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RfC on draftifying a subset of mass-created Cricketer microstubs
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In reading over the discussion, there was Consensus that these should be addressed. However, there is No Consensus that mass-draftification (mass-moving-out-of-article-space) is the correct solution for all of these. But rather that these should be addressed on a case-by-case basis (some individually, some as a part of a sub-grouping). Too many various concerns to list. Listification was also proposed. As the primary focus of this nomination was the question of moving the pages en-masse, there is no prejudice against listification (or any other typical editorial process), at editorial discretion, following the typical process (whether that be pre-discussing, WP:BRD, etc.), on a case-by-case basis, to address these. - jc37 04:39, 17 August 2023 (UTC) - Edit: Just to clarify, the result of the discussion is that - "There is No Consensus that mass-draftification (mass-moving-out-of-article-space) is the correct solution for all of these." There were many concerns, and several proposed solutions other than mass-draftifying, but none of those had consensus either. What did have overall consensus, was that "something" should be done (but no consensus on what was proposed). And so, there is "no prejudice" against further discussion, or handling these on a case-by-case basis (at normal editorial disccretion, following the typical process(es), etc). Perhaps restating the close in this way is (hopefully) clearer. |
Should the following 1,182 biographical microstubs, which were mass-created by Lugnuts and cover cricketers, be moved out of article space? 06:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
List of microstubs
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Details (mass draftification of cricket articles)
Selection criteria: Generated using a Quarry query, these 1,200 articles are a subset of the articles that meet the following criteria:
- Articles are created by Lugnuts
- Articles are on cricketers
- Articles are smaller than 2,500 bytes[a]
- Referenced only to CricketArchive or ESPNcricinfo[b]
- No significant contributions from editors other than Lugnuts[c]
If this proposal is successful: All articles on the list will be draftified, subject to the provisions below:
- Draftified articles will be autodeleted after 5 years (instead of the usual 6 months)
- Any editor may userfy any draft (which will prevent autodeletion)
- Any WikiProject may move a draft to their WikiProject space (which will also prevent autodeletion)
- Any draft (whether in draftspace, userspace, or WikiProject space) can be returned to mainspace when it contains sources that plausibly meet WP:GNG[d]
- Editors may return drafts to mainspace for the sole purpose of redirecting/merging them to an appropriate article, if they believe that doing so is in the best interest of the encyclopedia[e]
Background (mass draftification of cricket articles)
In the 2022 Deletion ArbCom case, ArbCom found (Finding #6) that User:Lugnuts had created over 93,000 articles, "the most articles of any editor ... Most of these were stubs, and relatively few have been expanded to longer articles", which led to sanctions from the community and to Lugnuts being indefinitely sitebanned by Arbcom.
Arbcom also mandated an RfC on mass deletion. A mass creation RfC took place but the mass deletion RfC did not, and the RFC mandate was rescinded, leaving the question of how to handle mass-created microstubs such as these unresolved. In March a proposal was made to draftify approximately 1000 articles on Olympians as a possible resolution to this. The proposal was successful and this proposal continues that process.
Survey (mass draftification of cricket articles)
- Support The alternative to continuing to address such mass creations through this process is bringing hundreds or thousands of articles through AfD each month[f] and that alternative is not practical. These are articles that took minutes, sometimes seconds, to create; each AfD consumes hours of community time and it would be a waste to spend more collective time assessing each of them individually than was spent on their creation. Further, editors who support keeping these articles object on the grounds that the workload is too high; that it is impossible to search for sources with the diligence required in the time available and as a consequence articles on notable topics are deleted.This proposal resolves both of those issues; editors will have time to search for sources and considerable amounts of our most limited resource, editor time, will be saved.We also cannot leave the articles as are; we have a responsibility to curate the encyclopedia, to remove articles that do not belong on it due to failing to meet our notability criteria or due to violating our policies on what Wikipedia is not. Failing to meet this responsibility is harmful to the project; it reinforces the perception among the public that Wikipedia is mostly empty around the edges and that anything is notable, and it reinforces the perception among editors that creating large numbers of microstubs that do not inform the reader is as good or better than creating smaller numbers of informative articles.These are articles that all violate the fifth basic sports notability criteria, on topics that usually lack notability, that no one edits, that almost no one looks at, and that are so bereft of information that they are of no benefit to the reader. Removing the group will improve the quality of the encyclopedia, and by doing it in this manner we provide the best hope of the articles on notable topics being identified, improved, and returned to mainspace. BilledMammal (talk) 06:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per proposer. My feeling is that this is a good way to deal with the low-quality and WP:SPORTCRIT-failing microstubs with enough leeway for any editor who wants to keep any of the articles to do the needed research to expand the article. starship.paint (exalt) 06:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. The Olympics draftification has not resulted in any objective improvement to the encyclopaedia and this is just more of the same. Thryduulf (talk) 07:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. Having a massive number of microstubs is detrimental to cleanup efforts and maintenance. If anything, this proposal is quite generous for articles that never should have been created in the first place. A good compromise overall, and it gives several options for anyone that might take an interest in one or more of these articles. I also support carrying this out for all other articles that meet the listed criteria. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support, except for "If this proposal is successful" point no. 3: wikiprojects have no business holding onto drafts; it's just not normal, and it encourages the extremely bad habit of wikiprojects behaving like walled gardens and flexing in a WP:GANG + WP:OWN manner toward content they claim is within their scope. Draftspacing and userifying are entirely sufficient options. Aside from that, I wholeheartedly agree with draftifying (one way or another) these miserable micro-stubs, most of which have no hope of ever becoming proper encyclopedia articles. We have far too many half-assed pseudo-articles on minor figures in sport, acting, and other pop-culture subjects. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support Their deletion would disencourage masscreation of microstubs based on databases. It would save a lot of time for the potentual participants in AfDs. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Found this 3 rationales cited by Cbl62 further down in support of draftication pretty much convincing and would like to reproduce them here again.
- (1) Mass creation. The articles at issue were the product of Lugnuts' well-documented mass process in which thousands of articles were created, often at the rate of approximately a minute per article.
- (2) Lack of substance. The articles are microstubs that contain very limited narrative text, simply reciting that the person was a cricket player who appeared in X number of games for X team. If the articles are ultimately deleted, nothing of real substance is lost. If SIGCOV is later uncovered and brought forth, and given the fact that only a minute or so was devoted to the original effort, the articles can be re-created without any meaningful loss of prior effort.
- (3) Violation of SPORTBASIC. The articles violate prong 5 of WP:SPORTBASIC which provides: "Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources." The articles here are sourced only to database sources and do not include SIGCOV.
- For transparency I must admit there was a fourth one, but that one I do not support the same way.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:54, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Paradise Chronicle - WP:NORUSH. The rush to mass create these articles and the rush to mass delete them seem like two sides of the same coin. Getting it right is more important than speed.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- “Two sides of the same coin” implies comparable effect - but that is not the case. One is essentially vandalism, the other is just respiring the situation as it would have been had the vandalism not taken place. FOARP (talk)| FOARP (talk) 21:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @FOARP - The idea is the same - it would take too long to do the research for each individual article and we need to do this NOW so we can move onto the next article despite WP:NORUSH. Lugnuts followed the rules when he created the articles. The rules have since changed. Those same rules may change again tomorrow.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- “Two sides of the same coin” implies comparable effect - but that is not the case. One is essentially vandalism, the other is just respiring the situation as it would have been had the vandalism not taken place. FOARP (talk)| FOARP (talk) 21:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Found this 3 rationales cited by Cbl62 further down in support of draftication pretty much convincing and would like to reproduce them here again.
- Comment - I think we need more granular detail on the people concerned. Personally I think someone who played more than 20 First Class matches in any country recognised by the ICC is notable. Someone who played 10 is possibly debatable, someone who played less than 5 probably isn't. For me there are extreme edge cases (for example some who appears to only have played one match in 1890) which can be redirected to a list. There are a bigger group where the sourcing is bad but could likely be improved (in my example maybe someone who played regularly for a first class team) and an intermediate group which could/should be draftified until such time as more information is found. Of course this requires buy-in from WikiProjects being prepared to engage in improvement; failing that I agree that we might as well just draft with a high likelihood that nobody will work on them and they'll be deleted. JMWt (talk) 08:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- In terms of granular detail, BilledMammal was kind enough to sort out a query for me that included the team categories. I've got a version of this at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox6 - it includes was more than just the 1,200 listed here. It doesn't get into the number of appearances because that wouldn't be categorised so it's not possible to pull that off. But it may be of some use.
- From cutting that list down, I think the 1,200 here are probably split up as:
- Indian - 283 (24%)
- Australian - 262 (22%)
- South African - 137 (11%)
- Sri Lankan - 122 (10%)
- New Zealand - 94 (8%)
- Pakistani - 83 (7%)
- English* - 70 (6%)
- Others - about 13% - Bangledishi, Afghan, Zimbabwean, West Indian and a few others.
- I would think most of the Australians, New Zealanders and English* will be on the redirect list eventually. Means we lose a lot of south Asian and African articles (list are less well developed in these cases). Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Caveat there are some issues regarding the redirect list that I need to get to, but if those are resolved then with the caveat that articles to be draftified should be tagged for a period of 7 days before that occurs I might be able to get to a position where I could think about being more supportive of this. There are simply too many articles here for anyone to check through, but individual editors may have them on watchlists and might be able to step in and deal with them in such a period (there are a number of cricket editors with an interest in and sources dealing with specific teams). A number of articles have already been removed from the initial lists produced, but there are simply too many here to check through. This is complicated somewhat by the inclusion of articles in this list where there are already prose sources in the article rather than simple database entries. This is a complicated issue, but essentially the CricInfo articles will sometimes contain prose, occasionally prose that originated from The Cricketer or Wisden - both clearly excellent reliable sources. CricketArchive occasionally also does this. It's difficult to know for sure how many, partly because there's just so many articles here. Again, tagging for a short period would allow editors with an interest in individual articles to check and ensure there there's no people included who already meet the source that could plausibly... condition. This would include people like Brett Matthews (cricketer) (where there's already a prose source which contributes in the article - this is the only one of the 250 or so articles I've checked which are still on the list to be on it in error in my view), Brett van Deinsen, Brendan Creevey, Brad Oldroyd for example. These are snapshots, but each has something that makes me feel that WP:NEXIST means that if we were to dig more that we'd easily find more on them. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Brett Matthews shouldn't be on the list, per the note attached to selection criteria #4 due to the presence of this reference. The reason it is on the list is because that reference is linked in an extremely unusual way; I've manually removed him from the list and am currently working to determine whether the problem applies to any other members of the list. BilledMammal (talk) 08:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for that. Things like this are part of the reason I'd rather tag for a period so that things can be checked. I suspect there may be a handful of others. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Fixed. Six articles were on the list incorrectly and have now been removed. If I can work out how to have the template display a different message in main space than it does in draft space I don't mind leaving the articles in main space for a week after adding the template before moving them to draft space. BilledMammal (talk) 10:16, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for that. Things like this are part of the reason I'd rather tag for a period so that things can be checked. I suspect there may be a handful of others. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Brett Matthews shouldn't be on the list, per the note attached to selection criteria #4 due to the presence of this reference. The reason it is on the list is because that reference is linked in an extremely unusual way; I've manually removed him from the list and am currently working to determine whether the problem applies to any other members of the list. BilledMammal (talk) 08:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support Extraordinary situations require extraordinary solutions. This 1,200 is only a mere subset of Lugnuts' work, and certainly among the least developed. Put them in draft space where they can either be incubated or ultimately removed. -Indy beetle (talk) 08:44, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support, per Indy beetle.—S Marshall T/C 09:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose any thinking that begins with an artificial sense of urgency, or claims that We also cannot leave the articles as are (we absolutely can; you just don't want us to), so we must do something right now. Don't just stand there, do something! (Except for genuinely trying to expand and source any of the articles yourself. People might discover that it was possible, and we can't have that, because it would interfere with our deletion goals.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- A very good point this, thanks for bringing it up. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Since posting this, I asked a website for a random number (3 out of 10), went 30% of the way down the hidden list above, and found Anwell Newman. I don't know anything about cricket, and I've never heard of this person, but in a little more than an hour, I'd turned the article into a decent start that cites half a dozen recent news sources and learned something about the apartheid era in cricket and discovered that veterans leagues are a thing, even though we don't have an article about Veterans cricket.
