Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)

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The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
Before creating a new section, note:

• Discussions of technical issues belong at Village pump (technical).
• Discussions of policy belong at Village pump (policy).
• If you're ready to make a concrete proposal and determine whether it has consensus, go to the Village pump (proposals). Proposals worked out here can be brought there.

Before commenting, note:

• This page is not for consensus polling. Stalwart "Oppose" and "Support" comments generally have no place here. Instead, discuss ideas and suggest variations on them.
• Wondering whether someone already had this idea? Search the archives below, and look through Wikipedia:Perennial proposals.

Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for two weeks.

« Archives, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47

Completely remove the idea of a "minor edit"

The idea of a "minor edit" in Mediawiki (the software that runs Wikipedia) is a design mistake. Mediawiki should remove it entirely so that all traces of it are gone except for historical purposes. The problems with "minor edit" are manifold:

• the distinction between a minor and a non-minor edit is arbitrary and up to the user to decide
• the user is often unsure themselves how they'd classify their own edit
• other editors might (and would) often disagree
• obvious minor edits are often forgotten to be marked as such
• bigger edits are occasionally marked as minor (eg when an editor initially made a small edit but then went bigger)
• bigger edits might intentionally be marked as minor eg by vandals
• it's a bit rude to make people who like to copyedit constantly call their efforts "minor"

The idea that users can self-report edits that don't require review is outlandish. If anything, it'd be much smarter to allow users to flag edits that they think require review. But I think that all edits require review so the benefits of simplification of the editing process outweigh the pros of adding such flags. Of course there should be a "bot" flag and possibility others. I'm not saying flags are not needed at all. Just that our current usage of "minor edit" is pointless and needs major reconsideration. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:22, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

For reference, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 177 § RfC: Disable minor edits on English Wikipedia is I believe the last large discussion on a similar proposal, where it was suggested that only rollbackers, admins, and bots should be able to flag an edit as minor, and by policy only when reverting vandalism. isaacl (talk) 02:39, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the editors in that RfC who pointed out that, while the minor flag is a weak signal when applied by a new user, it is more helpful when coming from an editor you know and trust. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for bring that past RfC to my attention. I have to say that RfC appears to have been poorly made. Literally no rationale was given leaving some to oppose with (meritorious!) "why?" comments. Plus in the absence of an argument to set the focus, many people brought an array of views that perhaps missed the point. It was also perhaps not the best idea to have two somewhat orthogonal concepts mixed together. A dissatisfying RfC for me. And kind of disheartening because it will affects and anchor future discussions like this one forever. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

As per RfC standards, the proposer started it with a neutral question. They then placed the rationale in their support statement. I wouldn't worry too much about long-term after-effects. Editors were commenting on how useful they found the minor edit flag; I think a discussion now or in the future will continue to be based on their experiences up to the point of discussion. isaacl (talk) 17:12, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Some editors find it convenient to filter out long strings of humdrum edits (e.g. dash fixing with AWB) from contribution histories. Additionally at a recentish discussion about disallowing non-autoconfirmed users from marking edits as minor there was significant pushback because some participants felt it made vandals/spammers easier to identify as they often mark all their edits as minor. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 04:34, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with that last part. Maybe even making it an extended confirmed-only function ... Iskandar323 (talk) 07:27, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

There should be ways to filter out bot edits. I don't buy the experienced vs inexperienced editor arguments. I've been using the minor edit checkbox now for almost 20 years. I think it does cause editors to skip reviewing some of my edits. But I'd rather they did. My editing is not infallible and I too introduce occasional errors by mistake. I wish more eyeballs would review my edits. Maybe it's best if I don't mark my edits as minor anymore. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn both recent changes and watchlist have a built-in hide-bots option already. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:45, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi, xaos. I know. My comment was intended to suggest that some kinds of filtering are valuable and we need to remain able to do it even if we remove the minor edit flag. I didn't mean to imply by "should be" that no such filtering currently exists. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:11, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I would support its removal. I don't find it useful to screen out minor edits from my watchlist because it's too frequently misapplied. If it wasn't available, it would do away with user talk page and drama board kerfuffles about its misuse. From the viewpoint of a new editor, I would think "minor" meant I wasn't making a "major edit", which is the wp-wrong way to interpret it, so that's confusing. I think any perceived benefit to watchlist screening is negated by both unintentional and intentional misuse. Schazjmd (talk) 14:58, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

It took until I first ventured out of mainspace for me to realize that "watch page" wasn't the inverse of "minor edit". I also had no confidence in my contributions. So for 10 years I dutifully marked "watch page" for every edit that wasn't trivial c/e in the belief I was alerting "admins" to additions that needed reviewing. I found out even more embarrassingly recently that the star symbol wasn't a "like button". When I finally discovered my watchlist it already had like 800 articles... JoelleJay (talk) 00:40, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

When I was new, I thought that {{Cancer}} and [[Category:Cancer]] were two ways of writing the same thing, so I randomly removed one or the other whenever the navbox's name matched a category's name.

@Trizek (WMF), is the Growth team thinking about introducing new editors to their watchlists? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:56, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not on our roadmap. Wouldn't it be your team's responsibility as it is part of the post-editing? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:29, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

mw:Developers/Maintainers says that the Watchlist has been Growth's. In practice, I don't think any team has been thinking about it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I never mark an edit minor for reasons stated. Marking an edit minor is to discourage the need to verify, which contradicts how Wikipedia operates. -- GreenC 14:59, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC never say never? I'm assuming you didn't manually click minor - but that is the type of "minor" edit that I think is still useful to filter. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:33, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I ceased marking edits as minor after being informed I wasn't following the "guidelines". Ah, okay. Why bother? Praemonitus (talk) 15:39, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

• I find it a useless feature, but apparently others do not. Useless to me, harmless across the board, and useful to somebody means there's no good reason to get rid of it. --Jayron32 15:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

  My thoughts are in agreement w/ Jayron. I do mark some edits as minor (e.g. removing unnecessary line breaks), tho. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 22:06, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

  There will always be people who think something is useful given a decent size user base. So "'Useful to somebody' implies a feature should be kept" is a very poor standard for software maintenance and development. It would effectively never removes anything and just allows cruft to accumulate. Instead software developers should constantly be asking, "Is this the way it it should be?". Plus, you are neglecting the negative effects of cruft on the rest of users. If a feature is useless to most but useful to a few, that does not mean it is harmless. Every UI element or every step/option in workflow adds complexity and that very complexity affects the usability of software. The minor edit option is something encountered upon first edits and adds yet another reason why a first time editor might get the "I don't know what's going on here" feeling and abandon their try. Plus it takes up space, and clutter is bad. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:25, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

• I support it being removed. I don't bother ticking the box myself because I don't see any value. Likewise, I ignore it when looking at other people's edits. From my experience at WP:SPI, I see it mostly used by miscreants as an attempt to avoid scrutiny. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Perhaps instead the Pareto principle should be applied and we have check boxes for the top 3-4 edit categories? For example: fix spelling/grammar, add/repair link(s), warning tag(s), citation change(s). Praemonitus (talk) 18:14, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
    • This exists on the mobile app: they have "fixed typo, fixed grammar, added links" as buttons. Natg 19 (talk) 04:00, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Misuse seems like something that would be easy to make backfire, at least sometimes. Couldn't we have a bot or somesuch that highlights edits that have a large byte difference but which are flagged as minor? That seems like a red flag for vandalism. Obviously that won't help when someone flags subtle date vandalism as minor, but it'd still be useful as far as it goes. EDIT: Blueboar has elaborated on this below; but we could automate it to an extent by somehow highlighting large edits that are flagged as minor, since that's a contradiction that bears further scrutiny. --Aquillion (talk) 19:37, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
• I find it useful - but for reasons that are exactly the opposite of the tags intended use. So many vandals and SPA editors check it (in an attempt to hide their nefarious/problematic edits) that I have learned to pay extra scrutiny to anything tagged as “minor”. In short the tag is a great way to identify nefarious/problematic edits. I would hate to lose that. Blueboar (talk) 19:19, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

  In that case, why not let IP's use minor edits? Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 01:02, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll skip over minor edits (by editors I trust) when reviewing a page history or on my watchlist, it saves me time. I flag my own minor edits as minor for the same reason. The list of problems can be summarized as sometimes people make mistakes with minor edits, or sometimes they don't use them as intended, or sometimes these edits start arguments. This is also true for non-minor edits. I don't think we should get rid of either. Levivich (talk) 19:24, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

The flag is useful but its name may be confusing. The definition of minor edit, whilst useful and correct, is not the obvious meaning of that term. For example, per WP:ME, "reversion of obvious vandalism" is a "minor edit", but I wouldn't class unblanking a page as minor.

All registered editors can mark their edits as minor. Should this be a revocable privilege, issued by default to all (or [auto]confirmed only) but removed from those who abuse it? Certes (talk) 22:04, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea, about making it a permission. Also, maybe rename it to "routine edit"? Levivich (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

'routine' is also subjective. If we're renaming it should be to something very specific like "formatting only", ('Mechanical editing' is probably the correct industry term, and has the benefit of starting with an m' JeffUK 08:06, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I would support it being removed. It confuses me when I put in a new edit. And if I am making a lot of minor edits for cleanup purposes, I have to remember to check the box every time, which I don't because it's just another check box I have to check. Born25121642 (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I think of the "minor edit" feature as something like an easily accessible edit summary and just as reliable as edit summaries in general. I would support removing all "hide minor edits" features from the default view, as whether an edit is marked as minor says nothing about whether it is minor. Better to rely on software detection than on user self reporting. —Kusma (talk) 10:47, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

I think this hits the key point. If we don't automatically hide minor edits, then none of the concerns of 'people using it to hide vandalism' will apply. Is there anywhere that we do hide 'minor' edits automatically? JeffUK 22:40, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The default settings for Special:Watchlist hide minor edits. You can change this in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist (two-thirds of the way down the page). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:58, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

I would absolutely support removing that default.. or making it much easier to configure. JeffUK 07:24, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree, It's really pointless other than filtering. (which should really be an automatic thing like if its (+5) or (-5) or done by something like HotCat) It CAN be used for vandalism purposes, most of the time I forget to even flag it. ~With regards, I followed The Username Policy (Message Me) (What I have done on Wikipedia) 20:29, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that it serves any purpose. Since you can't trust it, it needs to be reviewed, which removes it's reason for existence. North8000 (talk) 20:30, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

• I perform a lot of AWB runs in which I make edits that are really minor (e.g., adding missing spaces after commas or ref tags). I mark these minor by default. I would like to think the software will eventually get to the point where it can natively recognize that an edit is "minor" in this sense without any human choice being involved at all. BD2412 T 21:24, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
• I'd support removing it. If it were consistently used honestly, it would work, but it is not. I do not double check on editors I trust if they mark an edit as minor, but I don't check a trusted editor even if it not marked as minor. I don't think it provides the information it is intended to provide. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:45, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
• Agreed, it's pointless. Its only use is the inverse of what was intended: some people attempt to hide bad edits by calling them minor, so minor deserve extra scrutiny. It also misleads novice editors who are nervous of claiming they're making a big contribution to Wikipedia when all they're doing is adding a new supporting reference, or a single sentence highlighting a new development in their field. They believe these edits are 'minor', which they are in terms of global authorship, but they're factual changes so they're major in Wikipediaworld. And then novice gets cautioned for misusing 'minor', which is scary and off-putting. Elemimele (talk) 17:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• I agree it's more trouble than it's worth among the general editor population. There are a few valid use cases, though, e.g. allowing people to hide AWB edits in their watchlist and letting bots edit user talk pages without leaving a notification. Certes's permission idea is a good one, although I might make it available on request rather than a default. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
• "The idea that users can self-report edits that don't require review is outlandish" this statement is only true if you fail to assume good faith. In most cases, edits marked as minor ARE minor, and can be safely skipped over if trying to understand the content changes brought about by a series of good-faith edits by most editors. Conversely, a 3,000 byte edit marked as 'minor' is an excellent indicator of something that is more likely to need attention! JeffUK 16:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Assuming good faith does not mean that we should assume that every edit is equally beneficial to the encyclopedia. An editor can have all good intentions and still make mistakes, or not be aware of one or another point in our policies and guidelines. And we know from painful experience that some editors do not always edit in good faith. So, assume that an editor is editing in good faith until and unless the evidence shows otherwise, but do not assume that any edit is error-free and does not need to be reviewed. If I had the time, I would review every edit that shows up in my watchlist (I actually did do that for a while), but, as it is, with over 5,000 pages on my watchlist, I tend to skip over edits in mainspace made by editors I recognize. Donald Albury 18:19, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm the same, and for those editors who either I recognise, or see making good edits, I tend to trust that their 'minor' tags are appropriate and relevant; making the tag a useful indication of whether or not an edit has added content that may be likely to be challenged. JeffUK 18:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  But, I think all my edits should be reviewed. I am terrible at proofreading my own work, and it has taken me up to six years to discover errors I have made.[1] Donald Albury 18:55, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  And a few minutes ago I saw that an IP had just corrected a couple of capitalization errors I had made eleven years ago. Donald Albury 19:48, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't understand how removing the 'Minor' flag, as is proposed here, either helps or hinders that happening in the future. JeffUK 22:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• I oppose the general removal of the “minor edit” button. Maybe I am in the minority but I do use it for routine correcting of typos (often my own) and others should have that option if they so choose. I do like the idea of revoking this button from those who abuse it. Frank Anchor 03:03, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  Part of me is conflicted because I do TRY to mark an edit as "minor", and it'd be stupid if it was an autoconfirmed-only option (considering most of the constructive edits from IPs are probably spell check or capitalization), and revoking access because of abuse is frankly too much hassle than it's worth. See minor edits work on paper, if you give it to a majority of active Wikipedians it'll be used correctly, but like Wikipedia's main page slogan says "Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit" the fact anyone can edit makes it the largest encyclopedia, but that also means anyone could abuse this, sadly because of vandals a decent feature might be taken away from us. ~With regards, I followed The Username Policy (Message Me) (What I have done on Wikipedia) 05:05, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

  IP Users cannot mark their edits as minor, it's only available to registered users. JeffUK 07:58, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

• The minor feature gives an excellent indicator of whether a particular contributor should be supported (because they understand the simple concept) or should be eased out (because they can't follow even a simple suggestion). Johnuniq (talk) 05:43, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Remove, the different filters like bot or small/large edits would be better off with explicit filters for bot activities and or small/large edits. As long as it does exist, I do mark my edits as minor where applicable, but I have no reason to trust the veracity of other people's edits whether due to bad faith or simply difference in interpretation. Is adding one citation a minor edit? I certainly do not think so, but many other editors do. Removing this flag would simplify the ambiguity. If more explicit filtering/tooling can help, let's work on those, but the minor flag causes more confusion and headache than its existence is worth. If the minor flag exists for bot/certain conditions, I would be fine with that too. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:36, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
• I get that some people simply ignore the minor edit button and flag. Fine, you do you. Others have no problem using it and even see a use for it (yes a lot of my edits are minor). ϢereSpielChequers 20:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
• Nothing is wrong, leave it alone. The minor edit flag is a humane feature intended to give a hint to the reader of what to expect if they look into the content of the edit. If you're interpreting it as anything more rigid than that, you've completely missed the point. The OP writes: it's a bit rude to make people who like to copyedit constantly call their efforts "minor" - literally nobody is saying that. As has been noted multiple times above, you're not required to use the feature, or even pay attention to it.  — Scott • talk 12:00, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
• I'm of the mind that there are no minor edits. That said, if it serves as even a minor anti-vandalism tool, keep it. kencf0618 (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
• I've been flagging edits as minor when appropriate for a mumble long time. I do it for two reasons: (1) when I correct a typo, punctuation or a grammatical mistake which I consider minor; & (2) I make an edit I don't care whether it is reverted. Many times I flag it for both reasons. I would be disappointed if that flag were removed. -- llywrch (talk) 21:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Modifications to the default settings of Vector 2022

While it isn't clear whether the close of the Vector2022 RfC will stand, I believe it is still beneficial to determine what modifications we want to make to the skin. This would include both modifications that we can make by editing MediaWiki:Vector-2022.css and MediaWiki:Vector-2022.js, and modifications that we would need to ask the WMF to make.

I'm opening this discussion to determine the format of that discussion, and to determine which changes should be discussed as part of it.

For format I believe a multi-part RfC would be best, with each proposed change a separate question. For the questions I have created an initial list of those I consider worthy of discussion; I have included questions that I would support and questions that I would oppose but expect to have some support among the broader community.

• Main menu:
  1. Should the main menu be visible by default?
  2. Should the choice to expand or collapse the main menu be persistent?
• Header:
  1. Should the mystery meat buttons be replaced with text buttons?
  2. Should readers be able to disable the sticky header?
  3. Should the sticky header be disabled by default?
  4. Which, if any, of the following should be moved out the right hand drop down menu and moved into the header bar?:

     A: "User talk"

     B: "User sandbox"

     C: "User preferences"

     D: "Beta"

     E: "User contributions"

     F: "Log out"

• Table of contents:
  1. Should pages include a table of contents at the top of the article, similar to Vector2010, in addition to the sticky table of contents?
  2. Should sub-headings in the floating table of contents start expanded (Collapsed sub-headings, expanded sub-headings)?
• Other:
  1. Should the previous state of the article title bar be restored (Previous state, current state)? This would involve:
     • Moving coordinates to be inline with the slogan "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"
     • Moving icons denoting page protection, featured status, etc for featured article, to be inline with the article title
     • Moving the language selector to the main menu
  2. When a user selects "expanded width", the content only expands to use the white space on the left of the page, not the right. Should the white space on the right also be used? (This question may have already been asked, depending on the interpretation of "full width by default")

BilledMammal (talk) 14:53, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• Main menu: 1. yes; 2. no.
• Header: 1. neutral; 2. yes; 3. yes; 4. C, D, F.
• Table of contents: 1. yes; 2. yes.
• Other: 1. yes; 2. the page should be expanded by default as it was in V10.

