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

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.

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. In this 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.

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) 03:54, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that wording.

• "Please" isn't redundant, we are asking editors to behave in a way that helps the project stay within US law. That doesn't mean each and every editor worldwide is under compulsion of that law.
• Permission to copy can only come from the copyright holder, by definition. A website is not a legal person, so while it may document such permission it certainly doesn't grant it.
• Misplaced Pages policy guides the behaviour of editors to help keep the project legal, but can't grant such permission either.
• Either "copyrighted websites" or "other websites" is improperly narrow, missing all manner of offline sources. The problem behaviour is the insertion of copyrighted content without the permission of the copyright holder, irrespective of the mechanism of insertion or the medium of the source. It is just as bad (and in some ways more problematic) to type in verbatim text from a printed work.

LeadSongDog come howl! 13:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Ummm.... I'm not sure what you are trying to say. It seems like like the comment critiques the existing not the proposed message. (This has happened several times, so I've stricken the old version. "Please" is in neither the new nor the old version. Regarding your last bullet point: the existing text that I'm not proposing to change covers non-websites - "All text that you did not write yourself, except brief excerpts, must be available under terms consistent with Misplaced Pages'sTerms of Use before you submit it.". I don't think the claims you're making in your second and third bullet points are distinctions that don't have support in law, or aren't relevant.--Elvey (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

So, precisely speaking, there seldom or never such a thing as a "copyrighted website", it is the material within it that is/may be copyrighted. (?) North8000 (talk) 13:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Hardly ever is a website under just one copyright, usually there are a great many for different parts of the site.

Apropos "copyrighted websites" - again, it seems like the comment critiques the existing not the proposed message. --Elvey (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The website itself is not the publisher or owner of the site either. This site, en.wikipedia.org is not the Wikimedia Foundation which publishes it, and its content copyrights are held in very small chunks by millions of contributors, mostly under pseudonyms recorded in page histories. Similarly, NYTimes.com is not The New York Times Company, but in any case much of its content originates with other papers, distributed by wire agencies such as the Associated Press and Reuters. It is, for all practical purposes, impossible to be certain who owns the copyright to something we read whether it is on a website or on dead trees. The responsible action, then, is to entirely refrain from verbatim copying unless we know the source is in the public domain. Usually that knowledge is by dint of its age. So if we were to revise the line, I'd suggest simply "Please do not add copied content unless it is in the public domain." (The preceding post is copyright LeadSongDog, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0) LeadSongDog come howl! 17:57, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Unsorted Error: Invalid RfC category specified: |Policy When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

• I have to agree with the original poster. So often I see people here on Misplaced Pages using "copyrighted" to mean "copyrighted and not available under a license that is compatible with our own license" — we need to remember that copyright is the only thing that makes our licenses at all binding. Of course, if we added "without permission" after "copyrighted websites", I'd be happy with that, because a Misplaced Pages-compatible license is precisely the kind of permission that we need. Nyttend (talk) 02:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Again, apropos "copyrighted websites" , it seems like the comment refers to the existing not the proposed message. --Elvey (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Same here; what Nyttend said.  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:18, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

• 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)

A Challenge To The Idea Of Notability In Music

I think your criteria of what's important in music is wrong and is too heavily dependent on commercial considerations.

I think there should be space for musicians that have created a body of work that's already on MusicBrainz perhaps. I strongly feel that less financially successful... less famous... but serious musicians, like my uncle 'Rockie Charlies Merrick', President of Soul... who was known globally...but on a small scale for his live appearances over 40 years... that his recorded work and the work of other serious musicians like him... should be searchable and preserved.

I feel working musicians with verifiable bodies of work should be able to catalogue their works in the Wiki system so they're not lost to future interested persons/researchers.

In my uncle's case, he built up a significant following over 40 years in the industry. I feel that Wiki is missing out on the chance to preserve important things in the interest of the easy way to make a music catalogue. How is it that a teen-ager who did nothing more than sing to a backing track quite badly could be 'notable' but he isn't?

This was him

I rediscovered his work last year during a song-a-day-for-a-year project that I successfully completed. I'm here in this discussion room today because I had intended to share my experiences and what I'd learned after spending all of 2011 writing songs everyday and exploring social media from the point-of-view of a novice... learning by doing. Although I studied Music in university, I knew nothing of how to the music industry actually functions, nor did I have experience in social media or anything remotely IT related.

A technical writer that I know wrote a summation of my work and an editor friend of mine was going to submit it on my behalf, when I decided I didn't want to do it that way. My project was non-commercial and after reading your guidelines, I felt unsure of myself. I felt that according to Wiki, I needed to sell lots of copies of my music be notable, but my project wasn't the least bit commercial at the time. And now, regardless of what happens once the songs are remixed and sold in albums or placed by publishing companies, I can't help but feel there's something wrong with the value placed on money and awards.

This is me

In my travels, I've discovered world music that may never be cash-cows for the corporate entities which dominate the music industry and most 'significant' music charts. I re-discovered the music of my uncle, who was overlooked for the 'big-time' in his life, but made some incredible Blues music that should not be lost.

There can still be strict guidelines on self promotion, but I feel there's something wrong with the way you judge what's important and what's not important in music.

I told my friend that I would find it hurtful, after studying music to the post-graduate level... to have my work rejected on it's own merit, but to have these same songs accepted once I or someone acting on my behalf sold enough copies of some of them. That's how your system looks to me... closed to anyone that hasn't sold enough copies of their work or won an award that's mainly (not always) based on how many units were sold.

I know this seems like a personal question, but since music is my life, I guess is personal. I think any owner of original copyrighted material should be able to catalogue the facts about their work and connect their Wiki page as composer/songwriter...to their MusicBrainz page. Maybe even sync the two pages with updates?

I just wonder if you might not be able to find a better and more fair way to make musical works searchable regardless of the commercial side of things.

My name is Rhonda Merrick and I wrote this (I admit...long) email to say that I disagree with the way the Wiki community seems to decide what's important and what isn't in music. I'm asking you as a community to find a more fair way to be inclusive rather than exclusionary based on commercial success. I welcome ideas and discussion on this issue.

Thank you. Rhondamerrick (talk) 12:23, 26 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhondamerrick (talk • contribs) 12:14, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

While the poster may not understand how major of a role "coverage in sources" carries both at the music notability guideline, and in the other route (wp:notability) available, I think that the message asking for self-review is a good one relative to the other parts of the music SNG. North8000 (talk) 12:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)The notability guidelines for music are essentially an offshoot of the main notability guideline - that is to say, if something has been covered in other sources, we should probably host an article about it. The reason the music guidelines focus largely on commercial success is because commercial success gets written about elsewhere; if an artist has created a platinum-selling album or charted highly on a country's national chart, chances are very good that they have received coverage in reliable sources for doing so. At the end of the day, Misplaced Pages reports on what other sources say; to do otherwise would be original research. To take your uncle as an example; he may not have been as famous as Justin Bieber, but if people out there have written about him (and that Nola.com source is a good start), we can write an article about him too. Feel free to start one; it looks to me as if there are plenty of sources to provide material. Yunshui 雲‍水 12:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I do however, Strongly Oppose the suggestion that musicians be encouraged to edit their own articles. MusicBrainz, whilst a good idea, is user-generated content and thus not suitable as a source - so why link it? - and suggesting they link to other pages about themselves is just an invitation for floods of linkspam. For every Rockie Charles, there's a spotty teenager with a record deck in his bedroom, who's determined to make a Misplaced Pages page on his alias "DJ Wickedfly Pixieknuckles" to promote his latest mixtape. That is not what we're here for. Yunshui 雲‍水 12:36, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Rhonda: The Music notability guideline is supposed to be subserviant to general notability policy. If your uncle doesn't meet the music notability guideline, then maybe he meets general notability policy? The fact that a newspaper wrote a full-length article about him, Rockie Charles, the 'President of Soul,' dies at age 67, suggests that he may be notable. Do you have any other newspaper articles about your uncle? Were any books (not self-published) written about him or covered him? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:42, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

BTW, that newspaper article says that Jeff Hannusch interviewed Rockie Charles for his book, "The Soul of New Orleans". If Rockie Charles is covered in that book, that's evidence that he might meet the general notability policy. I also found another newspaper article about him: Rockie Charles, 'President of Soul,' shines in the Blues Tent A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I think A Quest For Knowledge's point regarding the General Notability Guidelines is very important and oft overlooked. So to emphasize, if a subject meets the General Notability Guidelines, the special notability guidelines do not matter, they exist primarily to provide advice on what subjects are likely to meet the general guidelines. Monty₈₄₅ 16:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

As per WP:N, notability means that a topic is "worthy of notice"<full stop>  Unscintillating (talk) 11:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Yunshi, thank you for replying. I think this is a bit too difficult for me. You found more information than I did. I was never told anything about his professional life, I found out about him just last year. But I also found a company that will assemble a wiki on our behalf for a fee if they feel everything is documented properly. I think it would be really terrible to submit my uncle's page and have it rejected as spam because I don't know what I'm doing. As for mine, well... there's a couple magazine editors that have been after me for months for an interview... I could do those and let someone who understands your world deal with this stuff.

I feel uncomfortable here. When I read "...A Quest For Knowledge's point regarding the General Notability Guidelines is very important and oft overlooked. So to emphasize, if a subject meets the General Notability Guidelines, the special notability guidelines do not matter, they exist primarily to provide advice on what subjects are likely to meet the general guidelines."... I was scared to press the 'edit' button and took 20 minutes looking for 'reply', my first thought was OMG, I don't speak Borg.

So I'll leave you with this. About three days ago, I read that Samantha Brick wrote in the newspaper that Mary Beard was called 'too ugly to be on TV'. First, I cried. It was like a slap in the face and she wasn't even talking to me. But the very public, personal attack was horrifying. Then I vented on and offline. Finally, I wrote a highly inappropriate song that won't ever shared in public because it's an attack and that would be on level with AA Gill and Ms. Brick. Finally, I sat down and wrote 'Ode To Mary Beard'. I sent Mary a tweet, informing her of the song and she left a lovely message on my youtube profile. That's what music is to me... it tells a story.

I was able to do that for Mary because I did it hundreds of times last year. Thousands and thousands of people followed the project and the songs and the stories all through 2011 and beyond. This year, we've started remixing and will be churning out albums for several years to come...I would imagine that someone will eventually clue in Wiki... probably when I've sold enough copies of something. But you as a community, despite your obvious intelligence which is so far beyond me... I literally don't understand more than half of what you mean... you as a community of observers... will have missed the whole point of what my music is really all about.

I say this because I am just a small example of the richness in popular music that's completely overlooked. I guess I'm saying, you don't really represent popular music in your cyber-book. But I don't know how to fix it either. Thank you again for taking a minute to listen and try to help me understand. I don't really get it, but you probably don't understand me either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhondamerrick (talk • contribs) 18:47, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

You don't understand how we work here. We treat music the way we do everything else. We don't try to pick and choose what "matters" or "deserves to be better known" or is "worthy". We simply allow articles about topics that have been discussed repeatedly by reliable sources. Most good musicians, preachers, union leaders, nurses, cops, librarians and teachers never get to be notable enough for articles in an encyclopedia; whereas many mass murderers do. That's how notability works. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:53, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

One problem Misplaced Pages editors seem to have is that national news publishers seem to get a priority over local news sources. I think this is essentially a parallel to what the opening editor is describing when they say "commercial considerations". We require notability, but I think many people's impression is that being covered in the local town paper, or area gazette simply isn't enough. That's an inherent bias that decides that a lot of material isn't "worthy". But is that in line with the mission of Misplaced Pages? Not entirely sure. -- Avanu (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

If local sourcing is the only sourcing for a particular person, it should be viewed with skepticism. See WP:IS ("A newspaper in a small town might write about ... the everyday activities of local citizens. Indiscriminate sources are poor indicators of notability and should be considered skeptically when determining due weight.").--Bbb23 (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Which is exactly the point, I think. If a person is known well in a town of 2000 but pretty much not outside of that, it's likely they wouldn't even get a passing mention in a city of 100,000. Obviously there's no way to KNOW what WOULD happen, but it's a good judge of "is it worthwhile to document on Misplaced Pages" I think. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:59, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Editors whose sigs have notes are not permitted to express an opinion on notability. See WP:SIGNOTE and WP:BADPUN.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Time to make WP:BRD policy?

There have been two cases recently that have troubled me, and I am sure I am not imagining the gradual erosion of consensus editing. I am not a particularly aggressive editor, but I seem to find myself being dragged into more and more edit wars over the last few months. As an example there was a case at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:71.239.128.44_reported_by_User:Betty_Logan_.28Result:_31h.29 where I was threatened with a block for "tag-team" reverting. In that case, myself and three other editors reverted unsourced SPA edits against a consensus to the article. The problems were clearly discussed on the talk page but the SPA failed to address them; after semi-protection was turned down we continually reverted this editor (even after he was blocked and returned) but ended up being instructed not to make any more reverts to the article ourselves. I am not here to question the admin's interpretation of rules in this case, I freely admit I reverted a few times, but I wasn't really supplied with satisfactory guidance i.e. dispute resolution takes us to a consensus (which we have), it doesn't enforce it; I mean the SPA was reported and SemiP requested, and the situation just wasn't dealt with, which resulted in the continuous reverting. There has also been a more troubling case involving User:Armbrust, which resulted in a week long block and his retirement—I am actually pretty worried about him because he divulged very personal information which seems to indicate he is in a vulnerable state. He severely broke 3rr though, the admin was correct to block him, but in both my case and that of Armbrust we are ending up with situations where hard-working editors are facing blocks, and I am seeing this more and more with decent editors.

The main problem here is that editors are coming along with a total disregard for consensus editing, the defensive editor takes actions to protect the integrity of the article and both editors end up receiving a block. The net effect which we are seeing more and more of is that more productive editors are copping for blocks in trying to retain the integrity of the encyclopedia. It seems to me WP:BRD is a good ethos that if everyone was forced to follow, then Misplaced Pages would generally just be a nicer place to be. If BRD was a policy, we wouldn't have lost a brilliant editor like Armbrust. I'm quite happy to obtain a consensus for my edits, but similarly I don't like seeing my work trashed if I've spent an evening on it. Does anyone?

My proposal (or something to this effect) is to make BRD an active policy, applied to any type of edit that 3RR would apply to. BRD effectively dictates that you need a consensus to initiate changes to the articles. So if someone reverts you, then reverting the edit that reverts you should result in an automatic block. BRD insists that if someone reverts you then you should start a discussion on the talk page; a policy could add if the reverter doesn't respond in 24 hours then you are free to restore the edit, if they do and still challenge it then the policy would insist on a third opinion before you restore the edit. After effectively been barred from taking action to remove unsourced SPA edits from an article, and the loss of a great editor like Armbrust which will be severely detrimental to the Snooker Project (he designs and implements all our templates) I am becoming increasingly tired of pretty much entering a combat zone on virtually every article. I think enforcement of BRD as a policy would just make Misplaced Pages a more pleasant place to be. I think the bottom line is that people join because they like to contribute, and they leave because they hate to see their work trashed, so a move over to true "consensus" editing would be a good thing. Betty Logan (talk) 20:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Involved Editor - Regarding the IP incident, I ended up filing an AIV filing before the 3RR filing was processed, which resulted in a 31h block and appears to have settled the problem. In part this was because the last time I filed a 3RR request I was explicitly told by the closing admin that I could have gotten faster results by going through AIV. I don't think it was appropriate for Betty to receive a warning in this instance as multiple editors were reverting a single editor who was not engaging in dialog before reinstituting their contested edits. I reviewed the 3RR filing and I didn't see anything to suggest I had opened myself up to a possible block, but if so then I think it would have been appropriate if I'd been warned directly (i.e. on my Talk page) as well. It also would have been an act of good faith, and I think an argument could be made that no editor should face a 3RR-related block unless they have been explicitly warned beforehand.

