RfC - change to Wikipedia's five pillars - WP:5P[edit]

RFC on WP: SPS and WP: BLPSPS[edit]

There is a current discrepancy between how WP: V covers self published sources for BLP's and how WP: BLP covers self published sources for BLP's.

The current text on WP:V (at WP:SPS) is Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

The current text on WP:BLP (at WP:BLPSPS) is Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article.

The key difference being WP: V says "as third-party sources" and WP: BLP saying "as sources of material".

The question is should we change the text of one to match the other, and if so which one.

Option A No change to either policy text

Option B Change WP: BLP to match WP: V

Option C Change WP: V to match WP: BLP

Option D Some other change

--Kyohyi (talk) 15:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Withdraw/close. Why are we having this RfC? Where is the WP:RFCBEFORE? This appears to be an obvious fix (self-published sources by an article subject are routinely used for non-contentious information about themselves) and KoA fixed it.[3] There are no counter-arguments - indeed no discussion at all I can see. Thus, this looks like a purely bureaucratic RfC. Alexbrn (talk) 15:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Current BLP policy explicitly forbids self-published sources on BLP's unless they are from the BLP. The change you just made on BLP implicitly allows self published sources as long as they are not used as a third-party source. That is a policy change and should get consensus first. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

So the problem is what? Third-party use is excluded so ... ? Alexbrn (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The change is that non-third party use of self published sources on BLP's is going from being explicitly forbidden to implicitly allowed. That's a change and should get consensus first. Since this is something that affects policy that has discretionary sanctions tied to it, local consensus shouldn't be enough. Hence the RFC. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

How's it a change? Third-party sources are prohibited in BLP, just with different wording. Could you give an actual concrete example of something you think would now be allowed that wasn't before? Alexbrn (talk) 15:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, it doesn't say third-party sources are prohibited in BLP. In all actuality third-party sources are the preferred type of source. What do you think it means to use a source as a third-party source? Is it a Voice issue? The general policies that surround Third-party sources say that articles must be based upon them. Not that we can't use non-third party sources. There is no general prohibition to using non-third party sources, so this change now allows self-published non-third party sources. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, it doesn't say third-party sources are prohibited in BLP. ← third-party SPS, since this is what we're discussing. It says "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people". I repeat: could you give an actual concrete example of something you think would now be allowed that wasn't before? Alexbrn (talk) 15:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Just about any self-published source. Again, what does it mean to use a source as a third-party source? Non-third party sources are not forbidden anywhere on Wikipedia. The text doesn't say "never use Third-party self-published sources". Third-party self-published source would be a description of the source, "never use self-published source as a third-party source" is a description of the source, and a description of how it can't be used. Which implies there is a way it can be used. So how do we use third-party sources vs. non-third party sources? The only policy is that we can't base our articles on non-third party sources. This change no longer forbids use of self-published non-third party sources on BLP's. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"Just about any self-published source" ← no, only non third-party usages are allowed. I'm trying to understand what you think has changed by asking for an example. For the third time, please, just an example of a source/claim that you think would now be allowed that wasn't before. Alexbrn (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Alright, over at BLPN the Thacker discussion. What text in policy now forbids the useage of the Novella sources. I again ask the question, what does it mean to use a source as a non-third party? --Kyohyi (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"What text in policy now forbids the useage of the Novella sources." As Paul Thacker is a living person, and the 'Novella' sources are by Steven Novella, from Steven Novella's blog, hosted by NESS - an organisation Steven Novella is president of, both the text of WP:V and WP:BLP which you have quoted above prevents their use. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Congratulations, you've identified a self-published source as a self-published source. Now get to the part where we talk about what does it mean to use a self-published source as a third-party source. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I'm out on this. This is either deliberate trolling or a failure to understand on a basic level, and I am uninterested in finding out which. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• (after edit conflict) Kyohyi, as Alexbrn's question seems to be worded in a way that you do not understand, let me ask it in a different way. Is there any difference between a third-party source and one that is not written or published by the subject of the article? Phil Bridger (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kyohyi: Novella's is an SPS and it's usage wrt Thacker would be third-party. So, contrary to policy exactly as now. Alexbrn (talk) 17:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

If Novella is in dispute with Thacker about something, Novella and Thacker become first and second party to each other with respect to the dispute. Novella is not a third-party in that instance. They are potentially a person with an axe to grind. In this case with Thacker. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

How's that relevant? This is about sourcing, not imagined legal disputes with their distinct terminology. I put it to you, you simply cannot produce an example of what the wording change, would change. This RfC should be withdrawn or closed. Alexbrn (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Whether or not a source is third-party is now relevant because you've added it as a usage requirement to the policy text. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Third party and self-published are not the same thing. See WP: IS and WP: USESPS. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, we all know that, but it is not the question. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

A source from a person who is in conflict, or put another way whom has an axe to grind with the article subject would not be third-party. Especially if they are writing about the the topic in which they are in conflict. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"A source from a person who is in conflict, or put another way whom has an axe to grind with the article subject would not be third-party" ← yes it would. And if self-published would not be allowed for biographical content about a living person. Alexbrn (talk) 17:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

No it woulnd't because they are both parties to the dispute. A third party could be someone else commenting on it, but the two parties themselves are not third-party to each-other with respect to the dispute. The text in WP: V would allow that, the Original text in BLP would not. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

In a (legal) dispute there may be "second parties". But this is about sources. The concept of a textual "second party source" does not exist on the English Wikipedia or in writing generally. If somebody is unaffiliated with a source it is a third-party source in respect to them. This is explained at WP:Third-party sources. Alexbrn (talk) 18:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm am more than willing to drop this if you can provide a single argument which can be linked to that would refute this argument here: [[4]]. (Specifically that SPS can be used) I say this because I know this is going to be argued on BLP's and the BLP version is explicit in what it forbids. Whereas the WP: V version needs interpretation and reasoning. Mind you, I don't agree with the argument I linked. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense. But anybody arguing that you can use a SPS as a third-party source for biographical content about living people, is wrong on every front. Alexbrn (talk) 18:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It might not make sense, but can you disprove it. Changing the text to match WP: V would mean we would have to rely on the interpretation of third-party in WP:Third-party sources to have the same effect as the original text WP: BLP. Third-party sources is an explanatory supplement, which has all the same weight as an Essay. So we go from relying on the text of a policy to having to rely on the text of the policy and the text of an essay. --Kyohyi (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Nonsensical things are not amenable to proof or disproof. If "third-party" is too difficult for some readers there may be merit in having the BLP text at WP:V too. Alexbrn (talk) 20:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I've noticed this too about Kyohyi's lines of comments and others trying to insist there are issues with V and R policy language on SPS sources in BLPs. It comes across as hand-waving that something is going to drastically change if we follow existing policy language the community has always been following, yet with no concrete examples provided (instead shifting the burden to others). It seems so odd that there's such a hard push against policy, yet when pushed actual issues that would justify C votes, nothing. KoA (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Kyohyi, maybe it would help if you made it clear who made that comment you just linked, or maybe even asked them what they were talking about instead of insinuating things and running with it so far as to start an RfC? There's a reason why Alexbrn said it didn't make sense, because you were taking me way out of context.

The niche use I was alluding to in that case is described in WP:BLPPRIMARY: Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions . . . That language is in part why the community uses the independent/third-party language because it stresses the need for those kinds of sources, especially when an SPS is going to be mentioned significantly in a BLP in terms of WP:DUE. There are plenty of examples of that in articles when outside sources deemed an SPS said something noteworthy for the subject. KoA (talk) 03:09, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

My apologies for getting the exception you were going for wrong. However, under current wording on BLP, primary self-published sources would not be allowed. BLPPRIMARY says may, so sources which are primary but not self-published could be allowed under current BLP. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

BLPPRIMARY is policy and explicit that primary sources are possible to be used regardless of SPS or not when there is another accompanying appropriate source. Again, you're missing what our guidance is actually saying overall and kind of tilting at windmills as a result. That confusion could have been addressed at the policy page itself instead of launching a premature RfC. All other guidance in this subject is linked to focus on independent/third-party sources because we do have that very limited use where SPS can be cited according to policy and in long-standing practice. KoA (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Since BLPRIMARY subjects itself to BLPSPS (note "subject to the restrictions in this policy" BLPSPS is a restriction in BLP) I find it hard to believe that it allows something that BLPSPS forbids. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Option A. A dictionary definition of third party e.g. "a person or group besides the two primarily involved in a situation, especially a dispute" appears to suggest that a person in a dispute with the BLP subject is not a third party. I thank Kyohyi for bringing this up. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option C: Originally I read those two sentences as meaning the same thing, under the interpretation that a third-party source was simply one not published by the subject, and was consequently going to vote for Option A. However, upon closer reading of WP:INDY, it seems like the wording in WP:V would technically also allow us to use self-published sources if they are engaged in a dispute with a BLP, which is obviously dumb and not intended. The wording in WP:BLP avoids this and so we should change the wording in WP:V to match it. Loki (talk) 05:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• C per Loki. The two intend to say the same thing but BLP says it better than V. We should avoid the use of the confusing jargon "third party", which means different things in different contexts. Levivich 16:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
  • While I think C is better than B (meaning, BLP's language is better than V), I would also be OK with D something else that said the same thing in a simpler way, such as "Don't use WP:SPS for WP:BLP content unless it's WP:ABOUTSELF." Levivich 19:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

    ^ This. That's basically what we mean. (Only, for clarity, that's "content about a BLP", not "content that happens to be in a BLP article but which isn't itself about a BLP". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    Shouldn't pretty much all content in a BLP article be about the BLP? And if we've broadened what we can have in a particle BLP to be beyond the BLP itself should we allow self published sources that aren't by the BLP? --Kyohyi (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    "BLP content", which (WAID is right) is better said "content about a living person", doesn't only appear in a BLP article. There are non-BLP articles that still have "BLP content". Hence, WP:BLP applying on all pages, not just biographies. I think it's conceivable but rare that a BLP article might properly use some EXPERTSPS source for some fact that is not about any living person. (In these situations I always remind myself that the breadth of Wikipedia's topical coverage is far wider than my imagination, so it's nearly impossible for me to conceive of all possible situations.) Levivich 15:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    My concern is running into guilt by association and coatrack issues. Generally per WP: OR we have to include sources that are related to the topic of the article. In this case we're talking about a biography of a living person, so do we really want to include self-published content not about the biography on that biography? The opposite end would be if the article is not a biography, but has biographical information of people related to the article. I suppose it depends on how much of an article is a BLP, and how much is not, but I think if we present it primarily as a BLP we should keep to BLP sourcing. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    There are two potential holes in the policy wording:

    • Content in a BLP article that isn't (directly) about the subject of the article
    • Content in a non-BLP article that is about a living person.