Æo (talk) 12:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Why shouldn’t the main menu choice be persistent, and why shouldn’t the sticky header be enabled by default? Also, why should beta and logout be out of the drop-down instead of more obvious choices such as the talk? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:45, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

With Vector-2022 now having passed all the hurdles to remain as the default this question becomes more relevant and input from interested editors is welcomed. Please also see the discussion at VPT about implementing the consensus to set Vector 2022 to full width by default. Note that this isn't the RfC yet, and is instead attempting to work out what questions should be asked, rather than asking those questions. BilledMammal (talk) 20:30, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's helpful to bundle all of these into one RfC, or even into multiple simultaneous RfCs. It's a lot to go through, and the issues are not all of similar priority. CMD (talk) 01:23, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

That makes sense; which ones do you believe have a higher priority? BilledMammal (talk) 01:25, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I would combine the Main menu questions into one question. I would also ask header question 4 and TOC question 1. These are the questions that seem most relevant to the average Wikipedian, or reader. The most important ones IMO are the main menu questions and the TOC question.

On a side note, V2022 is pissing me off. I always switch back to it when I want to engage in discussion about it, and I just noticed that there is no direct way to generate a random article—you have to reach into the dropdown, click Special Pages, and scroll until you find it, or alter urls. Why? I don't get it. It was there before. How am I supposed to hone my wikipedia game skills? Cessaune [talk] 14:25, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Cessaune The hamburger menu/main menu has random page, just like how everything above what links here is there. Also, I agree with your suggestions on the upcoming RfCs. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:46, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah. Good. I assumed it would be under Tools. Cessaune [talk] 02:36, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: Can we proceed with this? Æo (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Needs to draft first IMO, the early version of rbv22 shouldn’t repeat Aaron Liu (talk) 13:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

You are asking the WMF to make a bunch of micro-configuration changes that will be specific to this wiki and take time to implement. I agree with what TheDJ has been saying—giving this much decision-making power to the community on these aspects are a bad idea. These tickets will all be closed as invalid. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 14:07, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

WMF can decide that they don't want to give this much power to us. We shouldn't be limited by the idea that WMF might try to limit us. We should proceed and see what happenes, I think. Cessaune [talk] 16:35, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I think his point is “we should leave aesthetics to the professionals not the community”, which I disagree with. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Not just because professionals may be better at picking, but they also fully understand what's possible. They mentioned on the Discord that they knew the unlimited default width would be impossible from the start. I imagine most of these changes will have similar issues. We may be able to make them via JS and CSS, but if a lot of these end up being different from how they currently are special pages will look significantly different from normal pages. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 18:35, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Selena Deckelmann mentioned on the Discord that they knew the unlimited default width would be impossible from the start—what. Why? And, even if this is the case, why was this not mentioned in the RfC?

Also, I don't see why most of these questions would be technically impossible to implement, or even hard. Something like a dual static/sticky TOC might be hard to implement, but we already know it is possible to move stuff out of dropdowns (Log in) and we know that persistence is possible. Cessaune [talk] 18:41, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

We already have a css (CSS!) hack to implement unlimited width, why would it be impossible? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:25, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

This looks like it could end up being 10 RFC questions, or worse, a single RFC that a closer would have to try to assess consensus for in 10 different areas. I am a bit worried that the ROI on this would be low. That is, it'd take a lot of editor time and not necessarily result in the WMF listening to us. Perhaps we should focus our political capital and editor time on getting unlimited width implemented first. Another thing we could do is create these 10 tickets on Phab, which is the normal way to request software, and see if any get accepted. Some of these likely already have Phab tickets - perhaps these phab links can be edited into the original post, and we can see if any of these features are both popular and declined, and then discuss and decide if we want to push for some of these further. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:53, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what is ROI, but we could open 10 RFCs on a single page. Æo (talk) 12:51, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I think they mean a figurative Return on Investment Aaron Liu (talk) 13:45, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I meant return on investment. In other words, is the benefit worth the effort? Another mega RFC / 10 little RFCs is quite a bit of editor time if WMF isn't likely to action it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:44, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

If the Wikipedia community is worth anything, then another RFC / 10 little RFCs are worth the effort. It is the only way for the community to manifest its views to the WMF. Æo (talk) 00:49, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Seconded. It's only an RfC,one that could potentially define, for a long time, how enwiki functions. RfCs are costly, and there might not be a 'return on investment', but the enwiki community isn't a company, and, at the worst, a bit of time was wasted. Cessaune [talk] 01:21, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

RFCs aren't the only way for this community to manifest its views to the WMF, although it's the only one most members would think of, if you believe Conway's law.

Editor time is valuable. Let's not waste any of it. If you think these are good ideas, then let's write them up in Phab:, and see what the team does with them. If they think that need evidence of community support, then the Phab tasks will get a community-consensus-needed tag added. If they think they're good ideas, then they'll likely prioritize them and implement them. If they think they're bad ideas, they'll likely give you an explanation for why, which could be valuable for any future discussions. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this would be efficacious and that it would represent the general view of the community. What we are discussing here are ways to represent the general view of the community. Moreover, the team have already demonstrated that they are not willing to follow the community's consensus. Æo (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this project stalled?

Is this project stalled? Æo (talk) 23:38, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: ? I cannot believe that the silent majority of users are passively accepting this imposition of an interface which is obviously hideous and destined to damage the project. Æo (talk) 08:03, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

1) It's not objectively hideous, let's not pretend like everyone hates it. In fact, there is a lot about V2022 I like.

2) Destined to damage the project? How? Cessaune [talk] 14:31, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

1) 60% of the community opposed it. 2) That is indeed my opinion; I think that the mobile-esque design will inevitably lead to a further fragmentation and loss of quality of the articles' content, because of structural reasons which were widely discussed in the RfC. Æo (talk) 17:18, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

From what I've seen in the RfC, the removal of the inline ToC simply disrupts certain people's geometry of the article, not the article content itself? Aaron Liu (talk) 18:37, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

There are many other controversial aspects beyond the ToC, which is indeed a major one. For instance, I see that the font size in V22 seems to be bigger than in V10. I don't think this is an improvement; I feel better with the smaller font and wider texts of V10. Has this ever been discussed? Æo (talk) 13:13, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Both skins' body text font sizes are 1em * 0.875, defined in div#bodyContent. The font size didn't change. So what aspects harmed article content quality besides ToC, which I'm still not quite convinced of? Aaron Liu (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The main one is certainly the ToC, the other one is the general shrunken appearance of the articles' spaces. V22 gives (me) the impression, at the same time, of both "wasted white space" and claustrophobic "lack of space". Æo (talk) 14:29, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Wasting lots of space doesn't lead to degraded article quality. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:43, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Shrinking the articles in a smaller space certainly does. There is something weird in the general appearance of V22, and it has been expressed in different terms by different users according to their different outlooks. It is a general weird appearance given not by a single characteristic but by many of them together. For some it is the width, for others it is the ToC, for still others the menus. In general terms, V22 has not been appreciated by the community. Æo (talk) 16:14, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't find this argument particularly compelling. The community you refer to is no where near agreement on anything pertaining to V2022. V22 has not been appreciated by the community—maybe? This is just opinion; personally, I think it's pretty evenly split.

Secondly, how does shrinking the articles in a smaller space lead to degraded article quality? I mean, I don't like the shrinking, but I don't see how smaller body size is necessarily good or bad. Cessaune [talk] 16:30, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Hasn't 60% of the users who took part in the RfC opposed V22? 60% is the majority. Æo (talk) 19:09, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

You will have a hard time proving that is representative of all users. I strongly suspect that many users who are satisfied with V2022 (as I am) didn't bother to participate in that RfC. Donald Albury 19:23, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the RfC was a good representation of the opinion of the general community. I also read comments by users (including at least two admins) who defined V22 "horrible" and yet did not take part in the RfC. Æo (talk) 19:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

P.S. A majority, in this case an absolute majority, in any case is not representative of all users, it is representative of significantly more than half of them. Æo (talk) 19:42, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

60% isn't representative of the general community, just most of it. 40% is still quite big. Plus it's 58.7% if you count the neutrals, which doesn't count as an absolute majority. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:41, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

An absolute majority is by definition a majority over 50%. 60% is the absolute majority of the Wikipedia community; 40% is a big minority. Æo (talk) 20:59, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Huh, I may have confused it with other qualifiers of majority. Still, 40% is a very big minority, so you can't use 60% to represent the entire community. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Selection bias plays such a major factor in all of this that I think using direct numbers isn't a good way of going about things. Cessaune [talk] 21:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

As I already wrote above, I think that the general opinion of the community was well represented in the RfC. Æo (talk) 15:16, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Whenever I am not logged in with my account (set with V10) and I have to read a Wikipedia page in V22, I find it repulsive; the new structure and organisation of spaces is literally distracting, disturbing and annoying. While the font looks bigger, all the elements of the page look cramped, and at the same time they look disconnected, disorganised and confusing. The ToC does not provide a structure to the article and the two appear as separate things. Æo (talk) 15:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Okay. This, however, is all opinion. How do you qualify the statement that V22 has not been appreciated by the community? None of the things you are saying are objectively true. Cessaune [talk] 15:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

For me, that V22 has not been appreciated by the community — at least by a significant majority of it (the aforediscussed 60%) — is a fact. The things I have expressed have been widely discussed, from different points of view, in the RfC. Æo (talk) 15:34, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

58%/60% is an absolute majority but not a significant one. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

That absolute majority does not even represent merely a non-appreciation, but also a rejection, since the opinion vote was for V22's withdrawal, i.e. against its deployment. Æo (talk) 15:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

As I said above, the font is the same size as it was before. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It looks bigger, maybe due to an optical effect. Æo (talk) 15:36, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Looks the same to me, on my screen. Cessaune [talk] 15:40, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Dear Lord, if this isn't bludgeoning, I don't know what is. There's a simple solution: change your personal skin. Here. Wikipedia is a global multilingual project, why would you wanna change the user experience only here and only based on anonymous unqualified opinions of a few? It's sad that this is happening. I'm sure many are getting tired of it. 38.68.160.148 (talk) 18:30, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

How is this bludgeoning? It's not a ton of comments repeating the same thing, it's a couple of different proposals on a topic. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that EN:Wikipedia is the best ones to make these decisions. Wikipedia is the ship that the WMF ivory tower and it's pet projects rides on. And until we can implement structure for the Wikipedias to decide together, en:wikipedia being the largest is the best place for that to come from. The largely self-appointed WMF ivory tower certainly isn't. North8000 (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

From the WMF's viewpoint, I expect the project is now permanently stalled. They've achieved their objective of pushing out Vector 2022, its developer has left the organisation, and the rest of the WMF team will have moved on to changing something else. If there's consensus to mitigate some of the worst effects of the new skin, it's now up to enwp to implement it locally. Certes (talk) 08:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

AHollender was the lead designer, not the sole developer. Of course there's still a team on v22. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Certes, Aaron is right. Alex was a designer ("lead" is a prefix indicating his professional experience, the same way I'm a "senior" and Olga is a "principal"), and he wasn't the decision-maker regarding what the team would work on. Perhaps we'll pick projects tied closely to Vector 2022 and resulting from the code cleanup which, from the technical perspective, Vector 2022 is. Perhaps we'll have a meeting focusing on the plan for the next fiscal year itself. Subscribe to our newsletter and look out for news! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

My apologies for getting the job title wrong, but the point stands: the person in charge has completed their work and moved on (whether internally or externally isn't really important) and it's now time for enwp to pick up the pieces. Certes (talk) 17:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

It’s not just the job title. Just one experienced person leaving doesn’t mean the project’s over. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

The team, in their statistical analyses, highlighted the increase of clicks to navigate articles as an indicator of V22's increased usability. This is not necessarily and indicator of usability, let alone of success among the users; to the contrary, the increase of clicks needed to navigate the articles indicates that with V22 moving between the various sections of an article and between different articles has become more awkward, as pointed out by many commentators during the RfC. Does the team realise that an encyclopedia project needs content quality and not more clicks? Was V22 specifically designed to increase the overall amount of clicks?--Æo (talk) 14:41, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Increased number of what clicks? What’s the context/source? How is moving between the various sections of an article and between different articles more awkward? Aaron Liu (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Organizing potentially another Wikipedia blackout over RESTRICT Act

Relevant bill(s) of the RESTRICT Act: - Text - S.686 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): RESTRICT Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress and BILLS-118HR1153ih.pdf (house.gov)

Relevant analysis by civil liberties organizations: Government Hasn't Justified a TikTok Ban | Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) ACLU Strongly Opposes House Bill that Would Ban TikTok and Threaten First Amendment Rights | American Civil Liberties Union

In short: these bills would allow for US to shut down platforms that it deems to be a risk to national security. There is a lot of coverage about this in the news about a possible ban of TikTok; however, the way the bill is worded can be very very arbitrary, goes beyond TikTok, and can result in serious infringement on the same First Amendment rights that allow Wikipedia to exist in the first place.

Wikipedia successfully was able to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act back in 2011, but this may actually be something even bigger.

I want to raise this in idea lab before an RfC is made about this. Of course, any RfC to organize a blackout in the United States would require a very strong consensus. We would need to come to consensus on how long the blackout should be and what the blackout message should be.

This is relevant because Wikipedia is hosted in the United States and is subjected to US laws, and Wikipedia is committed to rights to freedom of speech. More than 150 million Americans use TikTok, which means that more than 150 million Americans could have their rights to freedom of speech restricted if such a ban was implemented, as well as dozens of small American businesses. As a project, Wikipedia is committed to uncensored, free, open speech. And as such, I believe it is crucial that that right remains open, and that social network platforms used for free speech, even those that may be considered "adverse", are not taken down.

That said, I want to figure out what the structure of such hypothetical RfC should be. A blackout should be considered a last measure, but it would be a very effective tool at getting a large number of Americans to understand what is at stake with this legislation. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 05:23, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

If you want any hope of an RFC getting support, you need to laser focus on how the law would be an existential threat to Wikipedia, written with the same care and sourcing you might bring to a featured article. You're not going to be able to get enough support based on a general "Wikipedia is committed to uncensored, free, open speech" argument to overcome the "no politics ever" faction. Anomie⚔ 11:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

As a project, Wikipedia is committed to uncensored, free, open speech. - this is... not exactly true. I agree that Wikipedia doesn't care much about "national security", but we certainly exercise censorship of other kinds, for our own reasons. Wikipedia:Hate is disruptive talks about it a bit. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 15:01, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Free speech is another example of how we don't consider "free speech" when making decisions. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:49, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I recommend you all take a look at "EC. 3. ADDRESSING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT POSE UNDUE OR UNACCEPTABLE RISK." in https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15#idfbf26f984311432c8fea2c897ba0c6ba and https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15#ida5b4cba33bf94543966620a1c4b88d23 and https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15#ida350534aa5104ba8af5353289a4eff43 and https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15#idfbf26f984311432c8fea2c897ba0c6ba. IANAL, but what I am hearing from TikTok is that this bill, going beyond TikTok, allows for the ban of communications platform that the United States government believes is a risk to national security. This may affect Wikipedia since it (from what I am reading) gives US government power to unilaterally ban Wikipedia if they deem it a threat to national security.

I think a lawyer and/or WMF legal should give a proper analysis of this Act to determine whether this actually is a problem for Wikipedia. Even if it isn't, if it could permanently change the notion of freedom of speech in the US, as said in Verge, then it is something that WP should absolutely protest with a blackout.

I generally stay out of politics on Wikipedia because Wikipedia:NOTSOAPBOX, but I do wonder if we should follow precedent from the SOPA protest back in 2012 to determine whether we should stage a blackout or not. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 04:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

You should also see What experts say a TikTok ban would look like for U.S. users (nbcnews.com) - namely the US has never issued a blanket ban on any app. This does seem like government overreach that is quite concerning. This is going to be a difficult proposal to write, if it is proposed, but it might be something to consider. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 04:11, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Awesome Aasimthis is a really interesting discussion. I'm Ziski from the WMF Global Advocacy team. I can make sure you get the information you're after from our team. What would you like us to provide? Generally how we're monitoring the RESTRICT Act and our sense of how it does/doesn't threaten Wikipedia..or something else? Please let me now if you have specific questions and we'll work on getting a response to you. Cheers! ~ FPutz (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi @FPutz (WMF), I am wondering if WMF thinks that this bill can be potentially disruptive to Wikipedia and/or the open Internet it supports, and if this bill might have affects about as big as SOPA. Also any reliable secondary sources that might back up this idea. What you are saying about "Generally how we're monitoring the RESTRICT Act and our sense of how it does/doesn't threaten Wikipedia..or something else?" is kind of what I am at.

If there is, then it might be a catalyst for a blackout RfC. I haven't had time because of university to dive more into the impacts of this bill, but I do want to see what WMF thinks. :) Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 18:53, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! That shouldn't be a problem. I'll start putting together a response to those points and I'll dig around for some further readings in case you are interested. I hope to have it for you soon - good luck with Uni in the meantime. FPutz (WMF) (talk) 19:15, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien are you talking about this? Right to free speech just means government can't do anything to block the free flow of information. Private entities like WMF can choose who can speak or not to speak; that is them exercising their right to freedom of speech by letting who they will listen to. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 04:17, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm talking about the fact that Wikipedia's mission is not to babysit free speech in the United States. It is to build an encyclopedia. Unless you have incredibly strong evidence that Wikipedia is going to be imminently banned, I'm going to assume that this is an attempt to disrupt the entire website over a political issue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Any blackout on its own will be disruptive at some level to readers. The consensus last time there was such a government overreaching potentially free speech violating law (SOPA) was that a blackout would be appropriate. I do think any measure done to protest RESTRICT should be done in a manner that is as least disruptive to the project as possible.

That could mean having a full or partial blackout, having a full page banner (which a user could click dismiss to), or running a banner campaign on users in the United States to get people to tell their representatives that RESTRICT can permanently fracture the open Internet. That can certainly be raised in the proposal.

As Anomie said, any such proposal has a high chance of success when written with the same rigor as featured articles, otherwise it would be considered a waste of time to most. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 12:22, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I support your proposal to protest the banning of online platforms, including TikTok. Even though I detest the despotic regime in China, I think there are other methods to deal with spying than banning foreign media. It's incredible that Congress is considering such authoritarian step, copying behavior of the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany. Thinker78 (talk) 04:24, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I Oppose as the legislation does align with us in part. Some of the reasons for the ban (privacy, stopping espionage and threats to the individual, social media is not a social good ) do line up with the beliefs of some wikipedia editors, but others do not (removes a platform for free speech). I do think a company or government should be able to ban an app for their employees or contractors on any BYOD or provided device.