BRD policy break 1

I don't think I'd support making BRD a formal policy, but I certainly think that Betty was operating in good faith and certainly not alone, and this may be a case where either the particular clerk involved needs to be told that their actions were unwarranted, or 3RR handling should be reviwed so that we don't have editors operating in good faith and not unilaterally facing blocks for allegedly being disruptive by reverting a clearly disruptive and unilateral editor. Doniago (talk) 20:47, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I really appreciate the support Doniago, but ultimately the admin can only interpret policy as he sees it I guess, so I don't really think he should be put under the cosh for a judgment call, he didn't actually block anyone. If not enforcing BRD, I would like to see a better framework in which a consensus can easily be restored without putting editors in the block dock. Another recent case involved a newly minted editor attempting to split an FA rated article (without any discussion) which I reverted twice, and still managed to a get a block warning for that. Betty Logan (talk) 21:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

BRD is a good concept to keep in mind whenever edit warring starts to arise, and action can be taken by the community when an editor flagrantly violates it repeatedly, but it is a terrible concept to try to implement as a policy since basically it can be thrown so much around whenever a disagreement comes up. It is effectively one strike, and it would harm new and experienced editors alike against those that like to wikilawyer. --MASEM (t) 20:54, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, please. Way overdue, in my opinion. Bold edits are fine, reverts are fine, but when people insist on forcing their bold edit in against consensus is when things go off the rails. 28bytes (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• I think a better solution would be to shift the edit warring policy to carve out an exception when one side of the war has made all reasonable attempts to engage in discussion and where the other side has completely ignored those attempts. If you have provided detailed edit summaries on each revert that also direct to a place to discuss, started a talk page conversation, and left the other editor a talk page message, and other editors have agreed with the reversion, until the other editor responds some how, its clear who is following the spirit of the edit warring rule. Monty₈₄₅ 21:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

That would certainly be a step in the right direction. If BRD is the type of editing framework we actually want then sanctions should be less severe against those editors that are making a serious attempt to apply it? Betty Logan (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• Conditional support. There are those who've used BRD as a way of justifying nearly any revert and then saying discussion needs to occur, even when there's no actual objection to the original edit, ie. saying that any show of boldness is reason for reverting, and all edits should be discussed first (believe it or not, I've come up against this more than once, and have had to describe the spirit of BRD to opponents). I'd like it to become policy that a revert of a revert is unacceptable without discussion except in specific cases (the actual spirit of BRD), but the little loophole it provides for arguing down boldness should also explicitly be closed within the policy if it is promoted. Equazcion 21:26, 26 Apr 2012 (UTC)

I certainly don't want to reduce boldness of the first edit, it's actually my favorite part of the guideline. The problem really is the revert of the revert (sorry if this doesn't come across well in my proposal)—after all it is not the bold edit that starts an edit war, and it is not the revert, it is the revert of the revert that breaks the BRD cycle. Betty Logan (talk) 21:47, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I've just returned to editing after a long break so am slightly hazy on the "rules" so i may be on the wrong track here. But I've always been puzzled why 3RR should trump BRD for articles with low editing traffic. Many articles have maybe only a couple of active editors at any one time. If the bold editor isn't prepared to D then, other than resorting to cumbersome/ineffective admin processes, the "preserver" of the existing consensus is always going to be the one at most risk of hitting the 3RR buffer first. DeCausa (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
• Very much support Often editors say that BRD is "not policy" and therefore their failure to discuss and multiple reverts are not against policy. BRD is in fact already policy, because you can't do things any other way without edit warring. It just needs the official seal. However, it should be made clear in BRD that it is not an excuse for reverting if there is no dispute concerning content. Also agree that there should be a time limit for discussion: if you revert someone, be ready to discuss. Policy has to be gaming-proof. B——C_ritical 21:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
• Absolutely not I believe that this is being brought up with the best of intentions, but the side effect of making BRD some sort of policy would be that most changes could be reverted with impunity. We already have enough trouble with ownership issues, there's no need to make them worse. Incidentally, this is a bit of a perennial proposal, and the use of either AN or the VP to try to implement this is not the best of ideas. This discussion should really be on Misplaced Pages talk:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, where similar proposals have failed to gain consensus for years now. There are several archived discussions that I encourage supporters to skim through as soon as possible.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The alternative is to allow "bold" editors to enforce their edits by warring them in up to 3RR. B——C_ritical 22:14, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• I believe this is part of a much larger problem of people dismissing sound reasoning in favour of the "official policy" seal of approval. BRD and also the MoS are based on reasoning, which means that anytime someone decides to do things differently, they need to have an overriding reasoning for that particular occasion (which may well exist). But instead of engaging in honest discussion and thereby being forced to explain their reasoning (which may as well not exist), many simply dismiss the rationales collected in the MoS and pages like BRD. Imho, the solution cannot be declaring all of those pages policy. The solution would be to elevate the status of sound reasoning and specifically require overriding rationales for any departure from the MoS or other pages. The best place to set that in stone would be IAR: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Misplaced Pages, ignore it, but be prepared to present the reasoning for your decisions. --213.168.72.198 (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, because we already have WP:EDITWAR and we don't need more than that. On the other hand, I would support the creation of a policy that mandated an instant, irrevokable, lifetime ban from all Wikimedia sites as soon as someone invokes the argument "It isn't a policy, so I don't have to follow it." That is the weakest defense of one's actions. Making this a policy will not change such behavior, but it will add to the confusing network of Misplaced Pages policies which we're allowed to ignore if it makes the encyclopedia better anyway. Seriously, if someone claims they don't need to discuss an edit which is in dispute because BRD isn't a policy, then they have no business at Misplaced Pages anyways, regardless of what this page is labeled. --Jayron32 22:19, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I very much agree with your sentiment, but let's be honest here: this has never been enforced, and most likely never will be in any meaningful way. Heck, with the direction things are going, the only remaining policies to be considered binding and properly enforced will soon be CIVIL and NPA. I'm an exopedian, but even I can clearly see that we as a community have never been further from reason-based sanity. Throwing people out for refusing to enter honest and open discussion of their edits sounds too good to be true. And unfortunately, it is. Pretty soon, even inquiring about an edit will be regarded as "harassment". You know it's true. --213.168.72.198 (talk) 22:27, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• Stongly oppose. I have no doubt of Betty's good faith. She is a good editor. I have been in situations such as this, but the answer is true collaboration and not just good faith or consensus. This is not a criticism of Betty, just a reminder that consensus changes and cannot always justify as a revert. The B part of BRD is bold editing and by applying BRD as policy and not just an essay suggestion you then remove the incentive to change consensus and edit boldly. It also become a "directive" which goes against the spirit of Misplaced Pages and number three of the Five pillars which states: "Misplaced Pages is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute. Respect copyright laws, and do not plagiarize sources. Non-free content is allowed under fair use, but strive to find free alternatives to any media or content that you wish to add to Misplaced Pages. Since all your contributions are freely licensed to the public, no editor owns any article; all of your contributions can and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed" That last part would have to be changed. Are we saying that we can no longer be merciless with our bold editing if we can justify them. Forget for the moment that many editors will ignore even logical and well thought out, to policy, arguments that go against what they want. This is a very important part of Misplaced Pages, and yes it can be ugly and can be intense but this is directing more than conduct, but personal behavior. Yes, there can be some very aggressive editors...and there are just as many passive aggresive editors and those that use Notice Boards as a regular routine in their edting behavior and conduct....BRD as policy will create such havoc as this site has never seen on notice boards. Its not a baby step. It's a drastic step and it's main aim itself is controling behavior. Directing it...not just guiding it.--Amadscientist (talk) 19:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

BRD policy break 2

Jayron, the problem with EDITWAR is that it just doesn't seem to work that well. If you look at the case I was involved in (four editors reverting a SPA that had previously been blocked and attempting to engage him in discussion), all five of use effectively "edit-warred" but circumstances for the reverts were radically different. One set of reverts represented a consensus, and were accompanied by attempts to engage the SPA, while the otehrs were a unilateral action making no attempt to address the policy concerns of their edit. And while 3RR is a bright red line, I've notice it being smudged a lot recently too, with a new mantra "three reverts is not a right". It seems to me that we want editors editing within the BRD framework, and I don't think the current guidelines actually complement that ethos. Even a small change to the 3RR rule, so that multilateral action backed by consensus would be permitted to revert an editor operating unilaterally would be a huge improvement. If the lone editor feels he is being gamed by a tag-team then he can always request a 3O or and RFC. Betty Logan (talk) 22:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

If the lone editor feels he is being gamed by a tag-team then he can always request a 3O or and RFC. -- Allowing tag-team reverts would make this despicable and already far too widespread practice completely impossible to counter -- especially for less than perfectly well-established users. No new user even knows about RFC, let alone has the time and patience to do that in order to defend an edit. You might as well deactivate IP editing and new registrations. DR is a farcically impossible obstacle course as it is, gamed to oblivion and beyond. All it takes is a healthy measure of intellectual dishonesty, and networking. Just goad the newbie into a violation of CIVIL and/or NPA, and you will never have to answer to any of their valid points. This is already the reality of how Misplaced Pages "works". --213.168.72.198 (talk) 22:46, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

People (meaning the general community) don't pay much attention to RFC's either, aside from the "big ones". How many people are aware of Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/All?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support. The event Betty's went through is the second time in less than a week (see Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive748#What are legitimate grounds for a precipitate block for edit warring.3F) where it looks as though admins looked only at the edit history of the articles before deciding on a course of action. I don't know which is more worrisome - deciding that edits reverting SPA POV pushers spread out over several days or weeks are a violation of the 3rr rule - or not examining the talk page to see that Misplaced Pages's guidelines about using discussion were being followed by the editors who are trying to protect the article. The attitude that one SPA account can edit against an established consensus is also troubling. There may be better solutions that come up from this discussion but until admins are willing to be more thorough in investigating edit conflicts making BRD policy is a good place to start. Ohms Law as you should well know Consensus can change and just because those of discussions of the past rejected it does no mean that it can't be discussed again. How are good editors of long standing supposed to protect themselves against lazy admins - or worse as in the case from the 20th - admins. Jayron the current EW policy is being poorly applied and isn;t protecting good faith editors. This problem Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Loss of more and more and more established editors and administrators can only get worse when long term editors are treated poorly in favor of SPA POV pushers. MarnetteD | Talk 22:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  That isn't a policy problem though, it's a behavior issue. Talk to the admins who are involved in these things.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:35, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  That doesn't do much good when the admins refuse to discuss it as was the case in the events of April 20th (especially when they go offline just after the block) or act like Betty did something wrong in the case that started this thread. Nobody is asking admins to be perfect but this trend of not being thorough is doing damage and editors need something to protect them. MarnetteD | Talk 22:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  True, it's a behavioral issue, but one that seems to persist. We could say it's something that requires further educating people as issues arise, but that means continually having to go through the same old arguments. The situation appears to be that people only respect actual policies, and right now the correct behavior isn't adequately described in policy. BRD represents the elaboration we need. I don't think it's unreasonable to include it as an extension of the edit warring policy, to illustrate what people need to do to adhere to policy in further detail, the same way RS could be said to extend V (as a crude example). Equazcion 22:42, 26 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  So, we go through the same old arguments. Big deal. That's better than the alternative. Incidentally, this is one of those "same old arguments" too, and I personally don't understand the continuous desire to halt discussion about these sorts of issues. Well, actually, I do understand it, I just don't think it's a good idea to follow through on that thinking.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  Well, being that they're the same, and they're old, and policies are meant to illustrate accepted practices so that they don't have to be continually described to people -- I think that's the reason. Equazcion 23:00, 26 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  Here's the thing though: a lot of policy already covers the topics that often come up. The "problem" is that the policy coverage doesn't match the personal views of the person who's trying to make a case (if they're even aware of the policy). Aside from that, policy doesn't really matter anyway, which is to say that it's not supposed to be legislation.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:12, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

  Sure, it's not supposed to be, but it is respected as such in the vast majority of situations. This argument (and many others here, I'm noticing) could be used to simply say no more policies should be created. Is that what the issue really is? Policy doesn't work and since people can abuse them we shouldn't be making them at all? I don't think this is logical. Policies DO work in most cases. There are people who abuse and ignore them, and those cases end up in the spotlight, but on the whole, they help avert most of the issues they're intended to. Equazcion 23:17, 26 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  I'll gladly say it outright: no new policies should be created. Unless something extraordinary happens, or something fundamental changes, I can't imagine anything new that could be policy. I also don't think that a vocal minority of people who want policy to be legislation (or noobs who assume that it is) should be a reason to actually make it into legislation. If we have to jump through hoops the make edits, then nobody will make edits at all. Which brings up a point: how in the world would a BRD policy be enforceable? Would people patrol Special:RecentChanges looking for reversions, or something? But, I agree with the fact that existing policy works. Adjusting policy due to the unusual "spotlight" circumstances such as the ones that prompted this proposal is generally a bad idea, in my opinion.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:04, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  This one's only in the spotlight because of this proposal. Edit warring, even if it ever gets to the EW noticeboard, is generally not, and that's where this would help -- the vast numbers of times these situations occur in everyday editing. BRD doesn't constitute jumping through hoops -- it's basically already what we all have to do. There would be no special patrol required, any more than an NPA patrol is. It would just be something constructive editors can point to in a dispute. Equazcion 00:10, 27 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  It's possible that I'm wrong, but the main motivation for this proposal seems to be two similar AN/I incidents that have occurred in the last couple of days. I agree that BRD doesn't constitude jumping through hoops, but that's largely because it's not policy. If you read it through the prism of it being policy, it would clearly entail quite a bit of jumping though hoops (which is why it's current and historical content emphasizes the fact that it's not appropriate in all situations).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:28, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:BRD is advice directed toward editors seeking to follow best practices and minimize problems. Such individuals typically are inclined to abide by its spirit (regardless of how the page is tagged), so making it a policy wouldn't change their behavior. It would, however, invite exploitation by parties more interested in rules-lawyering than in peaceful collaboration.
  Disruptive editing (including edit warring) already is proscribed (and can result in blocks when necessary). If WP:EW isn't being adequately enforced, the solution is to take steps to ensure that it is, not to transform a helpful rule of thumb into a blunt instrument with which to accost fellow editors. —David Levy 22:49, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

My proposal is just a starting point David. Have you any suggestions for how EW may be adapted to encourage editing more in the style of what we would like to see. If you take my case, four editors reverting a SPA that was adding unsourced POV material, being prohibited from reverting the SPA despite a consensus and despite engaging the SPA in discussion on the talk page, do you think blocking any of the editors reverting the SPA is really justified? If not, what alteration would you make so that admins don't administer the rule to that effect? Betty Logan (talk) 23:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Whether the issue you describe reflects flaws at WP:EW or merely the policy's misapplication is something that should be discussed. At this juncture, I have no solution to suggest, but I'm interested in working toward one. —David Levy 23:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

BRD policy break 3

• Oppose. Well meaning, but introduces a second mover advantage that would actually aid POV warriors and editors with page ownership issues in many cases. Resolute 22:54, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It amounts to taking a blunt object or pointy stick and turning it into a magic sword for people to yield the moment a bold edit is made. It puts a weapon in the hands of the "owner" of articles.

• Oppose – Why in the hell do we need yet another policy to bolster an already existing policy (Misplaced Pages:Edit warring) that is sorely in need of either total reassessment and overhaul? Fix the current edit warring policy before introducing anything else. Also, as Masem said, it would only be another policy people will likely wikilawyer or abuse. --MuZemike 23:00, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you all not reading what we are writing? Or are you just ignoring it? The EW policy did not work in either case we have brought to this discussion as two editors who weren't edit warring were accused of it and one was blocked. Please give us a solution as to how you are going to prevent this. MarnetteD | Talk 23:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you read the message to which you responded? Resolute MuZemike explicitly acknowledged that Misplaced Pages:Edit warring is sorely in need of total reassessment and overhaul (i.e. that it's broken and should be fixed). Opposition to a proposed solution isn't tantamount to denial that a problem exists. —David Levy 23:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually I did and I was not responding to MuZemike's post. That is why I used the term you all rather than typing in his name. There have been several posts acting like our concerns are not worth considering. I can't help that my post came immediately after his anymore then I can help your misinterpretation of it. MarnetteD | Talk 23:35, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry about the confusion, but you indented your message as a reply to MuZemike (who explicitly referenced the policy to which you referred), so I'm not sure how you expected anyone to realize that he/she was excluded from "you all" (or, for that matter, that "all" didn't actually mean "all").

To which users were you referring? Who has stated that nothing should be done to address the concerns (as opposed to opining that the proposed change is not a good solution)? —David Levy 00:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

BTW Dave Resolute didn't make that edit that you think he did. Easy mistake to make though so don;t worry about it. MarnetteD | Talk 23:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I typed the wrong editor's name. (I've corrected that above.) —David Levy 00:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Also it is certainly preferable to keep SPA POV editors confined to the talk page rather than letting them do damage to an article and BRD does that. MarnetteD | Talk 23:09, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

...and those are just examples of a rather prominent problem. Equazcion 23:10, 26 Apr 2012 (UTC)

If a group of editors formulate a consensus for an article, and make genuine attempts to engage a unilateral editor in discussion which yields very little effect, then there should be some criteria in EW protecting them from potential blocks. An admin's discretion doesn't cut it, because discretion is actually a freedom to interpret the rules either way. EW as it stands reflects too little faith in editors to edit according to policy. If consensus is king, then itsurely trumps unilateral editing which is soemthing EW should account for. Betty Logan (talk) 23:36, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

So let's discuss improving WP:EW. —David Levy 00:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Basically EW really needs to be worded so that an article consensus isn't vulnerable to a SPA. An unilateral view cannot form a consensus (whether it is right or not), so the onus should be on the solo editor to either find someone who backs his position or to stop attempting to push through the same edit that has been rejected, either through his own volition or by a sanction. If someone supports his position then you can go down the dispute resolution route, but I don't see the point in wasting everyone's time by taking a SPA to DR when a regular editorial consensus on an article talk page can take care of it. If an admin feels that the SPA's case isn't being fairly heard, he can advise him on a course of action, but I don't think an admin should be able to administer blocks to a multilateral effort to enforce an article consensus against a SPA. Betty Logan (talk) 00:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose BRD itself says that it shouldn't be used in all cases, and that it's only likely to work in the hands of a skilled editor. If we label it as a policy, we're going to see people insist that it always be followed. In effect, we'd be imposing 0RR rules on all bold editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Which is what we should do, yes, that's the point: if you do a bold edit and get reverted, then discuss rather than just reverting again. OR ELSE, revise the definition of edit warring so that the person who reverted the first time is not edit warring when they revert a second time. B——C_ritical 23:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

0rr- Hmm that means no edit warring. Sounds good to me. MarnetteD | Talk 23:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

You don't understand why the indiscriminate enforcement of such a rule would cause problems?

