Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:10, 3 July 2012

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Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

Village pumps

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misc

• Voluntary RfAs after resignation
• Allowing page movers to enable two-factor authentication
• Rewriting the guideline Misplaced Pages:Please do not bite the newcomers
• Should comments made using LLMs or chatbots be discounted or even removed?

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Donations in Bitcoin

Forgive me if this is in the wrong section. I had some Bitcoins burning a hole in my pocket and was surprised to see Misplaced Pages had no option to donate with them. I assumed an organisation such as Misplaced Pages would. You wouldn't be the first by far– Wikileaks and the Internet Archive both do, amongst others. Is there any good reason for this or has it simply not been implemented yet? Lukys (talk) 10:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Considering that the Bitcoin article was deleted due to a lack of notability (although more recently restored), it shouldn't be too surprising that there are some organizations who haven't accepted the concept yet, including the Wikimedia Foundation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had been taking them for awhile but found them too controversial and refunded/donated the funds in Bitcoins to some other organization and stopped accepting them. I would imagine given the track record of Bitcoin, several prominent thefts of the coins (mainly exchange sites) and some other problems including questioned legality of even using the electronic currency are something that the WMF may want to put off for awhile.

It is good intentioned, but Bitcoin is hardly the only alternate currency that has been suggested to the WMF in the past. I know that e-gold was pushed in the past where the then legal council (I don't remember the exact person) basically dismissed such ideas as did the WMF board of trustees on the basis that they didn't want to have too many complex donation options.

If you are serious about this, I'd suggest looking at sending something to Founjdation-l, the official WMF mailing list and where things of this nature are more likely to get some real response and traction if it is something that may happen. I'd also suggest looking in the archives of that mailing list to see if it has been discussed in the past. I've sort of stayed out of the loop for while so I don't know if it has been discussed recently or not. --Robert Horning (talk) 02:18, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Benifits from donation

Hello Everybody, I have given 100 $ donation to Misplaced Pages and I am proud of it.After all, Misplaced Pages is my favorite website.I'm using it since 2004.By the way, I was thinking that you people should created something like this.If a person makes a donation more than sufficient amount like 10000$ or something, then his/her user account should be given administrator privileges.Thus, I would say that any active user would be inspired to donate 10000 $ to Misplaced Pages and Misplaced Pages will easily make up revenues for expanding.Show what are your thoughts. Regards,14.97.189.216 (talk) 05:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC).

I was thinking you had said 1,000 there for a while, and was thinking if that was a reasonable amount to pay someone to create an admin sock for you given the number of hours required, the labor cost in various countries versus the level of english required and so on, of course, you wouldn't be putting the money into wikipedia to become an admin, they wouldn't accept it and might be a little disgusted with the idea, you'd be giving it to someone else to do the work for you, and no doubt they'd be happy with that arrangement, and wikipedia would be happy as there is no appearance of a conflict of interest, and you'd probably be happy until you found out the job is far from glamorous.

But then I noticed, wait a minute, you said $10,000, well, all I can say to that is email me :) Because I know I'll be really really really happy, not just 'I can't believe it's not butter happy' but fireworks jumping off my chair punching the air happy, tipping over the monitor by accident as I victory dance around the desk, while a cat ran out of the room with a Rarrrroow and I'm too busy being excited to think for a second 'wait, I don't HAVE a cat'.

But seriously $10,000, isn't that overpriced ? Penyulap ☏ 06:49, 6 Jun 2012 (UTC)

what is the going rate for adminship anyone ? Penyulap ☏ 06:52, 6 Jun 2012 (UTC)

These days? two pieces of leather: A belt to the mouth and a boot to the head : ) - jc37 14:08, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Uh, no. Buying adminship is just a bad idea. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Buying admin seems misguided to me. On the other hand, there might be some kind of more harmless badge (something a bit like a barnstar) which could be given to donors. It may already exist. --Salimfadhley (talk) 13:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Buying admin seems indeed misguided. It would force upon the contributor the job of being a administrator. That's like being given a broom and the title "janitor" because you gave $10,000 to a charity. Being a administrator is not a title or a honor; its a responsibility and frankly a loot of work. A much better thing to give would be a barnstar or similar mark of honor. If someone gives time, or they give money, do not both deserve some kind of appreciation? Belorn (talk) 14:10, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

All donators, get free access to Misplaced Pages content. Those that donate $10,000 or more get un-metered access. What more could you want? Similar benefits are available for those who donate time instead of money. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Why on earth would we treat a large donor so poorly as that? We wouldn't have any left! :) Joking aside, being an admin isn't some wonderful thing. It invites a lot of abuse and criticism, and generally very little praise to temper it. Admin candidates have generally been around the block several times, and know what they're signing up for when they put their name in at RfA. Someone who buys their way in might be in for a very rude shock. Seraphimblade 19:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

No, $10,000 is never ever overpriced.Why? Because It's worth all the efforts you make to become a successful candidate at WP:RFA, including but not limited to fighting vandalism, giving a good judgement, making high amount of contribution, spending your time from your busy day, waiting for a long period, being criticized by fellow users, giving reply to all the damn questions at WP:RFA etc.In a nutshell, if a user is a experienced on Misplaced Pages, than instead of WP:RFA, he should be introduced with a new method of becoming a administrator.On the second point, I must say that becoming an administrator on world's largest encyclopedia that follows an ideal system of management would be an splendid experience.You can get a power and control in your hand via just a click of mouse!So, I am telling you to rethink in your mind about this subject.Also, I am not insisting the price to be such higher.It could be decided later.Keep only two word in mind- 'experienced user' and 'high amount to charity' Regards.(P.S.-I'm the same who started this thread, just my IP address is not static.)14.97.183.183 (talk) 07:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

You have different ideas about what adminship than I do. Since becoming an admin, I have found it much more restricting than empowering. I certainly have to parse my words more carefully to avoid a firestorm, I'm expected to tolerate incivility from others while not being able to crack wise back. If I make any mistake, there are dozens of people happy to point it out in multiple venues. Power and control are overrated and overstated, as we admins aren't the leaders of the community, we are its servants. A great many of the best leaders, voices of reason and editors around here are not admins. Being an admin has been a splendid experience in some way but not all, and it isn't ideal management. It is more akin to herding cats. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 10:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Hit the nail right on the head for why I wouldn't want to be an admin, it would cramp my style :) I have much more variety and scope of strategies for interacting with morons than I would otherwise. But enough of this Dr Smith Lost in space 'oh the pain, the pain, adminship is such a pain' it does have it's prestige in the eyes of newbies who arrive from other boards thinking it is like the role of a sysop. The main difference in the eyes of a newbie between God and an admin is that God doesn't walk around all day long thinking he' an admin. Sysops are held to account for destroying Bulletin boards and forums, whereas here, nobody cares, it's all good. Penyulap ☏ 07:38, 11 Jun 2012 (UTC)

The idea of making users admins for giving money is akin to appointing some dude for public office just because they gave a million dollars to the President. That's capitalism, and I don't like the idea of capitalism on Misplaced Pages - or anywhere. 68.173.113.106 (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Plutocracy, not Capitalism, fwiw, 113.106. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Ha! the irony, to be the US president, people have to give you the millions of dollars. Penyulap ☏ 07:11, 13 Jun 2012 (UTC)

I'm just glad to be an American, where how much money you have doesn't effect your chances to be elected. </sarcasm> Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 15:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Misplaced Pages does not choose its policies or its admins based on revenues, and thank goodness for that. We are a volunteer organization that makes a 💕, and that is all. If money comes into it, that skews the editing and reshapes the entire purpose and direction of the project. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 18:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose spam is already a serious problem here. If we started selling admin accounts then there are heaps of PR agencies, lobbyists and other advertising organisations for whom $10,000 for an admin account would be petty cash. There are plenty of ways that they could get their moneys worth. If people want to donate time or money then we should thank them for their donation. But we need to get suspicious when they start saying that it wasn't really a donation and they are entitled to something in return. ϢereSpielChequers 22:29, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

That's nonsense.What is relationship between the donation and community based volunteer work? Max Viwe | Viwe The Max 14:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Council of Misplaced Pages

Currently, there is no body which coordinates actions and policies on a Wiki-wide level. While the rulings of the Arbitration Committee and its cousin the Mediation Committee may apply to all within the community, these bodies are responsible for adjudicating disputes, not for coordinating improvements to Misplaced Pages. Therefore, in my essay "The need for coordination," I lay out a proposal for a Council of Misplaced Pages which will fill this enormous gap and end the disorganized, unicellular way in which Misplaced Pages is growing. Please comment on the proposal either here or on the talk page of the essay. Wer900 • 00:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

A WikiProject is—I quote the actual definition—"a group of editors that want to work together as a team to improve Misplaced Pages." So you are proposing a WikiProject, just a regimented, powerful one whose scope is a mash of the existing WP:WikiProject Council, WP:WikiProject Policy and guidelines, and the WMF's Meta. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

When one usually thinks of a WikiProject, its normally a group of editors who come together and discuss improvement to a particular subject, not the entire Misplaced Pages project. WikiProjects do have some power in deciding the content of each article related to their subject but not enough power to rise above the powers of bodies such as the Arbitration Committee and coordinate Misplaced Pages as proposed. --Michaelzeng7 (talk - contribs) 01:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

One could only believe that WikiProjects were content-oriented if one were unfamiliar with the long list of WikiProjects at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Directory/Wikipedia.

WikiProjects per the official guideline have no more authority than any other group of editors, and rather less than the editors actually working on any given article. If a couple of editors waltzes into the talk page of an article you've been working on and tells you to do everything their way because they're a "WikiProject" and they said so, then you may freely reject their silly and anti-policy demands. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like this proposal has been shot down (just as it should) on its talk page. However, I would like to use the opportunity to ask the proposer how User:Wer900/Consensus study is going on. It is the report you "almost promised" in Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 94#A clear process for determination of consensus, isn't it? I suspect that if you concluded this study, you would have found out that the problems that you want to solve (with this and other proposals) are not the problems that have to be solved...