- I've obviously got no way to know whether this is just randomly the only one in the entire list that could be expanded, but I doubt it, because it was a randomly selected article that I know absolutely nothing about. This confirms my feeling that the "problem" here is Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Nobody's working on it (or impatience with improvement) rather than an actual problem with the article (which was 100% accurate, BTW). IMO m:Immediatism is a more honorable philosophy when you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do the work, rather than hiding accurate information from readers because nobody else WP:VOLUNTEERed to do the work on your schedule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:45, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
People might discover that it was possible, and we can't have that, because it would interfere with our deletion goals.
That is a bizarre statement. Of course it is possible; if it wasn't we would be proposing deletion, rather than draftification. The issue is distinguishing between the minority that it is possible to expand from the majority that aren't, and handling said majority in a way that doesn't consume a disproportionate amount of the communities time. BilledMammal (talk) 13:00, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- A very good point this, thanks for bringing it up. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Keep or Delete Draftifying this many articles is like stuffing your mess inside a closet —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- No it isn't, it is making order in the main space and leaving what possibly still needs grow in draft space. The articles will likely only get expanded them if they are threatened in some way either by drafitifcation or deletion. They didn't get expanded until now, yet they (I believe mostly) exist since years. And if they get nominated one by one, the vast majority gets deleted or redirected in my experience.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- I doubt they will get touched at all in draftspace. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:00, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- No it isn't, it is making order in the main space and leaving what possibly still needs grow in draft space. The articles will likely only get expanded them if they are threatened in some way either by drafitifcation or deletion. They didn't get expanded until now, yet they (I believe mostly) exist since years. And if they get nominated one by one, the vast majority gets deleted or redirected in my experience.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support, reluctantly - I just tried to rescue seven articles at random using relatively basic internet searches and went 0-for-7. I'm sure we're going to overlook at least one actually notable cricketer, but those articles can be re-created. SportingFlyer T·C 12:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer, I'm 1-for-1, with a randomly selected article. Would you like to post the names of the seven you looked at? Maybe someone else would like to have a go at them (or to make sure that they're looking at different ones). WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: I searched for Aaqib Khan, Akoijam Tenyson Singh, Alfred Browne (cricketer), Alexander Robinson (cricketer, born 1924), Alexander Slight, Alfred Carlton, and Brian Murphy (Jamaican cricketer), and I just now searched for Dennis Thorbourne. I would send them all to AfD if this is opposed. SportingFlyer T·C 17:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I should also note my WP:BEFORE was cursory enough - two searches per person - but the only hits I could find were for database sources, or for other people with the same name, with the exception of Alfred Browne who is related to another, more famous cricketer. SportingFlyer T·C 17:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I had no luck with regular web searches, as the top hits were all duplicative databases. I had better luck with news-specific searches. For your first, I see a description of him as a 17-year-old right-arm medium-pacer and another called him a young right-arm seamer (I don't know what that means, but I assume it means something. I also don't know what it means if someone pulled medium-pacer Aaqib Khan to deep fine-leg – the jargon here is deep). He was included in a list of youngest players,[1] and I'm pretty sure that this gives his recent salary, or at least something like it. He's Muslim.[2]
- But it turned out that what we really needed was the Hindi-language newspapers. The transliteration of his name is आकिब खान, and with that, you can ask your favorite search engine to look for non-English sources. For example, in the third-biggest daily newspaper in the largest country in the world, there are three sources that handle SIGCOV issues pretty nicely: https://www.livehindustan.com/uttar-pradesh/saharanpur/story-aaqib-khan-of-saharanpur-selected-in-under-19-india-team-2870012.html looks like a couple hundred words about his childhood and becoming a professional cricketer. https://www.livehindustan.com/uttar-pradesh/saharanpur/story-aaqib-of-saharanpur-is-ready-to-play-against-afghanistan-2871651.html is even longer and gives his parents names and professions and says he's the first from his town to be chosen for the Under-19's team. https://www-livehindustan-com.translate.goog/uttar-pradesh/saharanpur/story-aaqib-khan-selected-for-practice-bowler-in-mumbai-indians-3935545.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp announces him being selected as (what machine translation calls) a "practice bowler" with (what I'm guessing is) a professional team.
- Machine translation isn't great for Hindi, but I don't think we need a perfect translation to discover that these three news articles alone count as that ideal for the GNG, "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing - I've been in way too many AfD discussions where someone searches up the romanized version of someone's name and says "there's no coverage on this person". Then, when you search their name in their native language, a lot more results start popping up. It's a major problem on this website and I do hope something is done about it in the future. It'd be like searching Tom Brady in Bhojpuri and claiming he's not notable because no results pop-up.KatoKungLee (talk) 15:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Off topic, but I think it is worth considering adding a transliteration tool to Template:Find sources AFD, at least for articles with Category:AfD debates (Biographical). The issue is that editors don't think to search for their native name, particularily when it isn't included in the article; including such a tool in that template might provide the subtle hint necessary to boost the rate of searches for that name. If you open a discussion about that somewhere, please ping me; I would be interested in participating. BilledMammal (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @KatoKungLee, it would probably help if the articles consistently provided the local/original spelling for people's names. Most of us can copy/paste into a search engine, but fewer can figure out the relevant languages and make the transliteration. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'd support that, @BilledMammal, but it could be extended to a lot more than BLPs. A very common issue I encounter is with foods/dishes. I've seen foods that were considered national or regional dishes not show up in romanized searches and have had to resort to using google translate to convert the English rendering back into the native language, which is also iffy. It's particularly a concern for places like India, where most regional dishes will have renderings in at least two languages. Valereee (talk) 13:32, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Off topic, but I think it is worth considering adding a transliteration tool to Template:Find sources AFD, at least for articles with Category:AfD debates (Biographical). The issue is that editors don't think to search for their native name, particularily when it isn't included in the article; including such a tool in that template might provide the subtle hint necessary to boost the rate of searches for that name. If you open a discussion about that somewhere, please ping me; I would be interested in participating. BilledMammal (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The first and third articles are routine transactional news that mostly contain reports of what people affiliated with him said/thought, not independent commentary. The second piece seems to be an expansion on the first piece, despite being published before. It's also under the stricter provisions of YOUNGATH and so unlikely to count towards notability at all. JoelleJay (talk) 23:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing - I've been in way too many AfD discussions where someone searches up the romanized version of someone's name and says "there's no coverage on this person". Then, when you search their name in their native language, a lot more results start popping up. It's a major problem on this website and I do hope something is done about it in the future. It'd be like searching Tom Brady in Bhojpuri and claiming he's not notable because no results pop-up.KatoKungLee (talk) 15:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer, I'm 1-for-1, with a randomly selected article. Would you like to post the names of the seven you looked at? Maybe someone else would like to have a go at them (or to make sure that they're looking at different ones). WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support largely per my comment at the last RfC. If someone spends a few moments doing something mildly disruptive we should not be afraid to undue it – even if it's a page creation, even if they did it 1200 times. If someone finds a cache of sources and wants to create a well-sourced article on any of these cricketers, the existing articles would be of no help whatsoever. Ajpolino (talk) 12:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I just expanded one, and that was not my experience. I specifically found three bits of information to be useful: the team he played for, his birth date (because Cricket World Cup is "50-over" tournament, and I spent a long time trying to figure out whether the "Over-50's Cricket World Cup" was the same thing or if it referred to the age of the players), and the year that he started playing first-class matches (so I could make sure that an article about his second career was the same person). WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Removed Anwell Newman, thank you for expanding it. That information is easily available in database sources; us mirroring said sources doesn't make it easier to write articles. BilledMammal (talk) 12:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Generally, when someone says that they found ______ easier than the alternatives, you should probably believe them. I personally found that it was easier for me to expand the article when that information was right there in front of me than if I had to do the extra work of looking it up on a different website.
- More generally, if you genuinely believe that you know more about my personal experience than I do, then the world needs you to consider a different hobby. Mindreading comes to mind; you might be the first person in history to actually be able to do it. Otherwise, please don't tell me that I don't know what was easier for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I picked three arbitrarily: David Mailer, Craig Marais (cricketer), and Chengkam Sangma. I personally did not find the existing articles helpful as they restate what's available at ESPNCricInfo, which is also the first Google hit when I search them. I used Google and TWL's Gale and EBSCO subscriptions with a handful of keywords (team name, approximate dates, etc.) and couldn't find any real coverage. I did find Mailer's obit which doesn't give much more to go off of. Just snippets of routine match coverage for the others (both of whom are still alive, best I can tell). Now I don't have the deepest confidence in my ability to dig up source material on cricketers, but my poking around plus the criteria for the article selection make me think these articles are mirrors of database content on topics that don't meet GNG. As for dealing with them en masse, my thoughts align with GreenC's below. Ajpolino (talk) 16:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at your first in TWL's NewspaperArchive.com, I find 159 records for David Mailer from 1874–1937 in Australia. I'm having trouble reading the fine print, but it's possible that there is something useful in there. The obit, which looks written by the newspaper rather than a paid advertisement, would support a sentence about a post-cricket career of grazier, and to say that he was married but had no offspring. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Removed Anwell Newman, thank you for expanding it. That information is easily available in database sources; us mirroring said sources doesn't make it easier to write articles. BilledMammal (talk) 12:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I just expanded one, and that was not my experience. I specifically found three bits of information to be useful: the team he played for, his birth date (because Cricket World Cup is "50-over" tournament, and I spent a long time trying to figure out whether the "Over-50's Cricket World Cup" was the same thing or if it referred to the age of the players), and the year that he started playing first-class matches (so I could make sure that an article about his second career was the same person). WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per my general support for reducing the number of short stubs unlikely to ever be significantly expanded. - Donald Albury 12:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - "Lugnuts didn't take his time creating these, so why should we" is an entirely valid feeling. I found Lugnuts frustrating, too, and nobody is going to be forced to improve these articles or spend any time on them. It does not, however, create any urgency to [not just ignore but] delete them. None of these articles have been evaluated for notability. None of these articles have been evaluated for quality. It's use of draftspace to circumvent the deletion process (see WP:DRAFTIFY), and based entirely on metadata rather than anything to do with article subjects. I would support mass deletion of any stubs created after consensus formed that it's not ok to mass create articles based on databases. No need for draftification there. For articles created before that, though, it just seems vindictive. The articles aren't policy violations; there's no emergency that demands they be dealt with. If you're still feeling resentment towards Lugnuts, perhaps take comfort in the knowledge that he can no longer create articles at all, and then find something totally different to work on. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:03, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Problem is, there are still getting created numerous articles on autopatrolled only sourced to dependent databases. There needs to be some solution for that, and draftifying such articles seems an acceptable one for me.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 16:36, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - For several reasons:
- 1) The Olympian draftifcation had multiple articles on there that were drafted erroneously like Addin Tyldesley and we already have spotted articles that don't belong there with this one. How many errors are going to be in this list? Nobody knows or cares. Why does getting articles drafted supercede drafting articles correctly? WP:NORUSH. Mass-creating and mass-drafting articles seems to be two sides of the same coin.