Someone attempting to own an article would effectively be able to dictate that nothing be changed without discussion. —David Levy 00:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

We may as well enable Flagged Revisions.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:08, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

So the alternative is to let people edit war changes into articles? Give a good alternative rather than opposing this. B——C_ritical 00:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I (and others) already have: WP:EW. If it's broken, let's fix it. —David Levy 00:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I think !votes here should reflect specific opposition to BRD becoming policy, rather than a generic opposition to policy creation in general. "It would give people something new to wikilawyer" really just shows a lack of faith in the concept of policies to begin with. If you don't think policies work and creating new ones causes more harm than good, that's your prerogative I suppose, but I just want to shed some light on what such statements are really saying. Reiterating my comment from above, some people will ignore and abuse policies, and those are the cases that hit the spotlight. I'll be audacious enough to say that bureaucrats, checkusers, arbs, and other "higher-ups" will be used to dealing with the headaches those situations create, and will therefore be more inclined to want to avert those than the lower-level editing troubles most editors get into every day, where having BRD as policy would be a tremendous help. Policies generally do work, and while potential for abuse is a valid concern, that's far from all there is to consider here. We shouldn't be letting potential for abuse of policies in general scare us away from creating any new policies altogether. Equazcion 23:49, 26 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  We are citing specific ways that the proposed policy would be harmful. It isn't a matter of opening the door to loopholes. The intended effect, as described, would be problematic. —David Levy 00:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  David, I could be wrong but your opposition comment seems to only point to the potential for the abuse of new policies. Could you tell me which part was not? Equazcion 00:15, 27 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  No, I was very careful to not use the word "abuse". I referred to "exploitation" (because said behavior, while problematic, would fall under the policy's intended effect). You evidently overlooked my WP:OWN example (something already mentioned by others). As I noted, it isn't a loophole. Under the proposed policy, a user would be entitled to veto all changes to an article and dictate that they not be restored without discussion. —David Levy 00:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  What would you say should be done instead, in those situations? Another revert? Equazcion 00:49, 27 Apr 2012 (UTC)

  In most cases, probably not. My point isn't that BRD is bad or shouldn't be applied. It functions well as advice to bold editors, not a policy invoked against them.
  Under the current setup, reasonable objections lead to discussion. (And if they don't, further action can be taken.) Under the proposed setup, someone attempting to own an article would be entitled to effectively dictate that nothing be changed without discussion — something that few would attempt now (because they'd rightly be told that this is not BRD's intended effect).
  That's my objection. The proposed change would transform BRD from a helpful rule of thumb to harmful rule of law. I don't indiscriminately oppose the creation of new policies; I oppose the creation of this policy. —David Levy 01:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

That was so perfectly worded and expressed, I take my hat off to you David Levy. Thank you!--Amadscientist (talk) 20:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• So how could BRD be changed to address this concern, but also address the concerns of those wishing it to become policy? B——C_ritical 01:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  I don't know. If someone comes up with a way, I'll reconsider my position. (I don't believe that making BRD a policy is desirable, but I'll keep an open mind.) —David Levy 01:46, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  BRD specifically should not be policy, for reasons that myself and several others have specified.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm tired of getting the short end of the stick because other people are aggressive. How do you force someone to have a discussion instead of edit warring their changes into an article? Answer me that and I won't need to support BRD as policy. B——C_ritical 00:19, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  The answer has been provided: fix WP:EW (assuming that it's broken). —David Levy 00:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

So that's your answer? Hand waiving? I'm talking reality/practicality here. Let's hear your fix, then we will know if BRD shouldn't be policy. B——C_ritical 01:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

My recommendation, as stated above, is to discuss WP:EW's flaws and determine how best to eliminate them. As I wrote, "at this juncture, I have no solution to suggest, but I'm interested in working toward one." My inability to produce a magic fix doesn't strip me of the right to criticise proposals with which I disagree. "Let's hear your fix, then we will know if BRD shouldn't be policy" relies on the premise that an idea automatically is good unless and until a better one is presented, which simply isn't true. —David Levy 01:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

BRD policy break 4

• Support In fact replace WP:EW with this. Sure it will give the advantage to content creators over drive-by editors, but they should have the advantage anyway. Anything that encourages discussion sooner is a good thing in my opinion. AIRcorn (talk) 00:47, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  Shall we delete WP:OWN too? —David Levy 01:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  No. If this is a policy WP:EW would be redundant. However, WP:OWN would still he relevant. Probably even more so. AIRcorn (talk) 01:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  The proposed policy would create an entitlement to indiscriminately revert any and all undiscussed edits. How is this compatible with WP:OWN? —David Levy 02:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  The possibility of that (which I think is very low) is the reason we don't want to delete OWN and why I said it would be even more relevant. Continued disruption by demanding every change goes through you should result in some sort of sanction. AIRcorn (talk) 03:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  I disagree that the likelihood is low. I've come across many editors who would jump at the opportunity.
  My point is that the proposed policy is incompatible with WP:OWN. Reinstating a bold edit, no matter why it was reverted (not that we can read editors' minds), would "result in an automatic block".
  A user needn't preemptively threaten to revert any and all edits performed to the article without discussion. He/she might genuinely believe that his/her version is perfect and that most or all changes (even if examined on an individual basis) are bad. I've encountered this attitude on many occasions.
  In its current form, BRD relies on goodwill, which eventually is exhausted. (If someone is exhibiting ownership, others will be less inclined to extend the courtesy.) Therefore, the potential for disruptive exploitation, particularly as a matter of course, is highly limited. Editors know that they can't get away with knee-jerk reversions of every change with which they disagree, so they have incentive to seek out alternative solutions (such as compromise editing and discussion without reversion).
  Under the proposed policy, if someone dislikes a bold edit, he/she is unequivocally encouraged to revert it; this action is guaranteed to stand (pending the outcome of a mandatory discussion), so there's no incentive to do otherwise. —David Levy 04:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  For that matter, how does it "give the advantage to content creators over drive-by editors"? It seems to me that it gives the advantage to the drive-by reverter: Aircorn boldly adds something great; I, possibly out of serious ignorance, revert it—and Aircorn is unable to re-add the information without discussing it. With me, a person utterly failing to keep up with my watchlist and therefore not likely to respond promptly to his discussion efforts. Who has the power in that situation? I don't think it's the content creator. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  That hypothetical situation can go the other way too, where I add something crap and you have to jump through the 3RR hoops to get it put right. If you don't keep up with your watchlist and I gamed 3rr it is possible that I could keep my bad (possibly dangerous depending on the article) change in there for a long time. Dy definition the content creators are the ones who have put the original information in the articles so they get the "first move advantage". I would think most content creators would keep a close eye on there creations (you may be an exception). AIRcorn (talk) 03:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  The kind of "bad" edits which you're referring to do tend to create a lot of heat and light, but as frustrating as that can be it's not really a bad thing. We tend to do a pretty good job dealing with those situations.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  The "first move advantage" to which to refer sounds an awful lot like ownership. While that would be one side of the coin, I agree with WhatamIdoing that another, equally problematic side would favor drive-by reverters over the content creators whose interests you seek to protect.
  No one should be handed such an "advantage". WP:BRD works well as rule of thumb applied by conscientious editors when the circumstances dictate, not as a rule of law invoked against others. —David Levy 04:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I have seen far to many cases where BRD has been used to good effect by editors to enforce ownership of an article, forcing a reasonable change to the talk page the discussion of which is then filibustered out. Mtking 00:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

And your solution to this is edit warring. Not a good choice. B——C_ritical 01:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

If BRD is being invoked as a means of owning an article (probably a relatively infrequent occurrence now, but one that the proposed change would encourage), it's likely that the first reversion otherwise wouldn't take place. Only when we hand editors a license to indiscriminately revert any and all undiscussed edits will they feel entitled to do so. —David Levy 01:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

This is a legit concern and has to be addressed. Anyone got any idea what could be added to BRD so that making it policy would not promote OWNership? B——C_ritical 01:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Ownership is only a problem when someone fights to keep their version of an article against consensus. It is not a problem when defending an article you have had major input in against a change you disagree with applied by a single editor. BRD itself is not necessarily a problem for ownership, the problem arises if after the discussion part the owner still insists on there version despite consensus. All it does is force the person invoking the change to show consensus for it. This is surely much better than the back and forth reversions with increasingly heated edit summaries. AIRcorn (talk) 02:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Ownership is only a problem when someone fights to keep their version of an article against consensus.

No, that isn't the only circumstance in which it's a problem. Please see Misplaced Pages:Ownership of articles#Examples of ownership behavior.

"The editor might claim, whether openly or implicitly, the right to review any changes before they can be added to the article."

The proposed policy would create an entitlement to revert any and all changes that haven't been reviewed.

It is not a problem when defending an article you have had major input in against a change you disagree with applied by a single editor.

It's a problem when this is done indiscriminately (as the proposed policy would permit and encourage). Imagine having to obtain advance approval for each and every edit. Many users won't bother to go through the hassle, effectively affirming the invoking parties' ownership. ("I'm not allowed to change anything without discussion? Never mind. Have it your way.") —David Levy 02:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it would create an entitlement or encourage indiscriminate use. If it is gamed (and most policies here can be) then there should be sanctions taken against the individual. I also think you underestimate the majority of the editors here, most welcome improvements to articles on their watchlist. Currently if two people feel strongly about a point they are going to either revert war or ideally take it to the talk page. A policy encouraging them to take it to the talk page early in the piece is a good thing. AIRcorn (talk) 03:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it would create an entitlement or encourage indiscriminate use.

I disagree. I've encountered far too many owners (whose control was limited only by the absence of a policy like this one) to believe otherwise.

If it is gamed (and most policies here can be) then there should be sanctions taken against the individual.

I agree that most policies can be gamed. My point is that the behavior that I describe wouldn't constitute gaming; it would fall under the explicit purpose of the proposed policy (to mandate that any contested bold edit not be restored without discussion). There are editors who genuinely believe that their versions of articles are perfect and that most or all changes (even if examined on an individual basis) are bad. Under the current setup, they know that they can't get away with knee-jerk reversions of every change with which they disagree (because BRD isn't mandatory, so others aren't required to tolerate such behavior), so they have incentive to seek out alternative solutions (such as compromise editing and discussion without reversion).

Under the proposed policy, if someone dislikes a bold edit, he/she is unequivocally encouraged to revert it; this action is guaranteed to stand (pending the outcome of a mandatory discussion), so there's no incentive not to.

I also think you underestimate the majority of the editors here, most welcome improvements to articles on their watchlist.

No, I don't disagree with that. But it only takes one owner for the problem to arise.

Currently if two people feel strongly about a point they are going to either revert war or ideally take it to the talk page. A policy encouraging them to take it to the talk page early in the piece is a good thing.

And that's why we have WP:EW. If it's inadequate, let's improve it. —David Levy 04:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. WP:BRD is a bad advice (even as an essay) because it encourage edit warring. If someone was bold, this is not a reason for reverting his/her edit. Talk first, then make a compromise edit. Do not revert. My very best wishes (talk) 02:45, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What you're saying is that BOLD is bad advice. Do you honestly think every single edit should be discussed beforehand? Asking since I am regularly being reverted even on the (imho) least controversial of edits (e.g. straighforward formatting edits following clearcut MoS advice) and find myself having to subsequently explain the edit (i.e. "discuss with") the reverting editor. --195.14.222.182 (talk) 11:46, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

No, I am telling that to be BOLD ("B") is fine, but reverting prior to discussion ("R") is frequently not. In most cases this should be a "BDC" cycle: "Bold-Discuss-Compromise". My very best wishes (talk) 14:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I haven't seen BRD cited where the D doesn't happen virtually simultaneously with the R. The discussion is usually started by the reverter. On the other hand, asking someone to compromise after making a bold edit is a good way to empower SPA's to be able to insist on, and have their version of content represented over the more neutral version. ˜danjel  15:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

to be BOLD ("B") is fine, but reverting prior to discussion ("R") is frequently not -- "Frequently" meaning approximately half the time. In the other half of all cases, the edit is controversial enough to warrant prior discussion. The onus is really on all involved parties to recognize a need for and to engage in discussion as early as possible. Sometimes the editor who wants to make a change is the reasonable one and first enters discussion, sometimes it's the other editor. Whether or not a revert is warranted depends entirely on the edit itself. It all boils down to competence and honesty. The problem is that (short of an RfAr) it's next to impossible to call people out even on clearly dishonest behavior, let alone to even insinuate that they may not be perfectly neutral or competent. Thank the CIVIL brigade. --87.79.43.249 (talk) 16:39, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

@Danjel. I respectfully disagree. Making or not making revert ("R") makes enormous difference. Let's assume that I made a bold edit ("B") and someone reverted. After having quite a few disputes on this site, I would look at the nature of revert and in many cases simply stop editing this page. Sorry, but I usually do not want wasting my time in disputes with strongly opinionated people. However, if he/she simply asks why I made an edit, I would certainly respond. My very best wishes (talk) 01:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: The above-discussed WP:OWN issue isn't the only problem. WP:BRD works well as a rule of thumb, applied with common sense (as the circumstances dictate), not as a law to be followed to the letter.
  For example, suppose that someone reverts one of my edits due to a clear misunderstanding (made obvious by the edit summary). The spirit of BRD doesn't require me to initiate a pointless discussion about a nonexistent dispute. I'll simply restore my edit (being careful to explain the nature of the misunderstanding). If that editor (or another one) still objects to my edit (for a reason unrelated to a clear misunderstanding), that's when it makes sense to advance to the "D" stage.
  Under the proposed policy, the specific circumstances (and a common-sense interpretation thereof) would be irrelevant. My approach would "result in an automatic block". —David Levy 02:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• BRD has a few issues and as someone else said, it isn't really that great of advice. It isn't very specific and it is, in reality, an aplication of a cycle that many editors don't seem to understand the actual starting point, mid point and end points of. The B for Bold is either ignored or centered on as a "conduct issue" especially if the bold edit removes content...even with a proper summary citing policy, guidelines and discussion you are encouraged in parts of BRD to "Do not accept "Policy" , "consensus", or "procedure" as valid reasons for a revert: These sometimes get worn in on consensus-based wikis. You are disagreeing, that is okay. Do not back off immediately..." This seems to be taken out of context in many instances where BRD is invoked and itself creates aggresive behavior. It actually says "Expect strong resistance—even hostility: Deliberately getting people to revert or respond to you feels a bit like disruption. Trying to change things certainly does, even when it's an obvious change for the better! If you do this cycle perfectly, most people will grudgingly accept you. Do it less than perfectly, and they will certainly be mad at you. Do it wrong, and they will hate your guts. And this refers to just making the bold edit to begin with. Sorry, but anyone who says they are tired of aggressive editors and behavior and is invoking and using BRD is following step by step advice on how to be an agressive editor. BRD uses tactics. Hardly a relaxing behavior. The D part, in implementation is very difficult as BRD simply says at one point "The talk page is open to all editors, not just bold ones. The first person to start a discussion is the person who is best following BRD". First one wins! Woohoo! "I win! I got here first so I'm to policy and you're not....." That isn't very precise. It actually seems reckless as a policy.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:33, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

BRD policy break 5

• Oppose - While BRD is the way to go, having that in place as a policy is not going to cause newcomers and POV warriors to suddenly start following the policy, it's just going to create multiple hundreds of potential violators every day for the drama zombies to work themselves in a tizzy over at ANI. Leave bad enough alone, build use of BRD by acting that way and encouraging emulation. Carrite (talk) 04:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose because as it stands it can be misunderstood and misapplied as advice to revert someone who has been WP:Bold. WP:Consensus, which is a policy, already has a section Misplaced Pages:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_editing which approaches the same situation through the consensus model, and explains that you reach consensus through editing first. It is only when there is disagreement that we need to have the discussion. I am uncomfortable when anyone reverts the work of an established editor in good standing unless there has been discussion regarding the edit, and the consensus is that the edit is wrong but the editor refuses to change it. Reverts should only be for vandalism. It would be more in line with the ethos of co-operative and collegiate editing if Bold Revert Discuss was changed to Bold Discuss Revert. Enshrining in policy that it is OK to revert the good faith and positive edits of an established editor in good standing without discussion is Not A Good Thing. SilkTork 08:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose CONSENSUS, 3RR/1RR and EW are the policies. BRD is a friendly guidance towards obtaining the former, and avoiding the latter 3. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, EW didn't work in our case did it? Editors that have formulated a consensus on the article talk page should be allowed to restore that consensus against a SPA. After a detailed analysis of the problem edits on the talk page, efforts to engage the SPA in discussion, a semi-protection request and two reports to the 3rr/ew board, your judgment was to bar us from making further reversions and to take the case to dispute resolution. Dispute resolution is there to form a consensus, not to enforce one. We have the consensus we just need it enforced, and editors should be able to restore a consensus against a SPA without being blocked. On a site grounded in consensus editing, consensus editing should be enforced over unilateral editing. Betty Logan (talk) 11:40, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support Too often, the reversion cycle ends up being BRRtRD (Be Bold, Revert, Revert the Revert, Discuss) rather than BRD. The way edit warriors (who aren't actually vandalising or breaching NPOV or other seem to work, it ends up being like this

User 1: "boldly" edits, adding problematic content;

User 2: Reverts, starts discussion on talk page;

User 1: Ignores (or arrogantly writes off comments on) talk page, reverts;

User 2: Reverts, pointedly directs to talk page;

User 1: Ignores talk page, reverts;

User 2: Reverts again, desperate plea for User 1 to go to talk page, goes for help at concerned wikiprojects;

User 1: Ignores all efforts to collaborate, reverts;

At this point, if User 2 reverts again, then s/he is in breach of WP:3RR. User 1 effectively games the system without any sanction. An accusation of gaming the system probably wouldn't pass for WP:AGF reasons, or otherwise. There are some very experienced editors who use this to effectively insist on their version, without having to talk to those who are beneath them.