We also don't have clean hands and a complaint could boomerang on us.

1. We monitor editors and readers [2], and we monitor donors intensively.
2. We have banned some admins for being government stooges, but I assume they had access to check user tools in their language wikipedias before the ban, and
3. the WMF work with Big Tech (which collect an enormous amount of information) on projects or creates apps that are part of the android/apple/ ... infrastructure. These apps are built on code libraries that could be leaking information.

Also will the legislation do anything? Or will it just become Whac-A-Mole with new apps or literal moles (espionage within big tech, inserting code into chips, creating surveys, buying card purchase and voter databases). Regardless of the legislation, the internet at all levels is monitored by the National Security Agency and equivalents. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 06:57, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I support such a blackout, but freedom of speech really isn't the issue here though. It is still a massive issue for the internet though. It's how this affects the freedom of international communications on the internet. Under this law the US could theoretically enact bans on any internet services affiliated with a country deemed adversarial. While this shouldn't apply to Wikipedia in the most strict reading, neither would SOPA. This law could easily be manipulated by the US government to restrict practically any internet service that it chooses to.

It has an incredibly broad scope that could easily affect Wikipedia and the entire internet as a whole. This act is just as big a threat, if not bigger (due to its severe restrictions on foreign communications), to Wikipedia as SOPA was, and I believe that Wikipedia should take similar actions to protest the act as it did with SOPA. Serafart (talk) (contributions) 04:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I also endorse such a blackout, for as long as consensus feels is necessary. Loki (talk) 05:35, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• Please no. --Jayron32 15:23, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Addicted?

  In all seriousness, though, can you please explain your reasons why @Jayron32? - L'Mainerque - (Disturb my slumber) - 15:28, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  I believe strongly that this is a disastrous piece of legislation, and that it should absolutely not be passed. I believe it represents an existential threat not just to Wikipedia, but to the internet as we know it, and the legislation is also fundamentally in conflict with basic U.S. constitutional principles. I also think it is not the place for Wikipedia as an organization to make any political statement, no matter how noble. That's the first step on a very slippery slope that, while we've made the grave mistake of doing so at least once in the past, we should never do again. Or, more succinctly "Please, no." --Jayron32 15:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia should absolutely not make political statements without consensus to do so. Is that true for you, or not even that? Why is it a slippery slope? - L'Mainerque - (Disturb my slumber) - 15:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Look, if there's consensus to do so, it wouldn't the first time I would be on the wrong side of consensus, and it definitely won't be the last. My contribution towards developing a consensus one way or the other is, and I quote, in case you missed it earlier, "Please, no". I hope that clarifies the matter for you. --Jayron32 17:13, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, thank you for clarifying. - L'Mainerque - (Disturb my slumber) - 17:16, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

• No - Wikipedia is not the place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Advocacy for or against any cause is inappropriate. We don’t take action, we neutrally report on the actions of others. Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Blueboar it's a bit more complicated than that. While the content of our articles do not WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, as a platform we have participated in a number of advocacy, from the SOPA Blackout in 2012, other language editions Spanish and German Wikipedia participated in a blackout in 2018 over the EU Copyright Directive and of course WMF itself does a lot of lobbying for freedom of expression. If you think this specific issue or tactic is wrong venue, I respect that, but to say we're not politically active, feels imprecise to me.

  I think the text/purpose needs to be reworked a bit, but I support something like an informative banner, and think reaching out to Meta:Main would be useful to hear their perspective, and then we can make an RfC here. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 18:03, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  I am aware of our past advocacy, and I disproved of it at the time. I still disapprove… Strongly. I feel that our responsibility to maintain a Neutral Point of View extends beyond just article content. Our job is to REPORT- not to participate. Blueboar (talk) 18:21, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and its articles should be neutral but Wikipedia is also a project with its own set of needs in order to fulfill its objective. From time to time if those needs are imperiled, Wikipedia should raise its voice. Thinker78 (talk) 03:51, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia doesn't have a voice. It has neither vocal cords to speak, nor hands to sign, nor fingers to type. It is an abstract concept and a collection of code stored in computer servers. You have a voice, and if you feel strongly that your work on Wikipedia is imperiled, you should feel empowered to raise your voice by contacting your elected representatives and make your voice heard. --Jayron32 11:44, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Here are some more sources about this Act, related Acts, and a possible TikTok ban: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. While it is not our place to decide the fate of something unrelated to Wikipedia, it is our place to protest legislation that can be twisted in a manner to impede Wikipedia's goals of providing a free, accurate encyclopedia. Also please remember that this is not for straw polling or !voting but for developing this idea into something that might be ripe for an RfC. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 14:12, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

It may be your place to do so. It may be other people's place to do so (insofar as they want to). That is the "we" that matters here, you (as an individual person) and other people (as individual people) who care and want to enact change. Wikipedia, as an organization, should take no public stance on anything. Instead, feel free to organize and use your own voice how you see fit, there's no need to involve Wikipedia in it. --Jayron32 15:05, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

I respect the principle of neutrality and not activism of Wikipedia that you are advocating but I don't fully share it. Although I share your concern about politicization of Wikipedia, I think there is certain times Wikipedia should take a stand, specifically in legislation that could affect its ability to fulfill its objective. That is, to provide free encyclopedia knowledge to humankind.

Undue censorship of Wikipedia is always a problem. Imagine the US government blocking Wikipedia as the government of China does. The prospect of the government having the power to ban online websites it doesn't like actually imperils the very existence of Wikipedia. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 05:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Also, regarding Also please remember that this is not for straw polling or !voting but for developing this idea into something that might be ripe for an RfC It is also the place to say "this is a bad idea, don't do that". I'm saying that now. --Jayron32 15:07, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

If Wikipedia the organization wants to do something, the corporation contact Congress. Wikipedia the site should just do our job. A blackout is the opposite of our job. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 23:03, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Except there is actually some precedent for having Wikipedia do advocacy like this. If there wasn't I'd agree, but there is.

I think these could be the options for a hypothetical RESTRICT Act protest:

1. Full blackout - the entirety of Wikipedia would be inaccessible for the time of the blackout, with a notice that Wikipedia is protesting the controversial RESTRICT Act, similar to the SOPA protest
2. Partial blackout - only essential pages such as medical topics would be visible
3. Full-screen click-through banner - a notice about the Act would be visible to readers and readers would be able to act on it by contacting their local reps
4. Banner at top of page like in a similar manner to all the donation banners, but would be dismissable
5. Nothing if it is determined that this Act is not protest-worthy.

But whether it is protest-worthy or not is what the focus of this RfC would be. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 17:41, 1 April 2023 (UTC) (edited 14:22, 7 April 2023 (UTC) to correct misfired act I keep mixing up)

I would like to note that the SOPA blackout was not a 'blackout' since there were engineered ways to get around it. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 00:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it was precedent so much as a cautionary tale, warning us about what happens when we let editors think that political activism is tolerated on Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:33, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Disagree with the premise of 'E', we can believe that the act is protest-worthy and still not think that it's appropriate to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for that protest. If we protested everything that was protest-worthy, we might finally get a default 'Dark-mode'! JeffUK 11:11, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support banner, oppose blackout. I believe the Wikimedia Foundation, as a prominent organisation committed to principles of free information and freedom of speech has some moral duty to protest when its host country (i.e, the United States) proposes terrible legislation like the RESTRICT Act that has significant potential to affect the free exchange of information worlwide. There has been past precedents with this, like with our SOPA protest, which AFAIK was broadly supported. A banner would be a good idea. That being said, IMO blackouts should only be used if there is direct potential to adversely affect Wikipedia/Wikimedia. The RESTRICT Act doesn't quite past that test. Obviously not a lawyer, but my reading of the Act is it can't be applied to the WMF as it is incorporated in the United States and is therefore not a "Covered Entity" within the meaning of Sec. 2 Cl. (4)(b) of the Act, but the Foundation's chapters in Russia/Venezuela/HKSAR have potential to be affected as being subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary under subclause (ii). Satellizer el Bridget ^(Talk) 07:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - SOPA, and the other legislation that has been protested in the past, directly affected Wikipedia's ability to carry out its core mission. This law is not directly related to Wikipedia, this advocacy against government policy will put Wikipedia in direct conflict with the US government by choice, and nothing good will come of politicising Wikipedia unnecessarily. JeffUK 11:08, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

And you thought SOPA was "directly related" to Wikipedia, how? RESTRICT affects Wikipedia operations no more and no less than SOPA. Satellizer el Bridget ^(Talk) 11:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

SOPA would have made the WikiMedia Foundation liable for detecting and removing potentially infringing content identified on Wikipedia, potentially having a chilling effect on what would be allowed to be discussed or posted here. Also, the SOPA blackout was instigated and organised by a third party, Wikipedia joined a large number of other web companies in the blackout, that's different from us coming up with the idea ourselves. JeffUK 16:25, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Alternative

As an alternative, perhaps we need a policy statement that says “WP should not engage in advocacy” (no matter what the cause, or how “worthy” we may think it is). Blueboar (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that the only time WP should be involved is when there is a clear legal threat to WP's existence - RESTRICT does not do that directly, but the COPA/SOPA bills did. Masem (t) 18:30, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this @Masem. This is where what Anomie's statement of how "[I'd] need to laser focus on how the law would be an existential threat to Wikipedia, written with the same care and sourcing [I] might bring to a featured article" would come into play. I was also thinking it would be helpful to get someone with an expertise in law to actually make this determination if in their opinion this RESTRICT Act is as bad as claims on the Internet are making it. That or a WP:RS legal opinion analyzing the effects on the Internet if this Act were to pass. Either of those two would be a basis for an RfC. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 13:43, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, I’m not sure we should be engaging in advocacy on WP - even when a proposed law might directly impact Wikipedia itself.

There are lots of on-line venues that are appropriate for advocacy by Wikipedians, but I don’t think WP itself is one of them. Blueboar (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

We got it Blueboar. Some of us simply don't fully share your opinion. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:30, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I know… and those of you who don’t are the most evil people on the planet. I would organize a day of blackout on WP to protest, but I don’t think WP is the correct venue for that. Blueboar (talk) 00:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Lol. Hope you are joking. Thinker78 (talk) 06:11, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Support. Advocacy is detrimental to the project, even more so than vandalism. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:NOTBURO, etc. I also think that we shouldn't be enshrining such things in policy. While I personally oppose using Wikipedia as a vehicle of advocacy, I also oppose setting rules to stifle discussion. Who know, maybe I'll be convinced in the future to change my stance on this. I want to allow other the opportunity to convince me. I don't want rules that say "we don't talk about such things on Wikipedia". That's also bad. --Jayron32 11:55, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
• Why are people bold !voting against the guidance of this page? - instead, just discuss thoughts. I am almost the only person on en-wiki who has started a blackout RfC that did not either get the full majority (a single case) or an absolute hammering/snow close (the vast majority). In effect, the outcome of that was to show that even a significant possible threat (I realise all threats are inherently "possible") was viewed as insufficient by en-wiki (but not by some sister projects). It takes a particularly drastic state of affairs. That threshold means that an RfC along these lines would need to set out why such a thing is needed. Either we'd turn it down naturally, or some grave affairs are occurring. That catastrophic threat or issue might not be within the wording of the policy, so we might as well not bother creating a rule that inherently would only ever be actually of importance when it was overruled. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:17, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't read that part of the guidance and will try to be better next time, but I think it shows the strength of feeling that this is not something we should do. JeffUK 08:57, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

• I do not think adding an explicit statement that Wikipedia shall not engage in advocacy is good for this project. As Masem states above, there are certain policies that, if enacted, are detrimental to this project and we should at least consider taking action. --Enos733 (talk) 16:39, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, there are some things that are so egregrious or important whereby saying nothing is advocacy! JeffUK 13:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  A terrible and dangerous potential law. But it appears that it doesn't directly affect Wikipedia and hypothetical application to Wikipedia looks pretty farfetched. IMO such advocacy is not our mission. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:40, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

• I would support this, although I believe it is already covered by WP:SOAPBOX. BilledMammal (talk) 18:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

  If I am not mistaken, Wikipedia:SOAPBOX is meant to prevent editors from engaging in excessive self-promotion in articles, talk pages, project pages, etc. where such promotion is in of itself unencyclopedic. It does not apply to editors discussing whether or not the Wikipedia community should formally approve or disapprove of a piece of legislation (as was done with WP:SOPA back in 2012) or some other action by some other government or non-government entity. Also this forum is about workshopping ideas together, not for consensus polling. That is for when the idea gets formally proposed through one of Wikipedia's procedures. Granted, it has to be related or even tangentially related to the encyclopedia and/or its future for the issue to even be raised. One can also invoke WP:IAR but only if there are absolutely very good reasons to do so, not to engage in disruptive bad-faith edits. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 20:38, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion covers all forms of promotion, not just self-promotion. The first numbered point lists "advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment". It doesn't apply to this particular discussion, for example, but would apply to a change to mainspace, such as placing some kind of banner message. (The community can decide by consensus to take a certain action in spite of this guidance, of course.) Regarding the specific shortcut used: standing on a soapbox to give impromptu public speeches was historically related to propagating opinions, rather than direct self-promotion. isaacl (talk) 21:27, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussing the RESTRICT Act's potential effect on Wikipedia (put aside the protest proposal for a moment)

Put aside the idea of a protest for now. What is the potential for harm to Wikipedia or Wikipedians here? Off the top of my head, I can think of a few, though I would appreciate any corrections. This is not something I have studied in depth:

1. Effect on sourcing. Wikipedia relies on a large number of foreign websites/platforms for sourcing and external links. The language of the act appears sufficiently broad that it could conceivably apply to a variety of information sources based outside the US, and not just e.g. social media. This would primarily affect non-English Wikipedias, but remember that a significant number of the people who edit other language Wikipedias do so from the US. In fact, there are some language Wikipedias written in large part by people outside the country. With the parameters for the use of the law so vague, it remains unclear how frequently this could be used, so it's worth considering a wide range of potential sources in countries the current or any future administration decides are a threat.
2. Effect of its vague language on Wikipedians. The section of the law "SPECIFIC UNLAWFUL ACTS" includes a wide range of broad categories of acts, e.g. No person may cause or aid, abet, counsel, command, induce, procure, permit, or approve the doing of any act prohibited by, or the omission of any act required by any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued under, this Act. What does it mean to "aid" or "counsel" in this context? The language of the law makes it seem that any individual on Wikipedia could be engaged in punishable illegal activity for, say, discussing how to continue to access information on a site that has been banned.
3. Effect on other sites we rely on. We should consider that Wikipedia is part of a larger knowledge ecosystem. How does this affect organizations we rely on? For example, will the Internet Archive be considered to be aiding a foreign adversary if it retains archives of material that came from now-banned websites (or website/platforms banned sometime in the future)? What kind of burden would that put on them?
4. Perhaps most importantly, it's hard to say how this will be used. This is meant for TikTok, but the actual scope of the law means we need to consider consequences that may be difficult to predict. It puts the United States in the business of banning entire platforms and entire technologies used for a wide range of First Amendment-protected speech, but also allows that the President may take such action as the President considers appropriate to compel divestment of, or otherwise mitigate the risk. That leaves ... a lot on the table. It creates a general purpose bludgeon and concentrates the ability to wield it in two people. First, we have to designate a "foreign adversary". There are a few named in the bill, but all it takes is a single unelected cabinet member (the Secretary of Commerce) to say an entire country is now a "foreign adversary" for the purpose of this bill. That cabinet member may have been appointed for their judgment and competence, or may be an incompetent but loyal friend of a mercurial and paranoid president. The secretary then refers those adversaries to the president who can do ... basically anything in the course of divestment. It's a concern in the abstract, at very least, for the internet as a whole. We have seen that governments, including the US government, have been willing to take sweeping action against entire foreign states as well as foreign citizens based on individual events or threats, stretching vague legal language as far as possible. This is a blunt, ill-defined instruments, and for that reason it's hard to say how it might effect Wikipedia.

I'd be curious to hear corrections, additions, and other perspectives. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Adding: Prior to the SOPA blackout, then-General Counsel Geoffbrigham provided a helpful overview. Perhaps the current General Counsel (User:Slaporte_(WMF)) or someone else from WMF Legal might be willing to do something similar for would be willing to do something similar here? (Or maybe Geoff is interested enough to offer pointers in an unofficial capacity). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Direct but hidden links to The Wikipedia Library proxies

In citations, we usually link to the DOI or to JSTOR or to similar other databases that are typically paywalled. What we do not do is link to WP:TWL, our own way around paywalls. For good reason: these links would be useless to the vast majority of readers. However, for other Wikipedians (I am thinking of GA reviewers or FAC reviewers) it would save a lot of time to have direct links via the TWL proxies. Could/Should we do something like we do for CS1/2 maintenance messages and include TWL links in our citation templates where appropriate, but only display them for users that choose to see them via user CSS? It could be super convenient. Or is this a daft idea that should never leave the Idea Lab? —Kusma (talk) 21:37, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Great idea. One important thing to consider: how should it appear to those of us who opt-in? I would propose something like:

"FooBar". Archived from the original on 1 January 2000. <span class="The Wikipedia Library">Available at The Wikipedia Library.</span> Retrieved 1 April 2023.

HouseBlaster^talk 23:55, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

This seems really useful. I think Module:Citation/CS1 (ping to maintainer User:Trappist the monk) could actually automatically rewrite supported links to the Wikipedia Library proxy link, and show it as an addition for all extended confirmed users. I think this could also help improve visibility of the Wikipedia library. Galobtter (pingó mió) 00:38, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

If a structured url isn't possible for every case, e.g proquest might not work, then we could simply have an additional parameter for WML to store the separate urls. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:12, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

No doubt something could be done to incorporate wikipedia library urls as a parameter (|twl-url=) and it could be rendered hidden so that user css would be needed to display it. Doing so might cause pushback from the editing community because, if memory serves, wikipedia library urls are rather long. If there is a way to get an identifier-like value as is done for semantic scholar... compare:

|s2cid=144385167 → https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Molotov's-Apprenticeship-in-Foreign-Policy%3A-The-in-Watson/58fc040011fbf6b375ba53eac7bf6bf565838925

Short and unobtrusive would likely be an easier pill to swallow than the long url. Does wikipedia library support shortened urls?