Oh, and, if you don't mind that much, could you please remove the links to your essays from your signature? They made finding that first link via "What links here" much harder, adding unnecessary noise... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:26, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The proposal has been changed, an updated version can be found here, and it takes into account all of the grievances of the editors who have commented on the original page. Wer900 • 01:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, I read some of it and have a single piece of advice: it's time to abandon this proposal. I understand that it is fun to think about different "constitutions", but it is clear that those proposals will be completely rejected.

Also, I don't think it is accurate to say "it takes into account all of the grievances of the editors who have commented on the original page", when, for example, the proposal () still gives great power to Wikiprojects (that are only informal groups of editors where being a "member" is mostly meaningless by itself) - and that was one of the criticisms both here and on the talk page (). It is still not clear what the "Council" will really do ("To promulgate resolutions calling for action on a given area of Misplaced Pages." - they will write essays? You know, you can also do that now - and, by the way, have done so.). And I suspect that writing down something like "This article of the Charter of the Council of Misplaced Pages may not be amended through any process." is a bad idea in any constitutional arrangement anywhere. Who knows when some improvements will be necessary?

So, once again, I'd like to ask you to give up on this proposal, mark it as rejected and cancel the RFC. Now it is no longer a fun (and probably useful) game where you invent constitutions and imagine how they would work, but just a waste of time, energy and nerves. It would be far more fruitful if you did some more research on how Misplaced Pages actually works (like User:Wer900/Consensus study - that's a very good start; unfortunately, you didn't reference it in your proposal). Then you might find real problems with internal order of Misplaced Pages and propose solutions that will be far more useful. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

WIkipedia has lots of problems. And I wouldn't consider lack of coordination to be one of them. North8000 (talk) 20:58, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

We're all going in different directions, together Penyulap ☏ 03:18, 12 Jun 2012 (UTC)

A universal board would give the illusion of an oligarchy. Bulbapedia (an independent Pokemon encyclopedia that only registered Bulbagarden members can edit) is a prime example of such a system. 68.173.113.106 (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm rewriting this proposal within my user space to make it more logical. I've already cut WikiProjects out of the loop and added an Electoral Commission to ensure honesty. - Wer900 (talk | contributions)

Good luck. When you're done with the draft, you might ask for feedback at WT:COUNCIL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Wer900, what problem would actually be solved by this new bureaucracy? Someguy1221 (talk) 23:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

We'd solve the problems of not having a single effort to reduce the number of stubs, among other things. We need to stop running Misplaced Pages like it's a new frontier, it's urban and mature.

If my proposals all ultimately fail, I've proved one good thing for the encyclopedia: Misplaced Pages has no liberal (American sense) bias. Wer900 • 00:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC) The draft is done now, it can be found here. Please comment on it. The main concern on the previous discussion—excessive bureaucracy—has been resolved with a principle of subsidiarity. Wer900 • 16:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you kidding? An "Executive Branch" of Misplaced Pages? Sorry, I just can't see this level of bureaucracy being useful here. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:27, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposal re.: Wording change needed to stop forbidding copying of properly licensed free content

We need to stop telling editors to not do something we want them to do!

This MediaWiki message, found at the bottom of each of the zillion edit pages our editors use, needs changing! :

• Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites – only public domain resources can be copied without permission. (it's crossed out to ensure people don't confuse the extant text with the proposed text)

However, it's often perfectly fine to copy and paste content from copyrighted websites: Nearly all of our own websites' content is copyrighted. Much essential Misplaced Pages content comes from copyrighted websites that license their copyrighted work. The CC-BY-SA 3.0 License itself was copied from the copyrighted website http://creativecommons.org! The improper instruction of the first half of the sentence, "Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites" is not rectified by the second half. Inthis discussion in a less-trafficked forum, several alternatives were considered.

So, I now propose we go with the following (Credit to Richardguk for coming up with this revision and listing some pros and cons.)

• Do not copy and paste from other websites unless permitted by Misplaced Pages copyright policy.

Argument

Advantages: brief, comprehensive. "Please" is unnecessary when warning people not to break the law.

Disadvantages: unspecific, no reference to copy-pasting from sources other than websites, no explanation of public domain and other exemptions. But anyone relying on public domain exemptions can reasonably be expected to have enough diligence to check the detailed rules.

For the sake of brevity, the text is deliberately ambiguous about who must have "permitted". This is intended to combine the notion of the source site permitting copying and the notion of Misplaced Pages policy permitting pasting.

"Copyrighted websites" is changed to "other webites" because many casual users don't know that nearly all websites are copyrighted, but they are so it is safer and simpler to cover everywhere – except Misplaced Pages itself.

The important thing here is to firmly deter potential abusers, briefly guide casual users, and usefully steer diligent users.

Thoughts? Let's get this fixed! --Elvey (talk) 01:10, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Discussion (less cruft)

• Agree about avoiding to frame the issue as "public domain" vs. "copyrighted", which is somewhat misleading. But I'm not quite happy about the proposed alternative either – we need something very simple, something that gets just the central message across to the clueless user, and without the reader having to first follow a link to the extremely confusing WP:Copyrights page. For the purpose of simplicity, I would think that even a slight amount of oversimplification is a reasonable price to pay. Perhaps something along the lines of "Do not copy text from elsewhere, unless it has been released under a free license". Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:35, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks and Kudos for the support and suggestion! (That's the best kind of feedback one can get!) A problem with your suggestion is that PD work is not licensed at all, so it has not "been released under a free license". --Elvey (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support any such improvement as anyone's mentioned so far; the "public domain" vs. "copyrighted" dichotomy is legally wrong and so misleading as to be worse than pointless. I've long detested it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks! --Elvey (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
• Copying straight from external websites is against policy as far as I'm aware anyway. We don't copy information, we re-write it into our articles and source the material accordingly. This is why I Oppose. MrLittleIrish © 19:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
  • You're mistaken. There are many good Misplaced Pages articles that started out as a copy of an entry in another 'free' encyclopedia.--Elvey (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support per Nyttend. We routinely copy from EB1911 or the DNB, for example, and AFAIK the policy is that we attribute to avoid plagiarism, not that we do not copy.--Tagishsimon (talk) 19:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, we do not routinely copy from the 1911 Britannica. We used to, just under ten years ago, in order to kick-start a number of articles. It was a controversial practice even then, because, as people pointed out, the 1911 Britannica was biased and highly dated. It has been known for fifty years that this was a problem with the 14th edition, let alone the Britannica of a century ago, and Misplaced Pages editors weren't the first to observe this. Six years ago, we set up Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/1911 verification to work on cleanup and deletion of things that had been imported from the 1911 Britannica.

    Anyone still "routinely copying" from the 1911 Britannica is doing something quite wrong at this point and should stop.

    Uncle G (talk) 07:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like rough consensus is forming for this. If no unresolved objections within a few days, would an admin please make it so? --Elvey (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

• Not sure that we are clear on which statement we are discussing. In any case, it should probably be run by the WMF counsel to be sure we're doing something legally sensible. Meanwhile, I note that below the edit window, I read

  Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.
  By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

• That wording seems pretty much on the mark. It doesn't introduce red herrings about websites vs other sources. It doesn't confuse copying copyrighted content with violating that copyright. It remains silent on copying public domain content. LeadSongDog come howl! 03:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Using the same wording as the edit page is a more sound proposition. It avoids ambiguity and is legally accurate. isfutile:P (talk) 13:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
    • The above comments by LeadSongDog and isfutile (AKA Tonyinman AKA Tony Inman) indicate they are confused and need to reread the first sentence of this section. The proposal is about other wording that is also on the edit page that is legally INACCURATE and needs fixing. We are telling users to not do that which we routinely and appropriately do, as Tagishsimon notes, above. --Elvey (talk) 01:10, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Hello LeadSongDog--the wording of the "copy and paste" note is a decision for the community (see the previous discussions). We should keep the Wikimedia copyright warning, but we may rephrase the "copy and paste" note to help users understand how to comply with copyright law. Cheers, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 15:28, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I would propose Please do not copy and paste from websites unless you know that this is permitted.. Taemyr (talk) 09:08, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Instead of telling what people should not do, it would be better if we said what we want them to do. Psychology has commonly proven that negative statements are harder to understand, and most people filter away those kind of messages seconds after reading them. Belorn (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Good feedback. So do you like this, Belorn?, Taemyr?: " Be certain you have permission before you copy and paste from other websites." I think "Please" is best left out when warning people not to break the law. The word 'other' clarifies the source and destination of the copy and paste, and the sentence doesn't read normally without it.--Elvey (talk) 01:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - "I found it on a website without a copyright symbol/Google Images!" 'Nuff said. Wer900 • 04:05, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Should we create a new namespace, for essays?

The Misplaced Pages: namespace contains policies, guidelines -- and essays. One doesn't have to participate in many discussions before one sees contributors admonishing other contributors for "violating" an essay.

While some essays contain excellent advice, others contain bad advice, or advice from a fringe position. I suggest no good faith contributors has an obligation to explain, in advance, why they are not following the advice of one of our very large number of essays.

Clearly the box essays usually have at their top fails to make clear to those who reference them, as if they had the authority of policy, that they are just essays. Due to the use of wikilinks to sections of both policies and essays, these links skip the preambles, as to whether the document is a policy, a guideline, or just an essay.

I suggest that if all essays were demoted to an essay namespace, fewer contributors would cite them as if they were policies.