While acknowledging that it might need to be reworked slightly, WP:BRD can stop this from happening. Once invoked, it should cut off the reversion cycle at the point where it is invoked. ˜danjel  11:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

...by establishing the right to veto any and all bold changes with which one disagrees (pending a mandatory discussion), thereby removing the incentive to seek an alternative form of resolution (such as compromise or permitting the edit to stand while the discussion occurs). —David Levy 13:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per Resolute. I too have seen "BRD" used as an excuse by POV pushers or editors with ownership issues on articles. BRD is an essay because it encourages editors to discuss bold changes. Making it policy would, as Resolute, give the second editor an advantage, and to an extent, even enable them to block edits from being added to an article. I appreciate the proposers intentions, but I think this may do more harm than good. Steven Zhang 11:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, at least if the "D" part of "BRD" entails "waiting for consensus to be established with the help of outside input" (which seemed to be implied by the proposer's wording above). Any rule about dispute resolution that forces people to rely on outside attention from neutral parties, in whatever form (be it 3O, noticeboards or whatever) is doomed to failure. Getting outside attention is wonderful advice and may work well for those who choose to do it, but it would very quickly stop being good advice as soon as everybody was forced to do it all the time. The reason is simple: outside attention is a scarce good, and there will never be enough of it to go round for everybody. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:30, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Very much that, and on the other hand there's already an abundance of tag-teaming and meatpuppetry among established "crews" of owners. I shudder to think how many times a tag-team would get away with e.g. having a likeminded colleague respond to a 3O. One just has to look at articles that are currently de facto owned to see the unacceptable reality of BRD as policy, which rapidly turns into a game of revert any edit and discuss the editor off the talk page or off Misplaced Pages entirely, if at all possible. How many established editors have been reprimanded, let alone blocked or banned, for gaming the system, for ignoring the spirit of P&G in this way? None, or maybe one? If P&G reflects actual behavior by (far too many) Wikipedians, we might as well declare BRD policy and replace consensus with the advice to game the system. --195.14.222.182 (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm been on both sides of the fence, and it is frustrating when you are a solitary editor and the other side makes no valid effort to engage in discussion. However, whether you are up against a genuine mulitlateral effort or a tag-team the net outcome is the same, you still need a consensus to install your edits. If you are unable to find anyone at all to support your stance then it probably is not a legitimate stance. Betty Logan (talk) 12:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not saying that I believe BRD should be adopted as policy. However, by the same token, I don't think I'm seeing anything from the Oppose side that I don't think could be addressed by modifying BRD to address Oppose's concerns. It seems obvious to me that adopting BRD as policy would certainly not be intended to allow any editor to summarily revert any changes to an article, and I would think any use of BRD in such a heavy-handed manner could be considered disruptive and treated accordingly (especially if such treatment was spread across multiple articles). Are there aspects of Oppose's concerns that could not be encoded into the policy? If so, which, and why not? If the primary thrust of Oppose's arguments is problems with BRD as it currently stands, I don't see anything wrong with at least attempting to change BRD accordingly. Just my two cents. Doniago (talk) 12:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

  The entire point of the proposal, as I understand it, it to make BRD mandatory. Disagree with a bold edit? Go ahead and revert it, and the other party must discuss the matter instead of undoing the reversion (with the latter "result in an automatic block").
  Certainly, the blind reversion of literally every edit to a page (including typo fixes) wouldn't be tolerated. But if someone genuinely disagrees with most or all non-trivial changes to an article, how is it possible to draw a line that doesn't defeat this proposal's purpose?
  Additionally, please see my comment from 2:56 (UTC) for an example of a problem unrelated to WP:OWN.
  If we somehow stipulate that BRD isn't always applicable, how are we left with something materially different from (let alone better than) what we have now?
  (Given the fact that you seek to stimulate discussion, not to promote a particular outcome, these questions aren't directed specifically toward you.) —David Levy 13:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• SPA exemption – The proposal clearly isn't going to fly, but at the same time we shouldn't pretend that EW rules can't be improved either. We could add an exception to the 3rr/ew rule such that editors restoring an article consensus against a SPA are exempt from sanctions i.e. we just treat it along the same lines of the current vandalism exemption. Betty Logan (talk) 13:01, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What about established SPAs? --195.14.222.182 (talk) 13:41, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Unilateral editing doesn't trump a consensus. If the SPA is established he should seek out someone to support his view, and then it is a matter for dispute resolution. Betty Logan (talk) 13:49, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Successful networking is a hallmark of virtually all established editors, including established SPAs. They just claim "consensus". Heck, some of them manage to paint the opposition as being SPAs and edit warriors -- which they are just "bravely countering". Needless to say, any attempt of addressing such situations is doomed to fail because friends will be friends, no matter what. Maybe I've been too deep down the rabbit hole to have any illusions anymore, but there's no doubt in my mind that any policy reform proposal that might actually be effective in such situations will never be adopted. The status quo is double standard galore, and intellectual dishonesty is the catalyst. There's no formulaic way of countering that. My view is admittedly bleak, but we will have to accept the reality that established groups of people can push their POV virtually unhindered unless there's another, equally established group of people challenging them. It all boils down to the sum total of "wikipower" assembled behind a certain POV. --195.14.222.182 (talk) 14:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't actually dispute that networking can sometimes subvert the ultimate goals of neutality, but if no-one supports your view your edits will never stick anyway, regardless of the process. Betty Logan (talk) 14:19, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

There are too many too easy ways around that as long as "no-one" means no established editors. A large number of people may share the same opinion regarding the encyclopedic validity of certain content, but they have no chance of countering the established POV e.g. as long as they don't happen to be on Misplaced Pages during the same period. As long as there are no neutral and established observers willing to intervene on behalf of actual neutrality and honest discussion, individual challengers are easy to take down one by one. I've seen it happen far too often without any ramifications, even in the long run. What we really need is a content-focused analog to ArbCom, with the authority to make binding decisions regarding content. But the community doesn't have the resources for that. --195.14.222.182 (talk) 14:33, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone has asserted that there's no room for improvement at WP:EW, but the correct forum in which to discuss potential changes to the policy is WT:EW. —David Levy 13:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

So what do you suggest? This proposal clearly isn't going to pass in any form, so do you recommend closing it and starting a fresh proposal at EW? I don't want to go over there and then be accused of forum shopping. Betty Logan (talk) 13:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

That wouldn't constitute forum shopping (in my view), but I don't recommend that you jump straight into another concrete proposal (which asks users to pass judgement on an idea that might not have been adequately fleshed out and compared with alternatives).

I suggest that you initiate an open-ended discussion, with the goal of identifying the policy's problem(s) and arriving at one or more solutions. —David Levy 14:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

How do you distinguish an "SPA" from a newbie making bold edits? Such an exemption could easily turn into a license to bite. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I would say it is difficult since the two are possibly the same at the start; lots of editors start on Misplaced Pages with a specific purpose. However, even in that case I would say the multilateral effort to restore a clear consensus still shouldn't be vulnerable to sanctions, because a unilateral view shouldn't be able to overturn a consensus, so I would prefer to see the disciplinary framework reflect that. I don't think it would make BITE any more of an issue than it already is, since that is more about an editor's attitude to another editor, rather than an editing decision. If an editor's response is so unreasonable that it violates BITE then an admin could still issue sanctions on those grounds. Betty Logan (talk) 15:30, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Power will lie in the hands of the reverter and that's not necessarily a good thing. It'll also force every bold editor to go into a cycle of dispute resolution as the only way of dealing with an entrenched 'owner' editor and we need less of that sort of thing, not more. In the majority of cases that I've seen, D does follow B and R and I think this is unnecessary. --regentspark (comment) 13:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you think of proposed revision to 3RR/ew directly above? Betty Logan (talk) 13:37, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Hey Betty, I affirm you are describing a problem that requires better handling, namely that it's hard to define former consensus in an edit war. My solution if it looks like I face 3RR brinksmanship is to go slow, bring in additional editors of any stripe, and try other versions with each edit (entire cutback, demotion to footnote, tagging, etc.). If you get to the 3RR board it's usually too late because it's not usually easy to tell who's got consensus: in fact in an edit war I would think there is no consensus by definition. Not sure what would go forward in terms of policy to make it happen, but I have no problem with you taking it to the 3RR talk page. JJB 22:22, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose "BRD" is just sort of way of saying "go ahead, give it a try, but if people oppose you, the other processes will apply". And "other processes" is an immense range of policies and processes. Fine if you want to just clarify that BRD is just that, but trying to define the process would require writing a book which would be a duplication of all of those other policies and mechanisms. North8000 (talk) 14:05, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose We have a policy against edit warring. If that policy needs to be fixed, discuss it and fix it. It may very well be that EW could be improved by concepts from BRD, but keep it in the existing policy.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Like others, too often I've seen WP:BRD used as a means to exercise WP:OWN-ership over articles. BRD requires two good faith editors to work. If either editor is working in poor faith, it is a license to lock up articles in never-ending "discussion" or keep it under the eye of WP:NINJAs. --RA (talk) 22:19, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. It seems just wrong that BRD should become policy by any method other than BRD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:00, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Surprised to see opposition to this. I support this, accepting that there's not a consensus for making it policy at this time. But I'm interested to see the discussion continue. If BRD isn't the best practice for handling a disputed edit, I'd like to know what a better practice is, so we can encourage that. (IMO, it will still be some version of BRD.) Shooterwalker (talk) 02:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • BRD is under no threat as excellent advice on best practice. This discussion is about policy taggery, which stipulate minimum standards. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't know if we were reading the same comments here Smokey Joe, but there are some excellent arguments and points that BRD is indeed not as excellent a bit of advice to give.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:32, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
      • I think most of the problem is that some don't read the whole thing, although maybe that means the advice is not well worded. The other common problem seems to be no more than the BRD fails to solve otherwise intractable problems. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Weak oppose BRD is fine advice, but I think the back and forth in this discussion speaks to how chaotic a full embrace of it as policy could be. North8000 put it well. --BDD (talk) 17:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I rather like BRD as a guideline, but I think making it policy is missing the real problem. That guideline is really just a supplement to existing policies such as WP:CONSENSUS, which insists consensus through editing should always be the first resort. Unfortunately, many editors, either out of laziness or a tendentious attitude, think WP:BRD means you can revert anything and then force endless discussion. In fact, BRD encourages bold edits to try and meet the objections raised in discussion as soon as a day after discussion begins. Perhaps what we should really consider is bringing this essay or this one up to the level of a policy so that there is no confusion about when it is ok to revert and when it is not ok to revert.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

  This makes sense to me. Jojalozzo 18:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Edit warring is inevitable, and introducing additional mechanical rules like this isn't going to help. Having endless rules and restrictions (about when you can and can't edit or revert) doesn't encourage debate about article content, it encourages wikilawyering. Issues about content should obviously be solved through consensus and discussion, but as already mentioned, making this policy isn't going to encourage consensus and moderation but may well do the opposite. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose Doesn't really fix the problem in the long run. Really, I don't see a need for this policy to pass. Nice presentation and I get the idea of it. ĐARKJEDI10 21:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• While I'm not sure I would support this as "policy", I do think that this should be at least listed as a "guideline". (Maybe someone could/should start a new proposal?) While I understand the concerns above, policy and guidelines reflect common practice, and WP:BRD has long standing support as common practice. The above concerns that some think that initial discussion could/should start before the initial R (revert) step of BRD are interesting, however, I think that's debateable, and is something that could be suggested as an option on the BRD page itself. The whole point of WP:BOLD (which this stems from) is that it itself stems from WP:IAR. So a bit of "case-by-case basis" would seem to come with the territory. - jc37 04:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. As many other editors have made clear, this will be misapplied to revert editor who has been bold in editing. And as Colapeninsula states, "introducing additional mechanical rules like this isn't going to help," and "having endless rules and restrictions is indeed counterproductive. Neutrality 03:52, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - People here might be interested in a developing discussion at WT:BRD#BRD is just one method?. Equazcion 03:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
• Soft oppose: BRD was introduced to me by a banned sock. Not knowing better, I tried to work with him but found the process frustrating. BRD is excellent when there are two calm, upfront editors, as it says. The "Quickstart guide" is new to me and I don't know that it's extraordinarily helpful ("start a new discussion AND put your edit back in the article"?!). It also says "BRD is not a policy" for a reason. It's a tool that, when understood, can advance discussion; but it does not apply to all situations any more than any other tool. Maybe make WP:BOLD policy first! JJB 22:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:BRD issues

There has been a good deal of discussion on the subject of the essay, and in some cases it has been pointed out that WP:BRD has been used as a pointy stick to poke relentlessly at other editors, insisting that they adhere to it, complaining to admin when it is not being applied and even demanding all editors use this application as a requirement. I wonder if many of the issues of BRD can't be dealt with or addressed in the opposit direction of proposing it as policy...but perhaps discussing it as it pertains to issues of WP:OWNS, WP:DISRUPT, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. I think the community needs to take a closer look at the essay in regards to Misplaced Pages:Tendentious editing and it's prose and text as too aggresively geared and while detailed in instruction in some areas of B and R, it is less specific in regards to the D part, leaving many editors who apply the very word of BRD (pun intended...BRD is the word! :D) to believe they are mirroring the behavior they percieve as aggressive and stalling discussion and consensus. In its current form, it could be argued that WP:BRD makes collaboration more difficult.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:05, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Main Page: "Misplaced Pages languages" section

Require secondary coverage for In Popular Culture/Trivia sections

I don't know if this is already policy or not (probably is), but I thought it was best to just hash this out definitively here and get it added officially to one of the policy or guideline pages.

I'm starting this section because of a discussion on Guy Fieri's talk page about the addition of an In Popular Culture section fact from a short parody in a webcomic. I believe that, since anyone can make a website and say something about any subject (even if it is a popular website, like MSPA is), we should require the In Popular Culture fact to be mentioned in a secondary reliable source, like a news article. That would, at minimum, establish the importance of the fact in relation to the subject. So, in short:

Proposal: All facts stated in In Popular Culture or Trivia sections in articles should be referenced to a independent reliable source, such as a news article.

I'm open to alternative suggestions on how to proceed here. Silverseren 01:54, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• I think this is a Good Idea. It would help keep these list down to relevent items if the specific pop culture reference was itself referenced. Thus, if Family Guy mentions Guy Fieri, we don't need to say so at Misplaced Pages, unless another reliable source discusses the Family Guy reference specifically. Dig it. --Jayron32 01:58, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah and, more often than not, for popular shows like Family Guy, they'll be some sort of compilation/commentary book made later that will mention the reference and we can use that as a source, so it's not like this is making it so no such references can be included in an article. This is just making a bottom line for including them, so we don't get every reference anyone in the world has ever made on their blog put into articles. Silverseren 02:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• I concur with the seren on this one. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• This policy already exists: Misplaced Pages:"In popular culture" content. The relevant part of that states Although some references may be plainly verified by primary sources, this does not demonstrate the significance of the reference. Furthermore, when the primary source in question only presents the reference, interpretation of this may constitute original research where the reference itself is ambiguous. If a cultural reference is genuinely significant it should be possible to find a reliable secondary source that supports that judgment. Betty Logan (talk) 02:09, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• That's an essay though, so it's not really policy of anything. I would like to include a sentence (or even a part of a sentence tying it in with something else) in one of the actual policies or guidelines to make it truly official. Silverseren 02:13, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Well I think that essay would make a good basis for a policy, but in the interim maybe WP:WEIGHT applies here? Anyone can pay homage to a piece of work, but if no-one publishes any commentary on it then its significance is open to question. Betty Logan (talk) 02:24, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• I think that this is more or less understood already. Most anything that could be said on this is already covered by "verifiability" and "identifying reliable sources". I don't think that an explicit rule is needed... it's just content like anything else. Challenge it by removing it (or simply questioning it), just like anything else. What makes "in popular culture" or "trivia" special (aside from it's obviously... er, trivial nature). Besides, anyone interested in this topic should probably go through the archives here, as this has been discussed quite a bit in the past.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:27, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah, well, i'm having to deal with this. :/ Silverseren 02:34, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, I agree with you that anything that's unreferenced in these sections should probably be removed (or internally linked, in the case of names ). I've gone through and cleaned up a bunch of them over the years. You can't keep people from adding to them, but the only things that "stick" once challenged, are the truly notable entries anyway. It's kind of a rough process, but it's somewhat effective.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I too have run into problems with this (see Talk:Self-reference#Discussion per WP:BRD about the "In popular culture" section and lower section). It can't even be claimed that the person opposing the use of secondary sources is inexperience. AIRcorn (talk) 01:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Personally, I oppose anything that, either by design or collateral damage, legitimizes trivia sections. I have a personal rule: If it can fit nowhere else but a trivia section, then it isn't worth putting in the article. If it is worth putting in, it will fit somewhere in the prose proper. One entry in such a list begets another begets a third, each of less value than the last. Resolute 02:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• I also don't think they should exist at all, but I know that I wouldn't be able to get support for banning them altogether. It's been tried in the past and failed, so I instead settled for this as a method of restricting it to things that are at least somewhat encyclopedic. Silverseren 02:59, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• WP:TRIVIA seems to be the related guideline. Perhaps something could be added to that. 64.40.54.80 (talk) 08:33, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

  The problem with TRIVIA is that it contains sentences like: "It is always best to cite sources when adding new facts to a trivia section, or any other section." -- Which a determined user will invariably interpret as "citing sources isn't strictly necessary". --87.79.130.182 (talk) 11:25, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

  Well... it's not strictly necessary. It becomes necessary when material is challenged, though.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:38, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

  The problem is just what has to be sourced--that the use of a character of the same name in a later work refers to the character in an earlier work? People normally do not say so explicitly, because it is usually to obvious to say. It is not in such cases a question of OR and interpretation. The true instances in such sections where it is non-obvious are pretty rare.

  A problem here is also that the sources we use are much too limited--there are a considerable number of books on popular culture--most of them are mainly in large libraries and that means for practical purposes they are inaccessible to most people working on them. they are also very hard of intellectual access--despite the occasional usefulness of Google Books, it is not really practical to try to source an individual use--it can amount to a research project of its own. (The method that is most effective is to take one such book or article, and use its examples to source as much as one possibly can throughout Misplaced Pages. *:::I propose instead a rule that reflects our actual practice: A primary reference when reasonably obvious is sufficient to source popular culture uses, but secondary references in addition are highly desirable.' DGG' ( talk ) 15:56, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

  That seems to match up with what I've always done.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:06, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

  That's grossly oversimplifying matters in an indiscriminately inclusionist fashion. Items that would only fit into a popculture/trivia section need a secondary source to verify their relevance for the topic, not just to verify the content of the info itself. Unfortunately, WP:DUE exclusively addresses the problem of fringe or minority viewpoints and nothing else. It's almost like the editors who wrote DUE are making Misplaced Pages their battleground. Ah, Misplaced Pages. --87.79.211.105 (talk) 18:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

As one of the people who was attempting to have the pop culture reference placed on the page, I too think that this is a good idea and will support it. --108.65.189.25 (talk) 18:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• The problem that I see with this is that some types of information worthy of being mentioned as popular culture may not fit into the niches covered by news sources and may therefore be rejected. Therefore, it would make sense to require news coverage for general culture phenomena or similar things that would be covered by regular articles. However, for internet sources (although it might apply in other situations), a specific instance of a general phenomenon or the source of a phenomenon would both be citable as a valid source for that specific instance of the phenomenon. This would require that the instance either be the original source of something popular or a part of something popular (such as what originally started this discussion), popular being defined in both cases as news coverage of the general phenomenon or main popular thing. For example, something on part of the official MSPA website or something said the author, aka an official source, would be considered notable as MSPA has been covered by news sources, but something MSPA-related from some other source would require separate coverage by news sources to be considered notable. --72.74.134.38 (talk) 18:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
• support. WP:V is a baseline policy, and should be applied uniformly. Ironholds (talk) 06:54, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that changing a relatively common practice in Misplaced Pages for the sake of proving the victor in an argument is exceptionally poor form, though I merit you for notifying me that this discussion was happening. I think that this is logically wrong, so I will save any arguments about the length and mess dealing with retroactively instating this for another person.

I made a decent enough argument on the Guy Fieri Talk Page, so I'm gonna basically just copy/paste it here:

"Let's look at the practice of different Popular Culture sections on Misplaced Pages: The Hindenburg Disaster, Oberon, The Columbine High School Massacre, and a good deal of the listings on the Wiki about Adolf Hitler are placed without citation. This is not due to poor recording. Items placed within Popular Culture, Historical References, and Modern Culture sections are self-evident. They are factual, as displayed by their placement within the existence of the medium, and not necessarily accurate representations of the person, object, or event as they stand.