    Both of these happen frequently, when we write about events, organizations, scientific research, products, etc.

    The second is easily handled: whenever you are writing about a living person, then you follow BLP standards no matter what the rest of the page is about. "Alice Expert discovered the genetic mutation" in an article about a disease – BLP standards for that sentence. "Paul Politician condemned the state of the world" in an article about a social problem – BLP standards for that sentence. Experienced editors already know this and do this.

    The first is not actually that difficult, but it might be harder to notice. Imagine an article about a famous politician or business person. The article will mostly be about the person (e.g., early life, education, personal life, things they said or did). However, some parts of the article might need to include relevant context, so that the reader can understand what's going on. An article about a senior politician, for example, might need to say something about the state of the country's economy, which isn't BLP content, so that particular bit needn't meet BLP standards. An article on a university professor might need to say something about how well the academic's theories were received, which isn't BLP content. An article about someone who invented a product might need to say something about whether the product is any good, or whether the company was successful, which isn't BLP content.

    It is not really unusual to have an article that is approximately half about a person and half about the band/company/book/thing they created. That's okay. Coatracks are a problem when the content that is hanging on to the ostensible subject obscures the real subject. We're happy to have an article that is about both Fiona Famous and her Famous Foundation; we are less happy to have an article titled Famous Foundation that is 90% about food insecurity. We've got an article about Food insecurity; we don't need a dumbed-down version of that information under another title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• D - I have long felt that these clauses are both written - and, more importantly, interpreted - too broadly. I would support them if they were limited to sourcing controversial BLP material, or if they were limited to sources in dispute with a (BLP) subject. But currently these clauses prevent us from directly citing in memoriam blog posts about colleagues, and even ban self-published expert analyses of living authors' professional contributions (the latter may or may not be an intended reading of WP policy, but it is definitely used that way). So I would like to see both passages reined in, rather than setting one the same as the other. Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• Am I missing something It looks as though we are discussing changes in at least one if not two of our major policies. Without mentioning it at either policy's talk page or WP:CENT. Am I right? Doug Weller talk 16:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  My apologies, I have added RFC notices to both policy pages. However I have no idea how the CENT template is supposed to work. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I listed it at WP:CENT. Levivich 19:18, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option C The clauses are intended to mean the same thing, but I agree with Loki and Levivich that C is clearer. If it's ever proposed, I would support (D) changing both to an imperative, such as "Self-published sources can only be used as a source of material about the person who wrote the source" (obv. word-smithing needed, of course). Schazjmd (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• This RFC and the related situation has a lot of issues and should probably be terminated. Maybe start by opening a discussion at WP:VER about adopting the BLP wording (Option C) North8000 (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• I made the original edit that triggered this, and I'll agree with others that this should probably be withdrawn/closed due to failing WP:RFCBEFORE. I won't have much time if any to respond to this more in-depth until the weekend. It honestly comes across more as steamrolling between blanket reverting already accepted clarifying language in policy even if they only disagreed with a small part of it in addition to jumping to a premature RfC. I do especially find it odd how even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer policy was reverted without any mention of it since, which is a pretty strong indication Kyohyi is rushing too much and glossing over a lot in the rush to make an RfC before there could be any input on its formation.

When I was making the edit over at BLP, that was just intended as basic clarifying language that had already been adopted as policy on SPS's for years. Nothing to significantly change either policy, and if anything, strengthening the policy through clarification the community had accepted as policy. The whole point of the language at WP:SPS policy is answering why self-published sources don't have the standing to be used as independent or third-party sources, so it's unclear why editors would want to weaken BLP policy when both WP:SPS and WP:RS/SPS policies are already clear and stronger by using that language. WP:INDY (a high-quality supplement that is practically cited as a guideline) is clear on why we need to rely on good independent/third-party sources, as well as the nuances of that language. KoA (talk) 02:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

As an afterthought, let's play devil's advocate for a bit though and assume that the text clarification at BLP actually was altering policy on the page. In that case, reverting the change would be violating established policy at both WP:R and WP:V on SPS's in BLPs. If two different policies disagree with you about including the third-party/independent language, that's a major issue in trying to claim any sort of consensus, much less the extremely high bar of proof needed of actual issues two change two other policies that's lacking here. KoA (talk) 02:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option C/D. I would remove this wording: "unless written or published by the subject of the article". It is very common that someone publish highly promotional materials about himself; some of that can be even a misleading information. Let's say the current place of work can be incorrect, etc. One needs strong 3rd party RS for BLP. That is the idea. While using self-published views by an expert on the subject of their expertise can be OK in many cases, I do not think that using self-published self-promotional materials is OK. My very best wishes (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option C/D. I think that the BLP wording may be a little clearer, especially for people who aren't sure how to go about Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works. However, I think that BLP's "unless written or published by the subject of the article" wording is overly restrictive. Imagine an article about a crime, e.g., Theft of Alice's sandwich from the office refrigerator. We would normally include a statement from any accused, e.g., "Bob denied stealing Alice's lunch", even if that denial is cited only to a social media post. The current BLP language technically says that you cannot use a self-published denial from Bob, about Bob, because "the subject of the article" is an event, not a person. That does not align with actual practice. The language should be changed to something like "unless written or published by the subject of the material". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option C/D: I take Newimpartial's view here, more or less; absent that, I'm sympathetic to WAID's. It's fairly absurd that we can't cite memorials on a university blog, to give one of the former's examples. (It's a lot worse a BLP violation to list a dead person as living for years, at the top of their search results, in the most prominent forum about their life, than to cite the SPS of someone who knew them well and can confirm their passing.) Vaticidalprophet 19:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Can you give examples of BLP subjects who are notable, who died, and for whom we had no sources about their death except an SPS source? I didn't realize this was something that happened. Levivich 19:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
    • "As far as we can tell someone is dead, but the RSes are absent" happens often enough to have come up barely a month ago, with reference to other cases as well. Both referenced cases there are just ones involving Wikipedians and their friends, so unusually likely to make it to high-profile backstage areas. It's a perennially tricky subject that tends to get wrapped up in both SPS issues and BLPPRIMARY issues. Vaticidalprophet 19:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
      • Thanks. Does this just happen with the death of BLP subjects or does it happen with other key facts, too? I'm wondering what kind of "D" language would cover this issue. Levivich 20:09, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

One caveat with university "blogs" is that they often aren't actually blogs in the traditional sense. The third sentence of WP:BLPSPS covers this in the context of news orgs using blog in a slightly different sense (for better or worse), and the same model applies to many universities even if it's lesser known. It would really depend if it's a personal blog vs. the university owned one that would generally have oversight. KoA (talk) 01:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

University "blogs" might not be blogs in the traditional sense, but they are not the same as blogs by a news org. A university blog might be best classified as a press release. You can {{cite press release}}, and you can {{cite blog}}, but you can cite them only for information about living people who could be considered "themselves". For organizations (everything from the most storied of academic organizations down to the scummiest of snake-oil sellers, and encompassing every kind of for-profit and non-profit organization in between), we normally interpret "themselves" as including anyone who works for them. Thus you can cite a self-published, self-interested source that says "Big University is delighted to announce that Prof. I.M. Portant has discovered that water is wet" about the living person, I.M. Portant, but you cannot cite such a source about people not belonging to the organization (e.g., "thus proving once and for all that his rival, Author Itative of Little University, is all wet").

Back to the example here, one could cite an official university source (whether that's a blog managed by the publicity department or a press release, but perhaps not a social media post by a fellow colleague) to report the death. I wouldn't recommend using such a source for glowing information.

If you are interested in this subject, then do please read Obituary and make a mental note about the difference between "a news article" and "a paid advertisement". Everything at, e.g., Legacy.com and its competitor falls into the second category. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

This is probably going on a tangent at this point for this RfC, not I'm not referring to university press release style blogs, but actual news (typically science news or educational material) they put out. Usually that's through extension.[5] Often times they'll also mention retirements, deaths, etc. of researchers at the university, though that can vary. That's a very different setup than say a researcher's personal lab blog that really is often more of a personal blog. KoA (talk) 04:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

This is still information written by the university and that the university makes available to the public. It is still self-published by the university. Fortunately, we interpret instances of an employer writing about the employer's own employees (e.g., a university self-publishing a message about an employee's retirement or death) as an instance of ABOUTSELF. Those sources are just plain old self-published blogs and are acceptable sources for any BLPs who are part of the organization that is writing and publishing the material about themselves.