There is no way for Module:Citation/CS1 to know that an editor has extended confirmed rights because the module runs before the article is cached as html; it is the cached html that MediaWiki serves to editors and readers. Personal css would be the only way for an editor to view the hidden wikipedia library link.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:55, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Meta:WikiCite/Shared Citations would also solve this problem. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 00:28, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Would it? How? I'm not going to hold my breath for shared citations to be done in my lifetime...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:39, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Some (not all) TWL links are things like https://doi-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521871341 instead of https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521871341 that could be possible to generate automatically without manual input. —Kusma (talk) 10:31, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Only if all doi and all jstor and all ... identifiers are available from the wikipedia library. Pointless to create a wikipedia library url from a doi that isn't available through the library. What to do when a source has both a doi and a jstor (or other) identifier? Which identifier prevails? What about sources that don't use an identifier? What do all wikipedia library urls look like?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:07, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Indeed it is probably difficult to do this fully automatic, and we may need to specify either the full url or a switch that chooses either jstor or doi or (whatever) or a fully manual url. Samwalton9, do you have any thoughts on this? —Kusma (talk) 15:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

We could create a parameter that can be overloaded so: |twl=doi would fetch the value from |doi= and use that to build a url; similarly |twl=jstor, etc., or manual url: |twl=https://.... Keywords used would be the same as the identifier parameter names to minimize confusion; unrecognized keywords would cause an invalid parameter value error. Some sort of error message would be emitted when a valid keyword refers to an empty or missing parameter.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like a brilliant way to do it. Should also easily allow future extensions. —Kusma (talk) 17:43, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Can we not use {{if extended confirmed}} (or the corresponding HTML class, <span class="extendedconfirmed-show">)? HouseBlaster^talk 13:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Doubtful. I haven't noodled out how that template works but were I a member of the group with wikipedia library access rights, and we could somehow implement {{if extended confirmed}}, I would not get the special link to the library because for me, this:

{{if extended confirmed|extended confirmed|{{em|not}} extended confirmed}} → extended confirmednot extended confirmed

returns: 'not extended confirmed'

So, that means that any editors with wikipedia library access who have sysop rights (and perhaps also those who have template editor rights) would not see the special link to the source at wikipedia library.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:07, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Turns out that there are css classes for all of the editing rights so we could write:

<span class="extendedconfirmed-show templateeditor-show sysop-show">member of an appropriate user group</span>

member of an appropriate user group

But, that really should be qualified by user css so that only those editors who have the necessary rights and permissions and the desire will see the special link to a source at wikipedia library.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Kusma @Trappist the monk As I understand it it should be possible to automate the generation of these URLs, in a way that might be better suited to a gadget or user script, rather than manually entering the TWL URLs into the citation template data directly. URLs of the form https://foo.bar.com/path can be rewritten as https://foo-bar-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/path. You'd just need to know the list of URLs that TWL has access to, which we could look into publishing somewhere if someone wanted to move forward with this. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

That would probably work in 90% of cases. If there is both a DOI and a ProQuest ID, what should the gadget do? Sometimes the DOI will work with TWL but ProQuest won't, sometimes ProQuest will work with TWL but the DOI leads to somewhere not covered by TWL. Or would the gadget only become active if there is a switch in the template? —Kusma (talk) 18:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Kusma Perhaps the gadget could present links additionally, rather than rewriting? That way you have to click a few times to figure out which one gets you through but at least you're not losing any options. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Samwalton9 (WMF): I don't understand what the advantage of using a gadget/user script is here over hidden output from the citation templates: couldn't all the work be done at that level just as easily and perhaps easier than in post-processing? —Kusma (talk) 22:20, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, it would work automatically with all existing citations, without having to modify them. isaacl (talk) 22:27, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Not with all. Many editors like to cite books just by ISBN. It might be easier to get people to accept an additional hidden TWL field than a redundant-seeming DOI. —Kusma (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Sure, just for those with appropriate identifiers. To me, including information that is specific to the source alone and doesn't depend on a particular access method that might change in future would be more suitable as part of a citation. isaacl (talk) 20:50, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The Zotero browser extension can also automatically rewrite proxy URLs. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

+1, great idea. EpicPupper (talk) 23:49, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Good idea. This should be something available for any registered account; this would also promote the existence of TWL to editors (many still don't know about it). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:39, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Binding optional recall capability

Hi all,

We have some known facts:

1. We have c.50 admins open to recall
2. Recall is currently completely dependent on that admin obeying their terms, as they cannot be compelled to be through an enforced process.
3. There is firm support for some mechanism of non-arbcom process, as seen in 2019.
4. There is no consensus as to a particular form of recall methodology

This proposal seeks provisional feedback on correcting issue 2, rather than attempting to find a magical process that covers everyone's desires and concerns with a general method.

Proposed Binding recall primary methodology

• Admins (et al) would purely be able to opt in to recall, as per status quo
• Admins opting in would have to specify one or more processes at Wikipedia:Administrators open to recall/Admin criteria
• Any listed process would then only be changeable with one month's notice at WP:AN. A recall process begun during this timespan (such as an RfC or RfA) that is ongoing when that notice elapses must conclude before any changes are made.
• The Bureaucrats are granted the authority to carry out the outcomes of a recall procedure, including desysopping.

Additional methodology notes

• 'Crats are also able to carry out related activities, such as if the recall procedure specifies that a Bureaucrat will close a recall discussion.
• Should an Arbcom case request be made and accepted, the admin may pause any community recall procedures, which will recommence after the conclusion of the arbcom case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nosebagbear (talk • contribs) 18:30, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Comments and thoughts

• This is an interesting idea, and if it were proposed I'd probably support it on a "better than nothing" basis, but it does suffer from the same issue that recall suffers from now: the admins who opt in are almost always the ones who'd never need to be recalled. I imagine it'd get quite a few opposes along the lines of "recall is broken, and this is just putting lipstick on a pig" or something like that. (Also, I have a vague memory of something similar being unsuccessfully proposed in the past—it might be good to check.) If you do decide to propose it, you'll want to have answers to questions like "if there's a dispute about how to interpret someone's recall criteria, who makes the final decision—the admin, crats, the community, someone else?" As for There is no consensus as to a particular form of recall methodology, obviously there's some truth to that, but I still think there's some hope for reaching consensus: WP:DESYSOP2021 got to ~55% support, and a fair number of opposers were open to supporting a broadly similar proposal if the specifics were fine-tuned a bit. Perhaps what we need is for, say, a dozen editors (including some who have opposed previous proposals) to get together and try to negotiate a system they could all agree on; if successful, they could propose it to the community via an RfC. I think a lack of adequate workshopping is what's hurt some of the more recent community desysop proposals. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:26, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
• For context, a similar proposal was discussed as part of the 2021 RfA review: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Proposals § Closed: 6A Binding recall criteria. isaacl (talk) 22:14, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  Certainly that proposal shared many similarities with this one - however, it also presented quite a few differences, including prior signoff, worsening RfA, requirement to agree on "objective and enforceable" and so on. Many of the opposes were linked to those - and many weren't. Awareness of the issues it might face (plus Writ's correct note about the "lipstick on pig" potential complaints) are dominant in why I bought it to VPI first.

  To me, I think it stands a reasonable possibility of passing on a better than nothing basis if it isn't felt that it would make passing RfA notably harder. In this regard, it notably differs from the 6A proposal, because admins wouldn't be bound to eternity over recall criteria.

  Part of my reasoning for this was also because it could act as a good first step for community recall. A logical next step, if it passed, would be an updated and pushed "model process" (to replace the sample one from 2009). About 10% of the active admin corps and about 6% of the total corps have a recall procedure atm. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

• I get that some people want to recall some admins who under our current rulers don't merit a desysop. My suggestion to such people would be to try and clarify the additional criteria that you think should merit a desysop. We've recently lost about a hundred inactive admins by adding such tests as <100 edits in the last 60 months, so yes that strategy can get meaningful changes. If you think you can get consensus that a particular behaviour should result in a desysop, then if it requires judging people's actions try running an RFC "Arbcom should consider that admins found doing x merit a desysop", and if it is as clearcut as "must save >100 edits in the last 60 months" then you don't even need to involve Arbcom. One of the problems of some of the past desysop proposals is that clearly there is a desire to get rid of some existing admins, but without much openness as to what sorts of admins are being targeted. Changing the dialogue from "We want to get rid of some admins who Arbcom won't desysop" to "x is an offence or threshold that wouldn't currently merit a desysop, but we think it should" would clear the air. Maybe it would result in fewer admins doing x, maybe the community would be clear that there is a strong consensus for admins to continue to do x, at least provided they also did y, maybe it would result in all the admins who currently do x being desysopped or changing our behaviour. But at the least it would result in those admins who don't currently do x having the chance to think that "OK now I understand why some people want to get rid of a certain type of admin". You may even get a whole bunch of admins saying that they agree that x should be a brightline rule for admins. ϢereSpielChequers 10:57, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
• I support the idea of community recall. Astute readers will notice that I have not, however, declared that I'm subject to recall. Why the discrepancy? For much the same reason that while I'm a proponent of open source software, for a long time I declined to include an appropriate license with code I wrote because there were a bewildering array of possible licenses available and figuring out which one made the most sense was too hard. Plus fear of accidentally picking one which had unexpected consequences. What I'd like to see is all the admins who are open to recall (and I'll include myself in that set) get together and hammer out a process we can all agree to. Then I'd be happy to sign onto that. Once there's a single uniform process, it'll be a much easier target to entice/convince/cajole/berate/strongarm other admins into accepting. I'd be happy to make "Will you sign onto the Uniform Voluntary Recall Process?" a litmus test question I'd ask of all candidates. But a "general method" is a non-starter for me. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
• I think there should certainly be a community desysop process that does not waste the time of ArbCom. However, there are a few things that I think should also be the case (if they are not already):
  • Any administrator who resigns during an investigation into misbehavior shall not regain the administrator tools if consensus determines that misbehavior occurred, and must go through the RfA process again to regain the tools. If an admin loses the tools during this process provisionally, then they shall not regain the rights until any investigation into admin misconduct concludes.
  • Discussion of misbehavior and consensus for desysop shall start on the BNB. If there is consensus that there is misbehavior by that particular admin that might warrant a desysop then a request for desysop shall determine whether there is still consensus to keep the admin tools.
  • If there is no consensus (between 25% and 75% support for keeping admin tools) during that request for desysop then the issue may be referred to ArbCom. Also, if such misconduct is unsuitable for public discussion (such as if it involves confidential information), then the issue shall be referred to ArbCom.
  • During the request for desysop, the admin in question shall not use the admin tools except for the most uncontroversial of uncontroversial tasks, such as blocking and reverting blatant vandals and deleting pages needed for uncontroversial cleanup. Admins whose use of the tools is controversial shall have their rights provisionally removed until the discussion concludes.

Such process ensures that ArbCom is truly a last resort and avoids unnecessary bureaucracy with ArbCom. I don't think many admins would opt into a voluntary process, and I do not think we should waste the time of ArbCom when one of these admins does something incompatible with the tools. We can also have trial adminship and admin elections (in a similar manner to ArbCom and steward elections) where admins serve fixed terms rather than being admin forever. What are your thoughts on this? Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 21:11, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I think your point about people who resign the tools temporarily in order to avoid scrutiny is already covered. We don't restore tools to those who resigned whilst "under a cloud". For the rest of your points, Arbcom is the committee we elect to handle things such as desysops. It isn't wasting their time to give them the sort of case that they were elected to handle. Sometimes they get very clearcut cases that they can quickly resolve by motion, sometimes they get complaints that merit a full case (these are the time consuming ones). If you want to design an alternative to Arbcom remember that for all their faults they can move very quickly when things really are simple, but they have the reputation of being much fairer than a mob with pitchforks, and yes that means that complicated cases can take time. We have a shortage of admins and it is very difficult to persuade new candidates to come forward, and that's despite what few RFAs we have often setting records for strength of support. If we want to solve the problem of too few people running at RFA, we should be judging any new desysop process on how fair it would be to all parties, not on how efficient it might be. You might also want to rethink that bit about between 25% and 75% - it is quite a wide band, but 75% is more than some candidates have when they pass RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 22:37, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers Aren't RfAs with less than 75% support very unlikely to pass with consensus? Whatever the threshold for the RfA percentage to pass that is what I would have it for the desysop process. I just do not want to get so wrapped up in bureaucracy for what would be clear cut cases. Also to quote the WP:RFARB page: "A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia." We already resolve by community consensus page bans, topic bans, interaction bans, and site bans. I see no reason how we can't use community consensus to resolve whether an admin should keep the tools or not. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 14:04, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

75% isn't far from the current system - it is the top of the crat's discretionary zone. So yes we have had recent RFAs that have passed with a little less than 75%. But it was your 25% that I raised an eyebrow over. When it comes to clearcut cases Arbcom is surprisingly quick and unbureaucratic. That's the advantage of an elected committee with a remit that includes desysopping admins where necessary. If you want a process that is "less wrapped up in bureaucracy" than the current one then I suggest you look at some of the cases on Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause that were closed by motion When you've looked at them, can you be more specific as to what elements of those proceedings that you would remove as "wrapped in bureaucracy"? Remembering that one person's safeguards and fairness is another person's bureaucracy. ϢereSpielChequers 14:34, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

@Awesome Aasim - to respond to your suggestions: we'd actually have to tweak the CLOUD policy text, as it's determined on an attempt to resysop, but certainly I think that any attempt to avoid a recall procedure by resigning would be a clear indication of such!

Suggestions 2-3 are specifically about creating a community desysop procedure - that isn't what this thread is trying to do. A community desysop process needs a full workshopping based around what led to insufficient support last time. That was mostly about safeguards, or delays in the community expectations changing to match the new process, and such. The points may, or may not, turn out to be fundamental then - but they can't be included in this distinct "step 1" aspect.

Suggestion 4 - this is an interesting one. I think you meant it for a general community desysop process, rather than for everyone's individual recall processes. If the latter, then it might struggle - some of us have a "trigger aspect" (e.g. 5 editors) and then an RfC, which would work fine with that limitation. But others are just "15 people listing their names and I'll straight resign" - would 1 editor listing their name bar that admin from any actions? Seems unlikely to be wise. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:23, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

• Is there any reason why a desysop isn't handled through the same process as a community ban? It seems strange that the community can decide whether someone is allowed to continue editing, but the community can't decide whether someone is allowed to continue using admin tools. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think we don't trust ourselves to be fair in the heat of the moment. We need admins to make unpopular decisions. We don't want them to worry that making a decision that is unpopular but correct will result in them losing their admin abilities. We also don't want the rest of us to be worrying that the number of unpopular decisions that can be taken is limited to the number of admins. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  There was also some discussion in the last big RfC that admins in different categories build up more hostility from doing their jobs than others (e.g. AE vs DYK admins), even if they avoid any singular unpopular action. It's not likely that those individuals alone would lead to being able to desysop someone, but there weren't any good suggestions for how to handle them breaking any process which otherwise would be close. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:27, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

• Meh Has there been a rash of admins backing out of the voluntary recall process? --Jayron32 16:26, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• Good idea if it were well structured so that it's not a popularity contest or a mindless angry mob. But unless there were some (formal or informal) bifurcation of the admin role, this would be far too complicated. The basic current RFA criteria are just that be trusted with the tools, have competence in a few areas, and (unofficially) that have been mostly invisible. Most times I've seen where desysop is needed has been competence issues, either due to inactivity combined with that they got in back when it was easy. Eggregious conduct meriting a desysop is rare enough that I think arbcom can handle those. Handling tough cases like sanctioning experienced experienced editors or tough closes requires expertise in those areas that probably 80% of admins don't have. So just because one of the 80% blew it in a tough area doesn't mean that they can't meet entry level admin criteria to keep the tools. North8000 (talk) 16:48, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• If an admin supported eugenics (sadly a practical scenario), there should be an easier way to request a community recall than the current process. It would also stop wasting the community's time with non-binding and heterogeneous "self-recall" processes that are mainly adopted by the more responsive admins in first place. I don't have a strong opinion on the specifics, and would support nearly any binding process as a step in right direction. Of course we need check and balance, that unpopular but necessary admin actions don't get jeopardized. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 07:46, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Embedding a Wikidata-Infobox within Wikipedia articles

Hi, the current method of Wikipedia for representing structured data of an article is by redirecting to its Wikidata item and doing a URL redirection from an HTML page to another HTML page. But this method is not consistent with Web 3.0. According to the article Semantic Web:

Specifications such as eRDF and RDFa allow arbitrary RDF data to be embedded in HTML pages.

So these structured data (from Wikidata) should be treated as metadata and should be embedded within HTML page of each article.

Hence, I have an idea for placing a template named "Template:EmbedWikidataInfobox" in all existing Wikipedia articles, that is by default hidden, but users can show that by clicking a button. This way all related structured data is embedded within that article as some metadata.

I should note that this new extracted and embedded "Wikidata Infobox" should have three columns to be consistent with the semantic triple format: one column for subject, one column for predicate, and one column for object. And in each row a structured data item should be placed.

This Wikidata-Infobox has benefits for both machines and for humans. For machines is discussed, but for humans a user can "rapidly" see what structured data "is not inserted" or "is not correct" and somehow refer to Wikidata to correct that data or add new not existing item.

Finally, I should note that services like ChatGPT and many other newly created bots certainly benefit from this embedded Wikidata Infobox to extract structured data more accurately, and to respond users more precisely. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 05:45, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hooman Mallahzadeh, I think you need to spend a while reading https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119.html. You have made a big jump from "allow" to "should". Just because specifications "allow" (permit, may optionally do something) doesn't mean that you "should" do them. A sales team might tell you that they will "allow" you to give them a large sum of money, but that doesn't mean that you should or must do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Hi, implementing the Web 3.0 is like placing airbag in cars. Without an airbag, a car works perfectly without any problem, but in a special situation (an accident) this airbag is very vital and important. Here, without this metadata, Wikipedia articles work perfectly and users benefit from Wikipedia without any problem. But in the special situation that users would ask questions from a bot, Wikipedia does not work properly. So I really believe that for implementing something that is somehow ««standard»» we can use the word "should". Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 05:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The actual standard says that this is permissible ("may"). It does not say that is recommended ("should").