- 2) Deleting large batches of articles is obviously not encyclopedia building behavior. These articles do no harm to anyone by being here and many of them may be able to be expanded and improved. Drafting them makes them less likely to be improved.
- 3) WP:BIAS and WP:SBEXT plays a role here. We do not have access to the informational resources of various countries in the Middle East and Oceania, which limits research. Even if we did, being able to read other languages is yet another hurdle. We also know the English speaking media has generally little interest in non-political topics from these places.
- 4) Lugnuts does not WP:OWN any articles, yet he keeps being mentioned. He has nothing to do with this and should not be mentioned. Articles with limited information or sources is a collective failure.
- 5) The wikipedia notability rules were followed at the time of the creation of these articles. The notability rules were then changed and likely will be changed again in the future due to situations like this. It is asking a lot of articles to not only follow current rules, but follow future rules that do not currently exist and/or may only temporarily exist.KatoKungLee (talk) 13:44, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support For the same reason I supported the olympian draftification. To the contrary of the poster above, an article failing current notability rules is an excellent reason to delete it. Old articles are not exempted from the current notability rules. (t · c) buidhe 14:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
an article failing current notability rules
- Do these? This is a list based on article creator + size + current sourcing, not notability. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- @Rhododendrites: I think most of these fail WP:GNG, and all of them fail WP:GNG "on their face." They did not fail the guideline at the time because it was not tailored to GNG. The alternative is going through and searching for sources for every single one of these to see if they can be expanded, which is frustrating, given how little effort was put into their creation. SportingFlyer T·C 17:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Alternative, First put them all in a maintenance category, if not already in one, so they can easily be found and identified. Merge and redirect wherever reasonably practicable. Most can probably find a home in a list or other article where they should have been in the first place. Apart from saving information, this might show people that it is better to put the information into an existing article if it is so sparse, and split it out when there is enough to be worth the trouble. Any that are unsuitable for a merge and redirect should probably be deleted. Any that are still not merged or improved can be relisted after a year or so. Maybe someone can write a script for doing this quickly. If anyone wants to make a real article from any of them they can do it any time. Hiding them in draft space without an action plan is unlikely to save anything in the long run. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 14:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I would say this is feasible but the absolute lack of progress on almost every maintenance project means that the burden falls on a very very small subset of editors, who frankly have dwindling patience to clean up other people's messes. Sennecaster (Chat) Sennecaster (Chat) 15:47, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Pbsouthwood: See this discussion that I just opened at BOTN; note that it doesn't just cover articles that this process would apply to as I didn't see the need to limit the application of maintenance tags in that way - in other words, just because an article is on that list doesn't mean it would ever be proposed to be draftified under this process. BilledMammal (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support but I think the idea Peter Southwood presents may be a good step 1: tag all those proposed into a maintenance cat, and then re-notify the appropriate projects that these will be draftified in, say, 6 months unless there is significant improvement on them, and then follow the steps above. This should allow those that are easily proven notable to be taken out of the cat, or catch errors, so that there is far less bemoaning when the draftication happens. --Masem (t) 14:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think this is a better idea. Maybe give it a year and put up a notification on each categorised page. SportingFlyer T·C 17:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. This is such a terrible, terrible, really bad idea. To start, I want to let anyone thinking of voting here know that if this passes, BilledMammal will continue with several others every few months, until we've backdoor-deleted tens-to-hundreds of thousands of historical athletes and wasted enormous quantities of editor time. Is that really what makes the encyclopedia better? Now, for my reasons to oppose: many of my previous points at the Olympian discussion also apply here:
- Mass draftification is not the right approach for potentially non-notable articles. For one, it actually violates policy; WP:DRAFTIFY specifically states "Older articles should not be draftified. As a rule of thumb, articles older than 90 days should not be draftified without prior consensus at AfD." These articles are much older than 90 days, and this is not AfD. And it also states that it is not intended as a backdoor to deletion: this is effectively what this proposal is. Additionally, there are many more appropriate and more beneficial to the encyclopedia ways that these could be dealt with—for example, BilledMammal (the proposer) made the template Template:No significant coverage (sports) for the sole reason that articles would not have to be mass deleted (–BilledMammal: "I've created Template:No significant coverage (sports) to give editors an alternative to immediately [removing from mainspace] articles lacking significant coverage.") You could nominate the articles for deletion at AfD, PROD them, redirect them, or, my favorite, expand them.
- Many of these are notable and can be expanded. I admit that, unlike the Olympian discussion, I know nothing of cricket and am not great and finding sources for such articles, but I've seen users like Blue Squared Thing doing expansion after expansion after expansion to these articles before and after the discussion started. That clearly shows these are often notable and have the potential to be expanded.
- There is no wrong in keeping these. Unlike the deletionists seem to argue, the encyclopedia is not harmed in any way by the inclusion of stub articles. It is harmed, however, in my opinion by discussions like these which waste enormous quantities of editor time and result in the mass backdoor-deletion (specifically against policy) of enormous amounts of potentially notable articles. Explain in what way is Wikipedia made better by getting rid of notable articles (even if those articles are stubs)—would you rather have short articles on people you're interested in, or nothing at all?
- I could argue more but I am too tired to. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:56, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
For one, it actually violates policy; WP:DRAFTIFY specifically states...
WP:DRAFTIFY is an essay, not policy. Further, the section you are referring to, WP:DRAFTIFY#During new page review, isn't discussing draftification generally, but draftification during new page review. BilledMammal (talk) 15:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- The section is irrelevant—it still states that. But if you want a policy, see here:
Incubation must not be used as a "backdoor to deletion".
BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:22, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- It isn't being used as a backdoor to deletion; above, KatoKungLee gave an example of a Olympian from the previous RfC who has been improved and returned to mainspace, and you improved and restored Gyula Iványi - I see I made a few small edits to that one as well.
- It is being used to incubate the articles, so that those that are improvable can be improved and returned to mainspace. BilledMammal (talk) 15:43, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
It isn't being used as a backdoor to deletion; above, KatoKungLee gave an example of a Olympian from the previous RfC who has been improved and returned to mainspace, and you improved and restored Gyula Iványi - I see I made a few small edits to that one as well.
– You're avoiding the 1,000 others that have not been improved... not to mention when I improved Gyula you and S Marshall tried really hard to delete it BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:49, 8 July 2023 (UTC)You're avoiding the 1,000 others that have not been improved...
We have five years to improve those articles. Of course, many can't be and in time will be deleted, but that is the purpose of this proposal; it is to give us time to sift through these microstubs that were dumped on the encyclopedia and improve the ones that are suitable and delete the ones that aren't without overloading processes like AfD. The fact that some have already been improved and restored to mainspace is proof that this isn't a backdoor to deletion.not to mention when I improved Gyula you and S Marshall tried really hard to delete it
At an AfD where after you and I collaborated to find a reliable source I !voted keep, a position that S Marshall concurred with BilledMammal (talk) 16:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)The fact that some have already been improved and restored to mainspace is proof that this isn't a backdoor to deletion.
Er... no. The fact that 2/1000 (0.2%) of the articles (of which, a much, much larger proportion are notable) were saved is not. at. all.proof that this isn't a backdoor to deletion.
At an AfD where after you and I collaborated to find a reliable source I !voted keep, a position that S Marshall concurred with
– Of course, after you initially voted delete and over an hour and a half of arguing about whether the sources were good enough switched to "keep" BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- The section is irrelevant—it still states that. But if you want a policy, see here:
- Bringing articles to AfD is incredibly time-consuming. Multiple editors have to weigh in and do their due diligence in searching for sources to argue for or against notability (or whatever grounds the article is nominated for). Then there are debates which can just be so energy-draining. And hundreds of articles are sent to AfD a week. If notability were to be challenged on every single one here, that would take time and energy away from other deletion discussions. Doing it in bulk like this, while takes a month and a hundred-plus editors, takes far less time and editors' hours overall. SWinxy (talk) 01:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Where did I say AfD is the only option? BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:06, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support - Best route to go. GoodDay (talk) 15:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per WhatAmIDoing. Spy-cicle💥 Talk? 15:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support It is clear that microstubs with insiginificant database sources are unacceptable. If you think some of these are notable and can be expanded, then no one's stopping you. But the interpretation that playing a single game of sport means you are automatically notable here and exempt from sourcing requirements is wrong and outdated. Bulk draftification is absolutely an appropriate response to recognizing that these articles are simply not ready for mainspace, and I believe the impossiblity of sorting though Lugnuts's mass-creation individually justifies an extension of the rule of thumb regarding article age. Reywas92Talk 15:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose I thank BilledMammal for the courtesy ping. I don't like the idea of hiding the intent to mass delete these articles. Delaying a mass deletion by 5 years is still a mass deletion, I think we're be better off with a more honest proposal to massively delete them on a more immediate time scale. I also am concerned that these files affected would be disproportionately be of Indian, South African, and Sri Lankan athletes where Wikipedia already has an Anglo-American skew, and this proposal would have the disparate impact of making that issue worse. I also don't like that this proposal seems to be a punitive one aimed at Lugnuts. I admit that I personally don't like that Lugnuts took no care in creating or maintaining the articles that they created. I also definitely sympathize with those who do the work of curating Wikipedia and the kind of mess that we've inherited from Lugnuts's negligence. Abzeronow (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Oppose I am opposing this for the reasons I opposed the Olympic one, although this one is even easier to expand the articles on because some are actually around recently enough to have digital coverage! QuicoleJR (talk) 15:45, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- Support - As I commented in the original WP:LUGSTUBS RFC:
It's clear that some kind of cleanup is required, and increasing AfD workload by something like half for literal years simply cannot be the only solution. The proposed extremely extended draftification seems like a suitably conservative approach (to the point that I'm not sure five years is truly required), giving editors plenty of time rescue any articles that warrant rescuing while ensuring that (most of) those which do not warrant retaining are eventually (even if after an extensive wait) removed.