I suggest all existing essays be copied, with their contribution history, to a new Essay: namespace, with an explanation left, telling readers that the document was an essay, and where it can be found. When the essay is the target of a bunch of wikilinks to subsections within that essay, I think the explanation should list links to corresponding section, in the Essay: namespace. I don't think the current redirections should be changed to be cross-namespace redirections. I believe it was the widespread use of these shortcuts that it largely responsible for the confusion between policies and essays.

If this step was taken some contributors may wish to promote some of the most widely cited essays to guideline status. I would see that requiring a discussion as to the whether the advice in the essay is widely enough accepted, and well enough written to belong in the Misplaced Pages: namespace. Geo Swan (talk) 14:24, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem (many problems; most obviously that many of them don't make sense, but have "owners" who refuse to allow them to be corrected). But I think there are already quite enough namespaces. I would say that essays should be in the User: namespace (so it could be clear who owns them), whereas anything that is consensually accepted as giving good advice and accurate documentaion of accepted practice should be in the Help: namespace (no need then to further mark it as a "policy" or a "guideline"). That would leave the Misplaced Pages: namespace for internal bits and pieces that people have no need to read unless they want to. Discussion pages like this should be in a Talk: namespace. But I realize that I have far too logical a mind to bother trying to reason with anyone around here. Victor Yus (talk) 16:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Essays in the Misplaced Pages space can and should improve and gain acceptance gradually, or go nowhere due to lack of interest, mixed right in with the policies and established guidelines. I think this is much more in accordance with the wiki way than making a special, privileged public namespace. There is indeed some problem with people citing essays as if they were policy; a worse problem is that people cite guidelines as if they were policy. But overall, things work pretty well. Editors debate most changes on their own merits, appealing to the insights found in a sprawl of conflicting guidelines and essays with no clearly defined levels of authoritativeness. That is all just as it should be. I concur with Victor Yus: people who want to "own" essays should keep them in their private User area, not in a public namespace by any name. There is also a new danger with an Essay namespace: that could encourage people to post essays about any topic, not just insights and advice about editing Misplaced Pages articles. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 18:06, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose: I certainly agree that there's a problem - today I stumbled upon an essay that clearly goes against policy on at least three counts. I may have been too harsh in adding a warning to that essay. :/ Such extreme examples should not be included in the project namespace at all; they can go in the user area. But many essays contain useful information that isn't covered by official policy, and before one searches for the information, there's no way to know whether it will be in an essay or in a policy. Keeping them both under the same namespace makes it easier to locate that information. ʝunglejill 22:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

But then the (good) essays should be marked as guidelines, right? Because if you're told than a page contains just the views of an unspecified number of users, you don't know whether it is useful information or not. Victor Yus (talk) 13:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Something can be useful without being a policy. That's what the essays are for, I suppose. If something hasn't been made a policy, there's usually a reason, like lack of consensus, or a desire to treat certain issues informally. There is a way of knowing whether the information is useful - if it helps you contribute and doesn't contradict policy, then it's useful. ʝunglejill 21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. There's already too much weight given (by some editors) to the policy-guideline-essay trichotomy; this proposal would further entrench such misguided thinking and further embolden ruleslawyers to the detriment of the project. How many times have you seen variations on the following three themes at a noticeboard or in another discussion:

• That's a policy, therefore there can be no exceptions...(even in your unusual circumstances which probably weren't contemplated when the policy was created).
• That's a guideline and not a policy, therefore I am not required to follow it, and I can't be punished for continuing to violate it.
• That's just an essay, so you can't bring it up as a justification or argument in favor of anything; it should be ignored in this discussion.

Essays can be particularly slipperly creatures to classify, too, because often they have much stronger elements of why, and much weaker elements of how—they may describe a particular line of reasoning or justification for a given policy or interpretation, rather than give specific directives about how to perform specific tasks.

Finally, I would remind the proposer of the Misplaced Pages policy that Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks to everyone who weighed in here!

I am going to take the liberty of attempting a summary -- there seems to be general agreement that contributors citing essays as if they had the authority of policy is a problem.

Thanks to Victor Yus for suggesting that essays which the original author or authors aren't still working on in User: the namespace, could be kept in Help: namespace. I'd certainly prefer that to the current situation. There are some essays that I think authors would like to promote from User:, that are so controversial, poorly thought out, or otherwise inadequate that they should be demoted back to User:. But I don't know a mechanism for that kind of demotion.

Thanks to Ben Kovitz for noting that an Essay: could encourage individuals to use it for general essays that aren't related to the functioning of WMF projects. Geo Swan (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I think if someone cites an essay to help explain their opinion, that's fine. It can save a lot of typing. If anyone cites an essay and claims that it's policy, it's pretty easy to tell them that it's not. The only problem I see is with essays that contradict policies and good practice. ʝunglejill 21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Usually, in the problematic cases, there is no explicit claim that the essay is policy (or even a guideline). What I see more is people giving shortcut links to essays in the same sort of context that they would give them to policies or guidelines, allowing readers to assume that the positions have consensus support. I am not saying that this is always deliberate and disingenuous, though sometimes I have my suspicions, but it's a problem even if it's not. --Trovatore (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a disclaimer right above every essay. I agree that someone can always come along and completely misunderstand an essay as a policy - this is the internet after all. But let's not take lowest common denominator too far. Most editors are perfectly aware that not every wp:ACRONYM is a policy. ʝunglejill 22:00, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not so much that anyone explicitly thinks it's a policy. It's that editors who approve of the essay subtly give their positions the air of an authority or a consensus they may not have. Some essays are habitual offenders on this point (WP:ATA, I'm looking at you). --Trovatore (talk) 22:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I think I suggested this a while back - mainly so that essays would have an E: shortcut (instead of WP:) and be easily identifiable when cited. Rd232 21:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the underlying problem is that this habit of "arguing" by writing things like WP:XYZ has become far too engrained. We need to rediscover our ability to think, instead of kidding ourselves that we have an infallible set of rules that will solve every problem for us, that arguments not based explicitly on any of these rules are deficient, and that simply writing the shortcut to a page of rules carries any weight as an argument. Another poor habit (not on topic, though it's illustrated by example here) is prefacing one's responses to others' suggestions with the words Support, Oppose and similar. We're supposed to be discussing matters and reaching a conclusion having weighed up all the factors, not jumping to a conclusion right away, which inevitably leads to a competitive debating-chamber atmosphere. Victor Yus (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree. But in terms of what we can do towards that, which is relevant to this thread: I think having Essay: and shortcut E: would help a little, because it would prod things towards using essays as argument (substitute for writing words - this essay says want I want to say here) rather than as authority, which WP: tends to imply. Rd232 13:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone respond to the reason for my objection? To reiterate, it's easier to search for information if it's under the same namespace. A lot of essays contain useful information about editing Misplaced Pages, even if they're not formal policy. Sorry, but as a new editor, this is more important to me than providing a minor fix to a perceived problem with discussion style. ʝunglejill 14:06, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

it's easier to search for information if it's under the same namespace - not substantially. You would just need to tick both the Misplaced Pages and Essay namespaces at Special:Search. On the other hand, if you knew it was (or probably was) an Essay, you could restrict your search to that namespace, which would be helpful as the Misplaced Pages namespace contains an awful lot of content (all WikiProjects, for example). Rd232 15:03, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that you're strongly overestimating the willingness of individuals to divide their writings into separate namespace-appropriate 'what we do' versus 'why we do it' portions. Consider the existing system with its Misplaced Pages: and Help: namespaces. There's a certain amount of overlap between the two namespaces' mandates (as there would be between a future Essay: space and WP:), with two consequences. First, the Help: namespace is underused; even documents that probably should be there often end up in the more-popular and better-known WP: space; pages that sit on the edge almost universally end up falling on the WP: side. There's no good reason to expect this not to happen with a new Essay: space. (Where do we put the putative essay Misplaced Pages:Advanced footnote formatting?)

Second, we have a massive number of cross-namespace redirects, shortcuts, and hatnotes so that people who go looking for something in one space can still find it if it happens to be in the other. This cross-namespace confusion grows to epic proportions if we move all the existing essays wholesale to a new namespace, as discussions would contain a deeply perplexing mix of WP:- and E:-prefixed titles and shortcuts. (We'd have to leave all the old redirects and shortcuts in place to avoid breaking hundreds of thousands of talk page archives, and there's nothing to prevent our thousands of experienced editors from continuing to use their familiar shortcuts.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:42, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this unfortunately seriously reduces the value of the proposal, and is probably the main reason I haven't supported it. There does not seem to be any feasible way to get rid of WP: shortcuts to essays, and the existence of E: shortcuts could perversely aggravate the problem of WP: shortcuts appearing to have consensus or authority (somewhat in the same way that the existence of bike lanes makes it harder on cyclists on roads where they aren't there, or are obstructed).

Nevertheless there is a genuine problem here, and even if I have no solution for it, I would like to see awareness raised about it. If editors were merely reminded somehow that pretty much anyone can write pretty much anything in Misplaced Pages space, and create a WP: shortcut to it, that would be a significant improvement. But how to remind them? --Trovatore (talk) 03:45, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Essay shortcuts could also start using the E: shortcut regardless of what space they're in, as long as there's community consensus for it. See how a lot of Manual of Style shortcuts use MOS: (such as MOS:NUM, MOS:LAYOUT, etc.), despite them existing in the Misplaced Pages: namespace. The shortcuts technically exist in articlespace but redirect to Misplaced Pages-space. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 18:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe there are any truly urgent reasons for changing the status quo. many essays reside in user space where they are generally protected (by policy) from unwanted editing, and many essays are moved by their creators to WP space (where anyone can edit them). being in WP space doesn't make then any more important however. I have both kinds. 'E' space for all essays might be a good idea, but the editing policy of them would need more discussion. As far as citing essays as if they were policy, I believe that there are sufficient caveats, although some essays have acquired community consensus to be seriously recognised as a guideline - perhaps those should be promoted to guideline status.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

That's a highly problematic path to a guideline. Personally I refrain from editing essays I don't agree with; the authors are entitled to their views and to make them known. I imagine lots of folks do likewise. But then, if the general theme of the essay gets consensus, it means that the views of those who disagree have not been taken into account, and change to the new guideline may be resisted.