A WP:NEWSBLOG is not a blog that contains news. A NEWSBLOG is a publication by a normal news media organization that happens to use a blog format (or at least that they prefer to market as a type of blog). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the type of university news blog posts I am describing are what you just described for news organizations. Still mostly a tangent for this specific topic though, so maybe something best discussed on talk elsewhere if it interests you. KoA (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Just for clarity: the equivalent sort of publication, posted on the website of any organization that is not a news media organization, does not qualify as a NEWSBLOG under Wikipedia's rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

• B followed by A and D. Insisting on C across all other policies instead of changing the single line at BLP is just WP:NOTBUREAU as others have mentioned, and weakens or ignores BLP policy itself. I didn't consider it a big deal, but still helpful, when I made that edit at BLP originally, and opposition to it (C), seems to be glossing over our inter-related policies and missing key details. Tl;dr at the bottom for skimmers.

Here's what is added to the BLP page (italics) + the IS wikilink when it matches the language at all other policy pages that say what we do with SPS sources at BLPs: Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer, unless written or published by the subject of the article.[6]

There's nothing wrong with the long-standing accepted language at WP:V and WP:R policies, and it only strengthens the single line at BLP that doesn't use it. Withdraw/close is really my first choice above for being so out-of-process with WP:RFCBEFORE at the BLP page and attempts to avoid even starting discussion, but it doesn't hurt to clarify what policy actually says here instead of the skimming past what the actual history was.

Functionally, it doesn't change anything in policy implementation by adding it to BLP for those that actually read through the web of connected policies, but it gives clarification behind the why of how SPS are an issue, and adds stronger language about it not mattering who the SPS was written by. I'm also amazed people have been trying to remove the expert, professional researcher, etc. bit from BLP when it was added too. Here's actually what the policies say:

• V policy at WP:SPS: Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. Noting that V is a core content policy, and is generally considered stronger than other non-core policies and can't be overridden so readily.

• R policy at WP:RS/SPS uses the same language except it says independent sources instead of third-party. WP:IS is one of our main policy supplements (really surprised no one has bumped it up to guideline yet) making it clear we generally treat third-party/independent as interchangeable on Wikipedia. The take home message there instead of someone hyper focusing on the language is we want sources that are independent and distanced from events or primary sources, regardless of BLP or not.

No one should be opposed to stressing why third-party/independent sources are so important. What that language stresses is that SPS sources don't have the standing to be considered distant or independent enough, so they are functionally treated like primary sources. Anyone who's worked in WP:MEDRS areas would know what kind of aversion I have to primary sources, so the wild claims that already existing policy is going to allow widespread SPS's across BLPs is pretty unsubstantiated. As other's have said responding to those claims, since you can't use an SPS source as a third-party source, then what exactly are you going to use it as? Hint, you're not going to be able to just plop an SPS in to a BLP so easily, and that's why functionally nothing changes aside from strengthening against possible wikilawyering by having more explanation the community has already approved in policy.

What existing policy does is essentially reduce SPS's to primary sources we already can't use carte blanche in any plain meaning. The reason why V and R policy use the independent/third-party language though is both because SPS don't meet that, but also because BLP policy does have a carveout that the community regularly uses, WP:BLPPRIMARY: Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies. If something mentioned by an SPS, and another reliable source mentions it in a WP:DUE manner, the SPS can be cited alongside the secondary source as verification/supplement in that limited fashion. This is already how the community approaches this issue.

That's why C would be a dead-stop no because it would conflict with other policies, including parts of BLP. That's how the independent/third-party language links into to many other core parts of our editing policy and creates a solid web of strong BLP policy instead of having a single line of BLP that some people may focus on while ignoring the other parts of policy that discuss it.

Tl;dr for B.

1. Multiple policies use stronger language than BLP (including core content policies that have higher standing), and the single line in part of BLP is largely the lone wolf of policies commenting on BLP SPS's.
2. It's longstanding approved policy language that only adds clarification to BLP and shouldn't be controversial.
3. Third-party/independent only strengthens why SPS use is restricted.
4. If someone disagrees with B's language (though I'm open to things like D), that means they're disagreeing with what practically every other policy on BLP SPS's have to say and is an extremely high bar to overcome.
5. BLP policy itself actually does allow SPS citation in very limited instances when secondary sources are involved, so technically current BLP language isn't technically correct in that one line. B fixes that while adding stronger language.
6. B has already been policy for years and hasn't caused the widespread SPS use some C !votes are claiming since it doesn't change what we functionally already do.
7. This RfC's formation really isn't suited for tackling what lead to this or focused enough to manage widespread D options. KoA (talk) 00:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

• B, largely per KoA. I will note that I believe that this RFC is proper and doesn't need to be withdrawn. BilledMammal (talk) 01:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• No change required because both sentences already say the same thing. Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. [i.e. independently written ['third-party'] SPS are not acceptable sources for BLPs] vs. Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article. [i.e. SPS are not acceptable sources for BLPs, unless they are written by the subject of the BLP themself (and, one would hope, to avoid issues with WP:PRIMARY, also mentioned in an independent secondary source as well) - i.e. if they are not "independently written"]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

As already addressed above, your parenthicals aren't quite accurate. SPS sources are not acceptable independent standalone sources, but they can still be cited in niche uses, namely through WP:BLPPRIMARY. The only reason I bring that up is to avoid kneejerk wikilawyering that comes up when people sometimes cherry-pick the single line from BLP policy and ignore other parts of BLP policy or other policies where the mere presence of an SPS, even if with accompanying secondary citations, is an automatic revert for them. KoA (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• Much editor time has been spent on this discussion. Why? If wording can be improved to match policy then improve it, but I don't see that the current wording has caused any problem. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:20, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, that was also my impression of all this after I initially updated the single line in BLP to match other parts of BLP and other policies on this subject (option B technically). The push against that, especially adding existing language about being an expert, well-known professional researcher, etc. not being an exception to it, really seems to running afoul of WP:NOTBUREAU policy. In all my time doing copyediting or matching up language on policies/guidelines, I've never seen anyone try to undo uncontroversial changes essentially because that exact a language wasn't used in that exact line of policy even though the exact language exists elsewhere in policy. KoA (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Phil Bridger: Seeing that you wrote your comment mentioning "current wording" after the BLP status quo ante wording had been restored, that looks like support for Option A. If I misinterpret, please contradict. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:52, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

My statement is in support of closing this discussion and getting on with editing the encyclopedia, which is none of the options above. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:57, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option C. Clearer than the current WP:V wording (even if both are intended to mean the same thing) and reflects widespread current usage and consensus. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:55, 25 January 2022 (U(UTC)

RfC: Abolish the current version of NSPORTS[edit]

Original question:

Abolish the current version of NSPORTS. This page, far from being rules of thumb which some editors choose to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to keep an article, does not help the decision process, but actively hampers it. Examples are countless of one group of editors (whether it be football, olympics, or plenty of others) arguing that an article should be kept because (correctly or not) its subject "passes N[some random sport]" or that "sportsperson from long time ago, there WP:MUSTBESOURCES"; and others correctly arguing that the existing coverage is not sufficient to write an encyclopedia article (as opposed to a database entry). This leads to needless conflict, pointless AfDs and DRVs, and above all bureaucratic waste of time. Abolishing this guideline and falling back directly to GNG would also help in reducing issues of WP:BIAS and the disproportionate amount of (usually white, male, European) sports figures that are included, as well as make policy more understandable to newer and more experienced editors alike by avoiding issues of WP:CREEP. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:13, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, everyone. I hope this quick split didn't cause any edit conflicts for anyone. This discussion is approximately the length of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Your comments are still wanted (honest!), but novel-length RFCs need to be split off of this page, especially when they've only been open for a week and are still growing by the hour. The RFC bot will update links soon. Please go to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability to continue the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Support I think it is high time we applied GNG to sports people. I also think we need to avoid mass redirecting in cases where we determine people are not notable. To my mind a subject specific guideline should be used to guide us in cases where GNG would lead to over inclusion, not to include articles that do not pass GNG. For example, without the oolitician notbility guideline we might on GNG grounds keep any article on any politician who ran for an office at a level that would have multiple papers writing substantial articles. We have instead decided that it is not reasonable for us to include every past failed candidate for national legislatures. In the sports criteria too often the bars have been set insanely low. We finally tightened the Olympic guideline to medalist. However this is still sweeping a lot of people who barely have any coverage. Yet, we still have a whole slew of other guidelines, such as the one on Equestrians, that say all Olympic competitors are default notable. For cricket we allow articles on anyone who played in a " First class match" even though we know many such people we know nothing on outside of the match reports. For some sports we will include anyone who played one game in a fully professional league. Beyond the low inclusion bar these guidelines lead to people creating and leaving for years articles that say virtually nothing about the subject. It means the project is drowning in articles not backed by reliable sources. We need to change things. Scrapping the guidelines entirely would be a good start.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposal expanded (NSPORTS)[edit]

For those with this page but not the Sports notability subpage on their watchlist, two new sub-proposals have been added since it was split off. One of these has been SNOW-closed, but the other would welcome your input. BilledMammal (talk) 05:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Three additional proposals have been added:

Subproposal 9[edit]

Rewrite the lead of WP:NSPORTS to avoid any wikilawyering. Propose changing:

This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. [paragraph break] If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (for example, the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines).

to

This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (for example, the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines).

i.e. cut the confusing sentence in the middle which is at odds with the rest of the guideline and which leaves itself open to lots of wiki-lawyering...

Subproposal 10[edit]

Require each project that has inclusion criteria based on participation in a league (e.g., football, cricket, American football, baseball basketball, hockey, Australian rules football, etc.) within the next 30 days to justify the inclusion of each league. Such justification must include actual "random" (truly random) sampling showing that 90%-plus of the players in each league receive sufficient SIGCOV to pass GNG. At the end of 30 days, any league as to which the data has not been provided must be stricken from NSPORTS.

Subproposal 11[edit]

Rewrite the introductory paragraph to put this guideline on a similar footing to other SNGs, removing the dependence on the GNG, and making it clear that standalone articles should not be created for articles that can only be sourced to statistics databases.

