose needs differ (such as needing to be made aware of having to monitor talk pages as appropriate), then the community is also free to restrict its usage (as technically possible; absent creating a client authentication mechanism, the server can only rely on the goodwill of the client to identify itself accurately). isaacl (talk) 14:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks to AJ for pointing me to Phab:T54165, which has the history. It's important to understand that this change requires (apparently) adding one line of code, and that the WMF intentionally removed talk page links for logged-out editors. Here's a summary of the phab ticket:
- 2013: "add a thin set of tabs at the top of the page, as on the non-mobile interface. Include at least "Article/Project" "Talk"."
- 2015: "Access talk pages in the mobile interface from main article" receives 6 supports, 1 oppose, at the 2015 Community Wishlist Survey [35]
- 2016: "... the reason to hide from logged out was to prevent naive readers from stepping unknowingly into a confusing experience."
- 2017: "... since this has already been open for 3 years (longer in other forms actually), I don't think that that problem outweighs the one where people don't have access to talk pages at all, right ? I propose we just flip the switch..."
- 2018: "given this came up again and dates back to 2013 maybe we can just do this? I've never been convinced that hiding the talk page link to anons is a good idea"
- 2020: "Based on this ticket, it sounds like we have some sort of consensus for showing the talk page link for unregistered users, but nothing has happened since 2018..."
- Response from WMF: "I think this is mostly a matter of prioritization - we've been working almost exclusively on desktop recently and this was deprioritized in the process."
- "Enabling this on a wiki is as simple as
$wgMinervaTalkAtTop['base'] = true;
so if we wanted to do it on a specific wiki or run an A/B test that is all that should be needed..." - Response from WMF: "...I think a good next step might be to turn it on on a medium-sized wiki..."
- "Swedish Wikipedia is now testing this..."
- 2021 (yesterday): AJ posts the salient "If a user can edit, they must be able to reach talk pages. Either enable the talk link or disable the edit link."
- So, I think we need to tell the WMF that we want
$wgMinervaTalkAtTop['base'] = true;
for enwiki. Levivich 15:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- At this point I'm inclined to add an RFC tag to this thread and list it at CENT. However, maybe this would be better as a pre-RFC discussion, with a more specific formal RFC launched later? I'm not sure, so I'm going to leave it to others to decide the best way forward. Levivich 15:34, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: I think this could have done better going through some mock ups, perhaps at VPI, first. There are some things that I agree are very useful that are lacking that we probably should push for, some which can probably be split to have quick immediate results (like the VPR thread that was speedily-closed) - and some things that should probably be considered on their own (e.g. the parts that are purely reader-centric vs editor-centric; the difference between WMF branded, "official" clients and any possible client). — xaosflux Talk 15:53, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Xaos, this thread is the mock-up. This is the discussion about what do about it. I can tell that you're not actually opposed to the idea that IP editors should have a talk page link. Because no editor would ever possibly oppose that. And, you know, we, the community, have been "discussing" this for eight f'ing years (see above). So I don't think any more pre-discussion is really needed, let's take concrete action now. Making "must have talk page link" a policy will allow the WMF to add
$wgMinervaTalkAtTop['base'] = true;
for enwiki. So, $64,000 question: do you support adding a talk page link for logged-out editors? Levivich 15:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)- @Levivich: to be clear, I personally think that the WMF branded/"official" editing clients should include the related discussion pages when viewing pages here on the English Wikipedia - for logged in or for logged out users. I also think that the slightly-related issue of empowering communications with logged out users by resolving why we do not notify logged out users of new messages on their user-talk depending on their client should be resolved. But, that is a far reach from a blanket policy against any possible client that any possible reader could ever use. — xaosflux Talk 16:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- So I wrote "should we have a policy that requires all editing/reading user interfaces" and you'd support it if it was "editing user interfaces" instead of "editing/reading"? Levivich 16:08, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not really, not from making a policy - but it is a big start. One, I don't think this requires a project local policy unless we are going to actually do something about it locally (e.g. have local blocks against something) - and I'm on the fence there. Two, I'm still opposed to actually forbidding editors from making use of any custom client that doesn't display a talk link - for example, say I change my web client to hide that tab - should I be barred from editing - no way! This seems to be looking at a very narrow set of problems (there are problems with the current WMF mobile app, there is problem with the current minerva skin config while on the mobile web site.), and trying to solve it with an overly excessive rule that could hamper innovation. — xaosflux Talk 16:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think if Google were to make an editing client as a browser extension for Chrome, or if Apple did that for Safari (which either could do tomorrow if they wanted to), it would be good to have a policy that "guides" (or "restricts") those innovations by telling them to include a talk page link where they include an edit link. Same for the WMF's future editing clients, whatever those may be (desktop, mobile, virtual reality, holographic, who knows): we should guide (or restrict) them to ensure there is a talk page link, and we can do that by means of document global consensus in a policy. I'm also on the fence about enforcement through blocking noncompliant clients