Instead, the essay should remain an essay, and a new guideline should be written from scratch, with all views considered. --Trovatore (talk) 22:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you need to read WP:PGE.

I also think that if you think this through, you'll see the problem. Where would you file WP:BRD and WP:TE, which are "just" essays? What about WP:Five pillars, which is (officially) just an essay, but which 99% of newbies seem to think was the first page ever written on Misplaced Pages and the sole basis for all the official policies? (Its history is summarized at its FAQ if you're curious.)

And then there's the whole concept of what constitutes "policy" in the first place. If you hold Jimbo Wales' view, anything you write that accurately describes the community's view on an important point is automatically a Real Policy. So if you go to your user page, and you type "It is incredibly important to cite reliable sources when writing Misplaced Pages articles", then that sentence is a Real Policy and your user page (or at least that part of it) is a Real Policy. But if you write a page that says something anti-consensus, like "We've all agreed that WhatamIdoing doesn't have to cite sources because she never makes a mistake", then that is absolutely not a policy, even if you slap a {{Policy}} template on the top of the page.

The bottomline is that reality is mushy. Our advice pages form a continuum. WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is subtle and murky. I don't think we are well served by trying to make much out of it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The point is that policies and guidelines are both expected to have consensus, whereas essays need not — they are allowed to be expressions of one POV within the Misplaced Pages community, even a significantly minoritarian one. If a page marked as a policy or a guideline is actually against consensus, the template designating it as a policy or a guideline will normally be removed in short order. In contrast, it would be quite improper to rewrite an essay to reflect consensus views, if done in a way that contradicts the POV of the essay — essays are an important tool for editors to explain views that may not be the current consensus, and to argue why, in their opinion, those views should become consensus.

WP: shortcuts, unfortunately, elide this important distinction.

As I say, I don't see any easy technical remedy for the problem, because we can't actually delete the shortcuts beginning with WP: without breaking all sortsa stuff. But that does not mean there is not a problem. (I note in passing that you gave a shortcut to an essay, in support of the proposition that essays should not be considered inferior to policies and guidelines.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Technically, PGE is a {{supplement}}, and it's one that was written with the advice of the regulars at WP:POLICY to explain some of the stuff that people keep asking, but we didn't want to bloat the main policy page with. It could have just as easily been put in a {{FAQ}} page. Or we could have added it to the policy page. We talked about it. The fact that we took this approach doesn't mean that the page's contents are any less valid. (I think we would have used a different writing style, but the content would be basically the same.)

Your problem isn't really with shortcuts. The spelled-out name doesn't tell you what the status of the page is.

And, again, there's that difficult question about what's "really" policy. See the bold-faced text at WP:COMMONSENSE, which addresses the question of why that page is labeled as an "essay" rather than a "policy". Is "use common sense" a True Policy or just "one POV" or something else? IMO the True Policy is what the community does, which does not always line up perfectly with its official {{policy}}-tagged pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say it did line up. That's not the point. I made my point, but let me say it all by itself so it doesn't get lost in other stuff: Policies and guidelines are supposed to have consensus, and if they don't, they are supposed to be changed. Essays are not expected to have consensus — they are the opinions of their authors. --Trovatore (talk) 00:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

So is an essay therefore "owned" by the person(s) who originally created it? If I come along and add my opinion to an essay, can the author revert me purely on the grounds that (s)he disagrees with my view? Or is (s)he expected to engage in a consensus-forming process with me? If the first, then it seems the page ought to be in user space as a proprietary page of a given user; if the second, then it seems it is "supposed to have consensus" just as much as any other page would. Or are there some unwritten rules about the editing of essays that put them somewhere in the middle ground between my two scenarios? Victor Yus (talk) 11:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Essays located at the user's space are owned by that person and not expected to be edited by others. However, if you move your essay to Misplaced Pages space this is seen as an invitation to others to further develop the ideas in it. So you really have the two possibilities, with the final decision in the hands of the essay writer. The difference between essays at Misplaced Pages space with respect to guidelines is that essays don't need to be consistent with policy or other guidelines. Diego (talk) 12:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course, if you put it in Misplaced Pages space, you are "inviting others to further develop the ideas in it". However, to me, "further developing the ideas" is quite different from, say, writing a completely different essay, because you think the one there is flat wrong. When I think an essay is just completely wrong, that doesn't mean I try to censor it!

That's the point I'm trying to get across: An essay in Misplaced Pages space, while it may of course be edited by others, is still permitted to be an opinion that does not have consensus, or even that goes completely against consensus. It's unlikely that the community will completely change the thrust of an essay, just because most editors don't agree with it. This is different from policies and guidelines — if the community doesn't agree with a policy or guideline, it is normal for them to change it, or mark it as no longer a policy or guideline. --Trovatore (talk) 15:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of labelling shortcuts to essays with E: in the same way that shortcuts to the Manual of Style are labeled with MOS:. It solves the problem and doesn't require a new namespace, only a few users creting the shortcuts and beginning to use them consistently. This has a chance to gain traction and become widely used quickly, as it's very easy to spot. What essays should be the first to get the new shortcut style? Maybe those at E:Arguments to avoid (like E:JUSTAVOTE, E:UNENCYCLOPEDIC, E:ILIKEIT, E:OTHERSTUFF...) would represent a good test for fringe cases, since it's an essay that's actually used as a guideline. Diego (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

There is indeed a variety of Pseudo-namespaces, however they are classed as x-namespace redirects which there is a lot of opposition to. I agree that it would help with the problem of mistaking essays for policies, but I hope it won't get out of hand with every creator of an WP:essay creating a x-namespace shortcut for it. -- œ 16:27, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Offensive content on "Main Page"

It seems that recently there have been a few occurrences of content on the Main Page that could be considered offensive. For example, "Encyclopedia **me And The Case Of The Vanishing Entree" was recently posted, and there have been a few others. Perhaps this has become more common, or perhaps I am just noticing more of them recently. I understand that Misplaced Pages is to have a full encyclopedia format, and if it's necessary to have those titles, then fine. But I think, as the Main Page is a central location that anyone could go to, before routing to the page they are interested in, it should only have content that is appropriate for all users. Is this possible to make happen? Stephanie (talk) 05:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)the previous comment was made by Stephanie.stanage Worm(talk) 10:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Could you link to the page, because your bowdlerisation is completely incomprehensible. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I would guess that the OP meant Encyclopedia Fuckme And The Case Of The Vanishing Entree, a DYK entry. → ROUX ₪ 06:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Stephanie, Misplaced Pages is not censored, and neither is the Main Page. What you find personally offensive doesn't matter. What I find personally offensive does not matter. Grow up and put your morality back into your own life instead of waving it offensively in other people's faces. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:05, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages is not censored. Period. Get over it. Or perhaps you could define what content is suitable for 'all users'? I'm sure that the ruling parties in, say, Iran or parts of the USA would find this article completely unsuitable, for example. → ROUX ₪ 06:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Wow, thank you so much for that opinion (how about just actually read what I wrote?) I didn't ask for censoring Misplaced Pages, as I clearly noted; I asked about the Main Page. As far as I can see, there isn't a policy of censorship/non-censorship for the Main Page. Am I wrong about this? Please excuse my ignorance if I am. Stephanie 07:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

The Main Page is somehow... separate from Misplaced Pages? Again, please suggest a standard of content filtration that is somehow "appropriate for all users," bearing in mind of course that our users span the entire globe. → ROUX ₪ 08:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

What you're basically asking for is some sort of editorial judgement on the promotion of content on the Main Page. But because of the extreme difficulty of gaining agreement among Wikipedians on general standards for applying such judgement, there is very little exercised (sometimes there is a limited agreement enough for action on something specific). A reference to WP:NOTCENSORED is a short-hand for explaining this, but wrapping it in a bit of "it's a feature, not a bug" by applying the reasons for not removing information from the encyclopedia to the different issue of what to promote on the encyclopedia's cover. (And given that the example is a commercial product, I use the word promote deliberately.) Rd232 07:30, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Censored or not, it's kind of funny to imagine that a game with this little third party coverage would pass the GNG. There's no secondary coverage of this that isn't just a routine review. There's an in-depthish pitchfork review and an in-depthish escapist review, both of which pass WP:RS I guess but are not quite what I would think of as normally encyclopedically significant (oh, and a one paragraph review in an av club article that reviews like ten other games.) A minor indie freeware browser-based game with such little coverage will have no lasting notability. If it wasn't currently on the front page, I think I would be tempted to AfD it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:ASTONISH applies just as much as WP:NOTCENSORED.