Consider the difference between "You may drive a white car" and "You should drive a white car". You have gone from "The standard allows you to make a choice about whether to do this" all the way to "The standard recommends that you do this".

It's perfectly fine if you want to recommend that we do this, but it is incorrect to claim that the standard recommends it. The standard permits it. The standard says that you may do this. It does not recommend it or say that everyone should do this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Parallel guideline to WP:PLOTSOURCE, but for non-fiction texts

Articles on non-fiction texts, for example on philosophical works, generally cite their summaries of the texts' contents directly to the original text, rather than using secondary sources.

For fiction texts, there is a clear guideline, WP:PLOTSOURCE, that clarifies the acceptability of this custom. It seems as if there should be a parallel guideline for non-fiction texts. I am not advocating for what this should say, only suggesting that this gap be addressed.

Is there any interest in working on this? Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? (talk) 16:17, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Is there a problem to be solved here? Have you encountered any problems because of the perceived lack of this parallel guideline? I had no big issues getting the non-fiction A Voyage Round the World through FA despite (or perhaps because of) an extremely long "Content" section sourced only to the book... —Kusma (talk) 16:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I've definitely encountered issues with this, and I've thought about making a post like this myself. Current guidelines are really unclear about best practices for non-fiction works. Even just a few sentences in a guideline somewhere would help. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I've written several articles about nonfiction books. I just took the "spirit" of WP:PLOTSOURCE as a basis for the books' summaries. Schazjmd (talk) 17:24, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the idea. Fiction plots are generally pretty straightforward. Other than attributed quotes, what is said in a work of nonfiction needs discussion. If it isn't discussed in RS, maybe it's not worth including in the article. If it is, let's summarize what those RS are saying. Valereee (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Plot summaries of works of non fiction should be limited in the same manner as works of fiction, but I also think that fictional and non fictional narratives that have received extensive, nearly scene by scene coverage, can go long in the tooth as long as that additional analysis is included, and the longer plot section helps to guide our reader through the analysis. Eg, the plot of any Shakespeare play or Kubrick film could be longer die to the extensive coverage of each work. Same would apply to Around the zworld... above. Masem (t) 20:38, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Can you provide some examples? I would be surprised if primary-sourced summaries of philosophical works did not veer into OR. BilledMammal (talk) 01:58, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• There are many different kinds of non-fiction works, though. A narrative biography of a famous figure is vastly different from a scientific thesis, or an examination of art history, or a math book. Independent sources existing to demonstrate the notability of something like The Making of the English Landscape, it is fine to cite the work itself for a summary of its contents. BD2412 T 03:00, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• One tricky area… figuring out how to appropriately summarize and cite a notable non-fiction work that advocates for a WP:FRINGE theory or topic. It can be done, but it takes skill. Blueboar (talk) 13:17, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

  Or even just a personal interpretation. I recently had a discussion at Talk:No, Ma'am, That's Not History about a summary of a nonfiction book. The summary had stated He presented many counter-arguments to Brodie's arguments, using logic to show inconsistency or casting doubt on her sources. He also criticized her psycho-historical method, stating that historians can't know what hidden emotions Joseph or Emma Smith felt unless they have a source that says so. I felt that this was the article creator's take on the nonfiction book's arguments and that we needed to find someone else saying these things. Valereee (talk) 13:30, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

  it should be readily possible to summarize a non fiction work on a FRINGE position without giving any impression the fringe position is "right". As a poor example 2000 Mules doesn't give the work any time to brief speak for itself, which given the amount of criticism for the work, should only be about 3 to 4 sentences. The details if the presentation which are wrong/disproven/fringe can be discussed with sourcing as appropriate in a criticism section (though with what I am seeing at 2000 mules, there are a number of synth/OR insertions, which can't be included). But the amount of valid criticism that film got would post most of the details next to the reality counterpoints. Masem (t) 16:03, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• Just came across this project page, it's a bit of a start. Schazjmd (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Making diff the first parameter in the diff template

{{diff}} has title as the first unnamed parameter, despite it being optional. The diff ID is also the most important parameter and most of the times you can just link to a diff with only the diff ID, so I think the diff ID should be the first parameter. Putting this here as the template talk page doesn't seem to have traction Aaron Liu (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you about which field is more important, but as a practical matter, {{diff}} is a widely used template. Making a change like this now would be quite disruptive. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:21, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Would this change be compatible with the 30,000+ existing uses of {{diff}}? Certes (talk) 16:23, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

That was what I was thinking about. We could use a bot or autowikibrowser to do this, maybe like move the template to "/old" or something, add in the fixed version, and replace all mentions of it with the newer syntax. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:53, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

That would fix the template for future revisions of a page, but when you view an old revision of a page, the current code of the template is executed, so all the 30k+ uses in several millions of old revisions will be broken. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 07:16, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Just use {{diff2}} with the diff id as its unique parameter. MarioGom (talk) 18:34, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

A much better suggestion than breaking the template in old revisions. —Kusma (talk) 19:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Why don't we have warning banners about scams?

One of the facets of WP:ARC#Paid editing recruitment allegation is that some poor guy got scammed out of a large amount of money (I've seen $15k and $20k mentioned) by somebody promising to write an article for them. It's not the first time, but wouldn't it be nice if we could make it the last? Let's put a warning banner on every page: "If somebody is offering to write an article for money, it's probably a scam. See WP:PAID for more information". -- RoySmith (talk) 00:25, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The key challenge is that the community would have to accept a prominent banner forever, including on small screens where space is limited. Given the number of possible scams, it would be tricky coming up with a concise message that would still have some effectiveness. Banner blindness issues would also be exacerbated (and I imagine WikiProject Medicine would renew its call for a warning banner). But if the problem is significant, it may be worth considering. On a side note, I think the banner should link to a page tailored for it, rather than the paid-contribution disclosure page. isaacl (talk) 03:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Those are reasonable points, but let's not get bogged down in the details. The gist is that we should be doing more to alert users (especially vulnerable new users) to the risks. Maybe one of those messages that keep showing until you click the "dismiss" link? Or make it part of the welcome message that gets dropped on new user's talk pages? Or an email to new users? There's lots of technologies to help get the message out. And, yes, the details of the message could be fine-tuned more than WP:PAID.

Not long ago, I needed help with managing a page I have on Facebook. I (foolishly) decided to try joining /r/facebook/ on reddit. I immediately got a message from a bot warning me that the group was rife with scammers. And sure enough, by the end of the day I had gotten several PMs from people offering to help me solve my problem in exchange for money. I've been around the block a few times, so I'm pretty good at recognizing scams, but having been put on alert primed me to be particularly suspicious.

Some of these scams are quite sophisticated. A few years ago, I got an email from somebody purporting to be a high-level WMF employee who had recently left WMF, attempting to enlist my help with a paid editing project. It was well-targeted to my past activities and editing interests and slick enough that I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out if it was legitimate or not. It's not hard to see how somebody (even somebody who's been around the block a few times) could have been sucked in. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Another idea; there are several mainstream (at least in the modern sense) media outlets which cover wikipedia. HalfAsInteresting just did an amusing (but reasonably accurate) piece on how arbcom works. Slate has published a number of well-researched articles examining wikipedia topics. I'm sure there's others. Perhaps they could be encouraged to write about wiki scams. The more it's talked about, the more potential marks will be educated about the problem. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The detail on whether or not the warning appears on every page is an important one, though. A one-time welcome message would be less intrusive, but potentially less effective. Maybe a one-time message and some form of collapsed message on each page? Not sure what would be the best way to present the collapsed message on a small screen, though, and that's how a lot of readers experience Wikipedia. I don't think messaging new users will do much to reach the extremely broad group of potential victims. (On a side note, I feel the HalfAsIntereseting video is reasonably accurate on describing dispute resolution, with the key omission that it failed to describe how the arbitration committee doesn't directly rule on content issues.) isaacl (talk) 15:35, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd hate to see it on every article all the time, too. Maybe something that could be seen by IPs/new accounts, maybe a click-through page that shows up randomly when someone opens a Wikipedia article, and that registered accounts could turn off? Agreed that it should link to something that very briefly explained the scams. Valereee (talk) 14:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Are there any estimates for how large a problem this scamming is? We've got hundreds of millions of readers; we don't want to overreact given any action will negatively impact their reading experience.

Depending on the scale of the problem, another option may be to run the banners for a week as an education campaign. BilledMammal (talk) 15:23, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal, for an idea of how much this is attempted, see WP:List of paid editing companies. How often it's successful is a different question, of course. A lot of these people are really bad at it. Valereee (talk) 16:15, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that's a different issue, although it is related; some paid editing companies are just scams but others do try to provide the service that is being paid for. BilledMammal (talk) 16:28, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Most UPE companies are deceptive to customers (we are Verified Editors, we have Wikipedia Moderators in our team, we strictly follow Wikipedia Rules, etc). Whether they cross the line to be considered criminal is a different matter. MarioGom (talk) 17:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Roughly once a month someone pops up on the help desk asking where the article they paid for is. It's a pretty common scam. I don't think it being shown to people when they register is ideal; I think most of the victims never make an account - why would they? They've paid someone else to do that. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• No one reads banners or warnings anyways. The only way people learn anything is when natural, negative consequences happen to them. If that natural, negative consequence is "they lose money to someone who scammed them", then the lesson they will learn is "don't get taken in by scams". They don't learn that lesson because we have a banner they don't bother to read. They only learn it because they actually experience being screwed by the scammer. In summary: there's no need to bother, it's not our responsibility, and if your goal is to educate, there's no greater education than losing a bunch of money to someone who scammed you out of it. --Jayron32 15:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

We could put something about scams in the disclaimers. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:28, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

There's a related discussion at WT:COI#Do we need a disclaimer/warning?.

I agree in part with editors who point out that the most likely victims of scammers are unlikely to benefit from any "education" from us, and I also agree that making banners too intrusive would mostly just be annoying. But I also think that there is an unmet need to make information about scams easier to discover than it currently is – if only for editors who want to learn more about how to combat it. I also think it's a bit harsh to take pleasure in how someone losing money will learn a lesson. Short of warning banners, I think we should find multiple places to link to things like WP:PAIDLIST and WP:SCAM. It might be a good idea to look at the help pages we have for new editors, and find ways to incorporate more information about the need to beware of scams into those. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:52, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@RoySmith Putting a warning banner on every page seems excessive to me, and I don't think it would get community support. Does Kobresia sibirica ned a banner on it telling readers about paid editing? I would argue no.

I think a refined version of your proposal would definitely have legs though. Rather than putting a banner on every page we could put notices and banners in specific targeted places: those that are likely to either be abused by paid editing companies as part of a scam, or those where people in the process of being scammed are likely to go for help.

Here's a couple of ideas off the top of my head:

• These scams often focus on impersonating admins, checkusers, oversighters, members of the arbitration committee etc. If these people put a standard boilerplate disclaimer at the top of their user and talk pages saying "If someone claiming to be me has offered to perform edits or actions in exchange for payment you are being scammed" that would make it much more difficult for these scams to occur. If these notices were present the scam that resulted in this current mess would have fallen apart as soon as the scammer sent the victim to bradv's user page.
• One very common scam involves looking through AFC submissions for biographies or pages on companies that have been declined/rejected then messaging the subject asking for payment to publish it. {{AfC submission}}, {{AfC reject}} and {{AfC decline}} could all have prominent notices added warning about this kind of scam.
• AFD would be another good place to put warnings. There's a lot of scams based around nominating articles for deletion then extorting protection money to prevent this (by having a bunch of socks flood the discussion with keep votes). A message that anyone asking for payment in regards to page deletion is a scammer could be useful.

I'm sure there's other places we could add warnings which would impede the scammers but wouldn't impact most of the project. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I also think that a site-wide warning is excessive, but AFC and AFD disclaimers would be nice. There's some common scams and extortion operations that focus in these areas, and the disclaimers can be added to banners that are already in these pages. MarioGom (talk) 17:28, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd oppose a banner, but places like Wikipedia:About could carry visible warnings about payment scams. —Kusma (talk) 19:16, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Another place for such a warning might be Help:Introduction or one of its subpages. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

All of the above is well intentioned but is likely to be ineffectual. What's the chance that a contentious group of Wikipedians will agree to put this into effect? Well, there is one very simple thing that every Wikipedian can put into effect immediately and will have some results depending on how many editors post this warning. All you need to do is post the following at the top your user or user talk pages:

Does it work? I've had this warning at the top of my talk page for 6 years (in a slightly different version). It's the only such warning that I know of. About 2,000 visitors see the page every month. Yes, there must be some other links somewhere, but if we have hundreds of links to WP:SCAM, we'll likely have many times more visitors to that page. See Page Views. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:14, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I've added it to my page, though I changed the language because I think the average reader probably doesn't know what AfC/an AfC participant is. Good idea! Valereee (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

As I said above, IMO something to this effect should be included in the {{AfC submission}}, {{AfC reject}} and {{AfC decline}} templates (maybe not quite as big, and maybe including a bit more information on what the scam is) that way everybody using AFC should see it. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 19:26, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Speaking as the person who will probably be getting the emails to paid-en-wp, sending people who have been scammed there rarely helps. Between the inexperience of the people who were scammed and the general untrustworthiness of the scammers, there's rarely anything actionable. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:45, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Speaking as a person who has tried to do something about scammers operating on Wikipedia, I do think there is at least some minimal benefit from directing people to WP:SCAM. It explains to the victims what happened to them - maybe, at least, they can avoid the same thing happening again. It also warns others not to fall into the same trap. Nevertheless, it must be totally unsatisfying to the victims that there is nothing that we can do, nothing that we can recommend. This scam has been going on for at least 10 years, IIRC. We have some responsibility to try to come up with some way to combat it. Ultimately the major blame is not with the scammees or even with the scammers. It falls on us for offering such an attractive field with such easy access for scammers, and not doing anything about it for 10 years. We need to take responsibility for the situation we have created, and at least try to do something about it.

It should help to describe how I came to write WP:SCAM. I saw an article or letter to the editor in some small UK paper, describing how he had been scammed by Wikipedia. The article was only on Google News for 1 day, so it is fortunate that I found his email and responded the same day. I recognized something in his description that reminded me of something in the Orange Moody scandal. I told him that it wasn't Wikipedia scamming him, rather it was probably somebody that we know about and I could probably direct him to somebody here who could help, in at least some small way. I still haven't found that person. Can anybody tell me where to look? His response was more disturbing than I had thought it would be. He was physically disabled, but had accomplished quite a lot given his situation. I didn't think that he was notable enough though for an article. I surmised that his income was mostly government support, and that the $5,000 or so that he paid the scammer (this is all from memory) would be sorely missed. What to do? I think I first discussed this at talk:Paid editing disclosure and it was basically pooh-poohed. After asking around a bit on-Wiki without much sucess, I sent a general inquiry to the WMF. Over time I was able to focus a bit on a specific WMF department - but they didn't have a solution or even a real suggestion. Things began to move a bit after I researched the Orange Moody records. One newspaper (The Telegraph?) had a strange section in it describing how the victims were convinced to part with their money. There was a 26 word series there that exactly matched a 26 word series in an email the scammer had sent to the victim. I think I emailed an arb or two about that time. No real solution was offered but somebody suggested sending the email to arbcom (with an official email address). At the same time I searched for the 26 word series elsewhere on the internet, and found something, a small German programming coop-type organization. (Jtydog got involved about this time on the PAID talk page so things get confusing) Jt. ydog and the other coop-ers explained to the main guy there what had happened to "their" money. There didn't seem to be anything that could be done for them and they were resigned to the loss. So the folks at the PAID talk page started taking it a bit more seriously, but ultimately not much got done. The arbs didn't have much to add. The big "success" was that the WMF department suggested that I should write a scam warning and post it where I thought best. Amazingly enough, it sorta worked a bit. Jtydog didn't totally ruin my write-up. Some people start reading it and editing it. The reporting email address got changed about 3 times - nobody seemed to want to deal with it, I guess. But if nobody can do anything about the reports, it's not really enough, is it? Could somebody with some sense of responsibility step up to help?

BTW, there is one alternative: just tell them to report the scam to the police, or to the FTC, or their State Attorney General's office, or maybe even to the Serious Fraud Office (after 10 years at $5,000-$20,000 a pop it does add up to serious money). There are downsides to that of course, but maybe after another decade of scams somebody here will make an effort to put an end to the scam.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:43, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

(EC)

Much the same can be said about Amazon. And they seem to at least be trying to do something about it on the education front. Just today I got an email today with a bunch of anti-spam suggestions ("Be careful installing apps or software", "Never pay over the phone", etc. And a link to a page where you can learn more. It may not be much (and most of the advice is fairly generic), but it's something. Surely we can do as little as they do. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:53, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

A project page with concise and clear guidance on avoiding scams would certainly be useful. For example, it can be an additional resource to link to from WP:VRT responses about scams, which are pretty frequent, as well as linking from AFD or AFC banners. MarioGom (talk) 10:35, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Scam warning is a good start. But it could be moved to Wikipedia:Scam warning and expand it to make it clear that this does not apply to just AFC. MarioGom (talk) 10:39, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Am I alone in that my first reaction to this discussion was to think that anyone who is so vain as to pay thousands of dollars/pounds/euros for an article about themself or their business deserves to be scammed? We can't legislate against stupidity. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:18, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger I doubt that you are alone, but that doesn't make it right. Lots of people pay money to promote their businesses on social media, etc. On some platforms, that's totally acceptable and encouraged by the platform owner. We're not one of those platforms, but a lot of people don't understand that. If I approached a businessperson with an offer to build them a website on Wix, and drive traffic to it with additional presences on Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia for money, it would be 3/4 legitimate. Our job is to educate people how we're different from the other 3/4.