but I still think agreeing whether it should even be a rule is the first step, and then enforcement is only necessary if there is a problem with compliance, and we can cross that bridge when/if we come to it. Probably the enforcement mechanism is a strongly-worded letter pointing the developer to the policy. :-) Levivich 16:35, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not really, not from making a policy - but it is a big start. One, I don't think this requires a project local policy unless we are going to actually do something about it locally (e.g. have local blocks against something) - and I'm on the fence there. Two, I'm still opposed to actually forbidding editors from making use of any custom client that doesn't display a talk link - for example, say I change my web client to hide that tab - should I be barred from editing - no way! This seems to be looking at a very narrow set of problems (there are problems with the current WMF mobile app, there is problem with the current minerva skin config while on the mobile web site.), and trying to solve it with an overly excessive rule that could hamper innovation. — xaosflux Talk 16:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- So I wrote "should we have a policy that requires all editing/reading user interfaces" and you'd support it if it was "editing user interfaces" instead of "editing/reading"? Levivich 16:08, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: to be clear, I personally think that the WMF branded/"official" editing clients should include the related discussion pages when viewing pages here on the English Wikipedia - for logged in or for logged out users. I also think that the slightly-related issue of empowering communications with logged out users by resolving why we do not notify logged out users of new messages on their user-talk depending on their client should be resolved. But, that is a far reach from a blanket policy against any possible client that any possible reader could ever use. — xaosflux Talk 16:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Xaos, this thread is the mock-up. This is the discussion about what do about it. I can tell that you're not actually opposed to the idea that IP editors should have a talk page link. Because no editor would ever possibly oppose that. And, you know, we, the community, have been "discussing" this for eight f'ing years (see above). So I don't think any more pre-discussion is really needed, let's take concrete action now. Making "must have talk page link" a policy will allow the WMF to add
- I think it would be best to fix some specifics first. For example, would this be a new policy page, or an addition to an existing one? (WP:CON? WP:CIV? WP:DR?) Editing/reading or just editing? What would the text be? – Joe (talk) 16:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just spitballing, but maybe add to WP:Editing policy something simple like "Software editing clients should display a talk page link along with the edit page link". Levivich 16:35, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- My suggestion would be to sidestep the problem of not being able to dictate what MW developers do by focusing on how we as a community will react to uncommunicative editors. Namely, add the following text to WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS:
- Discussion is a fundamental part of Wikipedia editing. Not participating in discussions related to your editing can be disruptive, and users that consistently fail to communicate can be blocked as not compatible with a collaborative project. Some editing interfaces make it difficult to find and access discussions,a but ultimately it is your responsibility to participate in consensus-building. Developers of alternative editing interfaces are nevertheless urged to provide full access to MediaWiki's communication tools for all users.
- ^a Notably, as of 2021, the various mobile interfaces have a number of outstanding communication bugs.
- – Joe (talk) 16:46, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I’m not personally a fan of formally/explicitly shifting the responsibility onto end app users, because they’re the only ones we *can* easily hold accountable. If a user doesn’t even know a talk page exists, because the official WMF app they’re using has the link buried in the settings and doesn’t give notifications, “but ultimately it is your responsibility” is reasonably criticised as being unfair, as it suggests blame lies on the end users. I’d also say don’t add this to the Editing policy because that’s more about what editors should do. My suggestion would be a new ‘procedural policy’ page setting out minimum standards for editing clients (be they WMF or external). In there, perhaps add a note that the community may block individual editors or clients altogether if they fail to comply with these standards. Test it in a two part RfC, the second option being whether we should disable editing from the mobile apps until fixes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, as discussed above, we don't really have any other means of enforcement. A policy that tries to tell WMF developers what to do would be an absolute non-starter; they already have their own byzantine web of consultations and plans and in my experience fall somewhere between agnostic and openly hostile towards what enwiki wants. But it's not really "shifting" anything: we already block chronically-uncommunicative mobile editors, because while they're not to blame, what else are we supposed to do when they're causing disruption? This would just be making what's happening more explicit, and (hopefully) nudging the WMF to allocate some resources to finally getting this fixed. – Joe (talk) 17:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I suppose, although in some cases the community has been willing to be tolerant (if the app user is doing things right, minus the communication part). Non-communication is already a policy problem but I'm guessing those policies were written considering users who are able to communicate but intentionally choosing not to, rather than the current issue which is users using official WMF apps that don't facilitate communication at all. A move towards labelling this case as the end users' fault feels unfair (IMO); I'd prefer a policy change that is more impersonal and targeted at app developers, who are really the ones responsible for this mess...