There is a problem with Main page in that it has been put into the main encyclopaedia but it is not an article. It does not describe what a main page is and provide citations and show why it is notable. How can one say whether censored or astonish apply to a page like that? Dmcq (talk) 08:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Aside from anything else, I can't help but feel that the OP has been leaped on here. The community is clearly galvanised on this issue (the principals have been argued over enough times), but that's not excuse for reacting against a post in a non-combative tone as if it has been a call to heresy. We have good enough reasons why we don't filter information for the main page, and the OP could have easily been directed to them without putting her under siege. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I'm usually always the first to defend the concept of not censoring Misplaced Pages. It's not only part of the guidelines, but it's just good policy. But that article was probably a bit much for the main page. I would think that a bit of intelligence and outright common sense would have discovered that.--JOJ 11:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
• "it should only have content that is appropriate for all users.". The onus is upon you to demonstrate how this content is inappropriate; you have simply stated the premise and assumed we would accept it. --Golbez (talk) 19:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
• Although WP: CENSOR, many children use Misplaced Pages every day, and I don't think they should be seeing this when they visit our main page. Electriccatfish2 (talk) 12:23, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
• There is nothing wrong in principle for the main page to feature content which is potentially offensive to some people if the linked content is of value. There are a lot of different subjects that offend different people and we can't be worrying about how to keep absolutely everybody happy all the time. We just need to be sure we are not being gratuitously offensive. What perplexes me is that an article that is about a pretty trivial subject and which is borderline deletable for notability (for my money it would be a very weak keep if I was !voting in an AfD on it) was chosen for the main page. I know that DYK is allowed to be a bit whimsical but I agree with Jojhutton. This was a poor choice and a bit of common sense should have told everybody that the value of the linked article was not sufficient to justify its inclusion on the main page. I am sure it was not intended to be gratuitously offensive but it will have seemed that way to many people. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:02, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, of course the main page is censored; any limited space must be subject to decisions on what it contains, and in that case the censorship is simply called "editorial judgement". The only difference is that you have to sometimes refrain from disclosing your real reasons: don't say "I'm offended", look for some other reason. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 13:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

• The issue here is not WP:CENSORED, the issue is vulgarity.  WP:NOTCENSORED allows me to list all the words that rhyme with "buck" without concern that my edit will be partially overwritten by a bot.  For example, I still remember a site whose bot would overwrite part of the word "pussywillow".  But what were the people thinking that put that topic on the main page?  Unscintillating (talk) 00:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it's interesting that the English Misplaced Pages is actually quite tame compared to some other Wikipedias. Perhaps it's that puritanical current that runs through American society (not, of course, that America owns the English language), that gives us more vocal complaints. If I recall correctly, the German Misplaced Pages once had on its main page a human vulva in all its glory. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Is it your view that "complaints" about vulgarity should be WP:CENSORED?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:The answer to life, the universe, and everything has been marked as a guideline

Misplaced Pages:The answer to life, the universe, and everything (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Ignore, this is erroneous. WP:42 is not a guideline. Wer900 • 04:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Ethics for Living People Bios

Should a living person have the right to post errors and omissions on their own biography? EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 00:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

No. They may post sourced corrections, same as anyone else. Anyone posting erroneous information or censoring reliably sourced information is violating this site's policies. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:48, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Where do they post and who reads it? EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 00:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

The article's talk page is a safe place to post corrections and additions, though it's fine to attempt to post properly formatted additions in article space (as long as the user remembers to discuss instead of fight if the addition is removed). A variety of users may run across the post, and some may do something about it. The articles are maintained by volunteers. 01:05, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) On the talk page of the article in question. And, hopefully, another editor will come along to read it and assist. If no one else shows up, attention can be brought to the requested, sourced changes at the COI Noticeboard. Silverseren 01:07, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

What if it is a matter of POV where the principle person editing is "well-wired" and actually hates the person he is editing, let's say for competitive financial reasons or differences in religion?EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 01:18, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

It comes down to sources. If an editor is trying to push their POV, they will eventually try to censor certain sources and overemphasize others (or even use unreliable sources). That person would be in trouble. If the person who the article is about doesn't like a well-documented aspect of their life being public information, this site is not the place to fix that, as we just get our information from reliable sources. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ian EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 01:37, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Neither WP:COI nor WP:BLP prohibit the subject of an article from editing the article about themselves. There are limits on the type of edits (which apply to everyone), and there are smarter ways to go about some issues, but there is no outright prohibition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

PR editor guidelines released and publicised by CIPR

Precis: "don't." Press release, guideline (PDF), Huffington Post - David Gerard (talk) 11:35, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Article titles for military operations

Hi all, I've read WP:TITLE but could not find why military operations are titled instead of , e.g. instead of . --Petar Petrov (talk) 15:24, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

There's probably a relevant guideline in the Military History WikiProject, which deals with the topic of battles and wars. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 15:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll ask there too. --Petar Petrov (talk) 18:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

A lot of sources use "Operation" as their identifier. For example, I've seen many printed references to Operation Desert Storm but none to Desert Storm. Also, it avoids the need for disambiguation, since Operation Market Garden clearly has nothing to do with market gardening. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment

A request has been opened at Misplaced Pages talk:Blocking policy#Proposal: third party request for unblock

Should the proposed change, "A third party may request the review of a block at the Administrators' noticeboard," or some variation of that change, be added to the unblocking policy. Penyulap ☏ 22:36, 27 Jun 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the verifiability policy lede

• Misplaced Pages:Verifiability/2012 RfC

Hello all. I'd like to draw your attention to an RfC about the lede of the verifiability policy. We have been drafting this RfC for some time as part of a MedCab mediation, and it is finally ready for comment. In the RfC we have included a few specific drafts of the policy lede for you to comment on, and we have twelve general questions to find editors' views about how the lede should look. All editors are warmly invited to join the discussion at the RfC page. Thanks! — Mr. Stradivarius on tour 02:06, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

New RFC posted

Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation was approached by the founders of an organization called the Internet Defense League, which is soon to be launched. The founders would like the Foundation to join the League. However, the online community as a whole is the heart of this proposed grassroots movement and therefore, the Foundation would like guidance from the community as to whether or not the community feels the Foundation should join this effort.

Please make your view known at the RFC on meta.

Thank you, Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:12, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Ethics for Living People Bios 2

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.

When a dubious template questioning notability is placed on the biography of a living person (and that might decreases their income), should we not have errored on the side of notable? I say "dubious" for cases where 20 users have already contributed to the bio, and the posting user has a banner advertising their deletion record. For that latter factor, other editors might be afraid to remove the template in order to avoid the wrath of the posting editor on other articles on which they have worked. It also seems to me that there is a good case for defamation of character, and there are damages in terms of lost income. EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 13:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

What article are you talking about? GB fan 14:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not here to enhance anyone's income. You appear to have created an alternative account to avoid scrutiny of your other edits; please use your main account instead. Anomie⚔ 14:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is perfectly entitled to have its own notability criteria, and contributors are perfectly entitled to express an opinion as to whether the subject of an article meets such criteria. Expressing such an opinion could not remotely be construed as 'deformation of character'. Ridiculous.

P.S. Read WP:NLT while you are at it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:57, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry to have upset you. However, when a man in business goes from public "notable" to "deletion" it will have an impact on his income as most people use Google and then click Misplaced Pages to check out a person. That notability banner is defaming (not necessarily in a legal sense). It also seems these edits come from a country "foreign" to the subject of the bio, making legal recourse virtually impossible. You might also see a competitor make such an edit for profit in business if it is a zero sum game.EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 15:16, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

If people are basing their salary/hiring decisions on Misplaced Pages, that is sad. Ethics, last chance to give us the context of your complaint. Otherwise I'm inclined to recommend a block on a hybrid of non-legitimate alternate account and legal threats. We're not here to right wrongs in the world or on the internet. We're here to build a compendium of notable knowledge. Any further responses outside the giving of context (with a direct link to the article in question) will result in my hatting this thread. Zero light, All heat. Hasteur (talk) 15:24, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Please let me recast this conversation in a positively-worded, general proposal that focuses on the language in the notability banner rather than its consequences.EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

No. Please either provide a direct link to the article in question, or stop wasting our time with opinionated abstractions and personal attacks on the intentions of other contributors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:36, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I was trying to get an article going for John E. Hearst, and I noticed that many new bios get hit immediately with notability banners.EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 15:44, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

So you still don't have an example of where this has happened for us as John E. Hearst does not and has never existed. GB fan 15:46, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

trying to get an article going means planned.EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 15:52, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I understand that but do you understand that we are asking for an example of where a dubious template questioning notability is placed on the biography of a living person. GB fan 15:56, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I was leafing through some bios, did not keep my history, and ran into that banner. It just struck me as weird, and frankly, defaming. Please tell me how to search for those templates (or a page of names, so labelled), and I will have another look. I doubt that we would have a page that indicated articles that were once labelled as such but are now OKEeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 16:17, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You can start by looking through Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from June 2012. That is all the articles tagged with the notability template this month. GB fan 16:25, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's one: Youvan. Now I remember: As a Member of the NRA, we just nominated him for the National Patriot's Medal.EeTtHhIiCcSs (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I take it you mean Douglas Youvan. Now read WP:NOTABILITY, and tell us whether you think the subject of that article meets the guidelines - if it doesn't (or it is a reasonable opinion to suggest that it doesn't), there is nothing wrong with the notability template. As for what the NRA does, that is their opinion, not ours - and you've not provided a source for your assertion either. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:07, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

And a simple question, to which I'd like a direct answer, EeTtHhIiCcSs: Hve you edited Misplaced Pages before under another name? In particular, have you edited as User:Noncanonical? I ask because this user (who works with Youvan, as his/her user page makes clear) uses very similar language to you: "Youvan's work is defamed, and we are dealing with a living person who heads a foundation that can be financially hurt by such an appearance". Frankly, to claim that you came upon this article by chance, and yet purely by coincidence use the same phraseology seems somewhat implausible... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Limitations on Admins, wax and wane

Administrators go through a lot of hell in their role. Certainly, it can make even the best person jaded after a while. My proposal is simple, and potentially controversial.

I propose that Administrators are given non-optional and cyclical 'vacations' on rotating basis, particularly admins who are 'people focused'.

Some editors and admins only focus on things that primarily don't involve other people, like copy editing, reverting vandalism, and so on. Other administrators work to resolve conflicts between editors and decide bans and blocks. It is primarily this second group that gives me more concern.