This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to merit an article in Wikipedia. The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets either the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. Standalone articles should only be created where sufficient sources can be identified to create an article that goes beyond the contents of statistics databases and websites; Where the only sources available simply provide only basic personal details and details of participation, the subject should be covered in a list article or mentioned in a parent article rather than having a standalone article.

Please note that the failure to meet these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept. These are merely rules of thumb which some editors choose to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to keep an article that is on articles for deletion, along with relevant policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

Subproposal 12[edit]

Should participation in the Olympics be removed as an indicator of presumed notability for each of the following? This is a follow up to the 2021 RFC that removed the general presumption of notability for Olympic athletes, and can be considered a counterpart to subproposal three. This discussion will have no impact on Olympic athletes who medalled, as they are presumed notable under NOLYMPIC.

Subproposal 13[edit]

No more fucking subproposals. Let this thing run its course.

I would Support this if I knew where to vote in this complicated mess. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:30, 16 February 2022 (UTC).

More general discussion[edit]

• It is clear the system is broken. See here *Comment Something is clearly wrong when people ignore a total lack of GNG, an administator weighs the actual sourcing and arguments, and then gets attacked for it as is happening here Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2022 February 16.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:01, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

  Can you provide excerpts of the alleged personal attack?—Bagumba (talk) 00:47, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  I don't see anyone claiming personal attacks. It is possible to attack an admin without it being a personal attack. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  I see, embellished canvassing from involved AfD participant.—Bagumba (talk) 00:45, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• This was following a discussion where there was no showing of any additional coverage. People do not even try to come up with significant coverage. This is a very frustrating situation. It is not useful to have Wikipedia be full of perma substub articles that say nothing of substance.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:01, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

  Perhaps other people find Wikipedia useful for different reasons to you and/or have different visions on what the project should cover? NemesisAT (talk) 14:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  Or other people believe WP:NOT is a policy that shouldn't be ignored... JoelleJay (talk) 20:28, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Updates on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines Review[edit]

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

Hello everyone,

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees released a statement on the ratification process for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines.

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The UCoC and the Enforcement Guidelines were written by volunteer-staff drafting committees following community consultations.

The revised guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. There is a list of changes made to the guidelines after the enforcement draft guidelines review. Comments about the guidelines can be shared on the Enforcement Guidelines talk page on Meta-wiki.

To help to understand the guidelines and process, the Movement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team will be hosting Conversation Hours on 4 February 2022 at 15:00 UTC, 25 February 2022 at 12:00 UTC, and 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Join the conversation hours to speak with the UCoC project team and drafting committee members about the updated guidelines and voting process.

The timeline is available on Meta-wiki. The voting period is March 7 to 21. All eligible voters will have an opportunity to support or oppose the adoption of the Enforcement guidelines, and share why. See the voting information page for more details.

Many participants from across the movement have provided valuable input in these ongoing conversations. The UCoC and MSG teams want to thank the Drafting Committee and the community members for their contributions to this process.

Sincerely,

Movement Strategy and Governance

Wikimedia Foundation

Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

• The statement includes the line This would allow for another round of edits to address community concerns prior to another vote, if needed, emphasis mine, in the context of the community rejecting the guidelines. Under what circumstances would a second vote not be needed to implement the adjusted guidelines? BilledMammal (talk) 03:34, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the question, BilledMammal, would it be okay if I put it on the agenda for today's (Feb 4) conversation hour? (Though as it pertains to the Board statement, it may be better posed as the Feb 17 Community Affairs Committee conversation). Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Thank you for the prompt reply. I won't be able to attend so would prefer a written response - though I assume a transcript of the conversation is provided? BilledMammal (talk) 03:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
      • Typically we take notes collaboratively in an Etherpad, and later provide a summary. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 04:02, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
      • BilledMammal: It didn't make it into the live call, though please see "What happens after the vote concludes?" update on Meta-wiki. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
        • Thank you for sharing that, though I don't believe it addresses the question; it speaks about how the Revisions Committee will modify the guidelines, but it doesn't speak about what happens after that modification. BilledMammal (talk) 01:58, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
          • BilledMammal: Isn't that explained by "the revisions will be published for review, and a second vote will be held"? Xeno (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
            • Apologies, I missed that sentence; thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 02:44, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
• I shared an update at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Update and reminder to participate in the UCoC Conversations and Ratification Vote 7 - 21 March 2022: in additional to the information shared above, a community panel on 18 February 2022 at 15:00 UTC will share perspectives from small- and medium-sized community participants. See also the Conversation Hour summaries for notes from 4 February 2022. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Do rules deserve to clear, unclear, or what?[edit]

For example, WP:NFCC#8 is supposed to be clear, which is what I've perceived for years. However, from what I've seen, minimal interpretations seem to allow some content to be kept more than such interpretations should or shouldn't. Or, the whole "contextual significance" thing has been hotly debated and interpreted differently. Also, I am seeing a latest proposal on NSPORTS, yet I don't feel like participating there right now. Sometimes or most of the times, I have sought for clearer and stricter rules because I like to follow, but then WP:NOTBURO comes into play as well. So are WP:PAG and WP:IAR... and WP:NOT... and WP:5P. I've been advised and advised to seek consensus, but I know for a fact that most proposed rules haven't succeed very much or at all mostly due to instruction creep or whatever else I couldn't describe. Well, some proposed rules have received consensus and succeeded. Also, WP:consensus comes into play as well, but I had been unsure whether to trust what has formed a consensus... Maybe I'll try to trust or follow the consensus or something. I just like things simple, tidy, and whatever. Getting into complicated situations, like drama of unclear rules, have stressed me out sometimes or a lot. George Ho (talk) 11:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

One of the things I learned as a student of linguistics is how much native speakers of a language can disagree on what a simple word means. No matter how much you try to clarify the wording of a statement, there will be people who understand it differently than you do. One reason law courts use such stilted language is that the legal meaning of the set phrases has been hammered out in repeated legal rulings. In Wikipedia, we have to settle for a statement meaning what a rough consensus of participating editors say it means. - Donald Albury 16:19, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

"settle for a statement"... When I attempted that a few or several years ago, there were just I and another editor, and no other people participated or were interested in what was discussed. To this date, I haven't bothered drafting a proposal on the same issue. Maybe situations vary as always? --George Ho (talk) 17:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Reality is not simple and tidy, so Wikipedia, which needs to reflect reality, cannot be simple and tidy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Well... Reality is described in many ways. I guess same for Wikipedia, which is, indeed, in the real world. George Ho (talk) 23:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

See WP:ENGVAR for another example of this, where there is a dispute over whether it applies to toponyms as well as vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. BilledMammal (talk) 00:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

On This Day[edit]

Ban draftifying articles more than 30 days old[edit]

Pretty much the title. The community has discussed this before, but draftification is not meant to be a backdoor to deletion. We've had discussions on this before where we've made it clear as a community old articles shouldn't be draftified without discussion.[7] However, the spirit of this consensus has been completely ignored in practice. Recently, I undid the draftification of Dancing satyr, an article created in 2004 that was "draftified" by a patroller and received practically no work on it. This is inappropriate. Here two created in 2005 including one that went through the original AfC process in 2005: [8] [9] Here's some more made in 2006: [10] [11] [12] I could link dozens of extremely old articles being draftified with practically no discussion whatsoever, simply by searching Special:NewPagesFeed, switching to the Draft namespace, and sorting by "oldest" unsubmitted.
For the reason that we have really old articles being draftified by many different reviewers, I think we need to make our expectations clearer about what "new articles" means in the context of draftification. I like to propose that anything over a month old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD. Reviewers do not appear to be interpreting the intent correctly and we need a firm rule on the matter. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose no, just because an very poor article is 31 days old, if someone might want to work on it to get it up the minimum standards I can't see any reason to refuse letting an AFD for example close as "Draftify". — xaosflux ^Talk 23:07, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux: This proposal doesn't ban that. I'll bold it in the statement so it's clearer, but the actual proposal is "anything over a month old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD" All I want to ban is draftification of old articles WITHOUT community consensus. If someone wants to AfD an article and it closes with draftify that's totally OK. But right now patrollers are draftifying decade old articles that have 0 chance of being worked on. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Chess: thanks, from the title, and the "pretty much the title" it didn't seem like as much as a carve out as a new brightline. I've struck my oppose, and don't have a strong opinion on it otherwise. I wouldn't support a "ban" on bringing an article back to draft if the authors agreed on it though, nor require them to AFD themselves. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:50, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support, if the creator of an article that they are the only substantial contributor to is not prevented from draftifying their article under this. We have several procedures by which an article can be deleted; silently moving them to draft space is not one of them. BilledMammal (talk) 00:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Per Schazjmd, I would prefer an exception for unreviewed new articles, or a 60 or 90 day period, but if there is not a consensus for that then I would also support the proposed 30 days. BilledMammal (talk) 00:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as written, I would support a longer period, such as ban moving articles older than 90 days to draft without an AfD decision to do so. I think 1 month is too short; not all new articles are reviewed in the first 30 days. Schazjmd (talk) 00:12, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Will streamline Wikipedia processes and reduce backlogs. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:13, 9 February 2022 (UTC).
• Oppose as written, I would support a longer time. Wikipedia:ATD-I says this process should be used for "newly created" articles. I have seen other discussions where editors consider six months or less to be "newly created". I would agree with that or at least three months. 30 days is too short. MB 00:28, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as written there is generally a backlog of several months at NPP and it can easily take three months for a new article to be reviewed, though a shorter period is normal. 90 days would be more workable for this proposal than 30. On a separate point re the very old articles that have been draftified - if a very poor article was created in 2005 it might have been redirected in 2009. Along comes someone in 2022, undoes the redirect and makes no improvement. The article then goes into the NPP queue and may be e.g. completely unsourced. I agree that draftification in this kind of case should follow an AfD decision. Mccapra (talk) 00:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as written raise to 90 days, and I'll gladly support this. This is easily my biggest pet-peeve on Wikipedia, and having to go through User:SDZeroBot/Draftify Watch every week and slap over-zealous reviewers is getting really annoying. Curbon7 (talk) 01:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support as modified so that articles may be draftified on initial review or otherwise in the first 60 days. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:02, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support as modified I'm fine with 60 days or any longer period under 6 months. Certain editors have been massively misusing draftification as a method to force articles onto AfC. If you think an article isn't notable, then PROD it or nominate it for deletion. If it is notable, but is lacking references or anything else, we have tags and templates for that. Draftification is an incredibly lazy action to take, trying to make the article somebody else's problem. Silverseren^C 04:10, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as written - I've supported the longer timeline below Nosebagbear (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support I have also been concerned about draft being used as a means to delete the article without the scrutiny of AfD. NemesisAT (talk) 10:01, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

See Chinese Wikipedia CSD O7:

O7: Abandoned Draft.