-Ljleppan (talk) 16:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC) - Oppose as an obvious backdoor to deletion. And quite frankly, anyone who doesn't think that mass draftification won't hit their editing area of choice sooner or later is naive. --Rschen7754 16:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- If my area of editing had a mess like this, I would be ashamed of it and first in line to get it cleaned out. This philosophy of "everything related to my area of editing should automatically warrant its own article without regard for high quality sources" just creates a mess that other users then have to clean up, and I'm glad to see that it's getting shot down more and more frequently. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per Rschen7754. Obvious backdoor to deletion. Where does it end? LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:30, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - Thanks for the notification; my stance has not changed. I oppose the mass deletion of articles whether it is explicit or via a backdoor, and whether it is done immediately or boiling frog-style. The latter is more insidious, though; per David Eppstein's comment from the original proposal: (I oppose this)
not so much because I care about these Olympian sub-stubs, but because I do care about WP:CREEP and about not expanding the already-problematic process of using draftification as a way of getting rid of articles for which there is no immediate prospect of active improvement and resubmission. Regardless of whether the gotten-rid-of-articles are deleted from draftspace or just left there to molder forever, they have been eliminated out-of-process as Wikipedia content, debasing both our proper deletion processes and our proper use of draftspace to foster drafts.
I also oppose -- as strongly as it is possible to oppose something -- the continued personal insults toward Lugnuts that seem to crop up in every single one of these things. WP:CIVIL is a policy. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC) - Oppose: Other editors have addressed several cogent policy concerns, and @WhatamIdoing has demonstrated that at least one of the cricketers listed meets WP:GNG or WP:ATHLETE. My concern is more procedural. Rather than having deletion discussions every few months to deal with Lugnut's work, time might be better spent organizing with the relevant WikiProjects to systematically review articles for notability and only then nominating verified non-notable articles for mass deletion (or PRODing individual articles as articles are evaluated). There's no reason to give other editors five years to fix things; the community should start that work now. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- These have already been around for years, clearly no one really cares to systematically review them and it seems disingenuous to think someone will actually get through tens of thousands of these. If people do in fact care to sift through all of them, they can from draftspace as well. Reywas92Talk 19:47, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- 'Oppose per Rschen7754 and also... they aren't great, but it isn't really a crisis, is it? Let them simmer in the big pot of mainspace a while, the flavour will probably improve; no need to kick them back onto the cutting board (draftspace). Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 17:23, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Edward-Woodrow I don't have an opinion on this proposal, but I've found that the attitude of
Let them simmer in the big pot of mainspace a while
tends to end up with poor quality articles not being improved at all. They tend to be improved when there's a time limit. This is why people who participate at AfD discussions tend to be sensitive about AfD being used as a method of improving articles articles instead of exploring whether or not articles need to be deleted. (Summoned by bot) I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 18:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- @I dream of horses: The thing is when someone proposes so. many. articles. to be draftifed, and after that, so. many. more. articles, to the point that there's tens of thousands of articles in draftspace that will soon be deleted, there's gonna be a whole lot of improvable articles being removed through the backdoor. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11 Unfortunately, mass-direct-deletion will cause more controversy, to such a degree that it's not going to happen. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 20:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
a whole lot of improvable articles being removed through the backdoor.
Exactly. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 17:21, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @I dream of horses: The thing is when someone proposes so. many. articles. to be draftifed, and after that, so. many. more. articles, to the point that there's tens of thousands of articles in draftspace that will soon be deleted, there's gonna be a whole lot of improvable articles being removed through the backdoor. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Most of these have already been simmering for many years...there's a reason they haven't been expanded already and a reason it only took mass-creation to write them, these simply are not notable people needing articles. Reywas92Talk 19:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Edward-Woodrow I don't have an opinion on this proposal, but I've found that the attitude of
- Support the solution to mass-X is mass-Y. Nothing wrong with this method it's a measured response to a previous action. Slippery slope fear mongering presented by Rschen7754 is a logical fallacy aka appeal to fear ("mass draftification won't hit their editing area of choice sooner or later is naive"). -- GreenC 17:47, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- For the record, BilledMammal has not left the option of expanding this to other articles off the table, albeit admitting:
If we ever go down that path we'll need a tool more powerful than Quarry to build the list.
. While this is a hypothetical, they have stated as a concrete idea:While I don't plan to include creations by multiple editors in the same group, consideration has been given to creating groups of mass created cricketers made by other editors, such as BlackJack.
You can read the full discussion here, although it's understandable you weren't aware of it since it wasn't made public in this RfC. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:27, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- He does seem to want to go after others, see his comment there:
However, I do want to use this group to stretch the boundaries of what the process can be used for; in it I want to do at least some of the following: Change the article selection criteria, to avoid the specific values of the first group becoming a standard part of the process; Nominate articles created by editors other than Lugnuts, to avoid the process becoming a "Lugnuts cleanup process"; Nominate articles on topics outside the sports topic area - or at least the Olympics topic area - to avoid the process becoming a "sports cleanup process"; [and] Nominate a larger number of articles, to avoid the process being limited to ~1000 article batches
BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC) - Yes; I have considered other groups of mass created articles, such as those created by BlackJack. I would agree that there isn't a slippery slope here though, as it will only ever apply to groups of mass created articles that don't include any significant coverage. BilledMammal (talk) 18:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- He does seem to want to go after others, see his comment there:
- You go look at User talk:BilledMammal/Mass Creation Draftification - where one proposal said Nominate articles on topics outside the sports topic area - or at least the Olympics topic area - to avoid the process becoming a "sports cleanup process". Please tell me how it is supposed to only apply to sports. --Rschen7754 20:43, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- For the record, BilledMammal has not left the option of expanding this to other articles off the table, albeit admitting:
- Support We've long since discussed this repeatedly at this point and it relates back to many other discussions the community has already had, including making NSPORT explicitly clear that all sports related biographies must meet the GNG when challenged. The alternative to draftification here is outright deleting all of these articles, which I would also support, because the vast, vast majority of them are non-notable athletes who should have never had pages made on them in the first place. And any who are notable can very easily be recreated, considering the existing micro-stubs pinned only to database entries are tantamount to not having an article at all in the first place with how useless they are. Any sports Wikiproject editors above should probably focus on actually having good properly referenced articles on athletes in the first place, rather than complaining after the fact. The former should have been your requirement from the get-go and y'all should have challenged Lugnuts on their mass creation right when it started. Then we wouldn't have a mess to clean up at all. SilverserenC 17:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
And any who are notable can very easily be recreated ... Any sports Wikiproject editors above should probably focus on actually having good properly referenced articles on athletes in the first place
– Silver seren, do you know how difficult it is to write a properly referenced decent-sized article on a historical athlete? To find the sources, read them all, rephrase them and write them in the article - to add the references, do all the formatting, etc.? It often takes me hours to do that and in some cases (e.g. Draft:C. O. Brocato, my current project) days. You think us "sports Wikiproject editors" can "very easily" do that to tens of thousands of articles, with the consequence mass deletion if we do not? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- Not what I said at all. I said the Wikiproject should have prevented the mass creation done in the first place (and should be actively preventing any such creation going on right now without proper referencing). Draftification is a very minor consequence, compared to deletion, of this mass creation of improperly made articles that should have been dealt with years ago. SilverserenC 18:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Draftification results in deletion, so it is exactly the same consequence as deletion. The proposal here is not materially different from saying "I'm going to delete this unless you do a lot of work on my timeline". The timeline might sound generous to some editors – the proposal is ultimately to require the clean up of an average of two articles about cricketers every day for the next five years (plus one article about early Olympiads, plus who knows how many others will be proposed in the coming weeks), but it is still a proposal to delete them if people don't do the work on his timeline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Is it better to send cricketer after cricketer to AfD individually, though? SportingFlyer T·C 21:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer - Mass drafting articles is no different than mass creating articles. In both cases, the person behind it didn't feel like putting in the time (despite WP:NORUSH existing) to research the article due to time concerns.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:19, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, but most of these wouldn't survive an AfD, and the alternative - if this fails - is to AfD them one by one. SportingFlyer T·C 18:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- We don't know that most of these wouldn't survive an AfD. We have editors asserting their preferences with no proof.
- So far, I've looked into three of the players proposed for deletion-via-draft, and I've found newspaper articles (articles entirely and specifically focused on each individual, not just a sentence in an article that's really about a game they played in or a list of team members) for all three of them. For two out of the three, a bit more than an hour's work (each) showed that the subjects are clearly notable, and for the third, 10 minutes' work showed that it was at least possible that he's notable.
- Where's your evidence that what's true for these three would not also be true for the next three, or for the next 300? WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, but most of these wouldn't survive an AfD, and the alternative - if this fails - is to AfD them one by one. SportingFlyer T·C 18:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer - Mass drafting articles is no different than mass creating articles. In both cases, the person behind it didn't feel like putting in the time (despite WP:NORUSH existing) to research the article due to time concerns.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:19, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Is it better to send cricketer after cricketer to AfD individually, though? SportingFlyer T·C 21:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Draftification results in deletion, so it is exactly the same consequence as deletion. The proposal here is not materially different from saying "I'm going to delete this unless you do a lot of work on my timeline". The timeline might sound generous to some editors – the proposal is ultimately to require the clean up of an average of two articles about cricketers every day for the next five years (plus one article about early Olympiads, plus who knows how many others will be proposed in the coming weeks), but it is still a proposal to delete them if people don't do the work on his timeline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Not what I said at all. I said the Wikiproject should have prevented the mass creation done in the first place (and should be actively preventing any such creation going on right now without proper referencing). Draftification is a very minor consequence, compared to deletion, of this mass creation of improperly made articles that should have been dealt with years ago. SilverserenC 18:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support Such sloppy articles written by a condemnable fan don't deserve space on this wiki. Either an editor performs research and writes about notable subjects or they can leave this website. I, for one, enjoy seeing the political winds turn as we become more exclusionist. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- And here's those violations of WP:CIVIL I mentioned above. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose, all I have to say has been summed up pretty well by BeanieFan11:
if this passes, BilledMammal will continue with several others every few months, until we've backdoor-deleted tens-to-hundreds of thousands of historical athletes and wasted enormous quantities of editor time.
LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 18:47, 8 July 2023 (UTC) - Support per Silver seren and others, but 5 years is way too long for them to sit in Draft space before deletion. I would prefer 1 year. Nosferattus (talk) 19:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. Not convinced by the oppose arguments. There's no slippery slope that'll come for your WikiProject next. These were mass-creations straight from databases. When a user (DG) had systemic reliability issues in GAs, the presumption was to delete-by-default and rescue on a case-by-case basis. This one is about a user with systemic issues re: notability, and the logical response is the same as for DG. If this were a WikiProject I'm a member of and have to deal with the maintenance burden of, I'd have opposed these mass-creations from the start, and I'd now be screaming on rooftops for them to be draftified. What exactly are we here to do, except build good, minimum-medium-length articles on notable topics? Microstubs aren't fine to keep around indefinitely, they're an anomaly to be eventually eliminated; they don't provide encyclopedic coverage and go against the first pillar and WP:NOT. Non-notable articles must eventually be deleted, so to keep them around is to require editors to eventually go through each and decide whether to merge, redirect, or delete. We're talking many thousands of articles, and this unequivocally creates a huge maintenance burden, for articles that no one is reading. When someone created them with only minutes of effort, and even claiming that he inserted false statements into the microstube, that's disruption, and the best response is to mass-draftify. Not just these, but every single Lugnuts microstub sourced exclusively to databases. That's what we should have decided back when Lugnuts was banned, and it's really too bad we're now seeing "RfC fatigue" on this issue. By the way, are we supposed to completely disregard WP:SPORTBASIC #5, which was added after strong agreement at a well-attended RfC? The real "back door" is stealth-overriding that RfC outcome, not back-door deletionism. These articles must cite a non-database SIGCOV source inline; "the sources exist" is irrelevant. DFlhb (talk) 19:16, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose We thankfully have very guidelines guidelines for Cricket player notability. It states that "cricketers who have played at the highest domestic level, or in the lower levels of international cricket,[a] may have sufficient coverage about them to justify an article". I examined a random subset of these articles, and they are clearly articles that by and large fall within this gray area of potentially notable depending on source material. Just because the stub uses 1-2 sources today doesn't mean they don't exist, we have to take each article on its own and edit it. Given that there is no deadline, mass draft-fying these is basically backdoor deletion, which is against deletion policy. Steven Walling • talk 19:31, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Scroll up a bit on that page, which says "In addition, the subjects of standalone articles should meet the general notability guideline." as well as "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may be used to support content in an article, but it is not sufficient to establish notability. This includes listings in database sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as Sports Reference's college football and basketball databases." and "Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article." These pages do not meet this standard and should be out of mainspace if they aren't shown to do so with significant coverage. "May have sufficient coverage" does not mean "must have an article". Reywas92Talk 19:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- The fundamental problem with this proposal is that it's trying to impose a WP:DEADLINE on improving them. Other people must meet my deadline because I don't like the current state of these articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Any editor can challenge the notability of articles and sent them to AfD without improving them, whenever he wishes. If a rule prohibiting "deadlines" existed, it would be impossible to delete non-notable articles altogether. Avilich (talk) 21:19, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- This isn't AFD though, it's a proposal to generate a backdoor to deletion which is explicitly against our deletion policy.
BilledMammal is doing this because they know that mass AFDs would never pass, but they can pretend each draft will get considered before being eventually deleted.(struck per my comment elsewhere) The policy is against draftifying older articles because everyone knows it means putting them in a graveyard no one will ever see. Steven Walling • talk 01:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)BilledMammal is doing this because they know that mass AFDs would never pass, but they can pretend each draft will get considered before being eventually deleted.
That's an WP:AGF violation. Please strike it.The policy is against draftifying older articles because everyone knows it means putting them in a graveyard no one will ever see.
Policy is against draftifying older articles without consensus. This is an extremely prominent discussion; the notion that we are quietly slipping them into a graveyard without anyone seeing is bizarre. Further, if there is a consensus for this I will be providing lists of articles to the relevant Wikiprojects. BilledMammal (talk) 10:31, 18 July 2023 (UTC)- @Steven Walling, I have to agree, you should strike that. Valereee (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not striking anything. "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of obvious evidence to the contrary".
- The last RFC close clearly noted that there were many members of the community that objected to using a Village Pump survey to circumvent normal deletion processes and policy. Ignoring this objection and presuming that the first RFC close creates a precedent as if it were an approved policy or guideline is an obvious pattern of behavior, and BilledMammal has numerous user pages (like User:BilledMammal/Sander.v.Ginkel Olympian stubs) that show an intent to keep trying to use this polling tactic to remove stubs from mainspace as a form of backdoor deletion for which there is no support in policy. Steven Walling • talk 22:09, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling, please indicate what constitutes obvious evidence. What you've described is opinion. Valereee (talk) 22:46, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Here's the problem: is doing this because they know that mass AFDs would never pass, but they can pretend each draft will get considered before being eventually deleted is assuming bad faith. You are discussing motivations rather than edits. That's a problem. Valereee (talk) 22:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- BilledMammal has a long history of nominating sports bios at AFD. Here is just a sample. One time they nominated dozens of footballers in one day, which resulted in an ANI thread where at the end of it they explicitly declared they were going to go around trying to stop people from creating large numbers of stubs. This notion was discussed and roundly rejected at an ArbCom-mandated RFC. So next they proposed WP:LUGSTUBS and all the potential next polls they want to run. I'm sure they think they're trying to improve the encyclopedia, but don't tell me it's not obvious they don't want these stubs deleted, because they've done so directly in the past. Steven Walling • talk 00:44, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Dozens of editors have a "long history of nominating sports bios at AfD". This is because there have been tens of thousands of sports bios that do not meet GNG. BilledMammal has also redirected a very large number of sportsperson articles that objectively fail SPORTSCRIT, rather than trying to get them deleted. And a non-trivial number of the articles he successfully AfD'd were only taken there after his redirects were reverted without the page being improved. So no it is not "obvious" he or anyone else supporting this proposal wants the stubs deleted as opposed to simply moved out of mainspace until they comply with guideline requirements. JoelleJay (talk) 01:12, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling, In the link you provided Billed Mammal says, To prevent the problem of mass created articles from expanding I have also been looking at editors currently engaged in mass creations and asking them to determine if there is a community consensus for the actions. In some cases, this may be forthcoming; in others it might not.
- Today, one of these editors was kind enough to do so, and has opened a discussion at the bots noticeboard. Interested editors may contribute to this test case there. Note that this discussion should focus solely on content, not conduct; the editor is clearly acting in good faith and has done nothing wrong, even if there isn't a consensus for this mass creation. There, BilledMammal seems to simply object to mass creations that don't have consensus; nothing there that provides evidence of nefarious motivations. The ANI you're linking to found that All WP:MASSCREATEd articles (except those not required to meet GNG) must be cited to at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG: that is, which constitutes significant coverage in an independent reliable secondary source. Again there is nothing that provides evidence of Billed Mammal's motivations. I feel a little uncomfortable having to explain to an admin the difference between discussing edits and discussing bad-faith motivations, especially when that admin keeps doubling down. You got it right when you said I'm sure they think they're trying to improve the encyclopedia, but you got it wrong when you said is doing this because they know that mass AFDs would never pass, but they can pretend each draft will get considered before being eventually deleted, and if you can't tell the difference, there's a problem. Valereee (talk) 09:58, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- So @Steven Walling, this is a no? Valereee (talk) 22:30, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Valereee: I'm not going to argue in circles with you about this. It's painfully obvious from BilledMammal's actions that they're on a mission to remove mass numbers of stubs from Wikipedia in any way they can. If you can't see that something is a duck when it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I can't help you. Steven Walling • talk 05:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- So @Steven Walling, this is a no? Valereee (talk) 22:30, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- BilledMammal has a long history of nominating sports bios at AFD. Here is just a sample. One time they nominated dozens of footballers in one day, which resulted in an ANI thread where at the end of it they explicitly declared they were going to go around trying to stop people from creating large numbers of stubs. This notion was discussed and roundly rejected at an ArbCom-mandated RFC. So next they proposed WP:LUGSTUBS and all the potential next polls they want to run. I'm sure they think they're trying to improve the encyclopedia, but don't tell me it's not obvious they don't want these stubs deleted, because they've done so directly in the past. Steven Walling • talk 00:44, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Here's the problem: is doing this because they know that mass AFDs would never pass, but they can pretend each draft will get considered before being eventually deleted is assuming bad faith. You are discussing motivations rather than edits. That's a problem. Valereee (talk) 22:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling, please indicate what constitutes obvious evidence. What you've described is opinion. Valereee (talk) 22:46, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling, I have to agree, you should strike that. Valereee (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Any editor can challenge the notability of articles and sent them to AfD without improving them, whenever he wishes. If a rule prohibiting "deadlines" existed, it would be impossible to delete non-notable articles altogether. Avilich (talk) 21:19, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- The fundamental problem with this proposal is that it's trying to impose a WP:DEADLINE on improving them. Other people must meet my deadline because I don't like the current state of these articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Scroll up a bit on that page, which says "In addition, the subjects of standalone articles should meet the general notability guideline." as well as "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may be used to support content in an article, but it is not sufficient to establish notability. This includes listings in database sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as Sports Reference's college football and basketball databases." and "Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article." These pages do not meet this standard and should be out of mainspace if they aren't shown to do so with significant coverage. "May have sufficient coverage" does not mean "must have an article". Reywas92Talk 19:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support For at least 10 years the instructions at WP:NSPORT have been that "The topic-specific notability guidelines described on this page do not replace the general notability guideline" and "the article must still eventually provide sources indicating that the subject meets the general notability guideline". The bulk of the articles nominated here were clearly created in violation of that. There is no evidence that this is a "backdoor to deletion", since this RfC is being broadcasted through the front door in a community forum, and the whole argument just sounds like obstructionism and stonewalling. Avilich (talk) 20:37, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - the established, consensus position when top-level cricketer articles which can't be improved come to AfD is that redirection to a suitable list is the preferred alternative. Sometimes lists don't exist so we delete (or some mug goes and creates the list). Sometimes people have created articles on cricketers that have not played at the top-level and we delete those. There are something like 573 articles listed below that BilledMammal is prepared to redirect to straight away - these were the easy ones to identify. They provided me with a list of 625 other articles (which, annoyingly, is two short of 1,200). I've been through those. I think something like 306 have suitable redirect targets. That would leave 319 to send to draft (list at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox7 - where there will be some notes about this eventually because the geography is interesting). Honestly, that seems about right. **If** we're redirecting the 573+306, then I'm not that unhappy about drafting the others. To be honest, I could probably identify 15 or so that should be flat out deletes. I'm sure we'll have ended up missing some we'd want to keep - but people can work those up anyway if they want to. I think the first thing to do is to confirm that we're looking at redirecting almost 75% of these. If that's OK, then I could probably get on board with this despite my general reservations Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:04, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - this is going to sound really lame but I'll end up supporting whatever @Blue Square Thing decides. I don't think I've ever made a statement like this at an RfC or RfA. I know Blue Square Thing's been looking at this issue for weeks now and they've done a lot of detailed analysis. He/she is a prolific cricket editor but also supportive of purging unsuitable articles. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Some additional explanation. The initial planning for this was done at User talk:BilledMammal/Mass Creation Draftification. This caused some concern among some other editors and discussion ensued at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket#Heads up. Since then, Blue Square Thing has been involved in looking at this from the cricket content aspect.
- I believe mass-deletion, properly done, is a good way to fix the problem of insufficiently referenced stubs.
- Each BLP represents a serious obligation by all of us to the person who's the subject of the article to keep their article correct and prevent it being subverted for libelous attacks. We have over 6 million articles to watch now. With BLPs, if in doubt as to notability and the availability of good refs, I believe we should err on the side of deleting or draftifying marginal articles.
- -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 03:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yikes! I just saw the comment below about Lugnuts admitting that he introduced deliberate errors [3] to BLPs. If in doubt about a group of these BLPs, we definitely need to get them out of article space. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 11:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Fwiw I've yet to come across an article about a sports person where I consider Lugnuts has introduced deliberate errors. There are errors, of coure - we all do that. But nothing that I can even begin to imagine is in any way deliberate. And I've looked at, well, a "few" of their article creations over the years... The outgoing message you linked to was clearly a "fuck you all" response by someone who clearly felt hard done by at that point. It's a shame, because it will presumably prejudice any appeal they might want to make, but it's not the first time someone's responded like that and it won't be the last. I should say, btw, that I appreciate the sentiment above. Thanks. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:21, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yikes! I just saw the comment below about Lugnuts admitting that he introduced deliberate errors [3] to BLPs. If in doubt about a group of these BLPs, we definitely need to get them out of article space. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 11:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
I think the first thing to do is to confirm that we're looking at redirecting almost 75% of these.