"Where much of the encyclopedia relies on a truth built, not on hearsay, but on an accumulation of facts which, when held against a certain standard, have a certain value of "truth", as per the perception of society at large, Popular Culture sections are different. Take this issue of Guy Fieri. Now, ((the original argument suggests)) that some "secondary reliable source" needs to exist to post data. This is not so. Say that the personal website, Twitter account, or some form of direct communication with the actual Guy Fieri made a specific, self-evident statement. Let's pretend Guy Fieri said on his personal blog that his real name was "Man Fieri". While ((one)) might not be able to alter certain parts of the post (such as the "born as" name) without further data, you could certainly update the Wiki to include that he publicly announced that his real name as "Man Fieri" without having some "secondary reliable source".

"This is an issue involving perception layers. If Guy Fieri made a statement about himself, that statement is self-evident, and can directly influence the encyclopedic dialogue involving his personal perception about himself, and the way he directly addresses it. In Popular Culture sections, it is no longer taking a view from Guy Fieri, and looking outward. Instead the perception revolves around external entities and their perception of Guy Fieri. The things that can directly affect this perception layer are facts which are self-evident. In this case, the issue is that MSPA has factually used Guy Fieri, albeit absurdly, as character in the Homestuck universe. The direct sentiment is that some external entity (the author of MSPA) has perceived the topic element (Guy Fieri) in an abstract way, and the artistic representation that come from that perception is as described in the medium of the external entity (the comic, Homestuck). The fact that this happened is self-evident. Re-stated simply: The inclusion of Guy Fieri by the artist Andrew Hussie in the MSPA Comic: Homestuck is factual, evidenced by the direct link to the comic."

What I will add on to amend this copy/paste (besides small html modifications) is that the way that the population artistically expresses a subject is often as important- if not moreso- as the subject itself. What the patchwork argument over this issue seems to be is over an absence of notability, rather than reliability. As explained above, reliability is not an issue. As for notability, it's more complicated, and certainly less grounded in direct connections to overarching Wikimedia rulings on the subject. However, since the topic is approached for a trivial section, it downplays the necessity for absolute measures of notability, leaving any absolute rulings by a single person, or even a small collection of people, to be biased (if their only attachment to their position is based on a measure of notability). What I suggest for a solution, ultimately, is to not make any changes to the current Wikimedia policy on Popular Culture/Historical References/Trivia sections. 8472 (talk) 07:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

since the topic is approached for a trivial section, it downplays the necessity for absolute measures of notability -- No, you are downplaying the necessity for absolute measures of notability. Information that is accurately placed under a heading of "Trivia" (or the bowdlerized variant "In popular culture") needs to be verifiable as being relevant to accurate encyclopedic coverage of the topic as discussed in secondary sources. Any trivia item that cannot be verified as being relevant (i.e. discussed in reliable secondary sources) should be removed with extreme prejudice. --195.14.204.137 (talk) 13:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

There are no absolute measures of notability for any article, because categorizations are not made out of absolute packages. Relevance is not verifiable. Contentious expressions like "removed with extreme prejudice" highlight the biased nature of such a response.

It is relatively easy to draw a subject to itself, and the image that seems 'relevant'. What individuals, media groups, cultures... do to interact with these images is much less simple to confine. If you explore the Popular Culture/Historical References/Trivia sections as listed above, you should be able to recognize the encyclopedic value of these sections as they are currently presented. If you cannot, or are unwilling to recognize the popular representations of things such as Adolf Hitler, then you are severely limiting Misplaced Pages to a very specific, and frankly fairly irrelevant spot in the minds of its users. 8472 (talk) 21:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Um, do you really mean a "secondary" source? Because most news articles are primary sources; see WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Perhaps an independent source would be adequate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Good point, I changed the proposal. Silverseren 21:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"Primary" is not another way to spell "bad"... I think this part of that page spells it out well enough. Just because the source is primary, does not mean that it is wrong to use it. It just limits the extent of what it can be used for. I think, by definition, trivial facts are a limited extent of what primary data can be used for. I do not see the need for an independent source for the acknowledgment of primary information of the existence of trivial facts. 8472 (talk) 22:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

It is the very point that the facts are trivial that they need an independent source to give them enough importance for inclusion. Otherwise, trivial facts would themselves violate undue weight because of their inherent triviality. Silverseren 00:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think an independent source is a good idea. An independent, secondary non-self-published source would be best, especially when the subject has zillions of references (imagine a list of pop culture references to, say, Cancer, Richard Nixon, or Coca-cola), but I think an independent source would be adequate for typical subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm working on an essay, User:Masem/Trainspotting that addresses this matter. Basically, yes, even though most pop culture bits can meet WP:V, it enters into indiscriminate info territory, and better to rely on third-party sourcing to assert what pop culture/trivia is appropriate. --MASEM (t) 00:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support Unreferenced (or self-referenced) pop culture and trivia sections encourage indiscriminate addition of further items. Secondary sources are a well understood standard to show notability and are an easy way to have some form of threshold on theses sections. AIRcorn (talk) 01:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That is absurd. Using multiple sources to determine legitimacy, neutrality, and (in some cases) reliability makes sense. No singular perception can offer an honest truth- you end up leveraging the topic between multiple viewpoints to create that level of truth, so that the topic is not blemished by preference. Since you can observe that each viewpoint is going to be biased by definition, the measurement is stable between media outlets.

However, using secondary viewpoints to determine notability is impossible. Notability cannot be achieved by leveraging between multiple sources, as each source is going to have its own notability value. Which one is more notable, Misplaced Pages, or Fox News? A Geocities page, or an official fan website? If you rely exclusively on major media organizations, then most of the information on Misplaced Pages is not notable, except through accepted generalizations about what things "matter", based on personal and cultural biases.

I submitted a link to the Guy Fieri board about the existence of a possible citation from theMSPA Wiki. It's a Wiki article that references the reference, independent of the comic or the author. If this is not sufficient to display the "independent source to give enough importance", then I could send you . If THIS is not notable enough, then you're going to have to explain who owns the rights to make something notable. Is it a news conglomerate? Is it a corporate website? Frankly, the existence of the Guy Fieri page in general doesn't seem notable to me. He's a guy who cooks on the televisions. I know a few who actually have a pretty significant sway over cultural values- Alton Brown, Rachael Ray... Who exactly gets to decide that the man deserves an equal share of Misplaced Pages as them? Or as Frank Sinatra or Mickey Mouse?

There is no absolute method of determining notability for any article. Notability isn't a scientific measurement, it isn't measured with the computation of logic, it can't be facilitated by a specific ruling or guiding gesture. It's perception-based. Subjective. Adding on red tape will just slow the process of adding information, not assist in the betterment of articles. This ruling would delete almost every Popular Culture section I've seen on Misplaced Pages, chasing a metric which doesn't have a definite value. You would lose much of the cultural irony and confusion over persons such as Adolf Hitler. Misplaced Pages would be less capable for showing the colorful cultures that perceive topic items with this rule alteration, and would be weaker for it. 8472 (talk) 02:36, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Um, we determine the notability of subjects by considering multiple sources every hour of the day. That is the whole purpose of WP:AFD. "Notability" means "Misplaced Pages should have a separate, stand-alone article on that subject".

What you're talking about is WP:DUE weight, and that, too, is something that we do every hour of the day, by combining and comparing the content of multiple sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Um, what you linked me to is not connecting to the major argument that I'm making. I can understand where the confusion is, though. I understand that there are methods to go about determining notability. However, it bases itself off of a number of things which are not absolute. Consensus, which uses cultural bias, and Misplaced Pages norms to determine notability. It is a method of creating a means for describing notability, but it doesn't actually have the power to create the worth of the article. And, while I'm discussing WP:DUE, what I am doing is showing that measuring notability cannot be done using this logical setup. Legitimacy can be portioned out by weighing the notability of certain resources, and confirming and contrasting against other resources... But notability cannot be measured the same way, since each has a unique notability from one another. 8472 (talk) 21:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

When I read your last two sentences, here's what I understand you to be saying:
"Legitimacy can be portioned out by weighing whether or not certain resources qualify for having a separate, stand-alone article about the resources, and confirming and contrasting against other resources... But whether a subject should have a separate, stand-alone Misplaced Pages article about it cannot be measured the same way, since each has a unique question of whether a subject should have a separate, stand-alone Misplaced Pages article about it from one another."
Do you want to try again, using words that aren't wikijargon? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

When one goes in with "here's what I understand you saying", it becomes negated when they conclude their input with "Do you want to try again?"

Though you paraphrased me in a way that would make me look ridiculous, you essentially caught what I'm trying to say. Measures of reliability can use the notability integer to posit certain weight to the legitimacy and neutrality of a fact. Measures of notability cannot use the notability integer to posit certain weight to the notability of a certain resource. 8472 (talk) 03:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Supermarket tabloids like The National Enquirer are almot always WP:Notable. They are not WP:Reliable for almost anything. Ditto for the hundreds of hoaxes (e.g., The Archko Volume) and pseudoscientific books that have been published and have garnered attention.

On the flip side, very few peer-reviewed journal articles are themselves notable. Most textbooks aren't really notable (for lack of independent reporting). But these are highly reliable sources. Whether a source is notable really has nothing to do with whether it is reliable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That's true, and not true at the very same time. Reliability relates to the notion of the description of a subject being accurately depicted. Notability relates to the notion that the subject or its description are "worthwhile". A notable news organization will trump a less notable news organization if they are of the same reliability.

The problem is, that notability is not a scientifically discernible statistic. Reliable information from a number of less notable sources are not going to be able to suggest notability for a subject, so really the means of this argument are to utilize traditionally notable resources to act as gatekeepers of "worth". 8472 (talk) 02:14, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

No, if your two news organizations "are of the same reliability", then those two sources are equally reliable, by definition.

Notability does not require notable sources. You have built a circular argument here: you are requiring that something (sources) already be accepted as notable before you can have anything be accepted as notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• there is no clear boundary on what is indiscriminate. the use by a later work of an earlier work or character is not indiscriminate if both works are notable . Even more so, it is out of these relationships and reuses that the nature of culture has always been developed. Fortunately, if the right kind of sources are looked for, secondary sourcing about this will be available: it's not newspaper reviews that do this, but academic studies -- it what literary history, film history, popular culture studies, and similar fields are all about. It's been unfortunate that most of the people interested in these topics here aren't familiar with them (the best of all at it, was Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles, before he was forced out by the popular culture minimalists. His assumed manner here was truly irritating, but the real objection to him was that he was too effective at finding sources. There are others almost equally good, such as Col.W,, who arouse the same dislike for the same reason. Its not that the minimalists don't want unsourced material--they don't want the material, because they think its fundamental unworthy--in my opinion, an attitude that betrays their lack of understanding of the humanities & the fact so uncomfortable to naïve fans, that the field can be usefully actually studied). DGG ( talk ) 03:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The problem with LGRdC's style that extends to others working in the area is that they add the connection first, and find the sources later. While it is not contentious information, nor otherwise anything immediately damaging to the work which would otherwise require removal of the info until a source is found, this has the impact of other editors picking up the same style - but often without the source seeking followup. These sections are extremely easy to grow like kuzdu, so if they aren't limited to start, it becomes hard when someone actually does start trimming down and get contested as to why they are being removed. Its why asking for sources to back up such sections in articles from the start keeps them trim though allows for appropriate growth when sources are discovered. --MASEM (t) 13:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Another thing to consider is that the article that sparked this discussion, Guy Fieri, the trivia that was being inserted, while meant to be a parody, could still be easily seen as defamatory and not all that appropriate to be included (calling Fieri "the third and final antichrist"). I think such an insertion needs an independent source covering its use far more than normal trivia does, just because of its content. Silverseren 17:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
      • I'm not entirely sure that's necessary for Misplaced Pages to judge. Some people find the modern uses of Hitler, or the Columbine Massacre offensive, but that doesn't negate the importance of those modern applications. The fact exists, and it is up for the researcher to judge the moral implications. Misplaced Pages provides access to issues for a researcher to judge. Are you suggesting that Misplaced Pages should work to censor things as well? 8472 (talk) 00:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
        • Actually, it's very much for us to judge, per the WP:BLP policy. Now, i'm generally the guy on the inclusion side of BLP issues, but that's only in relation to names, birth dates, and statements made by the subject themselves. I drawn the line at statements made by others that can easily fall within the realm of defamation. Such things need to be well sources before they can be included. Silverseren 00:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
          • This isn't defamation. It's the absurd consideration of a pop culture icon in a manifest imagery by an external culture. In the interest of obliterating this overarching policy-change expression, I won't get into this here. You're suggesting that all popular culture sections should be renovated because your incapacity to reach consensus on a specific argument, and then proving this by referencing specifics of that argument in this argument. If what you say about WP:BLP should be believed, then it is already explained in that policy, and irrelevant to this policy-change suggestion. If, instead, what you're intending to do is to gain further support for a specific argument that you're incapable of succeeding in independently on, then may I suggest to this argument that you stop furthering this policy-change, and deal with the other argument separately? 8472 (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• OpposeSupport The various policies already cover trivia, it is not as though secondary sources aren't required everywhere else as well. If anything the place in the policies that needs to be emphasised and changed a little is putting a bit into WP:DUE to emphasize relevance to the topic. In particular to say something like that just because Lisa Simpson plays a saxophone that of itself is not something relevant to the saxophone article. Something abut saxophones would be needed to make it relevant. Dmcq (talk) 08:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree entirely that DUE is problematic in that (i) it is our only bit of policy addressing relative relevance, and (ii) as part of NPOV it (naturally) focuses solely on viewpoints, not on the general issue of relative relevance. What we need is a policy that addresses the general issue of due weight apart from just viewpoints, but that would have to happen outside of NPOV. --195.14.206.226 (talk) 15:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually secondary sources are not required everywhere else. If notability for an article is established any reliable source can be used to support content. AIRcorn (talk) 05:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I see what you're saying. That a secondary source is required which says Marge Simpson has blue hair rather than just observing the blue hair in the series because that's a primary source. I'd agree with that. Will change to support even though weight or original research also covers that sort of thing as it may not be so obvious as what I was thinking of Dmcq (talk) 08:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

+1 to Dmcq for displaying how absurd this logic is.8472 (talk) 12:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support but believe that if it has had a significant impact then it it should be termed to read significant coverage in reliable sources to avoid one-off mentions in limited audience publications.
  ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 23:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

rationalizing/rationalising -ize -ise suffixes in articles

I don't mean to cause great controversy, but I am wondering about a guideline to encourage -ize endings for English words that both the OED and Philippines/American English use -ize and depreciate -ise for only those words where -ize is used by both. Where the OED and American usage of -ise and -ize spellings do not match (analyse, analyze) the current policy would remain in effect. This would unify the spellings for many words and is not culturally biased as evidenced by OED endorsement. It also is more logical in terms of etymology. Again where the OED and current American English words differ either could be used as is now. This would only effect words in which they are in agreement. Thoughts? EdwinHJ | Talk 15:54, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose If we enforce whatever is common to both the OED and American English it would imply our support for just two variants of English. Currently we tolerate any version of English provided the article is consistent. ϢereSpielChequers 16:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The OED is rather old fashioned in this area, ise is quite common in Commonwealth English, and there would be howls of protest if this proposed change to guidelines was made and bots were to implement it. -- PBS (talk) 17:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose In fact, -ise is the normal suffix in UK English. The usage preferred by the OED in this case is famous for not corresponding with UK norms. Bluap (talk) 14:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

BizProd

Following on from our experiences with BLPprod I would like to propose a BizProd for new articles on businesses.

As for why we should be discussing this now. A lobby group for paid editors has published a somewhat flawed report dissing Misplaced Pages and Wikipedians, and the whole issue of COI and paid editing is somewhat topical. Whilst I normally consider myself one of the more inclusionist members of the community, I'd concede that we have an unusual situation re business related topics, and that a more deletionist approach might be helpful. In my view:

1. The ratio of volunteers whose hobby it is to write about business to hired hands operating covertly is probably not as healthy for Misplaced Pages on general business issues as it would be for hill forts, household pets or hurricanes.
2. Some businesses have annoyed people, and I suspect that articles on businesses in general get more hostile unbalanced editing than do articles on extinct megafauna, Meteor showers or mathematical formulae.
3. There are areas where our coverage is, or aims to be, comprehensive, and there are areas where we merely cover the most notable. with crinoids, cathedrals and corsairs this doesn't bring up a fairness issue. But with business it does. If we only create articles for the "main players" in a market then we are potentially giving them an advantage over smaller or newer rivals, especially if those articles emphasise the positive.

It would be fair and reasonable to respond to the existence of covert paid editing in business related articles by upping our minimum requirement for referencing new articles on businesses. So following on from the sticky prods we introduced for BLPs, we could introduce a BizProd; Any article created after 1st June 2012 where the subject is a currently trading commercial business needs at least one independent Reliable Source. For the avoidance of doubt, sports teams, musical groups, charities and cultural institutions are not subject to this form of deletion This would be a tougher and simpler standard than for BLPs, but that reflects the reality that some of these authors are actually paid to edit, and if our rules clearly state that they must be able to cite a reliable source such as a newspaper then it is reasonable to expect them to do so. It doesn't directly address the fairness issue, but IMHO there is more of a responsibility on the community to keep business articles neutral than there is for articles on waterways or wrestlers, and requiring a reliable source is a step in the right direction.