Any drafts that is being idle for 6 months

• The "Draft" means:
  1. All pages in the Draft namespace; or
  2. Userpages with the {{AFC submission}} template.
• When determining the last edit time of the draft, maintenance and bot edits should be ignored.

  Wiki Emoji | Emojiwiki _Talk~~ 11:44, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

And how is that different from English Wikipedia's CSD G13? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - as written. When articles are reviewed, often they are tagged, and left unreviewed as a means to encourage the article's creator, or other editors, to improve the article so that the articles passes either WP:GNG or WP:VERIFY, or both. In those instances, giving the article's creator only a month to improve is a handicap to that editor. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The NPP queue is routinely 3-4 months long. Only allowing draftification in the first 30 days makes it so that over half of the NPP queue is ineligible for draftification, eliminating an important tool for dealing with articles with borderline notability or poor sourcing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support per my post on the post-90-day ban below. Ajpolino (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to ban draftifying articles more than 90 days old without consensus[edit]

Since most of the people opposing have supported a longer period, I'd like to propose that anything over 90 days old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD. I'm putting this in a separate section so we can get more clarity on what the consensus is. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:53, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:53, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  @BilledMammal, Schazjmd, Xxanthippe, MB, Mccapra, Curbon7, Robert McClenon, and Silver seren: Mass pinging to this new proposal so we can coalesce on a firm number. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:55, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support as before. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:55, 9 February 2022 (UTC).
• Support as before. BilledMammal (talk) 04:55, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support as before. Silverseren^C 05:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support with everything I said above the same. Curbon7 (talk) 05:22, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Weak Support because I would prefer that the criterion be whether the article has been reviewed. I agree that some reviewers are misusing draftification because writing an AFD nomination is hard work. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:48, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

*Support Mccapra (talk) 08:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC) changing my mind after reading other comments

• Support this time restriction; beyond that I would specify that articles which have been marked as reviewed or which have passed through AfC (other than in an established misuse of these processes) should not be draftified. AllyD (talk)
• Support the longer timeline - backdoor deletion is a concern, but NPP do have a valid usecase and so should match their timeline Nosebagbear (talk) 09:53, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support as before. NemesisAT (talk) 10:01, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support Older pages should not be unilaterally draftified as there is usually no one to notice it – it just results in a deletion after 6 months. – SD0001 (talk) 14:15, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support as before. Schazjmd (talk) 15:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Maybe if expanded to ...without consensus at AfD or by the page author(s). I'm fairly neutral if this includes the page authors; if the author(s) agree, for example by talk page discussion or if there is a single author, can't see why they would need to AFD themselves. Oppose creating a policy that would require them to AFD themselves. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:12, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  I'd imagine in effect an admin could justify this by saying WP:G7 is enough for a deletion and move to draftspace. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:54, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support. I'd also support a shorter period, requiring consensus for reviewed articles of any age and those moved out of draft (by anybody for any reason). I'd also support Xaosflux's suggestion regarding page author(s) - if someone could G7 the page then they should be able to support moving it to draft. Thryduulf (talk) 16:07, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support – after 90 days, draftification very frequently does serve as a back door to deletion, which of course isn't its purpose, simply because the article's creator has moved on. There are very few articles at the back of the NPP queue that can't be adequately dealt with via AfD, PROD, and/or tagging. I certainly support an exception for self-draftifications (which would presumably be covered by IAR anyway), and I could probably support a shorter period (e.g. 60 days) as well. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:56, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support The proposal looks sensible and straightforward. Others in favour seem to have made reasonable points to explain why. I would also support something with a shorter period (say 30 days) if there was sufficient consensus for it. @Chess: I've not been checking VPP processes for a while, but should this have an RfC made as well? Possibly a CENT notice, though I'm usually unsure when the latter are used exactly, honestly. To make sure there's enough people throughout Wikipedia who had a chance to look over it? This seems to have widespread support, but dotting all Ts and crossing all Is seems sensible to make sure it's implemented (well). Soni (talk) 00:37, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
  • I've been thinking the same thing; I don't believe CENT is needed, but placing an RFC tag on this would be appropriate - although I don't believe it will need to run for the full 30 days. BilledMammal (talk) 00:49, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I decided to be bold and start the RFC since I'm fairly sure it'll be necessary. Still unsure if CENT is really not needed, but that can wait for more opinions. Hopefully I did not mess anything up technically when making it. Courtesy pings @Chess: and @BilledMammal:. Soni (talk) 11:33, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. If the article's been around that long, time to deal with it. CSD, or else PROD, or else AfD, or else fix it, or else leave it. No place in that list for stealth deletions. (Summoned by bot.) Herostratus (talk) 16:11, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support iff "90 days" means 90 days after being marked patrolled, and not 90 days after creation, and excludes cases where the creator is moving it to draft and the article would otherwise be eligible for G7. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:57, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

  So more or less oppose, since I believe most people take this as "90 days after creation" and the unreviewed backlog stretches back over a decade. Though an exception for G7'able articles is uncontroversial in my opinion. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:34, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support per above; 30 days is too short but 90 days is a good cutoff. This probably should be on CENT -- but it need not stay there for a month if this is a SNOW pass. I'd add to CENT it myself except I don't want responsibility for removing it if need be. The folks at WT:CSD may also want a ping. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 00:56, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support 60 days. TheBirdsShedTears (talk) 02:40, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Supporting the 90 days limit, but consensus may be built at other venues than AfD, or that the articles in question were created and mainly edited by known socks, or hidden UPEs, or drafts accepted by AfC reviewers who were found to be socks or UPEs. – robertsky (talk) 04:10, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Why would any of those cases result in draftifying the article in question? Either they would be deleted or taken to AfD in such cases or another editor would take responsibility for the article. None of which has to do with draftification. Silverseren^C 04:42, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  There was a batch draftified in 2017 as consensus for dealing with a residue of potentially-salvageable articles created by the Content Translation tool: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Draftification list July 2017. The emphasis in the present proposal should be on consensus as a potential exception condition rather than on a specific venue. AllyD (talk) 09:43, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support as written, although I don't hate Xaosflux's cmt IAmChaos 08:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, but I'd support a ban from 180 days or Seraphimblade's 90 days after being marked patrolled. Too many AfDs are dedraftified articles in this gap. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:05, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
• While it looks, unfortunately, like this proposal is likely to achieve a favorable outcome, I am moved to oppose it, as written. If the proposal was about draftifying a page as a means of circumventing a deletion process, as is often done with very new articles/pages, I would be in full support. But I don't think an arbitrary time table should be used to effectively disallow admin discretion by requiring consensus for draftification at XFD before it could happen. And I'm concerned that it's a step towards requiring the same type of consensus before userfication too, since userfication and draftification are semi-synonyms in spirit and effect. Let XFD discuss and determine deletion aspects of an article/page, as it does and is set up to do. And continue delegating draftification/userfication to an admin's discretion (post-deletion) as it is and has been effectively done up to now.--John Cline (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