Yes; as long as no reasonable objections are raised to the redirect targets then that is what we are looking at doing as a WP:BOLD action permitted by If this proposal is successful #5. The only question is whether you would prefer the articles to be moved to draft space and a new redirect created in their place, or a redirect created over the existing article? I am satisfied with either option. BilledMammal (talk) 07:06, 9 July 2023 (UTC)- I think we have to redirect the article as it stands now. There are a number that have been developed from stubs that Lugnuts created (Alfred Hollings for example) and if we add a new redirect and have a draft then I don't see how people would find the draft? It also preserves the page history, sources, images where they exist (like the one mentioned below) etc... I appreciate that there may be people who would like to see articles like these just removed, but a really substantial subset of them have potential for development - unfortunately it's difficult to be certain which ones do without digging quite hard.
- The targets can be changed if they need to be - there are ones I added to the list at my sandbox where I was choosing one of a number of possible redirects quickly, but that's easy to change at any point Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:12, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Personally, I see benefits of both approaches. Creating the redirect over the existing article makes it easier to find the underlying content, prevents it from even being deleted, and makes it easier to restore if improved. Meanwhile, having a new redirect, and thus allowing the article to be put in draft space, makes it easier for editors to work on the draft.
- I would say that for the second option I would create a R from draftified template, that would include a link to the draftified article and thus make it easier for interested editors to find the draft.
- Overall, I don't have a preference; I want whatever option works best for the editors invested in the topic area, and if there is anything I can during the process of redirecting/draftifying that can make it easier for those editors I am happy to do so. BilledMammal (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Blue Square Thing: Considering the lack of objections to a WP:BOLD redirect in line with If this proposal is successful #5, and the success of automatically creating lists of players based on these current articles, we are definately looking at redirecting 75%+ of these; I suspect we will in fact redirect almost all of them.
- My plan, if this proposal is successful, is to immediately tag them all with an appropriate version of Template:Special draft; I will then create the redirect targets where they don't already exist and produce a list of proposed targets. I'll run that list by you and the rest of WikiProject Cricket, and then when any issues with it have been resolved implement it.
- This last step will probably take a month, so there should be plenty of time for editors to notice the template on the articles and remove it if in error, in line with our previous discussion at WikiProject Cricket. BilledMammal (talk) 08:12, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - this is going to sound really lame but I'll end up supporting whatever @Blue Square Thing decides. I don't think I've ever made a statement like this at an RfC or RfA. I know Blue Square Thing's been looking at this issue for weeks now and they've done a lot of detailed analysis. He/she is a prolific cricket editor but also supportive of purging unsuitable articles. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support I've had concerns about these articles for awhile. The very early entries will have been hand written by umpires at a time when spelling was option, later collated into stat books, and so onto an online database. Where there are no other sources to prove existence, there's nothing to say any particular article isn't just someone elses details written down wrong or fudged during the multiple format shifts. I've been few several, both after this RFC started and when I originally became aware of the issue, and haven't been able to find any additional sources. The solution to all this is to create properly sourced articles, something only longterm editors seem to be able to get away with ignoring. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per WP:LUGSTUBS. Lugnuts at the very least was excessively careless when creating articles and, if his parting message is to be believed, purposefully put errors into his articles (yes I know many think he wasn’t serious about this).The response to mass-creation of failing articles has to also be something of mass-effect, otherwise the problem is unsolvable. Clicking on five at random I found five short, single-reference articles about 19th-century/early 20th century cricketers with limited numbers of appearances. If articles do not match this profile, then bring them back to main space. FOARP (talk) 21:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose First, I see above a great point -
Mass-creating and mass-drafting articles seems to be two sides of the same coin
. Second, I see above the repetition of a not-great point, that the creation of these articles took little effort so why put effort into expanding them... if that's anyone's actual view, I don't know what they think Wikipedia is. Why it's being repeated as an argument is greatly confusing. Third, most importantly, there are users like myself who are interested in expanding such articles, but the Olympian mass draftification was so recent that there's no attention span left as well for these. The speedy mass-draftification of many more articles was a major concern introduced in the Olympian discussion, and I'm sad to see that it has proved true. WP:NORUSH. Kingsif (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2023 (UTC) - Support per above. Therapyisgood (talk) 21:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Noting that I chose one random person on the list - Clement Bengough - and despite knowing barely anything on where to look for sources on cricketers, was able to quickly locate a full-page article on him from a major newspaper — 38 years after his death. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:03, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- With all due respect, I'm not quite sure that article shows what you're hoping for it to show, i.e. that these articles can be easily sourced - you've managed to pick one person at random who received a full-length story on him in an American paper not because he was a cricketer, but because he was a local interest story for being a foreigner and "social outcast" who moved to the area. His cricket career is but a sentence in that story and doesn't even mention the games he is supposedly notable for. SportingFlyer T·C 22:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
"you've managed to pick one person at random who received a full-length story on him in an American paper not because he was a cricketer, but because he was a local interest story for being a foreigner and "social outcast" who moved to the area"
- LOL. I don't want to be mean to Beaniefan but when I saw his description I was expecting a full bio from the NYT. Instead it's a "Here's this weird old English dude that used to live here" local interest story from a small town newspaper. And this really was the issue with a lot of the LUGSTUBS: even when they were notable, they weren't notable for the thing Lugnuts wrote the article about. It's like the time I checked a cricketers's article and they turned out to have been an RAF Air Marshal. In this case, cricket barely features and the story is entirely about what an outcast this person was - it's a nice piece but I'd hesitate to say it shows anything towards notability. FOARP (talk) 21:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- With all due respect, I'm not quite sure that article shows what you're hoping for it to show, i.e. that these articles can be easily sourced - you've managed to pick one person at random who received a full-length story on him in an American paper not because he was a cricketer, but because he was a local interest story for being a foreigner and "social outcast" who moved to the area. His cricket career is but a sentence in that story and doesn't even mention the games he is supposedly notable for. SportingFlyer T·C 22:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per Whatamidoing. Ideally these articles should probably be merged into lists, but as it stands there's nothing too wrong with the status quo. J947 † edits 23:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I made a lot of arguments at the prior RfC that are applicable here, so I won't repeat them. JoelleJay (talk) 23:13, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Strongly Oppose Mass draftification of this many articles without scrutiny is reckless and irresponsible. This also bypasses and usurps the existing AfD process. A quality check by users needs to be implemented before even suggesting these articles be purged. As I've stated twice before already, this is Wikipedia equivalent to the Beeching Axe. This action would also set a bad precedent for future actions toward other projects and articles on Wikipedia. This could be seen as the website purging articles to fulfill a political or social agenda by parties outside the website. Use the AfD process, not mass purge. Otherwise, content that meets notability guidelines in a mass purge could be easily removed and deleted, much like how crucial rail lines were destroyed during the Beeching Axe, creating logistical and public transportation-related nightmares for the United Kingdom which still plague the country today. The same scrutiny which was used to remove railway lines during the Beeching Axe is being demonstrated in this proposal. I refuse to support "The Great Purge" or a repeat of the Beeching Axe.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:20, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- What a strange concept to compare elimination of physical infrastructure that people rode in their daily lives to the removal of single-line descriptions of sportspeople with brief careers only appearing in databases..... Reywas92Talk 04:58, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- That still doesn't change the fact the mentality of this proposal mirrors the reckless behavior done during Beeching Axe. I also don't appreciate the attempt to undermine my point with a passive aggressive sarcasm, as that is very unprofessional. And it's also the precedent this sets, as well as the fact AfD is being entirely bypassed and usurped. If I remember correctly, there are hundreds of articles tied into this. Do you know for a fact if all of them are not notable? Have you evaluated every single one? Can you say for certain wiping out over 300 articles at a time without scrutinizing every single one of them first through the AfD process isn't potentially reckless? — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 08:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- User:MatthewAnderson707, how familiar are you with the background of this proposal? Were you at WP:LUGSTUBS? It feels like you're just finding out about all this today. Folly Mox (talk) 08:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Again, it's the dangerous precedent this could set for other projects and articles beyond the ones related to WP:LUGSTUBS. Purging hundreds of articles at a time without properly checking the content? Can you not see how that could get out of hand should this be allowed? At the very least, use a more careful approach and ensure if EVERY article being deleted isn't notable.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 08:26, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The entire point of an RfC is to gather input from people who were previously uninvolved in the discussion. Literally the first sentence of WP:RFC.
Requests for comment (RfC) is a process for requesting outside input concerning disputes, policies, guidelines or article content.
(bolding mine) Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- What was reckless was creating one stub per minute without assessing if they were notable BEFORE they were created and then expecting thousands of man-hours to be spent debating them individually at AFD, what a joke. I find it sad that people can put zero effort into making pages but them expect others to scrutinize if scraping them from databases was appropriate (hint: it was determined long ago at WP:MASSCREATE and elsewhere that it's not). Reywas92Talk 14:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- And I find it sad people support a reckless mass deletion of hundreds of articles without any proper checks or balances first, to ensure they're not all mass created stubs. So we should just take one person's word for it and done without questioning it? What's to stop an individual using this proposed process from going too far with this and getting articles they don't like, abusing this power? Suppose one article happens to meet guidelines ends up in the list of articles to be mass drafted? This also doesn't excuse the fact this is a blatant back door usurpation of AfD. This may seem like a good idea at first and may work out to the benefit of an actual problem, but there is every way this could snowball out of control later and cause massive damage and abuse of power, going from bypassing a bureaucracy to get something done to deleting something "because I said so". Better to try and kill this before it starts than deal with cleaning up a recklessly created mess later. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 04:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- First, this isn't coming through the backdoor. It's coming through the front door, with a herald announcing that it is doing so. In theory, it could have been proposed at AfD, at it is appropriate to propose draftification at that venue, but I think, and I hope you would agree, that it is better for these proposals to be done in a more visible location.