Civility is a primary tenet and pillar of Misplaced Pages, and while many admins do an outstanding job (with less credit than they might deserve), sometimes even the best among us can get exasperated and frustrated at having to tell the latest 'moron' the same thing for the 100th time. "Yes, 3 reverts does mean 3." Being welcoming and patient and motivated is a skill that few people are able to always keep 'on'.

Specifically, I would recommend that people-focused admins (perhaps all admins) are given a 6-month downtime after 2 years of service where the use of tools is suspended and they either take a break or simply work as a regular editor for that time.

This would result in a different perspective and different mindset about the expectations that they have to shoulder while at Misplaced Pages. If the community agrees, this could either be a period where they can still exercise non-tool-related admin functions, or simply a time where they are an 'Admin-meritorium' that they just take the time to do editor type stuff for a while. -- Avanu (talk) 00:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to the idea that admins ought to see life an a regular editor on occasion. However, let me throw in one complication. Much of my activity in the last month has been as an OTRS agent. One doesn't have to be an admin to be an agent, but my activity would be severely hampered if I were not an admin. Many times, someone is prompted to send in a permission statement because their image was deleted. It is straightforward, if tedious, to find the image, undelete it, add the permission and add it back to the article, but I would have to track down an admin or pass on many of the requests. As it is, I'm contemplating applying to be a Commons admin because it is such a pain to track down a Commons admin every time I need to restore a deleted image from Commons. One option would be to exempt OTRS agents from the vacation, another option would be to tell me it would be good for me to take a break as well.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:06, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

What happens if after the 6 month downtime they enjoyed their break so much they don't want to return to admin duty anymore? -- œ 06:51, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Any admin is free to give up their adminship at any time. Silverseren 09:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, this is never going to fly. This is a volunteer project. Telling people their services are not wanted for 6 months isn't helpful. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

No way. Judging from various backlogs, we need more admins doing admin tasks, not less. --NeilN 19:01, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Nothing stops an admin from taking time off. I have done this in the past, albeit not for 6 months. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

The idea is to encourage people to have a mindset that is not just administrator-focused. The length of time could be less, but hopefully not so insignificant that the person isn't able to gain a fresh perspective. And you are not telling people their services aren't wanted, you're telling them that being a part of the overall community is as important as being an admin. As far as that backlog you mention, there is a proposal under way right now to address that at Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)/Proposal_by_Jc37. -- Avanu (talk) 19:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

That proposal, with currently only 7 more support !votes than opposes, does not look like it will have consensus to pass. Perhaps if we solve the issue of having too few admins first, then existing admins will do more "regular editing". --NeilN 19:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I think there may be something to be said for the idea of admins "losing perspective" on occasion...it's a danger for anyone in a position of authority. Six months seems like a rather long time to me though; three would be less of a concern. The argument that there are too few admins for this to be workable doesn't hold much water for me...it validates the current paradigm while raising another concern that consequently goes unaddressed. Anyway, I'll be curious to see whether anything comes of this; I think it could be beneficial, and I'm not sure why anyone should get their feathers ruffled over a non-punitive vacation that still enables them to assist the project in a meaningful fashion (i.e. nobody's getting blocked or such). Doniago (talk) 19:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I can't see consensus for enforcing this. But maybe we could get consensus for a bot to automatically suggest to admins

hey, you meet these criteria X/Y/Z which the community has set as making it maybe a good idea to consider a break from adminship tasks (see WP:Adminship break for explanation). Please consider taking a 3-month break from admin tasks in the near future. If you do, use template {{adminship break}} to let people know (and if necessary, have a bureaucrat temporarily remove adminship, if you need help sticking to the break).

Rd232 21:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

We trust administrators with powerful tools to delete articles, block people, and so on. Surely we can trust them to recognize when they need a vacation! Maybe we just need to clarify this as an option for admins (although it seems obvious; surely we don't expect them to be signing up for an unbroken term of indentured servitude). They could ask another admin to watch their talk page while they are "on furlough", or even ask a bureaucrat for a "burnout vacation" for a length of time that seems good to them. I certainly don't agree with any one-size-fits-all prescription for the timing or length of the furlough, or with a "bot" recommendation triggered by some arbitrary criterion. --MelanieN (talk) 23:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

A fundamental problem with administrators and inactivity

About 6 months ago, I noticed that the number of administrators and the number of semi-active/inactive administrators was at near 50% with slightly more semi-active/inactive admins than active. Right now we sit at 697 active and 773 semi-active/inactive, or 47% active. Semi-active is fewer than 30 edits in the past 2 months, but at least 1 edit in the past 3 months. Inactive is 0 edits in the past 3 months.

The problem I'm addressing isn't inactivity, but rather competence of semi-active/inactive administrators who may not be informed of current practices on Misplaced Pages since they have been away. Our policy on removing administrator access to inactive accounts is good, but it's easy for someone to game the system to just keep their admin bit, and their status of trust, within the community. All we require is a single edit or single admin task to keep it. The problem is that all they have to do is come back once a year to make a single edit to continue holding their status. The status of administrator on Misplaced Pages isn't just the tools, which anything they can do can be easily reverted, but rather a pedestal of high regard and respect in the community that, without proper evidence or reasoning, usually isn't challenged. The problem with this is that with over 770 inactive or partially active accounts with admin, not all of them could be informed on our current practices after being inactive so long. Like I said, one non-binding edit confirms that they own the account, which is great, but it doesn't address them coming back with stature within the community and potentially being uninformed. Here are a few different examples in what I am talking about (these particular users were taken partially at random):

• Xeno (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - This is an example of an administrator who is semi-active I have no problem with having adminship. Their last fifty edits date back to the beginning of this year and he comes back infrequently to edit and do administrative tasks. It's clear that he is is still capable of holding his position.
• (aeropagitica) (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - This administrators last fifty edits date back from 2012 all the way back to 2009 with 15 of those 50 edits came on the same sessions of editing and 10 of them are in his own user space. In three years, I don't know if he/she is still capable or knowledgeable of different changes that have occurred in guidelines and policies.
• Lightdarkness (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - This administrator's last 50 contributions go back to 2007, with 0 edits since 2010 and only 12 edits since 2007. They avoided having their administrative bit removed by deleting the How do i add content test page in 2011 and hasn't edited since. 19 of 50 of their last edits were in their own user space. Again, I don't know whether they're informed of everything that has changed since 2007.

There is a tipping point that was established when User:LC, who had his adminship removed in 2011 for inactivity, came back to get his adminship restored and was denied because he had not edited since 2002. There was a fear of giving LC his adminship back for reasons of the myriad of changes over a 9 year period that he may not be informed of (also it was not sufficiently proven that the account was controlled by LC himself, and he did not reply to queries). At what point do we decide who is equipped and knowledgeable of our current policies and guidelines to still be valuable to the community with the tools or to have the tools restored to them?

If you're looking to skip to the proposal here it is. I think the answer is really simple, all that it requires is a different method of determining who is an active administrator and deprecating the current "one year inactive" de-adminship. It's fairly straight forward: If you do a combined 50 edits or admin actions outside of your own user space within a calendar year, you are considered an active administrator. If you make less than 50, your adminship is removed for inactivity. It actually benefits the encyclopedia in various ways:

• It stops inactive administrators from simply coming back and doing a null edit to their user page to keep their adminship for another year and leaving the community to wonder if they are coming back or not.
• It forces administrators at least provide a bare minimum of contributions or administrative duties to give us something to base their work on. We won't have to wonder whether they are equipped to handle to tools anymore.
• The difference between a bare minimum of 1 edit/log to confirm they are here and my proposed 50 is this:
  • 773 semi-active/inactive administrators making 1 edit to confirm they are still admin under our current system is 773 edits/logs (which could be as little as a user page edit.)
  • 773 semi-active/inactive administrators making 50 edits/logs outside their user space is 38,650 productive edits, and all of them could keep their adminship and be considered active.
• For administrators who fall inactive, the method of restoring their admin bit is slightly the same: all the former admin has to do is make 50 edits (outside their user space) to confirm that they are active, and they make request at WP:BN to get their admin bit back (at the bureaucrats discretion as always).