  @John Cline: The ability to draftify isn't given to admins, but to all new page reviewers and hypothetically anyone that can move pages. The reason why I made this proposal is that draftification to circumvent deletion is already banned, and draftification is already supposed to be used for new pages and not for old pages. But many people are still moving decade old pages to draftspace, so giving people "discretion" isn't working. A hard limit is required at this point. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support Cbl62 (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support limiting unilateral and contested actions to hide existing articles in Draft: space, subject to the usual reasonable limits (e.g., self-draftification by sole authors still permitted, IAR is still policy, redirects aren't articles, the occasional inevitable mistake should be handled by reverting the move, etc.). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose 90 days is far too short. It doesn't take cognizance of the fact of the length of the NPP queue which is more than 6 months old, which is common. All it will do it populate Wikipedia with articles that are badly damaged or unfit for mainspace, increasingly workload of NPP. I would certainly support 180 days, which would take care of the majority of the article on NPP. Obviously there is articles being added from donkey's ago, but the majority are under that limit. I will destroy the effectiveness of both NPP and AFC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scope creep (talk • contribs) 14:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Scope creep, at the moment, Special:NewPagesFeed shows only one article that was created more than 90 days ago, but even that article would still qualify for unilateral, zero-discussion-required draftification, as it's only been in the mainspace for five days. Just because the NPP queue gives an older date for page creation doesn't mean that the article has been in the mainspace (or has been a non-redirect page) that long. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
    • @WhatamIdoing: Yip, but it is not always like that. There was lots of articles created from months back that can arrive on the queue. I've seen several admins quitely going back to put back article into mainspace, that were older than 180 days, so when I saw that action, I set my own limit to 180 days. scope_creep^Talk 00:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  • All it will do it populate Wikipedia with articles that are badly damaged or unfit for mainspace Have you considered, you know, nominating those articles for deletion? Which is what you're supposed to do with bad articles? Draftifying articles that you know will inevitably be auto-deleted in 6 months is appointing yourself as judge, jury, and executioner of the article. Wikipedia is built on consensus, not unilateral decisions. Mlb96 (talk) 07:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - as written. There needs to be clarity about when the clock starts ticking. For example, an article is created on January 1, it consists of 3 paragraphs, wholly uncited. It's about a subject which can be redirected (say it's about a book and the author has an article). On January 3 it gets turned into a redirect. On April 15th, someone comes upon the redirect and reverts it, adding a single source to the author's webpage. Now, technically, this article was created over 90 days in the past. In this new criteria, that article would be ineligible to be draftified, while it is clearly not suitable to remain in mainspace. I would not be opposed to the 90 day limit if there is some clarification about when the 90 days begins, but not sure how that should worded. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Weak oppose I am sympathetic to the idea that draftification is sometimes used when the right thing to do is AfD. So on that level I support this. However, the concern expressed by Onel about the current wording is troubling to me as well and so that balances out to this weak oppose. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Barkeep49 and @Onel5969, if you look at the comments below, I believe that your concern has already been addressed. The idea of "anything over 90 days old" is meant to be interpreted as an actual article in the mainspace for the last 90 days, not merely a calculation of the date of the oldest revision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  Putting it in as a formal bolded !vote makes it far more likely that the closer will adequately weigh it when determining consensus than a comment by one person which was agreed to by a second editor. So I wouldn't at all say my concern has been addressed, but I am hopeful it can be addressed in the end. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:17, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. A quick look at Special:NewPagesFeed shows the back of the queue to be around 4 September 2021, if you subtract out even older articles that were probably added by flipping a redirect into an article. That's 168 days. So if you are a back of the queue new page patroller, and there is a 90 day limit on draftification, then articles in the back of the queue are no longer eligible. The NPP would need to pay attention to date created and do math or install a user script, adding additional burden. Additionally, draftification is a very important NPP tool for dealing with articles of borderline notability or poor sourcing. I am not convinced that taking this tool away from NPPs patrolling the back of the queue in order to prevent over-zealous draftification is a good tradeoff. By the way, are there any diffs or statistics or evidence that over-zealous draftification is a major, frequent problem? Is this possibly a solution in search of a problem? Don't forget, anyone can object to draftification and move it back, and double draftification isn't really allowed per WP:DRAFTOBJECT. This existing workflow seems fine for dealing with overzealous draftification. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae, but how long has that article actually been in the mainspace? If you're looking at the same one that I saw, the answer is 5 days, not 168. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing, the article I'm thinking marks the back of the NPP queue currently is Kluaynamthai. Articles older than that are more spaced out, so I assume the are redirects that got flipped to articles, so I'm not counting those. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:18, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  Do you think that this article, which has already been PRODded once, and which is already indexed by search engines, should still be subject to unilateral, undiscussed draftification by anybody who's managed to make 10 edits, rather than being sent to AFD to identify the consesus? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  I think it is reasonable for an NPP reviewer to have draftification available as an option when reviewing unreviewed articles, both at the front and the back of the queue. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:27, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae: Look at Special:NewPagesFeed, click on "Articles for Creation", sort by created date (oldest), and show unsubmitted articles. Many such cases of overzealous draftifications. People aren't going to object if they last edited several years ago. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  Chess, thanks for your comment. I spot checked the first 5. Draft:Dean Shomshak was draftified per AFD. Draft:Gladius fighter was a redirect flipped to an article recently, so essentially a new article. Draft:Ancients (board game) was draftified per AFD. Draft:List of fictional medical institutions was deleted at AFD and WP:REFUNDed recently. Draft:Freespace was a redirect flipped to an article recently, so essentially a new article. All 5 draftifications were by experienced users and seem reasonable to me. Really I think the only quibble is that 2 of these could have been flipped back to a redirect instead of draftified, in order to leave the redirect in place. In conclusion, I am not convinced from this spot check that poor draftification decisions is a frequent problem. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:26, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support Bad/poorly sourced articles on notable topics belong in mainspace where they can be improved (barring WP:TNT). Articles on non-notable topics need a WP:PROD, relevant WP:CSD tag, or an WP:AFD discussion. Borderline cases to WP:AFD. Unilateral draftification seems to sometimes function as a run-around to the current processes. I'd support an outright ban on unilateral draftification, but since this seems more likely to gain broad support, I'll throw my support here. Ajpolino (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose should be 90 days after it's patrolled. Non-patrolled articles should not enjoy immunity just because NPP is backlogged. Also, the proposal needs more clarification about when the timer starts. (t · c) buidhe 21:57, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Buidhe, why should anything that's already been patrolled by dumped back in draftspace? Isn't figuring out whether an article should be in the mainspace kind of a major purpose of patrolling? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, after it's patrolled it should not be draftified, but before it's patrolled should be fair game because the NPP backlog goes back more than 90 days. (t · c) buidhe 22:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Buidhe, can you give me the names of a couple of unpatrolled articles that have already been in the NPP queue for more than 90 consecutive days? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose Looking at the 6 examples given in the original proposal (30 days), one was undeleted to draft per WP:REFUND by an admin after the article was prodded. This seems a legitimate action. Of the other 5, 3 were draftified by new users (less than 1,000 edits). Agree with previous comments that a time limit would would be counter productive to NPP. This proposal misses the problem that in the majority of these 'old' articles gratification was carried out by inexperienced editors. A far more effective solution would be to limit the ability to send articles to draft, either by minimum edit count or by a new permission. --John B123 (talk) 22:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  John B123 that's an interesting point, but I wonder at what point permission creep would turn the process a bit too bureaucratic and unfriendly to new editors. I have no opinion on the whole matter (NPP is not an area I spend time with), but just a thought. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:17, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support As I stated above, Draftifying articles that you know will inevitably be auto-deleted in 6 months is appointing yourself as judge, jury, and executioner of the article. Wikipedia is built on consensus, not unilateral decisions. These articles should go to AfD where the community can decide what to do with them. Mlb96 (talk) 07:10, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

RFC about Draftifying old articles[edit]

I'm not sure if Legobot "requires" a new section to do its dark bidding, so starting a new section to be safe, and someone more well versed with the bot can probably edit this section/tags accordingly.

This is a RFC on the Village Pump Policy, started by User:Chess. The proposal is 'I'd like to propose that anything over 90 days old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD. More details and explanations, as well as current !votes can be found above.

Soni (talk) 11:33, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Soni: All that Legobot "requires" is (i) an {{rfc}} tag having one or more RfC categories; (ii) a brief statement of the issue to be discussed; (iii) a valid timestamp, such as is produced by the use of either four or five tildes. That's all. It cares nothing for whatever occurs before the {{rfc}} tag, but headings inside the statement can screw it up. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The RfC statement - and therefore the {{rfc}} tag - need to be before the comments. This is not a Legobot requirement: it is so that people arriving via the publicised link will hit the right spot and be able to read on without flipping back up the page. --15:30, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you for explaining/fixing this Soni (talk) 15:38, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Will this brand new RfC be considered binding on all editors and admins? Because I don't think it has been widely publicized and it should run for at least one month. I can't believe such a drastic new policy will be decided here. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:54, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  This RFC would presumably result in the addition of a sentence to Wikipedia:Drafts (and/or other suitable pages), and it would presumably be just as binding as anything else on that page. If someone did unilaterally draftify an old article, the solution would be just to move it back (and presumably also send it to AFD), maybe while saying something like "Sorry, I didn't know that had changed. Thanks for telling me". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• I'd prefer a limitation to articles that had been touched by more than one live editor. BD2412 T 03:15, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
• For a redirect newly converted to an article (and so newly put into the patrol queue), is the intention to count 90 days from the creation of the redirect or the conversion from one? I can see this incentivizing perverse outcomes either way. Ditto for pages created more than 90 days ago and only newly moved into mainspace. —Cryptic 04:26, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
  • My assumption would be 90 days from the conversion; the redirect might be seven years old, but the article is only ten days. BilledMammal (talk) 04:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
• Comment A lot of the older article were cleared in the November push. That is the reason you cant see them. The whole RFC is badly designed, too quickly promoted and not sufficiently publicised. scope_creep^Talk 12:53, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
• Comment the more I think about this the less sure I am this proposal makes sense. Draftification is for articles which a patroller thinks are likely to be notable, but where the sourcing is inadequate. AfD is for articles which we think are not notable (though we may be proved wrong). So directing likely notable articles to AfD after 90 days would require one of two things. Either the patroller does not do a normal BEFORE and just says “hey everyone this may be notable - is it ok to draftify it?” to gain censensus; in which case editors at AfD will get annoyed at lots of nominations with no BEFORE; or the patroller does a BEFORE, sources the article, and ends up not taking it to AfD because notability is now demonstrated; in which case they do the article creator’s work for them. That’s a great outcome for the collaborative project but I doubt most patrollers will be willing to do it in most cases. It’s mainly up to creators to source their own work.

Discussions about draftification always sound like there’s a bunch of keen editors out there desperate to get to work on poorly sourced new articles, and somehow hindered by draftification. If there are such editors draftification helps them because it gives them a work list, so I don’t see the objection. If neither the creator, nor the patroller, nor editors worried about draftification are keen to do the work of sourcing, it doesn’t much matter if it’s in mainspace or draft.

I understand there may be some editors draftifying inappropriately so vigilance is required, but whether this requires a system change rather than dealing with those individual editors, I’m not sure. Mccapra (talk) 11:51, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Why RFA/RFB use a voting system?[edit]

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

---

Moved to WP:VPM

Hi, I am a Wikipedian from the Chinese Wikipedia. Chinese Wikipedia, when the community is just created, applied a lot of English Wikipedia policies. Nowadays, for some reasons, the Chinese Wikipedian Community is having a lot of differences from the English one, thus a lot of policies is no longer suit the Chinese Wikipedian Community. For example, some Wikipedians are thinking of "Why RFA/RFB uses a voting system while other roles (for example, Rollbackers) uses a simple consensus system?"