Like the BLPprod, valid ones should only be removed if the article receives a reference, and otherwise they'd be deleted after ten days. ϢereSpielChequers 16:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support if and only if a BLP policy for companies is created, which I also support. Silverseren 17:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm seeing the connection. BLP already applies to information about identifiable living people anywhere on the project and that includes articles about companies. Or are you suggesting that companies be protected in the same way as people? If so that is quite tangential to this suggestion and would I hope be quite contentious. ϢereSpielChequers 18:30, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Because companies are directly related to people's livelihoods, defamatory material that is not well sourced hurts those people as well. The point of the BLP policy is to protect people from undue harm that false negative information in their article would bring. This should also hold true to companies. Besides, if you're going to create a BLP prod for companies, then they should also have a BLP policy that protects them from harm. Silverseren 18:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

If we accepted that argument then the same would apply for any organisation, not just a company. However the argument against protecting businesses as if they were living people is that, well, they aren't living people. The damage is indirect rather than direct. That isn't to say we should be complacent about article quality in any area. But people deserve more protection than corporate entities. However as the BizProd proposal is unrelated to your proposal to treat companies as people, why not start that proposal as a separate thread? ϢereSpielChequers 18:54, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Considering that companies are considered, legally, living people, I would think what applies to people on Misplaced Pages should also apply to them. But my qualified support remains, I only support this proposal if a BLP policy for companies is also created. Silverseren 19:01, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Debating corporate personhood here seems a bit unproductive, because it doesn't matter either way. What matters is that company articles are a continuing source of controversy, both on and off Misplaced Pages. A suggestion here is that a COMPANY policy with the same type of clear protections that the BLP policy provides will go a long way to lessening the controversies. This BizProd would then be much more easily accepted as a good thing by everyone. -- Eclipsed (talk) (COI Declaration) 19:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

@ Silver seren even in the US the law still has the caveat "The doctrine does not hold that corporations are "people" in the literal sense, nor does it grant to corporations all of the rights attendant on individuals". I suspect that outside the US a suggestion that we adopt a more pro business policy than even US law requires would be even more contentious. Now do either of you have any comments on the BizProd idea? ϢereSpielChequers 19:29, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support because this will help to improve Misplaced Pages. For example, this will help new page patrollers with clearer instructions regarding company articles. And also because it is a good first step towards drafting a COMPANY policy with the same type of clear protections against hostile unbalanced editing that the BLP policy provides. -- Eclipsed (talk) (COI Declaration) 19:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• 'Oppose This will not solve any problem. In the case of individuals, what is wanted is simply a references to support the basic WP:V, and this is not necessarily going to be something that is a RS for notability . We had a particular problem is claims that simply can not be sourced at all, and the consequent possibility of spoofing. In the case of businesses, establishing the basic existence is extremely easy at least for companies in the US and Europe. Dealing with all subjects in some countries is a problem of cultural bias and lack of available sources, but a business we cannot verify will be quickly deleted--the current problem is more that of verifying non commercial entities in these countries.

Nor do I support BIZBLP--it will be used for censorship. Harm to people is ethically very different than to institutions, at least as I and I think as most of us see it. The need to avoid discussing the minor misdeeds of nonpublic figures is basic to civilized behavior. A business enterprise is inherently out in public, and must take its chances. DGG ( talk ) 01:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Question Why should a charitable organization be treated differently from a non-charitable organization? They are IMO equally likely to abuse Misplaced Pages as an advertising medium and more likely to feel they're entitled to positive coverage here (you know, because they're doing such good work that even the most well-documented criticism is unfair). Furthermore, they can be subjected to fairly nasty negative campaigns, e.g., Susan G. Komen for the Cure's recent problems. Then there's the problem of defining a "charity". Is a 501(c)(4) non-profit local employee union a "charity"? How about a 501(c)(4) non-profit "civic league" lobbying group (the ACLU might be the best known: donations are not tax-deductible to these groups). How about a 501(c)(7) social club? These are all non-profits, which just means that they don't take profits home at the end of the year. Many large orgs have both non-profit and for-profit components. We handle all of these types of orgs in the same notability policy. Why split them here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The rationale for treating not for profits differently is that we are more likely to be dealing with an unpaid editor. They probably have a strong POV but they should be treated as any other newbie. ϢereSpielChequers 07:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I've seen many instances that disagree with that rationale, especially in regards to paid employees of a non profit organization. -- Eclipsed (talk) (COI Declaration) 13:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Eclipsed here: fundraising staff is often paid and often looking for free advertising. They might not hire an outside agency to write an article on Misplaced Pages, but they would probably tell their existing paid employees to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't doubt that there will be exceptions in both directions, after all I did say that we were more likely to be dealing with an unpaid editor not that we were almost always or even just likely dealing with an unpaid editor where charities were concerned. But my experience of charities is that they tend to have more volunteers and goodwill than businesses - lots of people volunteer time for charity, how many do so for companies? ϢereSpielChequers 21:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that it depends on what you mean by "volunteer for". A lot of employees are interested in their employer having an article here, and thus work on the pages at home, often without telling their employer. People who have had bad experiences fairly often post attack pages. Some people see it as a sort of glorified product review, and post information about whatever they're feeling enthusiastic about (e.g., nearly all pop culture, which I see you've exempted wholesale). Is that "volunteering for"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Real people are different. Real people have expectations of privacy, and legal rights against defamation that a corp does not have. It is those two reasons that justify BLP policy and BLPPROD, not a general desire to fight against the tide of unnotable people. Furthermore, there is no reason why this proposed policy should be restricted to corps, why not extend it to all organizations? Lastly, what does Trading mean in this context? If it means that they have stock traded, that would be a very large indication of notability, as most small business are closely held. Monty₈₄₅ 01:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Trading means in commerce - everything from the corner store to the shipping company. I carefully avoided using phrases such as limited company or traded to keep this broad. But we could change it to "businesses, broadly construed" if trading has a different meaning in American EnglishϢereSpielChequers 07:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Question - How is this any different from current Misplaced Pages practice? When I've tried to write an article about a commercial entity, even if it is marked with {{under construction}} or {{In creation}} it still gets a PROD and often gets converted to a full AfD in spite of multiple independent sources of information with several editors willing to cut out a business article simply because they have never heard of the business, so to them personally it is non-notable. To survive such an AfD, it usually requires at least 2-3 independent reliable sources to give notability to the topic including 3rd party articles that go into depth about the company, and even then sometimes business related articles don't survive the AfD process. Perhaps I just happen to attract the deletionists of Misplaced Pages when I write these kind of articles so my experience may be different from others. Even so, what role does this proposed policy actually do that isn't already covered abundantly in existing Misplaced Pages policies and what exactly will be a kind of change in terms of what article will get deleted that according to current policy won't be right now? I don't "get it" in terms of what this policy suggestion even would do other than multiply rules and make wikilawyering even easier from conflicting rules, or indeed reducing the standard allowing more of these kind of articles to be written on flimsier kinds of sources than is currently the case. --Robert Horning (talk) 08:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - The proposal is for "currently trading commercial business", but that leaves out private companies not on a stock exchange, and there are many of those. — Sctechlaw (talk) 23:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Perhaps this means something different in American English, but to me ""currently trading commercial business" means any business large or small that is currently operating. "Currently traded commercial business" would mean one whose shares were bought and sold on a stock exchange. My rationale behind stipulating that they were currently trading is that as no-one would financially benefit from writing an article on a company that had ceased trading, I would assume anyone writing about companies that have gone bust or otherwise ceased trading would be a volunteer and entitled to the same discretion as we give other newbies who submit unreferenced but uncontentious articles. If currently trading implies currently traded in American English would you care to suggest an alternative phrase? ϢereSpielChequers 21:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• As an often paid editor I would like to respect Herostratus' concerns on paid editors "voting" on policy for which we have a COI. But I do want to comment that BLP-like protections for organizations (should be orgs, not just businesses) should be because these articles are prone to attract bias/vandalism and have a real-life impact on the subject. This may be the single best way to improve the quality/balance of these articles and dramatically detract paid editing. Helping impartial volunteer editors clean house should take precedence over collaborating with paid editors. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 01:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support. WSC's three tenets are an accurate description of the difference between editors of business articles and other subjects and justification for this proposal. (Would also support applying this to nonprofits; they may (or may not) have a nobler cause, but can be just as obnoxiously self-promotional when competing for donations, grants, publicity, etc.) Kilopi (talk) 23:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, largely per Monty. WSC's rationale appears to open with the completely correct premise that there are a lot more business articles than there are volunteers to maintain and check them, which is perfectly true...of pretty much any article on Misplaced Pages. If you want to improve the situation, the answer is to help work towards attracting new editors to curate existing content, not trim content so we have less to maintain. Ironholds (talk) 20:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Businesses aren't a real problem: commercially based spam is very easy to detect and we get rid of it already--we hardly need a a special prod policy when we have Speedy G11--I myself have used it to get rid of many thousands of articles long before prod would have touched them. In the case where its an objective article about an insignificant business, Speedy A7 does very well also--I've removed a few thousand of these as well. The question is the ones that are written too objectively for G11, and indicate just a little significance. The ordinary prod process works very well for these. Mostly they get deleted, & if not it goes to AfD, where things are very simple unless someone finds a reference. So the real problem you are trying to address is the ones that are objective, indicate importance, come in without a reference, but where people at AfD decide to keep them. These are the ones your procedure would delete. And of course that's what we shouldn't be doing. The bigger problem is non-commercial entities, which are usually much more spam-ridden, but where we look at them much less vigorously. The solution here is to look more skeptically, and to go through the older ones, about half of which are wholly inadequately supported. Every such article needs first to be checked against the web site for copyvio--there are tens of thousands such still in Misplaced Pages . Another bureaucratic procedure is exactly what we do not need. Rather, we need to pay attention. DGG ( talk ) 02:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

BRD changes

An editor involved in a heated dispute involving BRD has now made some substantial changes to the BRD page. I'd like to know how much agreement there actually is on these changes. Please see WT:BRD#Recent changes. Thanks. Equazcion 11:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Using registered names in article about items that are sometimes called something else?

Hello! We're having a discussion over at Talk:Champagne about whether the article should used the protected, legally registered (with the EU) name of Champagne (capitalized) to describe the French wine from the Champagne (wine region) (as is often used in reliable sources about wine to distinguish it from other wines like "California champagne", etc) or to use the semi-generic champagne (no capitalization) that dictionaries such as Merrim-Webster use? Essentially the conversation (which unfortunately has only 3 people involved so more opinions would certainly be helpful) is boiling down to whether Misplaced Pages should give more weight to the registered, protected name or the use commonly found in dictionaries? Agne/ 17:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Does WP:Official name help? It states that common usage "trumps" "official" terminology. That said... the article should obviously note that there is controversy over the term (mentioning the fact that officially the term "Champagne" should be restricted to wines grown in France, and that similar wines grown in other parts of the world should not be called "Champagne"). Blueboar (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks like sources say capital 'C' Champagne is a registered term, and you should probably use that in that manner. However that wouldn't mean that normal English capitalization rules go out the window. You wouldn't start a sentence with a lowercase 'c', like "champagne is great." Dictionaries are a source, but they aren't the only source. This shouldn't be difficult to explain in the beginning of the article and then provide a style guide on the Talk page and inline on the article page for future editors. By the way, I believe it is also sometimes called 'sparkling wine'. -- Avanu (talk) 21:15, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Policy on "comparison of" articles?

Due to a thread on ANI, I took a look at Comparison of free web hosting services. Said article is merely a list of free web host providers, with various stats. In that form, it appears to me that it is an OR/SYNTH/NPOV violation, because the sources used are used only to get tech spec information; they are not sources which themselves compare the web hosting. The information is presented in a format, and that presentation by Misplaced Pages draws a conclusion for the reader.

JasperDeng and I had a bit of a convo on his talk page about what to do with the web hosting article, and he thought it was a new user issue and was going to leave it, until I pointed out the article has been here for two years, at which point he was mulling an AfD. I decided to see if this was a one-off item, in the hopes of it being an anomaly; it isn't. There are several "comparison of" or "comparisons of" articles in many areas, and many of them do the same thing, which is synthesize different pieces of information and present them to the reader to prove the point of the article, like Comparisons between the late-2000s recession and the Great Depression (which in the edit summary pretty much states that "all the refs are casual comparisons from interviews made to emphasize certain points" or lists of lists, like Comparison of Android devices. I PRODded the recession article.

In short, these articles are presenting OR which is originating from our users, who are compiling info from various places (SYNTH), and therefore this is originating from Misplaced Pages (OR). There are many sources in these articles, but they are used only as snippets for the material in these articles, meaning the comparatives do not originate from outside sources (OR again). The presentation leads the reader to a conclusion by its very format (NPOV). Additionally, many of these articles are not maintained (the Android article is a year out of date), and to a certain extent, are not maintainable, because as with the tech-based articles, one simply cannot meaningfully compare a 1st-gen item to a 4th-gen item of the same type.

I would love to just clean these articles out wholesale as a result of the readily apparent violations, but the scope of the problem is such that it would be a large-scale deletion and thereby disruptive to the encyclopedia. Therefore, a community consensus is essential, and I have brought it here on JasperDeng's advice. MSJapan (talk) 06:13, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

These types of articles come up frequently at WP:NORN... and when they do, they are almost always found to have Original Research and NPOV issues. That said, there are exceptions... some "Comparison of" articles are source based examinations of the topic... source based in that they are based upon (and discuss) the comparisons done by various scholars and experts. I would agree that a general review of "Comparison of" articles would be a good idea... but we would have to examine them on an article by article basis, and not condemn them as a class. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

How exactly is Comparison of free web hosting services a WP:SYNTH violation? The policy says "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" (emphasis mine). I see no conclusion reached or implied in that article; the claim that a listing of features somehow implies some sort of conclusion seems spurious. Nor do I see any WP:OR; while the article cites no sources, I expect most of this can be sourced to the companies' websites themselves as primary sources. Are you confusing "original research" and "original synthesis" with "use of primary sources for what they directly state" and "encyclopedic summary of sources"? Not sure where WP:NPOV comes in either, all I see in your post is the bare assertion. I expect the same applies to many of these "comparison of" articles.

Now, if you wanted to make a valid complaint, you could complain that it doesn't have any indication of WP:N or that there are WP:NPOV issues in the selection of items to include in the list.

Also, BTW, you can meaningfully compare a 1st-get and 4th-gen item: it can clearly show progress (or lack thereof) in an industry, or illustrate the introduction and spread of new features, or illustrate the obsolescence of old features, or to show how much more we can do with the newer technology, or to show feeping creaturism in action, or to show the improvement in features for price, and so on. Making any of those comparisons in a Misplaced Pages article without an appropriate source for that analysis would be a WP:SYN violation, but presenting the information without any such analysis is not. Anomie⚔ 17:12, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

There are no issues in that article presently with Original Research or Synthesis. The only problem we might have is bias (aka Neutral Point of View), depending on whether an important feature is being excluded or included. However, it appears that a fairly exhaustive list of common requirements are being listed. The way I might address that is to have a short intro based on reliable sources that says something about what features people commonly look for in a web hosting provider. Then you create the table headings, not based on an editor's intuition, but based on some reliable source's definition. -- Avanu (talk) 17:33, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I would argue (I'm not saying it is) that if the criteria used along the table headers are synthesized by editors as "features", then there's a bit of POV pushing since one can ask if it is missing certain features specifically to make one service look better than another. On the other hand, if reliable source articles have identified those criteria, then that's a reasonable approach. They don't have to do it for all the hosting services, of course, as that info can come from primary sources. But how the table is constructed should be based on reliable sources to avoid introducing such novel comparisons. --MASEM (t) 21:11, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Rather than "there's a bit of POV pushing", how about "there is the opportunity for a bit of POV pushing"? Just as there is in any encyclopedic synthesis of a topic. Trying to require sources for the structure of an encyclopedia article seems like a backhanded way to prevent the article. Anomie⚔ 14:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

First, yes, "the opportunity for" is the right statement, its not always POV pushing. But that said, yes, we should be using sources to figure out how to best structure articles. We don't have to follow them tit for tat, but we shouldn't create a brand new structure that never has been used in any similar form before, and that includes articles on comparisons. If a set of products have never been compared in the literature before, we shouldn't be making that comparison here. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly my point, Masem, and in my view (replying to Avanu), the SYNTH is very clear. Policy reads Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources, and thus we have: specs from "product A" source, specs from "product B" source, combining them into Table C (the article) and thereby drawing a comparative conclusion about A and B not present in either sources A or B. The complicating factor is that the table generation creating the comparison is also OR. The fact that the comparisons do not exist in the sources also leads to an NPOV issue. MSJapan (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

In the case of Comparisons between the late-2000s recession and the Great Depression, I think you are wrong to try to delete the article. Typing in "great recession" and "great depression" into google reveals numerous reliable sources comparing the two together. The topic is notable. The current state of the article may not be the best it could be, but the subject matter is notable and hence the article stays. Check out this link and afterwards try and prove me wrong. Otherwise, I'd say get rid of the deletion notice. :)--Coin945 (talk) 16:02, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

That may be, but when an edit comment (viewable only in the edit window) says "these are all casual comments made to emphasize particular points in interviews," then we have a problem with implicit vs explicit comparison. My problem is that the sources there did not set out to make the comparison - there is something therein that references one in the context of the other without focusing on it, and I guess therefore, there is an UNDUE problem. However, the largest issue was with the sources in other countries, which never even implied a comparison (mainly because the Great Depression was US only), but had quotes in there that really had nothing to do with the article. MSJapan (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

List of comparison of articles‎

• Perhaps this is of use? --> List of comparison of articles‎ (btw, took ages to make and inspired by this convo :D)--Coin945 (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

  Not gonna lie. My first thought on that list is to think it belongs at AfD. You don't get more WP:IINFO than a list of lists about utterly unrelated things. Resolute 21:01, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

  So utterly unrelated that they seem to fit naturally into a table to be compared. (Yes, it is sarcasm.) -- Avanu (talk) 21:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

  ....well the article has "just" been made. The general idea is for it to be categorised and alphabetised. At the very least It clearly gives you a concise list of all the "comparison of" articles so you can go on a deletion rampage if need be... lol. :)--Coin945 (talk) 04:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

  P.S see List of lists of lists.--Coin945 (talk) 04:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

  Catagory for comparison articles: yes, but definitely not a main-space list. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe put it in userspace before claret is spilled? MSJapan (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
  • For the record, I've never liked Categories. I find them useless and often badly organised. I much prefer lists. However I do understand why other people may find them useful. I think this article has huge merit, is a very valuable contribution to Misplaced Pages, and therefore I believe the article will stay, AFD or not. (btw i'd never heard of that expression before - "spilling claret " as "spilling blood".. interesting.. :) )--Coin945 (talk) 02:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
    • It has no encyclopedic value, being a "navel gazing" article about WP pages. That's why a category is better, as you still group these together but without having the issue of being in mainspace where we expect encyclopedic content. --MASEM (t) 05:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
      • I know about "otherstuffexists" and all that, but see List of lists of lists. These articles are great for navigation. You see them all in an easily-to-scroll through screen rather than having to click next in the category screen. Plus never before has all of the Comparison of articles been together like this before. Now we know for sure just how many we've got and what sorts of topics they cover al in the same place. This article is a miracle-worker!! (okay... *slight* hyperbole there :P)--Coin945 (talk) 07:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
        • • That shouldn't be in mainspace either. Such articles are "navel gazing" and dilute the encyclopedic aspect as there's no encyclopedic value to a reader to organize such lists for navigation. Categories are exactly the entity that should be used to navigate these articles. --MASEM (t) 13:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
• I've used some search and replace magic to reduce the repeated text on the page. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
  • .....some capitalisation would've been nice.... :)--Coin945 (talk) 06:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
    • The flesh is willing but the regexp-fu is lacking, sorry. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:22, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
      • I, (and I say this with all sincerity), honestly have no idea what that means........--Coin945 (talk) 12:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
        • It means that I'm willing to make that change and am convinced that it can be done automatically, but my regexp skills are not up the the challenge (or perhaps have been confused by the regexps in the wikipedia editor being subtly different to those I'm used to elsewhere). Stuartyeates (talk) 05:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
          • Then again (and this is what I'm about to do now), you could always copy and paste the text into Microsoft Word and click the "sentence case" button. :)--Coin945 (talk) 06:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
            • Oh crap,.... just realised that won't work....--Coin945 (talk) 06:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Question: what do you guys think - should articles on two related concepts have the "comparison of" before, or not? It flip-flops across Misplaced Pages. Compare Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism to, say, Christianity and Judaism.--Coin945 (talk) 07:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I feel that in general straight head-to-head comparisons should be "comparison of"; articles with more nuanced structure not. See also Misplaced Pages:Comparison Articles and Original Research. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:22, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain further?--Coin945 (talk) 12:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Fundamental problems with MOS:IDENTITY

I've now encountered two instances in which our policies around using the term most often encountered in reliable sources as the article title come into conflict with the goal, expressed in MOS:IDENTITY of using as an article title the term that a person or group prefers. The two instances were:

• Arab citizens of Israel, where the most common term in the West is Israeli-Arabs, but where many members of the group prefer a term that downplays their association with Israel
• Bradley Manning, which an editor believes should be moved to Breanna Manning, based on Manning's alleged self-identification as female.