Nobody deserves to be scammed. That's just blaming the victim. But, it's not just the people who pay for articles that never appear (or get sucked into AfD protection rackets) that are being scammed. You and I are getting scammed too. We're volunteering our time to build something only to have people use what we've built for their own nefarious purposes. We've been taken for our hard work just as certainly as the mark has been taken for their money. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

The difference is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I have no sympathy for anyone so stupid as to think that an encyclopedia you can pay to be in would be any good. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

This is not a good faith comment at all. Cessaune [talk] 16:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

If having a warning message on user pages is thought to be helpful, then perhaps we should request a software change to allow user page notices, and then the warning can be placed there for all user pages. isaacl (talk) 17:05, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

User page messages could be helpful and would raise awareness of the issue, but I wonder how many of the victims have a user page. I suspect that many people who would consider an offer to write an article for them may not edit themselves, and so would be unlikely to see any warnings about it that do not appear in mainspace.EdwardUK (talk) 17:52, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The goal for a user page warning is so if a scammer claims to have a specific editor working for them, should a victim look that user up, they would see the warning. I agree this probably doesn't help the vast majority of victims. As adding the warning was suggested, though, I think if it's really going to be done then the software should do it by default, rather than the community relying on users voluntarily adding the warning. isaacl (talk) 21:28, 16 April 2023

Perhaps a data point: in 2014 someone was putting up profiles on some freelancing site claiming to be me and offering paid editing services, so I put a notice on my user page warning about it and inviting anyone who heard from the scammer to contact me with details. I left it up for six months and never got an email. That said, I only ever heard of it thanks to an off-wiki attempt at stirring up scandal about me blatantly engaging in paid editing, so the profile may well have been created to try to frame me for breaking enwp policy rather than to actually try to scam anyone... GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Short of plastering the Main page with "Don't Let This Happen To You!" banners, I don't believe we can effectively help would-be BLP subjects who are victims of take-the-money-and-run scams. However, in cases where actual, paid-for BLP articles are created (if only in draft space), I believe most of them will include an infobox or EL link to the subject's webpage. Might it be possible to develop a bot that screens new articles for such a webpage, and then somehow/someway contacts the subject through that webpage (email I assume) with a paid editing scam warning? Perhaps that would give the victim sufficient time to stop payment on their check, so to speak. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia article on paid editing on Wikipedia

At the moment, we don't appear to have an article on the topic - if we did have one it would end up near the top of any search on related topics and would likely be one of the first thing targets read if they attempt to find out more before sending money.

At the moment, I think an article solely on scam paid editing might not pass WP:N as all the sources appear to be in relation to the 2015 event (BBC, Wired, the Guardian, Forbes), but a broader article would meet notability guidelines, and I think including information showing that many of these companies are scammers might dissuade some people wishing to engage the services of those who aren't scammers.

Are there any issues with this idea? If not, I'll draft something when I have time. BilledMammal (talk) 15:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal we have Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia 163.1.15.238 (talk) 15:56, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I think the article needs some work, as it appears to be closer to a list of paid editing incidents than an article, and it lacks detail on how paid editing can be a scam, but it is where we would hope readers go. However, googling various search terms it isn't, at least in my results:

• Paid editing on wikipedia turns up a series of ads, and then links to various internal pages; Wikipedia:Paid editing (guideline), Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure, Wikipedia:Paid editing (essay), Wikipedia:Paid editing policy proposal, and Wikipedia talk:List of paid editing companies. Our article isn't in the top results.
• Buy a wikipedia article turns up the same ads, and then the top results are for various companies selling article creation services; the only Wikipedia results are Help:Buying Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Buying Wikipedia articles in print or another form, although a WMF news article shows up; You don't need to pay for Wikipedia articles.

Various other searches I tried along these lines turned up similar results. Problematically, the first results for Make a wikipedia article were also sponsored links from article creation services.

I'm not sure how we can increase the prominence of our article - more redirects might help - but it might be worth having the WMF update their news article to include information on scams, as it is a relatively prominent result. I also wonder if WMF Legal can do anything about ads for Wikipedia article creation services. BilledMammal (talk) 16:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Trying to influence google by editing articles shouldn't really be an on-WP issue. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

We need to get WMF to dedicate budget to buying google ads. The first google result for buy a wikipedia article should be our PSA explaining about our paid editing policy and warning people about scammers. Surely WMF can out-bid these guys for top placement in the sponsored links. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:34, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

We should certainly get the WMF to talk to Google about this issue. In the old times (when Google wasn't evil) I think they might have been persuaded not to run ads for Wikipedia scams. I'm not super happy about donation money going to Google, but it could be worth a try. —Kusma (talk) 19:29, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, Google is already a WMF customer, so it wouldn't all be donation money; some of it would be Google money. In any case, worrying about who pays for it is secondary. One of the (reasonable) objections to my original idea is that the people we want to reach won't see our message if we deliver it on-wiki. So we need to put the message where they will see it. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:48, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think SEO is outside our scope; there was recently a discussion, though I can't find it now, about shorter titles being beneficial for that reason. I also think that trying to prevent people from engaging in UPE is worth while. BilledMammal (talk) 18:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Sort of related, we also have Wikipedia coverage of American politics, List of political editing incidents on Wikipedia and since April 1, Wikipedia coverage of Donald Trump. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:25, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

We should have a much better article than the Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia one, which is a very jargony term which predictably doesn't turn up in any of the source titles. Reliable sources explicitly discuss both paid editing[8] and scams [9][10], we should have something titled along those lines. CMD (talk) 04:54, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I see no reason we can't have an article called "Paid editing scams on Wikipedia" alongside COI editing on Wikipedia. small jars tc 10:44, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

We could, to the extent that it's a topic covered by reliable sources. But an article in mainspace instead of project space would limit our ability of writing it in a more direct tone and include contact resources, etc. A project page like Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Scam warning would be more appropriate, since we wouldn't be constrained by the article manual of style, reliable sources, etc. MarioGom (talk) 15:15, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Such constraints can only be a good thing if you want it to be readable to someone new to Wiki jargon. Take a second look at the project-space page you just linked. What would people make of phrases like "article space" and "AfC reviewer." small jars tc 20:11, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the one I linked needs to be improved. But a regular article cannot start with a warning like "Warning! If you received emails asking for money, that is a scam! Wikipedia will never solicit money in exchange content services, etc, etc." I am not arguing against anyone creating an article about paid editing in Wikipedia, to the extent that it is compliant with content policies, but I think it's not the primary informational resource we should be working on in response to these scams. MarioGom (talk) 08:44, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe it would need to; a well written article that reflects the sources would act as sufficient warning on its own. However, we could include a hatnote to a Wikipedia-space article that provides a more explicit warning, similar to hatnotes at AN and MOS. BilledMammal (talk) 18:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Legal action against scammers

Fully stopping scammers with legal action is not possible, for the same reasons that other online fraud like bank phishing still exists: the identity of the scammers is hard to discover, and when it is discovered, they are often located in jurisdictions where it's harder to sue them. However, many scammy UPE companies use US-based services (Zendesk, Tawk, Zoho, Cloudflare) and if WMF started a criminal complaint in the US, they could possibly terminate these services. This would not make the problem go away, but it could be a significant disruption to their daily operations. I think it would be worth to explore this idea with WMF Legal. MarioGom (talk) 17:35, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

To the extent that scammers are misrepresenting themselves as Wikipedia staff or professional employees, there may also be trademark issues that can be pursued through litigation. BD2412 T 23:33, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Asking for sources for AfC drafts

When users submit their completed drafts for AfC review, it could be a good idea for a prompt that asks the user for 2-4 of the strongest sources in the draft that establish notability. A feature of this ilk will be particularly helpful for drafts that are ref bombed. ––– GMH MELBOURNE TALK 03:56, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I really rather like that idea. It would reduce both the number of disappointments where people try to write articles about subjects without appreciating that sourcing is necessary, and it would also avoid the ref-bombed things with 25 pretty useless sources.

But it would be more honest to require 2-4 freely-available online sources, preferably in a language that Google Translate doesn't mangle. I disagree with this requirement vehemently, but my practical observation is that no AfC reviewer is going to accept anything (or even look at it) unless they can check the sourcing in person. And since they're volunteers not necessarily fluent in Albanian or with access to a legal deposit library this means your article doesn't stand a snowball in hell's chance of being accepted if it relies on paper sources, paid-for material, or uses general referencing, despite these all being theoretically acceptable. Reviewers need to be pointed directly at something they can look at with minimal effort, that confirms the article is accurate and based on independent sourcing, otherwise they're (understandably) not interested. This is a bit of a bee-in-my-bonnet subject, but I think it's very off-putting to new editors if they never get their work accepted even when apparently they've followed the rules. We should avoid raising false hopes. Elemimele (talk) 18:04, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree, @Elemimele.

On a related note, I've wondered occasionally about whether we could replace Wikipedia:Requested articles with a structured-data system. Imagine that instead of adding something to Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics/Companies (a free-form wikitext page), you are sent to a Wikidata-connected form that asks things like:

• Name of company (free form)
• Location of company (using Wikidata here, to make sure that we get a real place)
• Website of company
• List of independent sources
• When was it founded?
• Does it still exist?
• What kind of business/industry is it? (e.g., technology, entertainment – a drop-down menu might be useful here)
• Is it for-profit or non-profit?
• Is it listed on a stock exchange? Which one? What's the ticker symbol?
• How many employees?
• Is there an existing Wikipedia article for any of the key people?
• Does it have a non-copyrightable corporate logo that has already been uploaded to Commons?

and so forth. Wikidata has a much broader notion of notability than enwiki, so if we were careful (and didn't want to include "Write one sentence that says why this business is especially significant, unique, interesting, or otherwise worth a volunteer's attention"), the whole thing could probably be stored there, and WP:REQ could get either a simple link to the Wikidata property, or a quick, infobox-in-prose summary^[1] to start off any interested editor.

^[1] Imagine that where we now hope to see something like "Acme Flypaper – flypaper manufacturer", we would instead see "Acme Flypaper (official website) manufacturing business in flypaper in Lake Woebegone, USA, AFP on New York Stock Exchange, 150 employees". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I guess we're getting a bit off topic here, but you've piqued my interest: why don't we use "Write one sentence that says why this [subject] is especially significant, unique, interesting, or otherwise worth a volunteer's attention"? I think the reason most editors avoid RA is that worthwhile topics there are like needles in haystacks, and that suggestion would certainly make the needles stand out more. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:51, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea to me. This could be an optional thing we could ask submitters do, with the explanation that this would mean they would probably receive a decision quicker. I would start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation about this. Galobtter (talk) 17:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Fair Use on Commons

I would ask it on Commons but the licensing there is strict for good reasons, however on enwp we allow fair use images under certain criteria’s but it is a mess when multiple language editions of Wikipedia want to use the respective image in their local wiki. History is lost etc… is there a reason we don’t have a shared medium for hosting fair use images that can only exist if they’re used in one or more wikipedias with detailed rationale? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:27, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

@Shushugah Good question; I think the reason for no shared medium is that each wiki has to respect for the American and their own law. So even if we had a shared wiki hosting fair use, it would not help. For example, pl wiki is afraid to use fair use because of Polish law issue, and it's not like them being hosted on Commons or some Fair Use Commons would help. That said, for the wikis that do allow fair use, some sort of shared wiki might be good. Out of curiosity: what wikis other than English allow fair use images? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:35, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Archive Namespace for refactoring help/historical

Create a new archive namespace which is not indexed by google, and is not part of the default wikipedia search.

This idea had genesis in a recent discussion (which I have misplaced) concerning help/ tutorials which overlapped or were out of date or were developed osperately on projects. There was no consensus on what to do, but it seems a shame to not keep all those pages.

An archive namespace would allow us to refactor/simplify the exisitng map of help and move historical essays somewhere else. This might allow us to create an article structure more suitable for context sensitive help/guideline access, Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 12:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I tend to think of page history as the historical record for out of date material. Revision history is typically not indexed or searchable (except via external tools like wikiblame). If there are some help pages that are no longer helpful, perhaps templates like Template:superseded could be applied, or failing that, just blank and redirect to a more helpful page (the history is still retained after turning a page into a redirect). Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 12:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn’t this be similar talk page which often has further archive subpages? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:36, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Idea: Mass conversion of WikiProject banners

I'm currently in the process of adding the recently implemented broad class ratings for {{WikiProject Banner Shell}}. I got some done, but with all the articles that we have on Wikipedia, it would be laughable to assume that a single editor could do it. So I was thinking of two things:

• Option I - develop a bot to mass convert banner shells, kind of like a User:Conversion script II
• Option II - assemble a provisional taskforce dedicated to editing these templates en masse

I would like to hear your thoughts on my proposal. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 16:07, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I would assume that the people hard at work at Template talk:WikiProject banner shell are aware of this issue and have some plan for implementation. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Knightoftheswords281, I see you have been implementing this on your own. Please don't set up the banner shell to collapse the list of WikiProjects on high-level topics such as Talk:Engineering and Talk:Health. Hiding the projects defeats the whole purpose of having projects listed on talk pages. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Modifications to CANVASS

When determining consensus the ideal is that the discussion reflects the views of the broader community. Part of our policies in ensuring this is WP:CANVASS, which restricts who we can notify and how we can notify them. How this is done in practice is controversial, and recently there has been discussion about how we should alter this guideline to better do so.

This discussion is to have a preliminary discussion of the various ideas I present here and how they could be presented as proposals to reword the guideline, as well as generate other ideas for how CANVASS might be adjusted to better support this ideal.

• Should discussions be informed when notices to them are posted?

  Generally I believe they should; transparency is always a positive and it makes it easier to identify when canvassing takes place. I am hoping that this will be uncontroversial.

• Should the examples listed at WP:APPNOTE be exceptions to WP:INAPPNOTE, or just examples of notifications that are usually acceptable?

  I don't think it makes sense for these to be exceptions; notifying a partisan editor who has asked to be notified of "all contested AfD's" on a topic doesn't help the discussion reflect the views of the broader community and creates a wide loophole in our CANVASS requirements.

• Can WikiProjects be partisan in relation to a topic, and should WikiProjects that can reasonably be seen as such be notified of discussions on that topic?

  I think it is obvious that any group of editors, including WikiProjects, can be partisan. I also think that if they are partisan they shouldn't be notified; we want the discussion to reflect the views of the broader community, not the views of the WikiProject when those views don't align with the broader community.

  However, I wouldn't consider deletion sort lists and similar to be notifications; they make it easier for interested editors to find discussions but they don't notify editors of the discussion.

• Should RfC's that would affect the broader community be held at WikiProjects?

  I would believe they shouldn't, in line with WP:CONLEVEL; while the formal discussion invites participation from outside the WikiProject the forum still results in disproportionate participation from the WikiProject. In such cases, I believe it would be better to hold the discussion either at a relevant talk page or WP:VPR/WP:VPP, and I can't see any benefit from holding it at the WikiProject.

BilledMammal (talk) 07:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC) Editing for clarity BilledMammal (talk) 13:32, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I noticed you mentioned there has been some recent discussion, but you have not linked to it. Which discussion or discussions do you refer to? Huggums537 (talk) 07:58, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Canvassing#APPNOTE vs INAPPNOTE is the main discussion; there have also been discussions at ANI and on my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 08:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

And you are thinking of yourself as someone who should be seeking consensus about well informed discussions? I find this to be both fascinating and yet somehow appropriate at the same time. Huggums537 (talk) 08:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are asking, but it seems to be a comment on me rather this on questions posed here so I would ask that you take it to my talk page. I would add that several editors have asked me to open this discussion, including in the discussion that I linked and that you participated in. BilledMammal (talk) 08:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't asking anything. It was a rhetorical question. I just think it's interesting that someone who appears so concerned with informed discussions failed to make this an informed discussion. It was just a simple observation of irony, not about you, but about the ironic editing situation you created here. Huggums537 (talk) 09:12, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

This recent discussion may be one of those alluded to. Folly Mox (talk) 08:29, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

For the ANI discussion it is more this one: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1119#User:BeanieFan11 and WP:BATTLEGROUND at NFL AFDs. BilledMammal (talk) 08:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

For the first three second and third questions, I am skeptical that any usable policy or guideline text could be based on answers to these questions, because I don’t think the concept of a partisan editor or partisan project can be operationalized outside of extreme cases (the Article Rescue Squadron, perhaps). Any editor will tend to see thise editors with whom they consistently agree on a topic as non-partisan and motivated by P&Gs, while seeing editors with whom they consistently disagree as partisan. This is exemplified by the tendency of editors to defend "per so and so" !votes as policy-based when agreeing with a !vote, while dismissing opposing !votes that cite P&Gs or other evidence as not being policy-based when an editor disagrees with the logic or policy interpretation contained within a !vote.

Any proposal to base policy guidance on a prior assessment that an editor or a Wikiproject is partisan - "partisan" in relation to what? - seems doomed to be only a tool in winning disputes and a means of gatekeeping to keep an editor's "allies" at hand and their "opponents" far away. Newimpartial (talk) 10:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC) corrected by Newimpartial (talk) 12:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

See WP:INAPPNOTE and WP:VOTESTACKING; we already forbid the notification of a partisan audience, with partisan defined as editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion. For example, I would be considered partisan on topics related to notability.

I would also argue that it does the opposite of what you fear; an editor who tries to keep their "allies" at hand and their "opponents" far away by notifying only their allies would be in violation of the policy.

Relating your comments to the question at hand, you seem to be arguing that editors should be free to notify whomever they want; we can add a question to that effect proposing that VOTESTACKING is removed from INAPPNOTE? BilledMammal (talk) 10:25, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for asking for clarification: I am not at all proposing that editors should be free to notify whomever they want, or that VOTESTACKING be removed from APPNOTE. But I'm not sure about your interpretation of the passages (of INAPPNOTE) in question: they do not prohibit the notification of partisan ... editors, which seems to be the concept you are using here, but rather it prohibits the notification of editors on the basis of partisanship. Posting an appropriate notice on users' talk pages in order to inform editors on all "sides" of a debate (e.g., everyone who participated in a previous deletion debate on a given subject) may be appropriate under certain circumstances - there isn't any carve-out to exclude some previous participants because they are perceived (by whom?) to be partisan.