（没道理）管理等等要走連署和解任投票，巡查之類的按共識。
— Роу Уилсон Фредериск Холм, Chinese Wikipedia Telegram Group

However, Jimbo Wales said that sysop is just like normal Wikipedians:

Becoming a sysop is not a big deal.
— Jimbo Wales, [WikiEN-l] Sysop status

So, why does RFA/RFB use a voting system, that's different from the other roles? Wiki Emoji | [[User:Emojiwiki|_Talk~~ 11:26, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emojiwiki: assuming that you aren't suggesting that en-wiki change its methodology, this probably isn't the right place. That said, firstly, despite Jimbo's words many (though by no means all) editors think that RfA is a big deal. Additionally, RfA/RfB are only mostly a vote - RfA has a threshold (65-75%) where it's far more consensus, and oppose !votes need reasoning to be counted. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

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

Drafts at AFC and Redirects[edit]

I am bringing up a question that has been asked before and not addressed in a way that I have found satisfactory. I apologize in advance for bringing it up again, or for the need to bring it up again. This is about drafts at Articles for Creation that are ready for acceptance, but the title of the draft is occupied by a redirect. I am raising this issue here because a request was made at the AFC talk page by User:Liz, but I think that she is seriously mistaken as to what the AFC reviewers should do.

There are many situations in which an AFC reviewer would like to accept a draft, but there is a redirect at the title. In the music area, the redirect may be from an album title to a discography, and then a draft is submitted for the album. That case is sufficiently typical that it can be explanatory. What should the reviewer do? The 'obvious' answer is to tag the redirect with G6, {{db-move}}. But the admin who sees the speedy request does one of two things.

First, the admin may do exactly what it appears is being requested, and deletes the redirect, and moves the draft to the title. The problem is that this skips all of the cleanup done by the AFC accept script. It doesn't remove the AFC markup. It doesn't edit the categories. It leaves the article waiting for post-AFC cleanup. Another AFC reviewer will come along and complete most of the cleanup. The manual cleanup isn't always done completely. It is automated for a reason, so that it will all be done correctly.

Second, the admin may see that there is AFC markup on the page, and conclude that the page is not yet ready to be moved into article space. User:Liz in particular has asked (if I interpret her request correctly) that the page be ready to be moved into article space by a simple Move, so that it is free of markup. The admin then either leaves the draft alone and the redirect tagged for G6, or removes the G6 tag from the redirect because they say that the draft is not ready to be moved.

Neither the first nor the second action is really what is needed. What is needed is to delete the redirect, and then use the AFC accept script to complete the move. Either the admin can delete the redirect and notify the reviewer, who can use the script, or an admin who is also an AFC reviewer and has the script installed can delete the redirect and accept the draft.

Apparently this is a difficult problem. So. What should the reviewer do? What should be standard procedures for the admin? I know that one part of the answer is for more reviewers to request the Page Mover privilege. Is there anything else that should be standard for either reviewers or admins? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:10, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps the reviewer should do everything they can, i.e. clean up the draft, add all categories, and then request a move to mainspace via {{db-move}}. While you already mentioned that, you didn't mention any disadvantages of this approach, and none are obvious to me. —Kusma (talk) 17:38, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Kusma, we have a script that cleans up the draft, adds all the categories, tags the talk page with the relevant WikiProjects, updates a half-dozen other pages, and lets the draft creator know the page is accepted. This is all done with a few clicks. Your suggestion requires draft reviewers to do all of that manually instead of just posting a {{db-move}} and waiting for a few hours. This is the "disadvantage" of the approach favoured by Liz. I think what Robert is asking for is "how do we convince admins to let AFC do its job?" (please ping on reply) Primefac (talk) 18:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

My suggestion was to let AfC do its job. —Kusma (talk) 18:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

My apologies if I misinterpreted, but the way you phrased it made it sound like "clean up, then CSD"; unfortunately the script only works if the page can be moved, so it has to be "CSD, then clean up". Primefac (talk) 20:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I guess the real issue here is that admins don't want to learn AfC, but also don't want to leave the job unfinished. Deleting a useful redirect and then waiting for a day for the draft to be moved in place feels wrong. So does moving the draft without doing the paperwork. —Kusma (talk) 20:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict, repeat of Primefac's comments) The AfC script does a number of things automatically: removes the AfC templates, converts existing categories to mainspace ones, provides an interface to easily add new categories, adds WikiProject tags, fixes some common errors in the draft, adds the AfC project banner to the talk page, lists the draft as a recent AfC acceptance, notifies the submitter that their draft was accepted, and then moves it to mainspace. There may be some other steps that I'm forgetting, because I very rarely do it by hand. It is possible to do this all manually, but it is tedious and frustrating. Rusalkii (talk) 18:24, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I was never suggesting to do this manually, all of that should be done by script. We should write scripts that do what is needed, not let the existing scripts dictate how we organise our workflows. —Kusma (talk) 19:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

BTW if this is a common problem for the AFC reviewer then this is how they can fix it. —Kusma (talk) 17:38, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

We have AFC reviewers with edit counts in the low thousands, and some that have been denied WP:NPR, and you're suggesting that they run the RFA gauntlet just so they can perform the occasional {{db-move}}? Primefac (talk) 18:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes. —Kusma (talk) 18:38, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Want to nominate me? I do no content creation and little interest in resolving AfDs or RFCs. I fight vandalism and do my best to keep spam out of the encyclopedia so those who are content creators can work in peace. The suggestion is a bit like using a sledgehammer for one nail. It will work but it's a really overpowered tool for the task and as Robert points out, many who do the work don't meet the standards that Kudpong lays out in User:Kudpung/RfA_criteria, which is a pretty good baseline to see whether running the gauntlet is a futile pursuit.Slywriter (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I haven't done proper research on you so I don't know. Also, one of my nominees was at the heart of a big crisis a few years back (Fram) so you would need to be sure you'd like to accept a nom from me :) —Kusma (talk) 19:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

User:Kusma - I think that the standards that some regular voters have for RFA are such that it is unlikely that an active AFC reviewer will satisfy the rigid criteria demanded for RFA. I think that I am as likely as any other AFC reviewer to pass RFA, but I also suspect that I wouldn't pass RFA this time, because I haven't done a lot of content creation, because I have mostly worked on review and on dispute resolution. I think that it is "less unlikely" that admins will be able to learn to do an AFC accept than that AFC reviewers will pass RFA. I'm willing to try again, but I think that it is less difficult to fix the problem of acceptance with redirects than to fix the toxic atmosphere at RFA. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

User:Kusma - Why are you suggesting RFA as the fix for the reviewer? There is a fix for the reviewer that is far less difficult than RFA, and that is to request Page Mover. That is part of the solution, and experienced AFC reviewers who do not have Page Mover should request and be given Page Mover. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:51, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I think the best solution here is to have a {{db-move}} variant that specifically indicates that it was placed by an AFC reviewer in the process of reviewing a draft, and all that needs doing is to have the article deleted. WP:AFCP lists every reviewer so it's easy to check, and I would be happy to create that db-move fork. Primefac (talk) 18:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

User:Primefac - You mean that it needs to have the redirect deleted. I agree that this would be a good idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

This seems like it would at least improve the workflow.Slywriter (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

An alternative within the current workflow would be for the AfC reviewer to accept under a slightly wrong title (ARTICLENAME/Accepted draft) and then to use {{db-move}} and a CSD admin to get it to the right place. —Kusma (talk) 19:19, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Interesting idea. This would be a way of gaming the names that is meant to be a net positive. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Simpler and less confusing might be to just have a status of "draft accepted, page move pending". A script could easily (I presume) when given that input, put the draft in an appropriately named category and apply a {{db-move-draft-accepted}} template to the redirect that put the redirect in a new speedy deletion sub-category and linked the draft page that is waiting to be moved over the redirect. The admin reviewing the deletion can then see with one click that the draft has been accepted and is in the relevant category. AFC reviewers could then look at the drafts in the category and see that the target has been deleted and perform the move and associated paperwork. Thryduulf (talk) 03:58, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

A solution that might be the simplest is to allow the script to "move over redirect" if such a thing is technically possible. It would solve the issue for a substantial portion of such cases if the AFC accept script has the "right" to overwrite a redirect that has no other history. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes it's possible. Confirmed/autoconfirmed users may move pages over a redirect if that redir has only one revision - a move to the present title. Users with the pagemover right may move pages over a redirect if that redir has only one revision, even if it wasn't created by a move to the present title. Admins may move pages over any other page, even if it is not presently a redir, and even if it has more than one rev. Technically, all three of there are achieved by the pagemove process performing three actions instead of the normal two: (i) delete (G6) the existing redirect; (ii) rename the page; (iii) create a redirect at the old name. It is because of action (i) that several non-admins have entries in their logs for page deletions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:50, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

This is slightly incorrect; autoconfirmed users can move pages over redirects that have only one revision and point to the present title, even if the redirect was created manually rather than via a move. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:14, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Another solution would be to have an option for the script that verifies that the title is in use, does all of the processing except for the move, and tags the redirect for deletion so that it can be moved. Maybe this is what Liz thinks the script already does. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:22, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

If there are changes to be done on the AFCH script, I suggest consolidating and arriving at a feature set and send it to the GitHub repo as an issue or here (and someone may transfer the set to github anyway) for a script contributor to work on the feature set. – robertsky (talk) 02:16, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure we had a discussion about this very recently (this year probably, but I've not found it when searching) when the idea that everyone thought would work best was to create a specific db-move template that indicated to the patrolling admin that an AFC reviewer has a draft ready to move over the redirect and would do all the paperwork. Was there a reason why this wasn't done? Thryduulf (talk) 03:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I proposed it, and then no one said anything; if they did say things, it might have been in passing and I didn't read it as a consensus to go for it. I'm not seeing opposition to it now, so as soon as I get an opportunity I will likely start coding this up. Primefac (talk) 08:53, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

We may be thinking of different discussions then as I definitely remember commenting in favour of such a proposal and I wasn't the only one. Whatever, it is good idea that I fully support. Thryduulf (talk) 14:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've gone ahead and created the template, comments and feedback welcome at this thread (mainly to avoid decentralised discussion). Primefac (talk) 21:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Red and pink categories[edit]

A user, User:Andros 1337, has created category Category:Red and is adding articles and other categories to it that have associations with the color red, like Santa Claus, Strawberry ice cream, Red velvet cake, and Category:Ketchup. I might expect such a category to include articles such as Vermillion and Crimson, but not the aforementioned ones. The same user is similarly adding pinkness-associated articles to the existing Category:Pink.