- And on that note, we do have one other means of enforcement and that's to disable app editing altogether (via the edit filter). I think a generic "Editing via mobile apps has been disabled on the English Wikipedia. Please visit en.wikipedia.org in a web browser to edit.", is more impersonal and helpful, verses a generic block message to users that is hardcoded in the app (they don't see the blocking admin's block reason). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:46, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- If they are a mobile IP, they'll need to use a web browser in desktop mode to see a talk page notification (WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU).—Bagumba (talk) 18:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, as discussed above, we don't really have any other means of enforcement. A policy that tries to tell WMF developers what to do would be an absolute non-starter; they already have their own byzantine web of consultations and plans and in my experience fall somewhere between agnostic and openly hostile towards what enwiki wants. But it's not really "shifting" anything: we already block chronically-uncommunicative mobile editors, because while they're not to blame, what else are we supposed to do when they're causing disruption? This would just be making what's happening more explicit, and (hopefully) nudging the WMF to allocate some resources to finally getting this fixed. – Joe (talk) 17:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I’m not personally a fan of formally/explicitly shifting the responsibility onto end app users, because they’re the only ones we *can* easily hold accountable. If a user doesn’t even know a talk page exists, because the official WMF app they’re using has the link buried in the settings and doesn’t give notifications, “but ultimately it is your responsibility” is reasonably criticised as being unfair, as it suggests blame lies on the end users. I’d also say don’t add this to the Editing policy because that’s more about what editors should do. My suggestion would be a new ‘procedural policy’ page setting out minimum standards for editing clients (be they WMF or external). In there, perhaps add a note that the community may block individual editors or clients altogether if they fail to comply with these standards. Test it in a two part RfC, the second option being whether we should disable editing from the mobile apps until fixes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Levivich: I think this could have done better going through some mock ups, perhaps at VPI, first. There are some things that I agree are very useful that are lacking that we probably should push for, some which can probably be split to have quick immediate results (like the VPR thread that was speedily-closed) - and some things that should probably be considered on their own (e.g. the parts that are purely reader-centric vs editor-centric; the difference between WMF branded, "official" clients and any possible client). — xaosflux Talk 15:53, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would support a policy of blocking edits from users who are unable to see their talk page, with a reasonable grace period once the policy goes into effect to allow for the developers to implement the change. If this means blocking mobile IP edits if the developers cannot implement the feature, so be it. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC) - Please don't make a formal RFC out of this discussion! This is such a WP:TRAINWRECK that I can't even figure out if we are talking about user talk pages, or article talk pages. When we get to the inevitable "no consensus" the WMF will say "See! The community doesn't really care about communication after all!" and that will be that. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- That said, has anyone looked at the (article) talk page interface on mobile? The banners are hidden behind the eesny little "about this page" link, and editnotices are nonexistent. There's nothing to tell you what talk pages are even for. Just a big blue button, that if clicked, opens a box where you're asked
What is on your mind?
. As far as any new user can see, it's just a place for general blog-style comments. Do we really want to make that easier to find? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC)- @Suffusion of Yellow: sliding off on to the spur, that "What is on your mind?" can be localized, the value is stored here: MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-talk-add-overlay-content-placeholder. If you (or anyone else) have a good idea for it, perhaps open a section at MediaWiki talk:Mobile-frontend-talk-add-overlay-content-placeholder, and link in to it from WP:VPM - then we can update it. Note, it does not support wikitext. — xaosflux Talk 00:10, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- That said, has anyone looked at the (article) talk page interface on mobile? The banners are hidden behind the eesny little "about this page" link, and editnotices are nonexistent. There's nothing to tell you what talk pages are even for. Just a big blue button, that if clicked, opens a box where you're asked