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As far as an editor who tries to keep their "allies" at hand and their "opponents" far away by notifying only their allies would be in violation of your proposed new policy language, this is already covered in APPNOTE (The audience must not be selected on the basis of their opinions) as well as INAPPNOTE (WP:VOTESTACKING). It seems to me that policy based on your comments on your second and third questions would be weaponized by editors who don't see their own biases (lacking your self-awareness with respect to Notability discussions, for example) while tending to restrict participation in instances where the inclusion of more, diverse perspectives would be better for the project. It seems to me that including too few rather than too many audiences is the bigger problem in the notification ecosystem. Creating GAMING opportunities by excluding "partisan editors" and "partisan projects" doesn't help with this - do we really want Women in Red excluded from notifications as a partisan project? To give a more hypothetical example that might be easier to discuss: Canadian content may well be overrepresented on-wiki, and Wikiproject Canada may well skew towards the inclusion of Canadian content at AfD and may not align perfectly with the rest of the community in the assessment of Canadian sources at RSN. I would not see those situational factors (hypothetically) as valid reasons that Wikiproject Canada should be seen as a partisan audience when such articles and sources are under discussion or that a project notification would have a negative impact on such discussions. Sometimes members of a project hold views that differ from non-members for reasons of familiarity with sources or with policies, and there isn't anything in your proposal that could save that infant when disposing of the waste water. As another example, Wikiproject Role-Playing games has a section of the project page dedicated to noticeboard discussions (including AdD and MfD), which results in watchers of the project page being alerted when such discussions begin (or end). The main impact of this in recent years has been that some salvageable articles have been improved and "saved" at AfD, while nothing perceived as "CANVASS" or disruptive on-wiki has happened. I don't see any advantage to the Wikipedia community in banning practices like this, which is what your views on your third question seem to require. The assumption that including editors who are sensitized to a topic will result in disruption in discussions on that topic seems to me not to be proven as a working assumption. The point should be to notify a broad and diverse range of editors who can bring experience or fresh perspective on a topic, but to create levers for GAMING the notification system.

TL;DR: INAPPNOTE and VOTESTACKING currently refer to "partisan audiences" but not "partisan editors" or " partisan projects". This is as it should be: editors are only "partisan" in relation to specific topics and should not be notified on the basis of their opinions (which policy already stipulates). Projects also only have the potential to be partisan in relation to specific topics or discussions, and the best way to ensure that project notifications reach all relevant parties is for people to join projects when they are interested in any aspect of its domain, not to treat the project as similar to a political party (in the words of VOTESTACKING). Notifying a broader range of projects and pages to reach more voices is an approach more in line with wiki values than creating gameable rules about those who must not be notified. Newimpartial (talk) 12:03, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the concerns about gameability, and I'd also be surprised if a proposal encouraging not notifying certain projects is adopted by the community. I'm not actually sure what problem the current guideline is causing. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 12:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Regarding gameability, I don't think it can be gamed. An editor might try to do so by selectively applying the guideline - ignoring it for notifications of their side, but applying it to notifications of the opposing side - but that behaviour is possible for most of our guidelines, including WP:CANVASS as currently worded, and usually results in sanctions.

The issue with the guideline is that it is disputed whether it forbids notification of partisan WikiProject; we need clarity on whether this is permissible. The issue with notifying partisan WikiProjects is the same issue as with all vote stacking. BilledMammal (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, when I say "partisan" I mean "partisan in relation to the topic under discussion". As for your proposed solution of having editors join all WikiProjects they are interested in, I don't think it is a plausible solution (how would we encourage editors to do so?), but it also wouldn't work; using your example, an editor might not be interested in Canada, but they might be interested in excluding unreliable sources or deleting non-notable articles.

We also can't balance out partisan groups by notifying groups that are partisan in the opposite direction because such groups rarely exist. This is why I didn't consider the WP:VOTESTACKING exemption you mention relevant; it works for and refers to individuals, but it doesn't work for groups.

In regards to your comment about editors who are sensitized to a topic, that isn't what this is regarding - it is about editors who are partisan to a topic. As far as I know, WIR is not partisan, which means that while they might be sensitized to a topic there is no issue with notifying them, and based on your comments about Wikiproject Role-Playing games the same is true with them.

Finally, you say that the point should be to notify a broad and diverse range of editors who can bring experience or fresh perspective on a topic; I agree, but notifying partisan groups increases the participation of that group in the discussion, thus making it less representative of the broader community and thus less diverse. BilledMammal (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

How does including everyone in the broader community even the "partisan" groups mean it is now less represented or somehow less diverse? You make no sense at all. Huggums537 (talk) 14:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Let me take that back. You make a lot of sense on some things, but on that you didn't make no sense at all. Huggums537 (talk) 15:09, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Sorry. I have to backtrack myself there because I realize I have an issue with coming across as severely critical of those I disagree with, especially if the disagreement is a strong one. Please overlook it if you are able to. Huggums537 (talk) 15:14, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I understand; assuming you still want me to respond to meat of the question:

What we want is for the partisan group to be represented but not over-represented. Notifying the group will result in them being over-represented; notifying the broader community will result in them being appropriately represented. BilledMammal (talk) 15:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

It sounds to me like what you want is something similar to legalized spamming so you can notify a whole bunch of people and groups who are not even related to the topic while excluding the very people who might be related it. I can not tell you how much I hate these ideas. Huggums537 (talk) 16:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

What I am advocating is context-based notification, and I would oppose efforts to remove the current rule on spamming. For example, an RfC related to the reliability of a source should result in WP:RSN being notified and an RfC about a policy change should result in WP:VPP being notified. BilledMammal (talk) 16:21, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

BilledMammal has objected to my prior comment because the wikiproject system cannot be guaranteed to represent "both sides" of the issue at hand proportionately to "public opinion" on enwiki at large. I take issue with the underlying assumption here, which seems to be that Wikipedia is divided into party-like entities in conflict over outcomes (or perhaps one consensus party and dissident "partisans"). The way I see notifications working best is not by new restrictions or by spamming, but to do what policy calls for at present and invite editors into discussions who are related to a topic in different ways (defying BM's apparent assumptions).

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For example, an assessment of a source published on a historical topic in French in Quebec to assess its relationship to FRINGE concepts might be relevant to wikiprojects focused on History, on Canada and Quebec, on French-language sources (I haven't checked whether such wikiprojects exist, but they should) and the FRINGE noticeboard. The idea that some of these should not be notified because they might be partisan on the topic (and yes, the FRINGE noticeboard has been accused of partisanship) seems like the opposite of the approach our P&Gs ought to promote. Meansbile, the idea expressed here, that a project should not be notified because no project exists to represent the contrary bias onwiki (where is our PROFRINGE noticeboard?), seems to assume those voicing this view are already treating their own networks and other preferences as similar to a political party (as this comment by another editor also does), which runs directly against the approach WP:VOTESTACKING - and CANVASS more generally - tries to promote, IMO. From reading the rest of this discussion, BM has not shown readers that "partisan projects" exist and can be identified in relation to specific topics, or that disruption has been caused by the notification of "partisan projects". Their clearest expression of how partisan projects could be identified seems to be this one, but it imposes a false dichotomy - the situation they describe could result from various causes, including a situation where non-project members, who are less motivated to investigate deeply, do not read the sources provided (especially when sourcing has been presented after their !votes), where they engaged in a motivated interpretation of notability guidelines to justify their prior preference concerning deletion, or where keep or delete !votes differ over the same evidence in a reflection of differences within the broader community over how to interpret WP:N. The idea that such differences - or even differences in !voting patterns between project members and others - could only be explained by "partisanship" seems logically flawed and unsupported by empirical evidence. BM states here that A WikiProject having members who are interested in a topic doesn't make it partisan, just as it having members who are knowledgeable about a topic doesn't make it partisan - but if editors who are knowledgeable about a topic !vote differently on that topic than editors who are less knowlegeable, according to the operational metrics BM has repeatedly put forward, that means the more knowledgeable group of editors are partisan in relation to the topic, and informing them is VOTESTACKING! However, I see no community support for the idea that editors are presumed "partisan" when they disagree with certain other editors' interpretation of a community consensus, whether or not they belong to a project - this whole framing sounds to me like an WP:AGF fail, to be honest. Also, I would point out that, while BM has amended the OP to refer to projects that are partisan in relation to a specific topic, in their other comments they seem to slip back into thinking of projects simply as "partisan" (e.g., here) as though a list of partisan projects could and should be maintained. That kind of evaluation - even in relation to specified topics - would require a community consensus that is currently clearly lacking, and proceeding with the approach BM seems to prefer, without any community agreement about the topics on which a particular group has shown partisanship, would be a clear invitation to GAMING as other editors have mentioned. As another example, it would be easy for an editor to assume that Wikiproject Feminism is partisan concerning topics and sources about feminism, but my sense is that the knowledge held by members of that project would be generally helpful to evaluations of feminist sources, not detrimental, even if on average they might disagree with a random sample of editors outside the project about the evaluation of certain sources.

In the absence of agreement about what would make a project (or a noticeboard, for that matter) "partisan", the most likely use of "partisan project" language would be for editors to assert without evidence that projects they distrust should be considered partisan based on those editors' own preconceptions and assumptions (or possibly, in the case of the OP, based on statistical inferences representing flawed logic and unsupported by policy).

I think one final example puts the logic of the proposal into a stark light: I haven't been even linking to, much less notifying, the wikiprojects I've discussed in my two lengthy comments. But if this proposal leads to an RfC, would it be inappropriate for editors to notify wikiprojects of this proposal to restrict notifications on wikiprojects? I think the answer to this is a reflection of how we see P&G concerning community processes more broadly - whether we aim for evolving structures to facilitate community engagement or whether their main purpose is to limit the participation of presumed "bad actors" and where disagreement with prior majorities is seen as evidence of "partisanship". Newimpartial (talk) 10:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• When notifying editors of a discussion there are two “rules of thumb” to follow: 1) notify as many people as you can 2) make the notification neutral. Blueboar (talk) 13:45, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  The current wording of WP:INAPPNOTE suggests that the first rule of thumb is wrong; see Wikipedia:Canvassing#Spamming and excessive cross-posting. Should we include a question proposing that we remove that aspect? BilledMammal (talk) 15:29, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• This partisan bullshit essentially boils to saying we want rules to say we can restrict the very people who would be most interested in participating. I hate the very notion of it. Huggums537 (talk) 14:27, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
• Per Huggums, this seems very much the opposite of what we want. In any discussion, we want not just Randy in Boise and his compatriots to be giving random opinions. We should value the opinions of people with more knowledge of a topic, and not deliberately exclude them. If I'm trying to decide "Is this hard-to-understand topic from molecular biology worth its own article, or should we delete it or merge it?", I don't want to exclude molecular biologists from the discussion. Sure, I'd welcome any comments, but I'd find the presence of molecular biologists in the room with everyone else to be a huge benefit; they can explain what the topic is and what its relevance is to others who are unfamiliar with the subject. The OP is basically saying "Inviting knowledgeable people should be seen as canvassing, and we should ban the practice." What are we really after here? Are we after bringing in the best people to help write the best encyclopedia with the best information available, or are we interested in winning battles and destroying our enemies? --Jayron32 14:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  The OP is basically saying "Inviting knowledgeable people should be seen as canvassing, and we should ban the practice." That is not what I am saying. I am saying that inviting partisan groups should be seen as canvassing, even when the group is organized as a WikiProject, and we should make it clear that doing so is banned.

  Being knowledgeable about a topic is not the same as being partisan about a topic; if this is a common misunderstanding it might be worth modifying WP:CANVASS to make this clear. BilledMammal (talk) 15:29, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  If a WikiProject is actively disruptive, appropriate sanctions will be employed against members of that WikiProject doing the disruption. It seems to me this is putting the carriage before the horse by attempting to prevent predicted disruptive activity rather than tackling past disruptive activity by a group of editors, and using CANVASS's notification guidance as an awkward crowbar to do so. I'd be much more concerned with such guideline creep being misused or (more likely) wasting editors' time with endless discussions about whether WP:LGBT or WP:GEOG are partisan. I'm almost certain some random POV-warring editor would seek for WP:LABOR to be essentially shadowbanned, for example. Additionally, just because we write rules doesn't mean they will be followed. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 15:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Addendum: And if the WikiProject isn't being disruptive but just happen to share one opinion, then that is not something we are meant to fix. Sure, it sucks when some crowds aren't very wise at all but that's life. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 15:50, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  To be clear, partisan WikiProjects aren't being disruptive, but it is disputed whether notifying them about topics they are partisan on is. To prevent issues going forward we need to determine whether it is or isn't, which is why we need to have a discussion to clarify this.

  Personally, I don't see why notifying a partisan group organized as a WikiProject is any different from notifying a partisan group organized in a different manner; Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list#Canvassing said messages to fora mostly populated by a biased or partisan audience — especially when not public — are considered canvassing and disrupt the consensus building process by making participation lopsided, which appears to partisan WikiProjects just as well as it does to other public groups. BilledMammal (talk) 16:02, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  To be clear, partisan WikiProjects aren't being disruptive, but it is disputed whether notifying them about topics they are partisan on is. Could you explain to me how it could be disruptive to notify them without their consequent participation being disruptive? The same case you mention contains many examples of coordinated disruption happening as a result of the canvassing, such as edit warring and coordinated voting. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 16:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Because it disrupts the consensus building process by making participation lopsided. The individual editors participating aren't doing anything wrong, but the editor who provided the notification did.

  Could you explain to me why you see notifying a partisan WikiProject as different from notifying a partisan group organized in a different manner? BilledMammal (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Because if the WikiProject has a genuine interest in the discussion and can be notified in a neutral manner in a public forum, not notifying them would essentially be WP:VOTESTACKING. Say I believe WP:LABOR is partisan in favor of organized labor groups (an understandable concern, given the purpose of their project is to maintain and expand the coverage of said groups on the wiki) and I want to delete a labor group article. How would failing to notify them, yet notifying other wikiprojects, be anything but votestacking? If no known coordinated effort is being made by them to preserve labor group articles at all cost, am I not preventing knowledgeable, constructive editors that are more likely to know of possible sources that could demonstrate notability from participating in the discussion? Am I not myself causing lopsided participation in consensus building processes as a result of assuming bad faith? Biased editors are still entitled to their opinions. This is not a new phenomenon. We've built processes to deal with issues that result. I'm also completely confused as to what you mean by in a different manner so can't answer on that part of the question. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 16:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  How would failing to notify them, yet notifying other wikiprojects, be anything but votestacking? Assuming that the other WikiProjects aren't partisan and WikiProject Labor is, how would it be votestacking? Notifying the non-partisan WikiProjects wouldn't make participation lopsided, but notifying WikiProject Labor would.

  I'm also completely confused as to what you mean by in a different manner so can't answer on that part of the question. Organized in a manner other than being a WikiProject. Pretend there are ten editors who share a position on a topic.

  If I notify those ten editors directly then I am in violation of CANVASS. If the ten editors form a group organized in any manner other than as a WikiProject and I notify the group, then I am still in violation of CANVASS.

  However, if the group is organized as WikiProject, then some editors argue that notifying them is not a CANVASS violation; I am hoping you can explain why the method of organization is relevant. BilledMammal (talk) 16:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  I'd argue assuming a WikiProject is partisan is a pretty strong one to make. I'm unconvinced your logic makes any sense when replacing "is partisan" with "I believe is partisan". What would the burden of proof even be to show a WikiProject is partisan, under your proposal? Even harder still, what would be the burden of proof to show a WikiProject is not? How could WP:WIR not be partisan but WP:SCEPTIC be? How could WP:WMNSPORT not be but WP:CFB be? You do understand that such a guideline would be scrutinized in this way if it is not guided by editors' belief of what is partisan and what is not. I.e. if you are assuming it is clear to the community what is partisan and what is not, you should be able to draw such a line for us and be confident it can pass scrutiny. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 17:19, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  To prove that a group is partisan within a broad topic area we need to review the prevalence of opinions of members of that group within the broad topic area compared to non-group members. If there is a significant difference between the two then the group should be considered partisan for that topic area.

  For a hypothetical example: We are considering whether members of a WikiProject are partisan in relation to whether articles on fish should be deleted.

  If we see that the average support for deletion of these articles is 30% (3 out of every 10 !votes are 'Delete') among editors who are not members of the WikiProject, but for editors who are the average support is 90% (9 out of every 10 !votes are 'Delete'), then the WikiProject should be considered partisan for the broad topic area of "deletion discussions about fish".

  If you see any issues with this then please say; I think a workable definition is possible but it may need some work. BilledMammal (talk) 17:31, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  My issues with this are as follows:

  1. How is it that the individual members of this WikiProject are not engaging in misconduct related to AFDs and therefore should not be individually sanctioned if, on average, they vote to keep 90% of fish articles?
  2. This assumes that future participants in the WikiProject will inherently share the bias of past and current members
  3. Until I'm shown evidence that it is rare for WikiProjects to overwhelmingly want to keep articles within their purview, I believe your definition would apply to almost every WikiProjects.

  — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 17:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  For 1, !voting against consensus is rarely sanctionable and I don't think I've ever seen an editor sanctioned for consistently !voting against consensus is a single broad topic area at AfD. I'm also not sure they should be sanctioned; editors being against consensus isn't an issue, the issue is if they sway the debate by votestacking, rather than by convincing the broader community that their position is the correct one.

  For 2, it doesn't make that assumption. If future participants don't share the opinion of past and current members then the prevalence of opinions will change.

  For 3, I doubt it is true for most WikiProjects; while some are concerned about quantity, others - I believe most - are more concerned about quality. Further, while my example was deletion discussions it wouldn't only affect deletion discussions; it would also affect RM's, RfC's, etc.