I feel as though this isn't appropriate categorization, but I'm not sure that I'm on-base here. Am I wrong, or can others help me articulate why I'm right?

I wasn't sure that this was the correct place to ask, but I'm just seeking guidance, not filing a report or seeking dispute resolution. Largoplazo (talk) 22:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, considering we have Category:Pink and Category:Green, I used a similar rationale for inclusion of articles for the red category as those other two. ANDROS¹³³⁷_TALK 22:40, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

As described in Wikipedia:Categorization, categories are defining characteristics for the corresponding subject. I'm not sure what subjects would be appropriate for a colour category where colour is a defining characteristic—perhaps spectral lines for elements? isaacl (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think many (if any) things should be directly in colour categories. We have categories like Category:Shades of red, Category:Blue flowers, etc. where content should go if it is a defining feature of the subject. Thryduulf (talk) 16:28, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• The color green is a defining characteristic of Salsa verde, Malachite and Greenback (1860s money), but I think it's obvious that there's no benefit to categorizing them together. Category:Green foods and Category:Green minerals would be the way to go if we're going to group things by color. –dlthewave ☎ 17:20, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  When "green" is in the name, then yes, by definition the object is green, but a lot of the time it didn't have to be green. The sauce could have been coloured differently, and money could have been printed another colour. A green mineral, on the other hand, is inherently green as one of its properties. Personally I don't think "green foods" is a defining characteristic either. isaacl (talk) 21:24, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Isaacl: None of these objects are "inherently green" because color terms are a social construct that often depend on one's choice of language. Objects are not "green", they emit specific patterns of light that humans perceive to be "green". There's no real difference between salsa verde which is a salsa defined as being green and malachite which emits a wavelength of light that we define as green, so I don't really see the purpose of drawing this distinction between "inherently green" and "definitionally green" since it's impossible for an object to be "green" without people defining it as such. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 03:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  Spectral lines, for example, are of a specific wavelength, and crystal properties are such that they reflect specific wavelengths. The colour of salsa is up to the one who made it. isaacl (talk) 04:13, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Isaacl: But we're not categorizing by wavelength. There's no Category:Object that predominantly emit light in the 500-550 nm range, it's Category:Green or Category:Green objects that's being discussed here. We're categorizing by a subjective human-defined term that differs from person to person or language to language. Many languages do not distinguish between "blue" and "green" for instance. As soon as we start using colour terms we're making subjective distinctions, so as a response to your point, the colour of any object is up to the person who's looking at it. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 17:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  My family has an ashtray which is mauve-lilac in daylight, tungsten or LED light; but blue under fluorescent light. How would it be categorised? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:43, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• The problem here is that category names are nouns, not adjectives. Category:Red works if you consider "Red" as a noun (aka the color itself), and you would expect things like the articles Red, Shades of red, and Red in culture; along with categories such as Category:Shades of red‎ and Category:Red symbols‎. Adding things like Strawberry, Santa Claus, or even Red beryl is treating "Red" as an adjective, not a noun. Instead those would need to be placed in noun categories such as Category:Red foods, Category:Fictional characters who wear red, or Category:Red gemstones. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 22:07, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

These categories have now been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 February 16#Color categories. 2.55.14.62 (talk) 15:35, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion § RfC: Remove "attribution" clauses from RD1[edit]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion § RfC: Remove "attribution" clauses from RD1. Flatscan (talk) 05:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Can something be done about a talk page that's being swarmed by (well intentioned) IP editors?[edit]

Definition of "advanced rights holder" per the UCoC enforcement guidelines[edit]

The draft Meta:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines that the WMF has approved says that:

The following individuals should be required to affirm (through signed declaration or other format to be decided) they will acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct...

• All advanced rights holders;

I was wondering what categories of user rights count. While it seems unlikely the WMF will make WP:Extended confirmed contingent on signing a loyalty pledge, do you guys think the requirement to affirm one's political conformance will end up applying to WP:New page reviewers, WP:Rollbackers and the like? What about AfC reviewers? We will likely have to write our own policy in the near-future to implement this. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

A clarification about what 'Advanced Rights' means here is needed, yes. Because do we really need admins to send signed documents to the WMF stating they'll abide by the UCoC? Crats? AWB Users? Checkusers? OTRS volunters? Filemovers? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:06, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I might be missing something, but it seems to be spelled out in the glossary meta:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Glossary:

Advanced rights holder

user who holds administrative rights above typical editing permissions, generally elected through community processes or appointed by Arbitration Committees. This includes, as a non-exhaustive list: local sysops / administrators, functionaries, global sysops, stewards.

SQL^{Query Me!} 00:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

So they expect all of those people to out themselves? North8000 (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• I asked the question there at the talk page, specifically about the training which will be compulsory to these individuals, but so far I have not received any clarification. If no clarification is forthcoming, I am going to vote against the document.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

'Enforcement guidelines'? George Orwell might have something to say about that particular phraseology... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:16, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• I'd expect it to at least include everything requiring being on the NDA list; though they may push it down to everyone with viewdelete access on local projects as well (i.e. sysops). — xaosflux ^Talk 23:14, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• • From [13] - "Advanced rights holder: user who holds administrative rights above typical editing permissions, generally elected through community processes or appointed by Arbitration Committees. This includes, as a non-exhaustive list: local sysops / administrators, functionaries, global sysops, stewards." - so yes - this does appear to include Admins. Whether it also includes those users who end up getting the limited ability to see some of the details of IP editors when IP masking is introduced is uncertain.Nigel Ish (talk) 00:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Good luck to them if they try to do that. Black Kite (talk) 00:03, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• I'm unfamiliar with the whole UCoC thing, and would appreciate if more experienced editors or those in the know could drop by my talk page to explain. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 23:43, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@A. C. Santacruz: The UCoC is indented to be a centralized and uniform code of conduct for all Wikimedia projects. It would be a supplement to the WMF Terms of Use; thus outranking global and local (community-created) policies. The UCoC is divided into a Phase I (contents of the Code) and a Phase II (enforcement guideline for the Code). As I understand it the WMF introduced the UCoC to more thoroughly repress harassment and discrimination, so they're not subjected to the same allegations of hosting defamatory content as Facebook and Twitter were. The Code has been approved by the WMF Board of Trustees and will be put up for ratification sometime soon. The UCoC also establishes the U4C Committee, which I believe will function as some sort of Meta-level super ArbCom; it will be responsible for the Code's implementation and will serve as the ultimate (appellate) body for UCoC cases. Colonestarrice (talk) 14:04, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the clear explanation, Colonestarrice :) A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Signing, if that is the route chosen, will almost certainly not involve paper documents or disclosure of personal information (with the possible exception of a name). See m:Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information/How to sign for how it works for the current confidentiality agreement and the most likely form it will take if they choose to require signing something. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
  • That page mentions adding your "name" in several places. Its talk has no substantive comments since 1 January 2016 but it might contain some clarification regarding what "name" means here. According to an October 2015 reply you can use either your user name or your real name. Johnuniq (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Hi all, I think the question was already answered by linking to and quoting the glossary, though I'd also draw attention to the part about permanent advanced rights holders not being given a deadline for the acknowledgments (" with exception of current advanced rights holders with rights that are not up for renewal who will not have a set timeframe to accomplish these affirmations"). Xeno (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  To be fair, the very next sentence says: This may be changed on review after a year following the ratification of these guidelines. So existing admins could very well be forced to do this in a year. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  We should probably assume that means they will try to force it in a year, with the year delay being a tactic to avoid an outpouring of opposition until it's too late. Yes, that's pessimistic, but with the way the whole thing has gone so far... Anomie⚔ 13:20, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

  Does this mean that next time I resign my admin bit in protest against the WMF, I won't get it back until I agree to the UCoC? —Kusma (talk) 23:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

  Possibly. Nothing has been finalised yet, and there isn't anything explicit that I can see about people regaining previously held advanced rights other than through renewal. If the crats decided you needed a new RFA then I think it likely (but not certain) that (as things stand) you would need to accept the UCoC before getting the bit back, straight restoration could go either way. If you (or someone else) was desysopped as an emergency measure due to a potentially compromised account but were quickly resysopped when things were resolved then I don't think the break in service would be relevant to the UCoC. On the other hand, if someone is desysopped for inactivity then restoration would (imo) require acceptance of the UCoC. Thryduulf (talk) 11:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• As a question, this has been answered. As a policy proposal, it is out of order. The requirement for checkusers, etc. to agree to various terms is well-established, and not a matter subject to community consensus. If the WMF suggests that all administrators need to agree to terms, there will certainly be debate (and hopefully the WMF will listen to the sensible arguments against such an action), but it will still not be a matter for community consensus. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 01:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)