- Second, you don't need to take my word for it. You are welcome to check the query that produced the list. Further, if an article that does happen to meet the criteria above ends up in the list of articles to be mass drafted then it can be restored by any editor to mainspace. Given that the process is highly scrutinized and operates only by consensus it cannot be abused in the way you fear. BilledMammal (talk) 05:11, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- The checks and balances are the five extra years the articles are protected from deletion plus the greater attention and prioritization they will receive from wikiprojects. JoelleJay (talk) 00:52, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- And I find it sad people support a reckless mass deletion of hundreds of articles without any proper checks or balances first, to ensure they're not all mass created stubs. So we should just take one person's word for it and done without questioning it? What's to stop an individual using this proposed process from going too far with this and getting articles they don't like, abusing this power? Suppose one article happens to meet guidelines ends up in the list of articles to be mass drafted? This also doesn't excuse the fact this is a blatant back door usurpation of AfD. This may seem like a good idea at first and may work out to the benefit of an actual problem, but there is every way this could snowball out of control later and cause massive damage and abuse of power, going from bypassing a bureaucracy to get something done to deleting something "because I said so". Better to try and kill this before it starts than deal with cleaning up a recklessly created mess later. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 04:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- User:MatthewAnderson707, how familiar are you with the background of this proposal? Were you at WP:LUGSTUBS? It feels like you're just finding out about all this today. Folly Mox (talk) 08:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- That still doesn't change the fact the mentality of this proposal mirrors the reckless behavior done during Beeching Axe. I also don't appreciate the attempt to undermine my point with a passive aggressive sarcasm, as that is very unprofessional. And it's also the precedent this sets, as well as the fact AfD is being entirely bypassed and usurped. If I remember correctly, there are hundreds of articles tied into this. Do you know for a fact if all of them are not notable? Have you evaluated every single one? Can you say for certain wiping out over 300 articles at a time without scrutinizing every single one of them first through the AfD process isn't potentially reckless? — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 08:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- What a strange concept to compare elimination of physical infrastructure that people rode in their daily lives to the removal of single-line descriptions of sportspeople with brief careers only appearing in databases..... Reywas92Talk 04:58, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I am generally opposed to mass actions of this type. Despite my reservations, and as with the prior Olympics RfC, I support this proposal given its narrow focus. My support is based on the following:
- (1) Mass creation. The articles at issue were the product of Lugnuts' well-documented mass process in which thousands of articles were created, often at the rate of approximately a minute per article.
- (2) Lack of substance. The articles are microstubs that contain very limited narrative text, simply reciting that the person was a cricket player who appeared in X number of games for X team. If the articles are ultimately deleted, nothing of real substance is lost. If SIGCOV is later uncovered and brought forth, and given the fact that only a minute or so was devoted to the original effort, the articles can be re-created without any meaningful loss of prior effort.
- (3) Violation of SPORTBASIC. The articles violate prong 5 of WP:SPORTBASIC which provides: "Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources." The articles here are sourced only to database sources and do not include SIGCOV.
- (4) Cleanup of "deliberate errors". A departure from normal processes is also warranted by the unique case involving Lugnuts' admission in August 2022 (here) that he added "countless deliberate errors on pages that have very few pages views." Draftification of these microstubs allows us to undertake screening for such errors before any such articles are returned to main space.
- In sum, I support draftification in this narrow situation. However, this RfC should not be precedent to evade regular order in less egregious circumstances. In such circumstances, normal AfD or redirect procedures should be followed. Cbl62 (talk) 00:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think the claim of
countless deliberate errors
is just plain trolling. It is just too much hard work to be plausible. Has anyone detected any of these countless errors? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:41, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think the claim of
- Support per previous RFC on Olympic athletes mass draftification. The fundamental question is if these articles would survive AFD if hypothetically debated in full, and based on the criteria described, they would all be closed "delete" without some compelling discovery of new sources. Even editors who would !vote "keep" in such AFDs can hopefully agree that a hypothetical article with such patchy sources would have a rough time at AFD. Since this is draftification not deletion, if it turns out that there was something valid to use as the basis of a future article, it'll still be there. But given that it's been some years since these were created with no substantial edits from others (per the criteria to build the list), it seems highly likely that most of these articles simply don't pass the notability bar. SnowFire (talk) 04:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- They wouldn't all be closed delete. If they were individual AfD we'd probably be looking at something like 20-30% keep based on expansion; 50-60% redirect and 20% delete. That's the way that these sorts of articles have gone at AfD over the last couple of years in general. Blue Square Thing (talk) 06:11, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Blue Square Thing: SportingFlyer says they sampled 7 articles and tried to see if they could be improved with more sources, and went 0/7. I'm not much of a cricket expert so my opinion might not matter, but I just tried 2 of those articles with simple Google searches, and also turned up nothing useful. I think 20-30% "keep by expansion" is a very optimistic estimate, and I'm not torn up about the difference between redirect and draftification/deletion. SnowFire (talk) 16:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in knowing what kind of searches @SportingFlyer: performed; a plain google search won't do the trick. Also, @SnowFire: I would trust Blue Square Thing as he seems to be the cricket expert here. Also, FWIW, I went 1/1 and so did WhatamIdoing. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11: Do you mean Clement Bengough for the article you investigated? Because I would absolutely still !vote delete on that article, even if the new mention you found was integrated, and I don't think my !vote would be unusual. I say this as someone who has voted reasonably inclusionist-y on things like D-list actors, so I'm absolutely a gettable keep vote if non-trivial coverage can be found. SnowFire (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- You really don't think full-page feature stories from major newspapers improve his case for notability? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Full-page feature stories are never bad, but in his case it's a local story about someone who used to live there, completely unrelated to the reason why we claim he's notable (being a cricketer). I'd !vote delete at AfD if that were the only additional source presented since it's a human interest feature story unrelated to cricket. As far as my searches go, I use a couple major search engines with a focus on news and try a couple different search terms, which works well for modern players and horribly for older players, and also check the database sites to see if they have any additional news links. I feel like modern Indian players will be the easiest to save, at least using English language sourcing. SportingFlyer T·C 18:39, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- You really don't think full-page feature stories from major newspapers improve his case for notability? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11: Do you mean Clement Bengough for the article you investigated? Because I would absolutely still !vote delete on that article, even if the new mention you found was integrated, and I don't think my !vote would be unusual. I say this as someone who has voted reasonably inclusionist-y on things like D-list actors, so I'm absolutely a gettable keep vote if non-trivial coverage can be found. SnowFire (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: possibly, but 36% of the list are Australian, English or New Zealand cricketers and those are the easiest to expand - for example, Alfred Carlton - one of the ones SF looked at (and the only one who falls into any of those nationalities I think) - I could find sources for using Trove (he played for North Melbourne for example and there's a decent amount on him). It might not be a clear-cut keep and perhaps I should have stuck at 20%, which is where I started! If you factor in that a random percentage will have some kind of additional prose or linked article at either CricInfo or CricketArchive (for example, Edwin Mills (cricketer) who's not on this list but will be on the next one, has a detailed prose profile behind CricketArchive's paywall) then it won't be far off 20% at worst - and I'm largely writing off the majority of South Asian cricketers in this as they rarely get kept due to the transliteration problems, but if we could do the sort of thing that WhatamIdoing managed above then 20% starts to look low Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in knowing what kind of searches @SportingFlyer: performed; a plain google search won't do the trick. Also, @SnowFire: I would trust Blue Square Thing as he seems to be the cricket expert here. Also, FWIW, I went 1/1 and so did WhatamIdoing. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Blue Square Thing: SportingFlyer says they sampled 7 articles and tried to see if they could be improved with more sources, and went 0/7. I'm not much of a cricket expert so my opinion might not matter, but I just tried 2 of those articles with simple Google searches, and also turned up nothing useful. I think 20-30% "keep by expansion" is a very optimistic estimate, and I'm not torn up about the difference between redirect and draftification/deletion. SnowFire (talk) 16:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- They wouldn't all be closed delete. If they were individual AfD we'd probably be looking at something like 20-30% keep based on expansion; 50-60% redirect and 20% delete. That's the way that these sorts of articles have gone at AfD over the last couple of years in general. Blue Square Thing (talk) 06:11, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support, and I would suggest the same for all athletes. I've personally had to convert a lot of filler-articles into redirects for Olympic athletes who didn't win medals. It seems like every other random article is one of them. I would suggest that this also applies to cricketeers. Wikipedia isn't a database or other indiscriminate collection of athletes, or anything. Just because someone competed in 2010 Ice Hockey event in the Olympics doesn't make such person independently notable nor alone fulfill the GNG. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 18:57, 26 July 2023 (
- Oppose. Nothing ways out the lose in this situation. There is no win doing this so it isnt suppost to even be an option and per BeanieFan11 who made realy good arguments. Themanwithnowifi (talk) 17:12, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Arbitrary break 1: Survey (mass draftification of cricket articles)
- Oppose The policy WP:ATD-I says "moving articles to draft space should generally be done only for newly created articles . . . or as the result of a deletion discussion. Older articles should not be draftified without an AfD consensus, with 90 days a rule of thumb". A desire to avoid performing a search for sources does not justify violating the policy WP:ATD-I. If I have to spend many, many, many hours searching for sources with Google (and I do have to do that these days), then there is no good reason why the rest of you should be allowed to avoid doing that. The proposer freely admits that he has not looked at any of these articles, but ran an automated query instead. Automated queries are worse than useless. The proposer's claim that these articles are only referenced to CricketArchive or ESPNcricinfo is false, as some already have other references. For example, Angus Marshall is already referenced to "Marshall Retires", The Telegraph, Brisbane, 1934. The automated query presumably failed to detect this because the reference is not a footnote. James500 (talk) 06:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I share this concern, and which is why I requested for the Quarry query below (Link to query). @BilledMammal or whoever constructed the query needs to go back to the drawing board to better catch ALL references, not references that strictly follow a specific format. Soni (talk) 06:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at the Angus Marshall example it appears that the article includes a picture which in turn includes a refernece. I doubt even many humans would think to check whether the picture has a reference that the article doesn't; I wouldn't. As for a machine, because the reference isn't even on enwiki but is instead on commons, it is all but impossible to check. I think that such a bizarre outlier is acceptable, and given that the article doesn't include the reference within the criteria set out above. BilledMammal (talk) 07:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- A reference is a reference, no matter how it is formatted. Linking to a file on the commons is a widely used form of reference on this site. And Angus Marshall is not an outlier or bizarre. There are similar problems with, in particular, Adam Maher (cricketer), Alan Davidson (cricketer, born 1897), Alan McInnes, Alan Reid (cricketer), Albert Bowden, Albert Brown (Australian cricketer), Albert Lansdown, Albert McGinn, Albert Scanes, Alex Ridley, Alexander Barras, Alexander Fisher (cricketer), Alfred Sullivan, Amit Banerjee, Andrew Lamb (cricketer), Andrew Pringle (cricketer), Aquib Nabi, Archibald Dean, Arthur Allsopp, Arthur Evans (cricketer), Arthur Kenny, Arthur McBeath, Arthur Muhl, Arthur Pellew, Arthur Wells (Australian cricketer), Athenkosi Dyili, Barney McCoy, Barry Rhodes, Bernard Mlambo, Berry Webb, Bill Beath, Bill Tallon, Brad Doody, Brad Oldroyd, Brad Stacey, Brian Murphy (Jamaican cricketer), Bruce Such, Cecil Bryce, Cecil Gray (cricketer), Cecil Hanify, Cecil McKew, Charles Alsop, Charles Griffith (Australian cricketer), Charles Morgan (Victoria cricketer), Charles Patrick, Charles Ross (Australian cricketer), Christopher Dwyer (cricketer), Clarence McCoombe, Clement McFarlane, Colin Stibe, Dale Turner (cricketer), Dane Hutchinson, Daniel Noonan (cricketer), Darren Dempsey, David Mailer, Dean Bartlett and Des Hansen. On the face of it, all of these items should be removed from the list. You could easily have examined all of the articles, and the links in them, manually, and you have done so. James500 (talk) 12:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Linking to a file on the commons is a widely used form of reference on this site.