  I can look into getting that sort of evidence for you, but it will take a few weeks before I have time to do so. BilledMammal (talk)

No need to get that evidence for me personally. I'm not even sure one could even gather it. In any case, I'm withdrawing from the discussion since I don't think I can give any more constructive feedback on your proposal nor do I think either of us will convince the other of our views on the matter. I still do not believe it would be good for the wiki or likely to pass, but appreciate you having discussed it with me. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 18:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• Being knowledgeable about a topic is not the same as being partisan about a topic You've not made any such distinction in the manner you are using "partisan". How do I know if a Wikiproject is "partisan" vs. if a Wikiproject is "knowledgeable and interested in a topic"? --Jayron32 16:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  WP:CANVASS doesn't make any such distinction; I wouldn't think one would be necessary because it seems obvious to me that the two aren't synonyms. However, if this is a common misunderstanding then CANVASS needs to be modified to make such a distinction; do you think it is common, and how would you propose making that distinction? BilledMammal (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  It's obvious to me they aren't synonyms. However, you seem to be using "partisan" in a way that doesn't make it clear you have made such a distinction. My point is, if you're going to say "These WikiProjects over here are full of wonderful, knowledgeable editors, and the discussion could really benefit from their deeper knowledge of the discussion" and "The other WikiProject here is full of a bunch of partisan assholes, and if you notify them, they're going to show up and ruin the discussion". How do you define the difference? Because if you can't, then you have no leg to stand on with your proposal. --Jayron32 17:45, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  The same way you determine if an editor is partisan; for more detail, see my response to Ixtal. BilledMammal (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  I've read your response to Ixtal; what it shows me is some phenomenal lack of AGF in interpreting the actions to mean "is partisan" rather than "is knowledgeable". For example, people who write articles about fish (from your example) are more likely to know of, and have access to, source material about fish than the average person. Difference in voting in a discussion is quite easily explained that way. The fact that a member of a Wikiproject voted one way, and someone who is not a member of that project voted another, does not mean that the member of that project did so because they were "partisan". Your assumptions that that is the best interpretation of that data is problematic. --Jayron32 18:16, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  If the members of the WikiProject are presenting sources then a difference in prevalence of opinions can only occur if the broader community disagrees with their conclusions about those sources. The difference isn't because they are more knowledgeable, it's because their beliefs on sources are not aligned with the beliefs of the broader community - in other words, it is because they are partisan. BilledMammal (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Jayron32's question, "How do I know if a Wikiproject is 'partisan' vs. if a Wikiproject is 'knowledgeable and interested in a topic'?", is very much on-point for me. I'm not a wikilawyer. When someone else moved Theban alphabet (its original title since creation) to Theban script, and reverted my reversion without having discussed it on talk, that left it to me to open up that discussion on its talkpage, a page move request to get it back to the stable status quo ante, rather than the mover requesting his preferred move there. That is, the page is sitting in its changed state while the request ages. I knew that the request would show up automatically on a list, for those who watched it, but I thought past editors of the page, still active, should also have a say, so I notified those in the revision history who had any contributions on en:wp within the past year or two. Now I've got to worry whether I fell afoul of CANVASS, despite not knowing in advance which article title they would prefer? – .Raven  ^.talk 07:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  I don't agree that WikiProject are inherently "partisan", and I've seen enough disagreements on project talk pages to discount the idea that project members are always "of one mind" on a subject. WP:CANVAS explicitly allows notifying projects of related discussions, and I see no reason to change that. Schazjmd (talk) 16:09, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  WikiProjects aren't inherently partisan, but some are partisan. Further, disagreements doesn't mean a group of editors, whether organized as a WikiProject or not, isn't partisan; if 90% of the members of a group support something but only 30% of the broader community do then the group is partisan on that question even though there is some disagreement within the group. BilledMammal (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  There can be honest disagreements between different groups of editors based on their underlying assumptions or experiences, without making them partisan. The only way to evaluate the arguments in context is to hear them out. I agree it's not necessarily helpful to hear the same arguments over and over again, but that's a problem with English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions in general. isaacl (talk) 16:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Or to take a wildly hypothetical example: if over 99% of virologists and MDs specializing in public health, epidemics, pandemics, etc., believe something called, say, "COVID–19" is real... but over 50% of the population think otherwise... that doesn't mean the first group are "partisan". – .Raven  ^.talk 07:26, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  WikiProjects are just groups of editors sharing a common interest and working together to further the goals of Wikipedia, usually by working on various initiatives. Most of them are oriented around a content area, and thus attract the knowledgeable editors in that area. Notifying the corresponding WikiProjects for related content areas is considered to be a neutral way of reaching the interested editors who are best able to bring greater context to a decision. It's not partisan to be interested in a content area. There are other groups of editors interested in managing deletion who monitor the deletion request pages; they're not necessarily partisan, either. For better or worse, the best way to reduce the impact of vote-stacking via canvassing is to reduce the effect of raw numbers on the decision-making process. This means weighing arguments in a manner not solely tied to the number of people speaking in favour of them. I know this isn't easy, but the ultimate way to avoid a behavioural problem is to remove the incentive for it. isaacl (talk) 16:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think a lot of this discussion is based on a misunderstanding; we are only talking about partisan WikiProjects, with partisan having its standard definition of a strong supporter of a party, cause, or person. A WikiProject having members who are interested in a topic doesn't make it partisan, just as it having members who are knowledgeable about a topic doesn't make it partisan.

  It seems there is a common misunderstanding about what partisan means; this needs to be resolved, because even if there is a consensus that WikiProject's can't be partisan CANVASS still uses the word and this misunderstanding must be causing issues. Do you have any suggestions for how to resolve this misunderstanding? BilledMammal (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know if anyone can provide a suggestion for what you mean by partisan. At the incidents' noticeboard discussion you linked to above, you called WikiProject NFL a biased audience that shouldn't be notified. To me this is a group of editors interested in a specific content area, and so notification is appropriate. Rather than trying to label groups, it might be better to focus on the criteria for notification: they shouldn't be tailored in such a way that only editors with a specific viewpoint would be interested in being notified. isaacl (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  The Article Rescue Squad is the usual group people point to for inappropriate notifications. While I understand why, I also understand why some editors feel motivated to try to fix articles that seem promising and are currently undergoing a deletion discussion. It might be a reasonable approach for that group to concentrate more on the fixing and limiting their contributions in deletion discussions to just noting what sources they have added to illustrate that the standards for having an article are met, without further comment. isaacl (talk) 17:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  I followed that for years and never understood it. What was most disturbing to me was the "gamification" of the AFD discussions. Some people seemed to think that once an article arrived at AFD, everyone divides into two camps, "Delete" or "Keep", and the winner was the one who got their votes enacted. Like it was somehow cheating to try to improve the article while it was at AFD. --Jayron32 18:04, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  I've been templated for editing an article's text body while (and had my edit reverted because) a page move request was underway. (The template was topped with the user-written comment: "There is an on-going discussion on these articles, which you are engaged in. Wait for them to resolve...". The revert comment: "rv: this is an ongoing discussion -- wait for the result") I'd never heard it was somehow cheating to try to improve the article while it was awaiting a decision whether to restore its original and long-time name over the name it had just been moved to without discussion. – .Raven  ^.talk 07:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  To understand what you are saying; are you saying that the group can be partisan but that it is appropriate to notify them anyway because they are interested in the topic area, or that they can't be partisan?

  For individual notifications I agree that focusing on criteria is a good idea, but I don't think it will work with groups. This is because for individuals when you have the correct selection criteria you balance out editors who are partisan for side A with editors who are partisan for side B; with groups it is often impossible to obtain such balance because in many cases there are groups that are partisan for side A but no groups that are partisan for side B. BilledMammal (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  In the context of making content-related decisions, I feel the concept of partisan is akin to failing to be impartial: that is, failing to set aside one's personal feelings to make a decision based on evidence and in consideration of community guidance. I don't believe it is reasonable to declare, for example, the set of editors interested in baseball to be partial with respect to baseball-related content. I also don't agree with the assertion that a group that disagrees with a larger superset group must be disagreeing due to partiality. There can be differing interpretations leading to disagreement, or different levels of expertise. To take an extreme example, a general group of people might agree that a particular software feature can be easily coded with minimal effort, while a small subgroup of experts might say it isn't. Both sides can be honestly weighing the considerations in their minds fairly and yet reach different conclusions based on their knowledge.

  There are groups that, by their nature, have self-selected a set of editors with a specific position on some issue, and thus its members are more prone to make partial arguments for that position. Although the community has rarely ruled against the formation of groups of collaborating editors, it has happened when it agreed that the group's purpose was counter to the best interests of the overall project. I don't think a blanket statement can be made that "groups can/can't be impartial". It depends on how the group is selected. This comes back to the question of the criteria for notification: if a list is created for the purpose of notifying those who wish to always vote to delete articles, then notifying them results in vote-stacking for deletion. isaacl (talk) 21:26, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• In regard to the second bullet point: Considering that this website works on consensus, I think that it's important for users to feel that their perspectives and opinions are taken into account during discussions, so in general I believe that notifying editors who have asked to be informed should be allowed, even if their view on the topic in question is known. The specific example given is a rather extreme case; if an editor wants to know about every discussion in a certain area, it might be more efficient to advise them to watchlist a deletion sorting list, talk page, or noticeboard than notifying them individually every time, but is it really an issue if another editor does so, considering that if the first one cares so much, they may well find their way to the relevant discussions on their own? As for the other bullet points in the OP, I don't think it's helpful to treat WikiProjects as partisan (largely based on what Isaacl wrote above), but I don't have any objection to the 1st & 4th bullets; APPNOTE already says that doing the first is good practice and it would make sense to make that into a requirement, as long as other users don't come down like a ton of bricks on editors who forget once or twice. Hatman31 (talk) 16:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  As I wrote in the discussion on the canvassing talk page, it's common practice for editors to request to be notified about certain discussions. Typically it's for a specific set of discussions, such as the notification list the arbitration committee set up for discussions on changing the discretionary sanctions system. I agree interested editors should be pointed to the existing notification systems in place, including watching relevant noticeboards and WikiProject talk pages. In cases where someone chooses to send notifications for a more tailored situation, they should open it up to anyone to use. I appreciate, though, that within the bounds of English Wikipedia's current decision-making traditions, there is a vote-stacking issue when the criteria for notifications is chosen such that those interested in the notifications have the same opinion. isaacl (talk) 17:16, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  but is it really an issue if another editor does so, considering that if the first one cares so much, they may well find their way to the relevant discussions on their own The issue is that it's a loophole in our CANVASS restrictions; it means that any editor who wants to be canvassed just needs to ask to be so. If we are going to permit that loophole then there isn't much point in having CANVASS restrictions. BilledMammal (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• How are "members" of a WikiProject defined? I think I have added myself to a list of members for 4 WikiProjects (two of which I wasn't certain I'd listed myself until I checked just now, and I wouldn't consider myself to be actively editing in the subject area for one of them). I have userboxes on my talk page that put me in a category for members of one WikiProject, and one task-force. I've watchlisted the talk pages of 36 WikiProjects that I'm would say I'm highly interested (i.e., I have some desire to weigh in at AFDs, RMs, etc). Of those, there are probably 21 where I've made more than 1,000 edits to articles in the scope of the project, and several more where I have repeatedly contributed to discussions on the WikiProject's talk page. I guess I'm a "member" of all those, but I haven't felt the need to formally list myself as such.Plantdrew (talk) 21:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Each project is free to set its own rules. In the case of WikiProject Military history, editors sign up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Members. The membership list is maintained by the project bot, which moves members to the inactive list if they have not edited Wikipedia in the last 365 days. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• We want more editors to be informed, not less. Imagine societies where the media is restricted and people have no way of knowing what is really happening in their government. That is basically what is being proposed here, to our governance model. --Rschen7754 22:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Were it up to me I'd strike WP:CANVASS from the list of policies wholesale. I think it does more harm than good—it serves no legitimate purpose other than giving people who are sore about losing a debate means to tattle on their opponents at one of the drama boards in hopes of getting the newly-established consensus overturned. Such policies are the worst thing about Wikipedia; they turn off far, far more potential contributors than any supposed benefit they give us. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 23:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• I disagree with the premise. I'm in a handful of wikiprojects and none of the ones I'm in votes as a unified block in anything. In every project I've participated in, the debates between the project members aren't that different than the ones seen in the wider Wikipedia community. I don't deny there has been a handful of arbcom cases where it's come to light there has been off-wiki collusion to affect a vote count. However, those are the extreme cases, not the norm. What I see starting to happen is accusations of canvassing are becoming a cheap allegation to retroactively poison the well when ones opinion isn't popular in a debate. It's an easy allegation to make, impossible to prove ones innocence. It's not unlike baseless accusations of plagiarism in academia or abuse in a divorce case. I'm concerned accusations of canvassing are starting to become the Wikipedia equivalent of Stop the Steal. Dave (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I remember an AfD from a couple years ago on some Ancient Rome topic (don't remember the specific article). It was quite technical and none of us AfD participants could really understand it, so we shot a neutrally-worded message to Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome for expert assistance. Curbon7 (talk) 23:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. What about Wikiprojects that follow their own notability standards that are at odds with the community's? We saw after a well-attended 2017 RfC that the larger community strongly supported the (existing) requirement that all sportsperson articles meet GNG, but since the larger community is not directly notified about selected AfDs and is less likely to participate in them anyway, the sports projects went right on using their criteria without consequence. The same thing happened for many months after the NSPORTS2022 RfC where editors from these projects deliberately ignored the consensus and continued !voting keep based on deprecated criteria even when no one could find any SIGCOV. Many of these AfDs got closed as keep because project members are already over-represented at AfDs on their topic, and this becomes even more lopsided when members alert each other to particularly contentious AfDs.

Perhaps what this discussion is telling us is that we should make an "article deletion task force" WikiProject where all the editors frustrated with lax standards and inconsistent application of P&Gs in AfDs can combine their efforts across multiple topics. Then perhaps it wouldn't be a month-long painful ordeal--including a keep close in the middle--to delete a subject because some editors claim GNG/ANYBIO is met with 40 words in a local newsletter reproducing verbatim a facebook post by the subject's team announcing the results of an anonymous Google docs poll held by the Twitter account for the league's fan club... JoelleJay (talk) 05:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Or, maybe it's telling us that your "article deletion task force" standard isn't working all the way across the board like you wish it did, and maybe our existing P&Gs need to be updated to be more inclusive of that fact so editors wouldn't be that frustrated anymore... Huggums537 (talk) 05:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Good lord, an "article deletion task force"? You can't delete your way to making the encyclopedia better. The only thing that would accomplish is sending the project into irrelevancy by scrubbing it of content a reader might find useful. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 06:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I actually would welcome such a development. Then we know where everyone stands. --Rschen7754 06:20, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

No one "stands" anywhere. What every person does is they assess each article, and then they compare what information they can find about that article and its subject, and they also compare that to the standards for whether or not we should 'have' an article at Wikipedia on that subject, and based on all of that information, they decide, for themselves, whether the article and/or subject meets the minimum requirements. People don't have "stands", they just do the best they can to make the best assessment possible each time. The fact that people may read or interpret the standards and different ways doesn't mean they take "stands". Different is not wrong, and the world will always have differences over what the standards mean, and whether any one particular article may meet those standards. --Jayron32 14:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

That is a very optimistic view of things, but when the same people vote the same way over and over against the same subject area, it's time to call a spade a spade. Please read [11] and tell me that this is not a stand. Rschen7754 00:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

When people vote the same way over and over it means they are consistently applying the standards as they understand them. --Jayron32 12:44, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Not necessarily. They might just have a bias against that subject area. Rschen7754 16:45, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The fact that this is your first interpretation of someone's actions is problematic. If you set out assuming people are doing things because they are bad actors, 1) you're going to believe that evidence points you that way and 2) you're going to interpret all of their actions, no matter how benign, that way. That's why the WP:AGF policy exists. Actions should be viewed as people doing their best to make the encyclopedia better. Yes, of course, there are vandals and POV pushers, and all that. But merely because people have a different interpretation of policy than you do, and vote differently than you would have in a discussion, doesn't mean they "have a bias". It just means they read things differently. No one has presented any evidence of bias beyond what could be easily seen as a difference of interpretation.--Jayron32 17:12, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I really really hate this dumb inclusionist vs. deletionist debate because it only leads to comments like this one. Then we know where everyone stands is absolutely not a phrase that should be uttered by any editor, let alone an admin. Curbon7 (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Though, I don't think any editor should be campaigning for a task force to delete as much as possible, either. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Two wrongs do not make a right. Curbon7 (talk) 15:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

+1 -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The Free Encyclopedia Anybody Can Edit + Article Deletion Task Force + NPP(effectively an Article creation task force) = Wikipedia, The site that used to "Make The Internet Not Suck" has become the angry Karens of the internet, who call 911 and demands the swat team gets rid of everyone new who shows up at the park "acting wierd". Dave (talk) 15:32, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I always leave a message saying if I've placed notifications, just as a courtesy and for transparency. I don't think restricting notifications that are made in a neutral manner is helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Answering questions from the lead. 1) yes, transparency is good and notifications to everyone are best practice. Linus's law logic applies: the more eyes... etc. 2) no opinion at present, this is somewhat unclear to me 3) I agree WikiProjects can be partisan, but I also think it's fine to notify them IF they are relevant. For example, if an article is tagged as within scope of WikiProjects A, B and C, they should be notified. Technically they already may be through Article Alerts and like, but there is nothing wrong IMHO from notifying them in other ways (their talk pages, I guess?). 4) I agree they should not, unless they concern that WikiProject only, which would be quite rare. Arguably, this can be a case by case basis issue, but I don't recall an RfC that was held at WikiProject in a long time. Some examples might help refine my vierw, if anyone would care to provide them and ping me. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:32, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I like this idea about "Linus's law". It supports the idea that Blueboar saying earlier about giving notice to the most eyes possible. There is a difference between giving notice to as many people "as possible" (with a good faith assumed meaning being "as allowed" of course!), and spamming people not even related to the discussion. Huggums537 (talk) 08:51, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Parallel Text Template

Should Wikipedia have a comprehensive parallel text template for language comparison, including a translation into English syntax? The Lord's Prayer has served in interlinear translations and language instruction for centuries, and more recently the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been massively translated into virtually everything except, I think, Lojban. Which article does supply literal, syntactical translations into English. kencf0618 (talk) 19:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not have such material, however, the sister project known as Wikisource would probably be the best place to do such work. Here is the list of languages for the Lord's Prayer that exists in Wikisource. Here is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can click the links next to the language in question to find the text of that document in that language. I hope that helps. --Jayron32 14:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)