An example of this proposal in action is as straight forward as it's worded. For example, between 00:00 January 1, 2013 and 23:59 December 31, 2013, all an admin would have to do is make their combined 50 edits or administrative logs, and they keep it until 2014. In 2014, they just have to make another minimum 50, and so on into the future. The only way I see this being debated is because the proposal actually enforces that an administrator has to make a bare minimum number of edits, but is that a bad thing compared to accounts sitting there and rotting with an admin bit? Normally active administrators are unaffected, admins aren't forced to be here any longer than normal, and it makes inactive administrators only spend minimal time here if they want to keep being administrators. At 50 contributions per administrator who are inactive at this point, we can gain tons of useful contributions and the rate of completion for doing the minimum number is achievable within a single day. I look forward to seeing responses about this. — Moe ε 13:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• The inherent flaw in your proposal is that you assume the inactive admin has not simply been reading, rather than taking an active role. Further, it's inherently "forcing" admins to meet a quota, something that really flies in the face of making good decisions. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• I don't assume that they aren't reading, and if that is the case, they could be very informed which is good. But if that's the case, if you make 50 edits in less than a year, you're not doing your part, are you? Out of the 1,400+ people entrusted on the entire website to be here and actually do something when there are problems, are the people we allow to sit and do nothing? Do you knowingly pass a user on RFA, if it said in their nomination "After I'm give admin, I'm going to rarely be here at all, but I'll keep informed and make an edit or two a year."? No, you won't. Like I said, is enforcing a quota a bad thing? Why do we tolerate administrators to sit back and not do anything? If you gave a janitor a mop and bucket and he only came by once a year to adjust their locker and leave, I'd be pretty pissed nothing is being done. We have 697 active and 773 snoozing. 50 administrative logs or edits combined, is such a minor task for someone at the level of an administrator. It's achievable by them logging in once and year a doing something, which is all I'm asking really. — Moe ε 23:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• Hell, I've been active here for eight years and I don't even know our current practices. The problem isn't inactivity among admins, the problem is in informing everyone of evolving standards and practices. --Golbez (talk) 19:38, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• And that's fine Golbez :) I'm not expecting someone to re-invent the wheel or be some kind of connoisseur of the English Misplaced Pages. All I'm asking for is a simple minimum number of duties, a combined 50 edits and/or administrative logs (outside their userspace) that you do within a year. It's just a simple recognition that you are here and that you actually do something still, something very minor to prove you are still competent in holding the tools. — Moe ε 23:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• Ah, the only problem I have with this proposal is that you mischaracterize the background. Logging in once a year to make one edit is not "gaming the system", since desysopping inactive accounts is a procedural matter only. And LC was not denied a resysop because he had been inactive too long to know what he was doing. That was claimed, sure, but there was no consensus on it. His resysop was actually declined because even the bureaucrats who didn't care how active he was weren't sure if his account had been compromised, or why he was asking. But getting back to the actual proposal, this seems to me like a solution in search of a problem. Please show me the administrator who, as a result of ignorance of policy changes, started screwing up the encyclopedia and resisted all attempts at being educated. An RFA is a stamp of a approval on an editor for not only being knowledgeable of policy, but also having clue. I choose to believe that any editor capable of passing RFA is at least cognizant of the fact that policies change. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:37, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• I too would like to assume that anyone we give a stamp of approval on is aware of our every-changing policies and guidelines, but the reality is that most of them are probably not actively reading every day. If they are, that is one thing, and doing a bare minimum of 50 edits/administrative logs isn't very hard for someone reading Misplaced Pages every day. In the case of those who are not, then they don't have a clue what the current policies and guidelines are, because they are never here. In the case of Lightdarkness above, are you sufficiently satisfied that he is still able to perform administrative duties within Misplaced Pages based on his last bout of active editing stemming from 2007? The problem, as I said from the beginning, is accounts sitting there and rotting under the guise of they are an administrator for life, as long as they come back and make a null edit. I don't need to be convinced they are superlative at handling the admin bit, or that they know every policy, but rather confirmation that they are here and at least trying. Why would we give someone special privileges and stature in our community for them to sit and idle on it? — Moe ε 23:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• FWIW, both Meta and Commons have (different) substantive activity requirements:
  • Commons: less than 5 admin actions in 6 months: 30 days' notice to confirm intention to return; then desysop without warning if again less than 5 actions in 6 months. See Commons:Commons:Administrators/De-adminship.
  • Meta: less than 10 edits in 6 months: immediate desysop; 10+ edits but fewer than 10 admin actions: 1 week to confirm intention to remain admin. See meta:Meta:Administrators#Inactivity.

Rd232 21:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• • The Commons policy of harassing administrators in otherwise good standing to perform work to maintain that standing is, to be frank, bullshit. --Golbez (talk) 22:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
    • And if anyone missed in my proposal, as long as you come back and do your minimum number of duties, even if you are de-admined for inactivity, you are given back to the tools procedurally like we do now. It's just changing 1 edit to prove that you're alive, to 50 to prove you're still functional. — Moe ε 23:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, this is a good proposal.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
• I also support more substantive activity requirements. --99of9 (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support This just seems like common sense. If you can't make at least 50 edits a year, then it is extremely unlikely that you are keeping up on policy changes and admin responsibilities and activities. Sure, there might be a few outlier admins, but the possible amount of those is so low as to be negligible for the main purpose of this proposal. Silverseren 05:13, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. On these criteria, we would have lost User:Moreschi, an excellent administrator. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• They can easily do RfA again. I mean, if they're good admins, then it should be pretty easy to get reinstated and it would further show community support for them in general. And, heck, we could use some more RfAs in general for our current dismal stats in that area. Silverseren 05:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
• Hello Future Perfect at Sunrise. Actually, Moreschi would be fine, re-review the actual proposal. He has made 50 edits and administrative logs combined this year alone, so under this, he would retain adminship. If he was inactive for a long period of time previously (assuming he was gone for a very long time?), his edits proving him being active now means he would have got his adminship restored if it was removed. The only difference between our current practice and this proposal, is that it's 50 edits or administrative logs combined (outside of the user's own userspace) in a year, as compared to a single edit anyone on Misplaced Pages in one year. He actually wouldn't need to go through RFA again, Silver seren, he would just have to prove he is active on Misplaced Pages. This is to prevent administrators from idling for an entire year and committing a single edit to retain adminship without providing any service to the site. — Moe ε 06:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose. What we need are admins who are capable of fair, judicious and impartial actions. Those qualities do not degrade over time. The argument that a period of inactivity should of itself be a disqualification is flawed for several reasons (as mentioned above they may be observing but not editing, or they may be completely absent but prepared to spend time getting up to speed when returning).

RfA discussion is not just about technical knowledge of current policy, it's about assessing intent, motivation and character. And from the point of view of this longstanding, but not especially active editor, it works. The quality of admin work here that I have seen has been outstanding: not because of detailed current knowledge of every last policy, but because it has been thoughtful.

Now I'm sure there are examples of misuse or incompetence, and that might be the motivation behind this proposal, but the way to address that concern is to streamline the process for de-adminship (for action rather than inaction).

Another legitimate concern is that requests for administrative action be dealt with promptly - let's achieve that by encouraging communication by means other than the talk page of an administrator. I would support a proposal to put a "Seems to be inactive" notice there.

Finally, (sorry this is so long), it's hard enough to get properly engaged editors, let alone properly-motivated admins so please let's not let impose an arbitrary technical requirement. Mcewan (talk) 05:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• Hello, Mcewan. I'm not rather questioning their past usefulness to Misplaced Pages, which is self-evident because they are administrator, but rather wanting to expand what is considered inactive for the sake of the website. It's rather preposterous, the little amount of requirements it takes to retain adminship, don't you think? If admin X left now, July 3, 2012, under our current policy, he could do a total of ten edits and/or administrative actions, once a year, from now until 2022 and retain adminship without a further glance. We have continued to push a mantra of "administrator for life" to the point of ridiculousness. The whole premise behind that makes things very difficult to retain administrators, because they can come back anytime they like, make their minimum requirement of 1 edit and move on. After that, they can come back and by the time they do, it's not the same Misplaced Pages they left with. You can check any policy or guideline page on Misplaced Pages to exactly 5 years ago, it isn't the same as today. That mantra is fine for people who are here every day contributing, but it's the 1 edit admin a year this isn't fine for. All this proposal does, is makes someone who is an administrator fill a quota of 50 edits or administrative logs (blocks, protections, deletions, etc.) so that we can be sure that they are somewhat familiar with the site on a yearly basis. — Moe ε 06:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, proposal doesn't actually solve any problem. 5 or 10 or 50 admin actions per year don't help me keep up with what is going on (unlike a month of lurking at ANI). We already have an arbitrary automatic desysop cutoff, and you have not demonstrated any actual problems (bad admin actions) that have resulted from making it easy to stay an admin. —Kusma (t·c) 09:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Appropriateness of "X on Twitter" (or similar) articles

There's been a lot of issues with behavior problems revolving around various celebrity's "...on Twitter" articles. Examples include

• Lady Gaga on Twitter (Best I know, hasn't seen AFD yet)
• Justin Bieber on Twitter (current AFD
• Ashton Kutcher on Twitter (current AFD

Uncle G has provided a good summary of the poor behavior that these articles are creating (either way), in that we have "empty" AFD !votes, articles at GAN/FAC being sent to AFD, articles at AFD being sent to GAC/FAC, etc. Plus a race to create more, put more to GA (at minimum) as "protection" from AFD, etc. Rightly so, the problem is that these are articles that we don't know what to do with yet, and there are arguments on both sides regarding them.

First, I'd like to propose an informal halt to any meta-activity on these articles, at least until some resolve has been made. No creation, no AFD'ing, no GAN/FAC (allowing the current running ones to complete of course).

But we do need some resolve. I have my own ideas how these articles should be treated, but I don't want to taint the discussion with my opinion here. Instead, I'd like to see what the general community feels about these, are they appropriate, are there better ways of handling it, should they not even exist? Based on what consensus says, we can make appropriate changes to guideline/policy that summarizes that and then and only then can we turn back to what we have to see if the articles themselves may be affected.

Note that I am going to assume that we are talking about "...on Twitter" articles that already meet WP:V in terms of sourcing, and we're talking only those that other sources have clearly recognized, not a random celebrity or nobody. The three examples above are the ones that I would expect of minimum quality for an "on Twitter" article to even exist, so this is not meant to say that we can create a "On Twitter" article for any random person X. But even when they get as largely sourced as the above three, the questions on appropriateness remain.

Note that I'm looking ahead to any type of "X on Y" where Y is some social media application, like YouTube, or Facebook, or whatever. There may not be any articles that meet these now, but we should be considering the potential of what future such services may bring.