MOS:IDENTITY states that "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself." However, IDENTITY does not tell us what to do when there IS a dispute. The absence of clear guidance, and the following bullet point which addresses ONLY the question of gender ("Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification.") seem to indicate to some editors that if there is a dispute, we should prefer the term that the group uses itself, even if it is not the more common term in reliable sources. It seems that we need to reword our guidelines to deal with this inconsistency.

I propose that:

• MOS:IDENTITY be modified to say that when there is a dispute, the most common name should be used. We routinely look at what reliable sources do to settle disputes and I see no reason why we should not do so here.
• The second paragraph of MOS:IDENTITY, which says that we should use the person's latest expressed self-identification should be modified to say that we should prefer the terminology used by reliable secondary sources. By looking at the latest statement by an individual, rather than a secondary-source analysis we are carving out a special exception to WP:NOR that says that its okay to prefer primary over secondary sources when we're dealing with transgendered people.

GabrielF (talk) 02:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. When there is a dispute, we should default to the most common usage in reliable sources. If there's no clear preference in reliable sources, then we can go by the subject's self-identification. --Elonka 04:12, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, this sounds like a good idea. In the first case, that's what we usually do anyways and follows with the COMMONNAME policy. And I agree that the second as it is currently worded is a big issue. What if the subject began switching back and forth in their "latest self-identification"? It's best just to use what the majority of reliable sources use. Any change in that majority would be slow enough that it wouldn't cause a major conflict when it comes time to change to the new most used terminology. Silverseren 06:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Wording query on part 2: I'm somewhat sympathetic to making some exception to the current MOS:IDENTITY for Manning, but I have a couple problems with how I understand the wording change in part 2. It's possible I'm misunderstanding the antecedent of "it" in "if it is disputed."

If we make this change whenever there's a dispute of any type, we have a problem. For transgender people who change their names as they transition, all such name changes are disputed by some person, entity, editor, *something*, somewhere. A quick review of appropriate biographies will confirm this. Moreover, many of our biographies describe people who transition mid or late career, which might leave older sources in excess of newer ones. A difficult and controversial example might be Dee Palmer, whose career with Jethro Tull largely predates transition, and so most sources by number use David. Curent reliable sources, which are more than adequate to the task of letting us know what's going on, do in fact describe the transition and name change.

I realize some people find it weird to write about Dee Palmer as female even when describing events prior to transition. Nonetheless, in cases like this there's no serious question of verifiability, nor of confusion if the article is well-written. And we'll certainly use one of the two names in the article, the other in a redirect, and explain what's going on up-front to avoid confusion. The question is--do we ignore the WP:BLP policy implications of intentionally using a name that the living person likely finds offensive? In my own view, if we have pretty reliable verification that the person now uses a post-transition name, and the time-appropriate sources are consistent on this point, that's good enough. I don't think Manning meets that bar, I do think Palmer does. Is that kinda where you were going with this proposal? --joe decker 07:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

How about the following: "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives used by reliable secondary sources since the person's gender self-identification changed, with preference given to newer sources." My sense is that when we survey secondary sources about something that's in flux, we give more weight to more recent sources because older sources don't necessarily address all the facts. GabrielF (talk) 12:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, thanks. --joe decker 13:29, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes there are problems with the current policy, thanks for raising this. When the name of a group of people is controversial I think we should differentiate between names that are used by some of that group and names that might be widely used by reliable sources but which would be offensive to the people in question. Take the Falkland Islanders as an example; There may well be reliable sources in Argentina and elsewhere that refer to them by the Argentine name for those islands, but that name would be deeply offensive amongst the islanders. I'd suggest "Where there is a dispute as to the common name of a group of people, and multiple names can be reliably sourced, use the name that is least offensive to the members of that group". ϢereSpielChequers 13:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

My concern is that determining the least offensive name might require significant original research. I suspect that for many groups there is a small percentage of people who feel very passionately that a particular name is offensive and a larger silent majority that don't particularly mind or prefer the other name. Its likely that we could find a lot of sources from people who are very passionate about the issue, but it would be more difficult to determine what the population as a whole thinks. In the case of Arab citizens of Israel, there didn't seem to be a clear consensus in secondary sources: some sources indicated that a wide variety of terms were used interchangeably. Relying on a "least offensive" criteria, as opposed to a most commonly used criteria opens us up to activism. We should be reacting to what the preponderance of secondary sources say, not getting out ahead of them. GabrielF (talk) 15:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly: and in the Manning case, claims that the individual concerned currently wishes to be identified as a female named 'Breanna' are based entirely on cherry-picking from sources reporting Manning's private conversations - Manning has made no public statement on the issue whatsoever. Instead, Misplaced Pages contributors had chosen to arbitrarily 'reassign' Manning with a complete disregard for the feelings of what is clearly a troubled individual - and one in no position to respond. We must not allow such soapboxing conduct to happen on the bogus grounds of 'avoiding offence'. Any changes in policy need to ensure that for living individuals, any comments regarding sexual orientation and/or gender identity, where relevant at all, are sourced to public statements by the individual concerned, rather than engaging in a 'trial by Misplaced Pages' followed by a 'verdict' on the 'truth'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:33, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I find it problematic, and somewhat offensive, to suggest that secondary sources know more than a person on their own identity. Secondary sources are preferred in most contexts, but not mandatory, and this is one area in which primary sources are simply more reliable. I've long been in favour of the reduction of how COMMONNAME is applied, because people use it like it's the Eleventh Commandment. There used to be part of COMMONNAME which said that it only applied in the absence of other guidelines on the matter: it looks like that we still have a remnant in that "ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources"; given we have RSes that state that Manning's gender identity is female, then we should, at least, use female pronouns even though she is described as male in RSes. (And for what it's worth, the current medical opinion for transgender people is that, to ensure an unproblematic transition as possible, they should be referred to by their preferred identity). Sceptre 17:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

NOR is, as far as Misplaced Pages is concerned, an "eleventh commandment". To make a determination that secondary sources are wrong and that primary sources are correct would be a very clear violation of NOR. It would require us to analyze primary sources and to determine what weight to give them. In the Manning case, we would be saying that transcripts of private conversations by a young and troubled individual carry more weight than secondary sources, or even than other primary sources such as communiques from Manning's lawyers. That kind of analysis is strictly prohibited by NOR: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Misplaced Pages to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." We can use a chat transcript to say that Manning expressed confusion about his gender and that he said he feared being perceived as a boy, but to use these transcripts to say that Manning definitively identifies as a girl and prefers to be called Breanna requires us to draw a conclusion - that this statement represents a definitive account of Manning's self-identification - and drawing such conclusions is clearly outside the bounds of what NOR allows. However, this is not a discussion about Manning, it is a discussion of policy. In general, there are many reasons why we shouldn't take statements that people make about themselves more seriously than secondary sources. People have plenty of reasons to deceive themselves or other people. If I'm convicted of a crime nobody would take me seriously if I said that my claims of innocence should be given more weight than the court's because I know my own actions better than anyone else. We don't take a politician's word about their background over the news media. Why should we carve out a special exception just for gender? GabrielF (talk) 19:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

If somebody does something as a particular gender then that set of pronouns should be used to reflect what was historically accurate. If they undergo a change then the pronoun should apply thereafter but not in retrospect. Example, when Chastity Bono was young she appeared on her parents' TV show. Nothing should backup to ever make that a pronoun switch to a "he" for that time period in Chaz Bono's life. I believe that is already consistent with MOS:IDENTITY. Wholesale changes in retrospect would be faulty.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 19:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

That's completely at odds with the current mainstream opinion on transgender people and their gender identity, which is that they should always be referred to by their gender identity. Sceptre 20:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO BE TOLD! MANNING HAS MADE NO PUBLIC STATEMENTS REGARDING HIS 'GENDER IDENTITY' WHATSOEVER! Your bigoted attempts to impose an 'identity' on him based on a selective reading of reports of his private conversations are beneath contempt. Find another arena for your soapbox. Your lies aren't going to work here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:58, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Unless and until we have an RS for BM abiding by the Harry Benjamin Standards, he might be gay, be a TV, gender dysphoric or whatever, but he is not a confirmed transsexual. Else we could have people changing gender week by week - Misplaced Pages is intended to be an encyclopedia of lasting value, and I see no reason why we should do anything other than what we have done here in the past - use the terms generally used by reliable sources. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The part of MOS:IDENTITY that needs to be dropped is "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life." <== That is daft. Go with the sources and ignore the rest.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 20:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

If your point was that we need reliable sourcing to establish what the person calls themselves (which is, after all, what a name is), and that the Manning article is problematic, then I would (and have already said) sure. But your view is simply in violation of our WP:BLP policy, and I don't see a contrary policy issue (for Bono) that would allow me to support your view. --joe decker 21:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It isn't a BLP issue at all to expect historical accuracy. There is nothing which preempts rewriting history to suit someone's preferences. Here is an example from a RS of what I believe to be correct usage: "Sonny & Cher’s only child knew early in life there would be no privacy, no matter what. Not in 1995 when Chastity Bono announced she was a lesbian or 15 years later when Chaz Bono confirmed he was transgender." This is simple, it treats the pronouns based around the timeline of events within the subject's life. It doesn't attempt to create an anachronism...neither should we.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 22:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, in case I wasn't clear before, the part I'm calling daft is "This applies in references to any phase of that person's life".
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 22:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:CANVASSING ("campaigning" - non-neutral) by Sceptre here. Ironically, I noted that this discussion was ongoing at WP:BLPN here, which I believe is what prompted Sceptre to come here in the first place.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where we are precisely with a consensus on changed wording, but one change that would be useful is to change the text "that person's latest expressed gender self-identification" to "that person's latest publicly expressed gender self-identification" (emphasis added just to show the change). One of the issues with the Manning article was whether we should rely on a reliably sourced leaked communication between Manning and a therapist. Many of us, including me, thought that would be wrong. Putting aside that what a person tells their therapist is supposed to be confidential, what one says about one's identity in therapy doesn't necessarily relate to what one wants in the "real" world. The word "publicly" would emphasize that we can't use a backdoor to guess at a subject's preferences for how they want to be referred to.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:22, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The word publicly isn't right, since it effectively excludes those in prison or under repressive regimes from coverage by the policy. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Why not, why they are in prison is not about the fact that they cannot make a public statement. People in prisons make statements and even those in oppresive regimes can get their message out. In this case Manning cannot make a statement because he is being held "in isolation" and there is probably some srt of gag order in place. His gender indentity is not a matter of what to refer to him in an encyclopedic manner but a suggestion that in society we should refer to a person "to their face" or in polite "conversation with another" in their gender indentity role. But, if they are not actually attempting to change genders, the very suggestion is ridiculouse. If Manning's gender is male right now, regardless of his self indentification (if true at all) we treat his gender in prose as male or transgendered NOT as female and then give them a female name. He hasn't switched names or sexes so references to him as female are false. using the term most often encountered in reliable sources as the article title doesn't come into play at all, he has a legal name. For MOS:IDENTITY first establish that Manning wants to be considered transgendered (difficult if being held in isolation) before we even go there as he is physicaly male and the other ID appropriate at this time is male or transgendered. We do not refer to a physical male as a female even if they wish it. We may note it and we can reference claims of all kinds, I suppose but a physical alteration is required to be considered "female" or transgendered-male to female" rather dry and technical...but this is an encyclopdia.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Re to Stuart: Or dead. There are several transgender people whose status as transgender hasn't been reported as transgender until it comes up in a news report of a transphobic hate crime; from the past month alone, CeCe McDonald, Paige Clay, and Brandy Martell; they did not make "public statements" other than the fact that they presented as female in a public space -- which Manning also did while on leave in Boston. In the case of Clay and Martell, at the very least, Misplaced Pages does acknowledge their gender identity. Sceptre 23:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Re to Amadscientist: a person's gender is their self-identification. MOS:IDENTITY is clear that self-identification is needed, not a legal change of gender (which is impossible in three states in America, let alone in several countries) or medical transition (which is likewise impossible in some territories). The Lamo chat logs make it clear that she was planning to transition, and her belongings upon her arrest comfirm her transgender identity. Sceptre 23:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it's POV to state that Manning is transgendered at this juncture. I see no reason to make any changes on policy or guidelines at this time. Seriously. What is the issue really? "When there is no dispute" should be clear. And the Manning case should offer a clue that that it is disputed...just on this thread alone so he is refered to as he. Now, if we actually knew that Manning (and this is just an example and not meant to focus on the Manning thing) was undergoing Sex reassignment surgery then we might be having a different converstion. It is a BLP issue to attempt to assign gender or a name to reflect a point of view of what, as editors. we make think of the information we see. That lifting facts and we don't need to do that and as another editor brought up the inforamtion comes from sources I take issue with using for many reasons.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it's POV to state she isn't. There is no dispute that she identified as female to Lamo, her counsellor, and her CO. There is no dispute that she, while on leave in Boston in early 2010, presented as a woman. There is no dispute that, upon her arrest in May 2010, she was found with materials relating to hormone replacement therapy in her room. And the current mainstream practice, both on- and off-wiki, is to refer to transgender individuals by their preferred gender even if they are currently not undergoing transition for whatever reason (as transition maybe impossible for whatever reason; in Manning's case, it was because she was serving in the Army at the time). Sceptre 01:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

"There is no dispute that she identified as female to Lamo"? Really, where he describes himself as 'a boy' on several occasions? More bullshit... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:28, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm concerned that by focusing exclusively on the Manning case, Sceptre is making it difficult to focus on the underlining issue, which is that two policies appear to be in conflict. For reasons that are not clear to me, MOS:IDENTITY specifically addresses gender identity. I don't understand why a person's gender identity deserves special policy considerations as compared to other ways in which a person might identify himself or herself (religion, ethnic group, ideology, sexual orientation, to name just a few). I can understand that the use of pronouns requires us to focus more on the issue of gender identity in an article than we would focus on other types of identity, but I don't see what the rationale is for using a special set of standards for determining one type of identity that we don't use for any other type of identity. (And of course, as I type this, the song Lola by the Kinks starts playing on iTunes...) GabrielF (talk) 00:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that MOS:IDENTITY should, and already does, also apply to religious or ethnic identity or sexual orientation; definitely on the other two, the featured article Barack Obama uses "Christian" and "African-American", Obama's favoured identities; conversely, as Ted Haggard doesn't identify as gay (despite a drug-addled affair with a male escort), we don't identify him as such. Sceptre 01:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

If a person has not identifyed themselves as transgenered in any other forum but what is traditionaly private (I have no idea why we would use the stuff in that article to begin with) then it is indeed POV to refer to a he as a she. It is neutral...not POV to refer to them as their natural gender.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Gay is a different subject entirely.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I've mentioned three hate crime victims who were "outed" as transgender this month because the hate crime was featured in news articles (two murder victims, one person jailed for killing someone in self-defence). For the two murder victims, we identify them as transgender, although their only public declaration was changing their gender presentation as such, which Manning also did on leave in Boston (and we don't mention the third). It's POV, and downright offensive, to refer to a transgender person by their assigned gender. Sceptre 01:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It's POV, and downright offensive, to use Manning as a convenient soapbox to push an agenda - especially one that he has made no public comment on whatsoever. Misplaced Pages isn't a court of law, and we don't go around determining people's gender identity for them based on a selective reporting of a few private conversations. If you want to do that, try Conservopedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:35, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) GabrielF: I think there are two reasons the policy needs to talk about gender identity, although only one of them relates to a true difference in terms of policy. First, I think there is in most cases a fairly general level of awareness that we allow people to self-identify, but for some reason, editors tend to have a greater problem with this with respect to gender identity than racial or even sexual orientation issues, the pejorative noun use of homosexual nonwithstanding. So a special callout in policy (not an exception, but an example) is simply helpfully guiding, as is also done for the case of "Jew."

What's particularly challenging and controversial for many editors with respect to transgender people is a product of multiple factors, first, transition mid-biography is common. This leads to the place Bearean Hunter and I part views. This is the problem of how to identify current gender identity in the description of pre-transition events, compounded with the common need to specify gender at every turn because of pronoun usage, compounded again by the differences in how the pejorative is heard. No pronoun in English identifies race, orientation, or religion, but all indicate gender.