Given this, I'm breaking up the discussion into three areas, below. Two for "Generally acceptable" and "Generally unacceptable", and a third for "Other options", which I hope people expand with possible ideas for determining between acceptable and unacceptable. --MASEM (t) 14:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

"...on Twitter" articles are generally acceptable

• Assuming as the question does, that the twitter account is generally notable and verifiable. To avoid the illegitimate WP:BELONG type arguments, yes. These are similar to articles on noted individual blogs. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

"...on Twitter" articles are generally inappropriate

• Because of the potential spread, since most subjects here in the entertainment industry have at least the potential for such a page, the standards should be very high. The claim that such a subject is notable is the sort of extraordinary claim that needs extraordinarily good sourcing. It should require a very strict interpretation of the notability guidelines, in which several really substantial non-tabloid sources of unquestionable seriousness and reliability --preferable academic of serious published non-fiction studies devoted primarily to the topic should be required. Otherwise we degenerate into a fansite. DGG ( talk ) 01:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
• I would say that notability for these types of articles should be based on impact, and not just activity. Activity will be written about by "reliable sources" every day just because of the incredible size, reach and potential profitability of the industry, but this material is generally of the trivia/tabloid kind. However, sources about the cultural impact or long-term consequences of a person's Twitter account by the kinds of organizations DGG mentions above ("academic o serious published non-fiction studies devoted primarily to the topic") are a completely different animal and would certainly seem to warrant a serious article. Those are understandably rarer, and so given the amount of -- yes, I'm going to say it -- cruft that finds its way into current articles on these subjects, I think saying that "X on Twitter" articles are generally inappropriate is closest to the truth. Nolelover 01:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, WP:notability (fiction) was a notability guideline and tried "impact" as part of notability criterion, but it is now an essay about notability of characters itself. All internet stuff is notable under GNG, but this whole discussion is becoming more about how to write a valuable article. As said, why focusing more on notability than an idea of making MOS guideline about internet topics? --George Ho (talk) 02:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
• The issue that is larger than the "...on twitter" articles is the issue of meta-articles in general. These articles are reporting on the reporting of others, which is distinct from using the reporting of others as sources. Said in WP-speak, articles such as these are treating what are normally RS as PRIMARY. By writing an article about what X or Y source thinks about topic Z, we are no longer an encyclopedia but rather a news aggregator. As an example if this, if a Twitter user tweets from their verified account that they are getting married then we may update their BIO to say that they are getting married and source it (BLP allows SPS as sources about themselves) to the tweet. That is writing about the event (getting married), not the medium of distribution (Twitter). When we get into writing about the medium, the line into meta-reporting gets crossed. That is no longer encyclopeadic, but just being an aggregator (at best). That isn't to say that there aren't notable events where there is an intersection. For instance, the race to 1M followers might be notable for both the BIO and the Twitter article. --Tgeairn (talk) 02:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • As a devil's advocate, we have articles on notable fan sites that are pretty much just news aggregation or the like for something else. Take, for example Lostpedia or Equestria Daily. I will not dismiss the idea that a celeb's twitter can be notable on its own as long as the sources are talking about the Twitter account and not just reporting on news reported in the account. There is some reasonable logic here. --MASEM (t) 02:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Right and to add, there is no basis in fact or logic to the claim that "The Washington Post" or a myriad of other sources are "primary sources" about a twitter account. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
      • It depends on how they are reporting it. WashPost stating "Celeb X said on his twitter that he will be getting married" is a primary source. WashPost station "Celeb X's twitter has been used for X to pass along news and personal information faster than through his PR agent." would edge on secondary. --MASEM (t) 03:08, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
        • • No. The Washington Post is a secondary source; the tweet itself is primary assuming it's the person involved tweeting.Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
            • Wrong. Secondary sources require analysis and transformation of information; otherwise, if they are just repeating a primary source, they remain a primary source. This is why, for news and events, we expect analytic coverage of the event rather than only just rote reporting. --MASEM (t) 03:43, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
            • Also, specifically, the WashPost in the example above would be a third-party source, which does help with WP:V, but doesn't help with notability. --MASEM (t) 03:44, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
              • No. The Washington Post is almost never a tertiary source. And no, a secondary source reports from a primary source. It is third-party because it is not the first or second party in a communication. (however, its reporter might be the second)Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Just as Washington Post, a secondary source, weekly reports from soap operas, primary sources. Like soap operas, Washington Post reports primary sources, like Twitter activities and fiction. --George Ho (talk) 03:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

As a secondary source, they have editorial control over what they report from a primary source.Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:09, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Be aware: primary/secondary/tertiary is one way to classify a source, describing how itself is using other sources,, and first-party/third-party a completely separate way. The WashPost is a third-party (in that it is unrelated at all) to a celeb's twitter, no question. But if all that is being repeated in the WashPost is what is in the twitter with no further comment, that makes it a primary, third-party source. The thing to remember: the primary or secondary nature of WashPost (or any other source) will change depending on the topic and how they report it; we never say that every article WashPost ever publishes is always primary or always secondary. It's context dependent. Please review WP:PSTS for clarity on this. --MASEM (t) 04:11, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

As that says primary is created by the people involved not by others not involved. The Post is not the primary source. If someone speaks to you in person or writes a note that's the primary source; if someone else tells you what they said or wrote, that is secondary. Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:22, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

No, that's assuredly the "first party" source, but even a first party source can be secondary depending on the nature of the topic and method of presentation. --MASEM (t) 04:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The nature of the topic is someone else's communication, and the method of presentation is the paper's editorial control over telling you that information is something they want you to know about. It is secondary. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• I can't stand these articles for a pretty simple reason... 95% of what is written is pure trivia, while the useful 5% is already covered (or should be covered) on the subject's main article. They offer excessively fine detail on what is an incredibly small part of any celebrities person. Resolute 03:21, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I will add, however, that getting rid of them is about as likely as dumping the equally silly royal wedding dress articles. Excessive detail on trivial things is something the project will very likely contain until the servers are switched off. Resolute 03:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
    • What? Articles of wedding dresses worn by celebrity are historical and worth discussing due to royalty, value, and stuff, mergable or not. Of Twitter activities, on the other hand, are children of internet activities and may suffer from recentism. --George Ho (talk) 03:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Other viewpoints

• Okay, after all considerations, notability of these things are.... not easy to define. Nevertheless, another Manual of Style subpage about internet content is needed. Someone must focus more on that rather than focus on notability criteria on internet. MUST. AVOID. SAME. FATE. AS. WP:notability (fiction), as there is WP:manual of Style/Writing about fiction. --George Ho (talk) 01:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

No special guideline is needed, just the usual WP:GNG. Has anyone written a book about Lady Gaga's twitter account? Are there serious articles from reliable sources that survey the history, behavior, and influence of Lady Gaga's twitter account? I just took a quick look at Lady Gaga on Twitter, and there do appear to be quite a few articles cited, in legitimate newspapers, whose main topic is indeed Lady Gaga's twitter account. There is enough material for a substantial article, with no padding or gratuitous quotations or cherry-picking references. Seems like a slam dunk to me.

OK, now I just took a quick look at Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. It seems to be a little more focused on trivia (do we really need to know the exact second that the account was created? do we need a list of his venture-capital investments? technology-related characters that Kutcher plays?? that he advertises digital cameras???), but there seem to be plenty of serious articles that really have this Twitter account as their main topic. I haven't gone over the article carefully, but it appears that even if the non-salient fluff were pared away, there is still plenty of factual material to make an article. The basis for notability is WP:NOTINHERITED from Kutcher's celebrity, it's that this was the first Twitter account to reach 1,000,000 followers. We don't just have a bunch of miscellaneous press coverage, we have a clear explanation for why the account received so much press coverage, in the form of a main fact that has a lot of closely related facts surrounding it, which got covered because that main fact was so important. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we write encyclopedia articles about.

—Ben Kovitz (talk) 02:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Like fictional and nonfictional material, WP:IINFO applies to these types. Notability and referencing are less relevant than content itself. Kutcher account needs an analyst, as Suicide of Tyler Clementi and Sam and Diane have analysts, which I've already said in AFD of Kutcher. --George Ho (talk) 02:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Well said Ben Kovitz, the multiple angles the Kuthcher account has been covered in reliable sources -- from business, to communications, to philanthropy, to advertising, to media, to marketing, to (don't tell anyone) celebrity, etc. -- is why we write. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

...Umm... Shall we move this to WP:village pump (idea lab)? Well, there is no policy on exact accounts used by people; just X on Y policies and guidelines, which might be vague. --George Ho (talk) 19:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Depending on how this discussion goes, this might fall under existing policy (like WP:BLP) or guidelines (WP:BIO). It is something that needs addressing. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I think there's a wider discussion that needs to be had on forking out single aspects from BLPs. There was also the recent AfD for Personal life of Jennifer Lopez (and current Articles for deletion/Bennifer.) If we simply use the standard of "possible to cobble together enough news coverage to satisfy WP:GNG" there are almost endless aspects that could be broken out as separate articles for high profile celebrities. Siawase (talk) 20:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know for sure if the scope should be expanded to include general split off of BLPs - I'm not saying that the issues aren't related but I'm more worried on the current issue of this "On Twitter" articles which are starting to pop up. If this goes that way, then we should add it. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• I would have to agree with DGG here, that X on Twitter should be the exception rather than the rule, and only when it has the proper coverage that isn't fansite like, or no more than recent news. There may be a few exceptions, but in general, most X on Twitter articles are not encyclopedic for a host of reasons, particularly those listed in our policy WP:NOT. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 01:39, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I would even agree to that but not for DGG's reasoning that they need extra special scholarly sources and thus a new policy, but because most do not have notability, under current policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:16, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Let's translate this to other topics

Let's write similar articles, but about people who are not internet celebrities:

• Rossevelt on stamps. Did you know that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a stamp collector and made several designs for US stamps? And then he was depicted in several stamps. And you can find coverage in books.
• Goebbels on poetry. Did you know that Nazi propagand minister Joseph Goebbels wrote an autobiographic novel, two plays and several poems? And that he used poets to write propaganda? Yes, that side of Goebbels is covered in books

And so on and on. When a person is famous enough, articles about him start digressing about minor aspects of his life. By picking pieces here and there, you can write tomes about any minor aspect of a famous person. (see also Siawase's comment above) --Enric Naval (talk) 11:02, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

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