It is common to talk about people who identify as ex-Mormon, ex-Catholic, even ex-gay, and people regularly identify by those labels. For whatever reason, it is well-documented that "ex-male" is both usually heard as offensive and is essentially at odds with how many transgender people describe their own experience. Our policies are different because the offense we're trying to avoid plays out differently, and also because of the differences in how well our average editor understands what is likely to cause or not cause offense.

I completely agree with you, btw, that Manning is not the case we should be using to talk about MOS:IDENTITY in general. --joe decker 01:35, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree as well.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:41, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

"No pronoun in English identifies race, orientation, or religion, but all indicate gender." ? The OED says of "their" "3. Often used in relation to a singular n. or pronoun denoting a person, after each, every, either, neither, no one, every one, etc. Also so used instead of ‘his or her’, when the gender is inclusive or uncertain. Cf. they pron. 2, them pron. 2; nobody pron. 1b, somebody n. (Not favoured by grammarians.)" Stuartyeates (talk) 01:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Still, many people find singular "their" awkward as well. --joe decker 01:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The singular they is an abomination in formal writing, but I, we, you, and the plural they are all pronouns that do not identify gender.

I think that the people concerned about the Manning case should do their best to reduce the number of instances in which the article uses any pronoun to refer to Manning. This is what you would want to do for a person who self-identifies as neither a man nor a woman. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Pre-OTRS permissions

Do I remember rightly that we don't delete images for lack of permission if they're pre-OTRS? I've been under the impression that those are grandfathered exceptions to WP:F11, but I've just discovered an image that wasn't treated that way. File:Pigment goethite iconofile.jpg was uploaded in early 2004, two years before WP:OTRS was created, and its description page included the contents of a permissions email. Aside from this matter, I'm sure that nobody would object to the image; the permission was a simple {{attribution}}, and the subject was a simple pile of brown ochre, rather than something that could potentially be copyrighted. Nyttend (talk) 11:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I think from the 2008 Foundation Resolution on non-free media, which did including a brief grandfathering period, any image is now subject to deletion if it lacks an appropriate license statement. --MASEM (t) 13:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Are we talking about images which were granted permission to Wikimedia/Wikimedia projects but didn't go through OTRS which can be deleted or should those older images be protected through some sort of grandfathering system? I can certainly see some over zealous admin who may be somewhat new to the project removing stuff that really doesn't need to go, forgetting that there were also technical limitations at the time some of this content was uploaded to Misplaced Pages to even note the license, or presuming that the license was granted simply by uploading the content. That isn't an excuse for current uploads, but for stuff in the past it certainly made sense. Yes, replacement content can be provided which is properly licensed, but it just seems like more of the soul of what made Misplaced Pages into the project it is today is being ripped out when that happens. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Masem's situation really isn't what I'm talking about. The image in question had an attribution template because the uploader quoted an email from the copyright holder that said essentially "anyone can use this for any purpose as long as I'm credited as the author", and it was deleted because of the lack of OTRS permission even though it had been uploaded when OTRS didn't exist. Nyttend (talk) 02:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Template:Verify credibility

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.

Is there (or should there be) some usage guidelines for Template:Verify credibility? Because today I've seen it used to question the statement "Media source X says", sourced to media source X, which regardless of your opinion of media source X, seems utterly ridiculous. Rd232 18:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd guess that either someone missed the "Media source X says" part or they don't like whatever it is that media source X said and are looking for any excuse to diminish and/or remove the statement. I'd just remove the tag as patently incorrect and ask the tagger about it on their talk page. Anomie⚔ 19:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

You guessed wrong :) Rd232 left out the part about high quality sources required for WP:BLPs, for example, his allegations sourced to biased and state-owned and non-reliable sources about a politician engaging in oral sex and then threatening a policeman in a coverup-- something that no reliable sources say, and there are plenty. . I removed the text once, he reinstated it, so I tagged his sources that don't rise to the level required for such deragotory BLP statements, and I took it to the BLP noticeboard where it has gotten no feedback yet. So ... forum shopping here. And curiously, in spite of our strong BLP policy, the text under dispute is still in the article-- which should not be our default position. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

BLPN link. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Hum. I've just noticed that allegations originating with a Venezuelan policeman and repeated by a Venezuelan TV host and covered in Venezuelan and international media have suddenly morphed into my allegations, even though they were already in the article before I edited it to add some details. How did that happen, Sandy? Rd232 14:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The template asks: and directs the reader to Misplaced Pages:Identifying reliable sources, which states:

" Context makes a difference

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it.

The guideline in this page discusses the reliability of various types of sources. The policy on sourcing is Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. The policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, and sections of articles—without exception, and in particular to biographies of living persons, which states:

Contentious material about living persons (or recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.

In the event of a contradiction between this page and our policies regarding sourcing and attribution, the policy takes priority and editors should seek to resolve the discrepancy. Other policies relevant to sourcing are Misplaced Pages:No original research and Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons. For questions about the reliability of particular sources, see Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard."

So how was the reference used in this context and who is media source X and what is it they are claiming, etc..--Amadscientist (talk) 19:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Well since Sandy has already jumped in here in an effort to disrupt a simple but general question by accusing me of forum-shopping (um, where else did I ask about this template?), I'll point you to the specific example that prompted the question. It's the 3rd para at Venezuelan_presidential_election,_2012#Allegations_against_Capriles. Rd232 20:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

It's already being ignored at WP:BLPN, so we don't need to spread this to another forum, but yes, the reliability of a source is dependent on context, and here we are using partisan and non-reliable sources to claim a coverup and threats-- sources controlled by the opposing candidate. Not reliable for these purposes, and the text should be removed until there is consensus, per BLP policy. This discussion is a fork from the BLP noticeboard and Rd232, as a former admin, should know how reliable sources relate to BLPs, particularly since this has come up before. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks like I guessed exactly right, actually. Whether or not that "disagreement" with the text is supported by WP:BLP doesn't change the fact that it's misuse of a maintenance tag to attempt to discredit and remove something someone disagrees with. Anomie⚔ 02:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

On the nominal question: Instructions for when and how to use templates usually reside on the template's own /doc page. It appears that this particular template's doc page does not offer much advice on this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Why not just rename the template Template:Unreliable source?? Seems it does have some guidence in that the guide has redirects to policy. It may be that the name being used conflicts with the title given or needs clarification.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Either chop the tag or chop the statement and the tag. Regardless of whether X is a reliable source in general, it's never a bad citation practice to use X as a source for a portion of an article that says "Source X says ___", so this tag is never appropriate in that case. Without looking at the page in question (thus judging purely by comments here), it seems to me that the real issue here is whether we should be including that statement based purely on the source at hand — is it appropriate to mention this allegation? If consensus says that it's appropriate to include it with a citation to source X, this template should not be used if "Source X says ___" is the wording adopted. Nyttend (talk) 02:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I disagree, with all due respect, in that the tag may be used if the material is being disputed on that basis and the discussion is based on the citation tag with an explanation. What you are suggesting in some manner is that we not be allowed to question the use of certain sources the general community has discused as non reliable in general and a discussion on the individual talk page would be needed to determine local consensus.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:49, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

No, Nyttend is right. X is a reliable source for what X says, unless there is evidence to the contrary. You can challenge a statement sourced in that way on other grounds (typically NPOV I suppose - WP:WEIGHT given to disputed sources), but not for lack of reliable sourcing. Rd232 14:11, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Unless it's a BLP issue-- as quite clearly laid out in the text above, and as discussed at the Reliable sources noticeboard on Veneazuelananysis.com. State-controlled sources in a country where freedom of the press is not enjoyed cannot be used to vilify an opposing candidate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Handwaving about BLP is not a magic wand for making X an unreliable source for what X says. But if you insist that it can, raise it as a general issue elsewhere (RSN or BLPN) or at least in a different section on this page. Rd232 14:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Back on topic after ec :: So, do we have an alternate tag when I've deleted BLP vio text once, another editor has reinstated it without feedback from the BLP noticeboard (which is the correct forum for such), or am I just supposed to BLP edit war it out of there since BLP allows for that? The problem arises because text and sources that don't rise to the level expected for a BLP (and claims that someone threatened and covered up allegations of oral sex in a car certainly fall under BLP sourcing requirements) are supposed to be removed, so why would we have a tag specific to that situation-- it's not supposed to happen-- and this tag clearly directs us to the relevant sourcing info on BLPs. Since there has been no feedback in more than a day at the BLP noticeboard (most folks there know the Chavez articles are ripe for arbitration and won't touch them), and since there seems to be disagreement about how to tag the text and since we have reliable independent third-party sources in English covering the allegations, I've removed the text per BLP policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

So nobody agrees with you it's a BLP violation, but you're going to carry on with your efforts regardless? Rd232 14:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

No one has opined at the BLP noticboard (why should they when arbitration has been a cloud over those articls for years and now Jimbo is in there). Rd, as a former admin, you surely know that you should gain consensus before reinstating text challenged on BLP. Is the world going to end if the article can't have that text right this minute? BLP demands that we get it right. Editwarring to include text under BLP discussion isn't on; if you gain consensus that we can use state-run and candidate-controlled sources to villify an opposing candidate, then we'll all need to see where that leads Misplaced Pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Lots more handwaving, all to avoid the conclusion that it's unacceptable to pretend that X is not a reliable source for what X says. Oh, and there is no BLP discussion about the disputed text since you refuse to explain how it's a BLP vio. Rd232 15:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with RD232, Nyttend, etc. Once a statement is specifically attributed to a source in the text, it then becomes a question of whether the context warrants mention of that statement, rather than of the "validity" of the source. The statement, or even the publication it came from, may not be a good idea to mention for BLP concerns (or any of a million other reasons), but this tag is not meant to call attention to contextual issues. If the source says it, and we explicitly name the source that says it, there's no question of source "credibility". If you want to create a new inline template to flag BLP concerns for possible removal, go do it (or, rather, propose it); but that's not what this tag is for. Equazcion 15:54, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

A separate tag for BLP issues would contradict the WP:BLP line of removing poorly sourced contentious material, so that's not going to happen. The interpretation of BLP already allows plenty of room for use of BLP to remove valid content editors just don't like - which makes it particularly galling to waste time arguing about this misuse of {{verify credibility}}. Rd232 16:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

(after ec with Rd, what he said) Double bind-- you cannot create a template for BLP vio text, because our policy specifically requires that it be removed. I tagged it after Rd reinstated it, pending BLPN feedback (which has still not been given). We can't create a tag for text that is required to be removed by policy. And the tag explicitly links to the relevant text, as explained above by Amadscientist-- it is not a misapplication of the tag, which explains that reliability depends on context, and we require the highest quality sources for BLPs. If folks want to weaken our BLP policy to where we tag BLP concerns rather than delete them, that would require a community wide RFC to change policy. Honestly, it is frightful seeing admins make so many statements about BLP that are so widely contadictory to policy-- this discussion needs to go elsewhere, to engage folks who understand BLP. If folks here want to claim this tagging is incorrect, that is going to extend across many other areas, for example, the use of {{MEDRS}} as but one example. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:44, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

"reliability depends on context" - very true, we all agree on that! Now please explain in what context Source X is an unreliable source for what Source X says. Rd232 16:51, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Either that or you need to stop assuming everyone who disagrees with you on this is doing so because of their stance on BLP policy. I don't have any particular stance, and understand that sources need to be uber-reliable to be included in BLPs. This tag is simply not meant to address that in this scenario. Your arguments sound like "think of the children," where children are not at issue, and no one ever disagreed on their importance. Just because something is very important doesn't mean everything that could call attention to important issues suddenly concerns that particular one. This tag is meant to point out that an assertion might be not be true (simplified) -- but when the assertion is merely attributing a statement to a person/publication, that person/publication is always reliable. Is the person/publication wrong? That's a separate issue outside the scope of this tag, though it may very well be an important issue. Equazcion 16:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

(double edit conflict) Sandy, stop. Think about what you're saying: we can't trust that a website is telling the truth when it says that its owner has said something. Is there any chance that the state-owned media are not talking about this guy this way? This is not a situation of us misapplying policy (and remember, this page is where we discuss changes to policy anyway), but a situation of you defending a rather blatant abuse of a specific tag. If you wish to tag such a statement, use something like {{Relevance inline}} and stop using a tag that's meant for something completely different. Nyttend (talk) 17:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh that's just precious and very helpful feedback. Are you following who said what where on what source, or would detail on the Spanish help? See Amadscientist's post which points precisely to the relevant text.

As I said, if we want to make a sweeping change to BLP policy, whereby non-reliable and non-independent sources controlled by one candidate can be used to make villifying claims about another candidate in an election-- the kinds of statements that our BLP policy was specifically adopted to cover-- that would need a wider community RFC. As our policy stands, we require the highest quality sources to make claims that a candidate subjected a policeman to the kinds of things said in the state-controlled and non-independent sources.

As to the correct use of the tag, see Amadscientist-- although I concur that tagging is sub-optimal in a BLP situation and I would have been within my right to simply continue to revert the text until such time as there was consensus to retain it per BLP policy. If you think we can't tag sources that aren't reliable according to context of the text sourced then we have a broader issue than just BLPs (e.g.; {{MEDRS}}, where a source may be reliable depending on context and text sourced). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to keep repeating yourself (WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT much?), then so will I. "reliability depends on context" - very true, we all agree on that! Now please explain in what context Source X is an unreliable source for what Source X says. Something may be removed on BLP grounds (as you've done in the case that prompted the question, despite no-one agreeing with you), but no amount of handwaving about BLP justifies tagging a "Source X says" statement sourced to Source X with {{verify credibility}} Rd232 17:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

When the explanation is already on the page, and being ignored or not read or not digested or not understood, it's a bit hard to avoid being repetitive when the questions continue. See Amadscientist (talk) 19:53, 8 May 2012 above; I find it very clear. YMMV. Just because source X says Y, we don't get to use it if it violates BLP policy, which demands the hightest quality sources. Example: if a US state governor uses his state resources to put out a press release saying his opponent had beaten his children and wife because some policeman told him so but there was no police report, and no reliable independent third-party sources reported the story, we disallow it per BLP-- until/unless a high quality source covers it. BLP demands that we get it right; we don't get to say Source X says Y when Source X is not reliable for such claims. High quality, independent, third-party, reliable sources did cover this story and we've given it due weight: your edits added text that was not covered in independent sources and was only provided by sources controlled by or affiliated with the opposing candidate. As Amadscientist showed, the tag clearly leads to the relevant policy discussion, although I concur that simply following policy and removing the text pending consensus would have been better. Edit warring doesn't come naturally to me, sorry :) SandyGeorgia (Talk)

Having said that, part of the problem here is that {{verify credibility}} merely means "please check the reliability of the source". And that's utterly ridiculous for this usage - there's no need to check whether Source X is a reliable source for what Source X says. If we had a landing page that explained different usages, including the usage "is this source important enough to justify including its statement", that would be different (importance would at least partly include reliability). Well, a distinct tag would be better, since that usage is really something about WP:WEIGHT, not WP:V. Rd232 17:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. Seems that "reliable source" has three components. It also seems that the general consensus of the community over time has discussed such sources as Huffington Post and the Guardian in certain specific ways and how they should be treated on Misplaced Pages. The tag itself is very vague in it's explanation of actual usage even though it is linked to policy and guidelines so it isn't a matter of whether or not this particular usage was "right or wrong' but that it was placed for the correct reasons. If the tag is so vague all the speculation that it was used innaproppriatly are assuming a very tight interpretation of what they even claim themselves is vague. The notice board probably garnered no response because this could be seen as an issue of local consensus to determine the accepted usage of sources and opinion. I think the usage of the tag was appropriate in this case, but disputed and simply needs to be addressed, discussed and collaborated on.--Amadscientist (talk) 18:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I have another idea of why the issue got no feedback at BLPN, and that's because Jimbo weighted in on my talk to say he was ready to deal with the Chavez/Venezuela situation and to take it to DR if something doesn't improve. (If I had a nickel for every editor who came to my talk with that claim, dragging me back into articles I had long unwatched, I'd be very rich.) Considering the arbs have recently had a tendency towards banning editors where Jimbo is involved, I don't blame folks for staying ten-feet away. Which doesn't solve the problem. So, considering the concerns expressed here about the correct use of the template (which gives me greater pause wrt MEDRS, since whether a source is reliable for X says Y most certainly depends on context) and whether we have or even should have a template for this situation, along with the lack of feedback at BLPN, along with concern about what it says about our BLP policy if these kinds of sources can be used to make these kinds of claims, I concluded the only thing I could do was remove the text per BLP policy. I don't think anyone will die while we wait for some consensus, and when there is a BLP concern, the default is delete, not tag. Lesson learned-- next time, instead of waiting for the BLPN to say nothing, delete on sight. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Landing pages for problem tags

Currently, {{verify credibility}} goes to Misplaced Pages:Identifying_reliable_sources; I don't think this is particularly helpful, but it's the usual approach (eg {{verify source}} goes to WP:V). By contrast, {{citation needed}} goes to Misplaced Pages:Citation needed, which whilst not great is more the approach needed. We should have a custom landing page for such tags, to help people resolve them, and not just dump them at a policy page. Obviously the landing page needs to refer to policy, but there may well be more than one that's relevant - and most fundamentally, it's just not very helpful. A landing page could, for instance, try to help readers who are wondering what the tag means, and not just ignore them in favour of assuming only editors ever click them. Even for editors, a simpler step-by-step guide on how to help resolve tags has got to be better than effectively saying "go read the policy".

As to template documentation - well in some cases that has content which could go on a landing page. Template:Citation_needed#When_not_to_use_this_template for instance, is the sort of thing you need to know in order to judge whether the template was used correctly, and therefore how to respond. Template:Verify source also has some notes. (By contrast, the template that made me start this thread, Template:Verify credibility has just a single sentence, "Add this template only after a good faith attempt to verify the reliability of the source in question.")

So, should we try and develop some landing pages? Misplaced Pages:Citation needed would be the basic model (but that page is quite simple, more detail is needed). Rd232 14:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I drafted some usage guidelines for {{verify credibility}}. A tag-specific landing page might still be useful. Anomie⚔ 19:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

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