If it is then it shouldn't be; WP:CIRCULAR tells us that if we want to reuse a reference from elsewhere, whether that elsewhere is intrawiki or interwiki, we are required to confirm that the reference supports the content and then use it directly. Do you have examples of where this is done outside of Lugnut's mass creation sprees?- Even when looking at a sampling of the references on commons I am not really seeing SIGCOV; I'm primarily seeing things like game recaps that involve mentions of the player. Of course, if you can find two examples of WP:SIGCOV you are welcome to add them on enwiki and I will be very happy to remove the article from the list.
- I am seeing some articles on your list with single references in the article, but for the most part those were added recently such as at Darren Dempsey. I think I can be forgiven for not having a crystal ball. With that said I am also seeing some articles, like Brian Murphy (Jamaican cricketer), that should have been excluded based on them not meeting the criteria set out above at the time the query was run. I have corrected the error that resulted in them being included and will update the list when the query returns. BilledMammal (talk) 12:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I've updated the list. Note that this means the number is now less than 1200; I don't want to force editors like Blue Square Thing who have done a lot of work with this list to have to redo that work with articles replacing those removed. BilledMammal (talk) 17:43, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- You have not removed the Wikipedia articles that have newspaper coverage in Trove. Would you like me to add footnote references to the Wikipedia articles in question, so that your automated query will actually work?
- For the avoidance of doubt, I am seeing significant coverage (or at least things that are capable of contributing to significant coverage). The following are a few examples already in the articles I listed above: Marshall Retires is significant coverage of Angus Marshall. "Stibe Looks Likely Sheild Batsman" is significant coverage of Colin Stibe. "C H Ross" is significant coverage of Charles Ross (Australian cricketer). "Bryce's Patience as a Batsman Rewarded" is significant coverage of Cecil Bryce. Where a person has one newspaper profile like that, there is likely to be more coverage. Accordingly, a WP:BEFORE search is actually necessary, which is why the policy requires an AfD. So, for example, when I run a search for Angus Marshall in Trove, I find a lot of newspaper articles that are entirely about Angus Marshall. And I find a massive amount of other coverage of Angus Marshall. (For the avoidance of doubt, Marshall played both soccer (including as an intermational for Australia) and cricket, so the soccer articles are about him: [4] [5]). The conclusion that I reach is that Angus Marshall, an example that I originally chose at random, satisfies GNG, he should be removed from the list, and his article should be rewritten to reflect the fact that his soccer career was important (and possibly more important than his cricket career). James500 (talk) 19:39, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal Can you please move the list to a separate page and then transclude it back here? Not only is parsing the rest of this page extremely difficult, I cannot doublecheck removed entries or similar without going through Village Pump history instead of reading page history + any talk page comments/diffs. Right now everything feels a bit haphazard Soni (talk) 20:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal or whoever else is maintaining the list: Please remove Alan McInnes, Albert McGinn, Albert Scanes, Archibald Dean, Barney McCoy, Berry Webb, Bill Beath, Bill Tallon, Cecil Bryce, Charles Morgan (Victoria cricketer), Charles Ross (Australian cricketer), Colin Stibe, David Mailer, Angus Marshall and Des Hansen from the list. Each of them now has reference footnotes to full periodical articles (and I could add a lot more), and they clearly do not satisfy the criteria of this proposal. James500 (talk) 02:45, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- I've updated the list. Note that this means the number is now less than 1200; I don't want to force editors like Blue Square Thing who have done a lot of work with this list to have to redo that work with articles replacing those removed. BilledMammal (talk) 17:43, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- A reference is a reference, no matter how it is formatted. Linking to a file on the commons is a widely used form of reference on this site. And Angus Marshall is not an outlier or bizarre. There are similar problems with, in particular, Adam Maher (cricketer), Alan Davidson (cricketer, born 1897), Alan McInnes, Alan Reid (cricketer), Albert Bowden, Albert Brown (Australian cricketer), Albert Lansdown, Albert McGinn, Albert Scanes, Alex Ridley, Alexander Barras, Alexander Fisher (cricketer), Alfred Sullivan, Amit Banerjee, Andrew Lamb (cricketer), Andrew Pringle (cricketer), Aquib Nabi, Archibald Dean, Arthur Allsopp, Arthur Evans (cricketer), Arthur Kenny, Arthur McBeath, Arthur Muhl, Arthur Pellew, Arthur Wells (Australian cricketer), Athenkosi Dyili, Barney McCoy, Barry Rhodes, Bernard Mlambo, Berry Webb, Bill Beath, Bill Tallon, Brad Doody, Brad Oldroyd, Brad Stacey, Brian Murphy (Jamaican cricketer), Bruce Such, Cecil Bryce, Cecil Gray (cricketer), Cecil Hanify, Cecil McKew, Charles Alsop, Charles Griffith (Australian cricketer), Charles Morgan (Victoria cricketer), Charles Patrick, Charles Ross (Australian cricketer), Christopher Dwyer (cricketer), Clarence McCoombe, Clement McFarlane, Colin Stibe, Dale Turner (cricketer), Dane Hutchinson, Daniel Noonan (cricketer), Darren Dempsey, David Mailer, Dean Bartlett and Des Hansen. On the face of it, all of these items should be removed from the list. You could easily have examined all of the articles, and the links in them, manually, and you have done so. James500 (talk) 12:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose as setting a bad precedent (per BeanieFan11 above). Frankly, the "strategy" discussion at User talk:BilledMammal/Mass Creation Draftification is quite alarming to read. It does not express a sincere intent to improve the encyclopedia and is more focussed on achieving a pre-determined course of action, rather than consensus building.
Whatamidoing's analysis above shows that these articles are quite likely to be notable. – SD0001 (talk) 06:56, 9 July 2023 (UTC) - Support, but only if pageviews are used as a criterion. I have found that stubs that get more than three pageviews a day are usually on notable subjects, and ten or more a day nearly always are. The nominator said nobody is reading these stubs, so that should be checked beforehand. Abductive (reasoning) 07:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- If we could figure out a way to list these by page views, that might be an interesting notability heuristic. SportingFlyer T·C 07:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Abductive and SportingFlyer: I previously only did spot checks of this group but I have now done a comprehensive check; see User:BilledMammal/Cricketer page views. Three (0.25%) recieve more than ten page views a day on average; Aaqib Khan, Ali Haider (cricketer), and Aquib Nabi; I expect they will be easy to find references for. 79 (6.5%) recieve more than three page views a day on average. BilledMammal (talk) 08:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- My point exactly. The small fraction with pageviews like that should be allowed to remain in Mainspace. Some are probably because a non-cricketeer shares the name, but out of an abundance of caution..... Abductive (reasoning) 08:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I've been trying to find sources for Aaqib Khan that would demonstrate notability but I am struggling to do so; even when searching for his name in Hindi I few results and they appear to either be primary or fail to contain significant coverage of him. I'll keep looking; I would prefer not to start excluding articles on the basis of criteria not included above, but if I can find coverage for any of those three I will be happy to pull them on that basis.
- With that said, I would support my proposal with your pageview criterion as a second choice to the base proposal. BilledMammal (talk) 08:50, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I just updated Aquib Nabi's article with a couple additional non-database sources, and there is more there. I already did a search for Aaqib Khan, it looks like he shares most of his name with an actor, there was a game recap but not much else came up for me. Haider Ali (not the listed Ali Haider) is a current notable cricketer. Balwinder Sandhu shares a name with a more famous cricketer. Going down the list, Nabi needs to be removed, Chintan Gaja needs to be removed as there's a photo and Cricinfo game recap on him specifically, Chetan Bist can be easily sourced, Abhinav Sharma is difficult to search for but there's at least a couple results. SportingFlyer T·C 08:52, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- My point exactly. The small fraction with pageviews like that should be allowed to remain in Mainspace. Some are probably because a non-cricketeer shares the name, but out of an abundance of caution..... Abductive (reasoning) 08:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Abductive - Pageview counts don't matter. See WP:NOBODYREADSIT.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:26, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- My experience with tens of thousands of articles is that pageviews do matter. For example, one can look at redirect views, and discover redirects that can/should be made into articles. In the case of Importance-assessing for Wikiprojects, if an article gets greater than 30 pageviews a day, and certainly more than 100 pageviews a day, it is always deserving of being Importance-assessed as Mid according to the rules of the Wikiproject, any Wikiproject. Less than 1/day means the topic might fail WP:V or the title is misspelled. It's astounding how much pageviews can be used in decision-making. Abductive (reasoning) 19:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Abductive and SportingFlyer: I previously only did spot checks of this group but I have now done a comprehensive check; see User:BilledMammal/Cricketer page views. Three (0.25%) recieve more than ten page views a day on average; Aaqib Khan, Ali Haider (cricketer), and Aquib Nabi; I expect they will be easy to find references for. 79 (6.5%) recieve more than three page views a day on average. BilledMammal (talk) 08:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- If we could figure out a way to list these by page views, that might be an interesting notability heuristic. SportingFlyer T·C 07:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. These need to go to AFD individually. My reasons 1) we're going to be deleting notable cricketers. 2) We're not a printed newspaper and these articles can sit there without causing any overheads. 3) Lugnuts created these articles within policy at the time. It is spurious to say we need to discourage more mass creation of this kind because policy changed and it couldn't happen like this again. 4) There's no rush. Desertarun (talk) 09:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- This is untrue: per WP:MASSCREATE, approval has always been required for large-scale page creation, and WP:NSPORT has always said "In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline" as well as "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may be used to support content in an article, but it is not sufficient to establish notability. This includes listings in database sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as the College Football Data Warehouse." Lugnuts just blatantly ignored these. I believe it's poor faith to expect countless pages created in seconds by one person have to be debated for a week each by many, consuming many times more manhours. For the same reason no one wants to have thousands of individualized discussions, no one wanted to research these to create them properly individually either. Reywas92Talk 14:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The articles were not required to meet the general notability guideline at the time; it said before WP:NSPORTS2022 that "The articles should provide reliable sources showing it meets the general notability guideline or the sport-specific criteria below." BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Prior to 2022 cricketers were presumed notable if they'd played 1 first class game. All of those added by Lugnuts had done this - so you're retrofitting notability. Desertarun (talk) 15:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- We're cherry-picking. NSPORT said in 2021, "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." Articles which passed SNGs were still deleted for clearly failing GNG. SportingFlyer T·C 18:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Nope. Let me tell you exactly what Nsports used to say about cricket - and I quote policy "A cricket figure is presumed notable if they; 1) Have appeared as a player or umpire in at least one cricket match that is judged by a substantial source to have been played at the highest international or domestic level". One first class match was sufficient to presume notability. There is no wriggle room or ifs and buts. Desertarun (talk) 19:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Don't nope me. I quoted very first line from WP:NSPORT from a random date in late 2021 - before all of this happened. Here is the link. First, as a sport guideline, NCRIC had to follow NSPORT, and second,
A cricket figure is presumed notable
. Presumed is a rebuttable presumption - if an article didn't pass the GNG, it should have been deleted, and often was (each AfD is different, obviously.) SportingFlyer T·C 21:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)- Nope. Ncric did follow Nsport, if you can't see that - this is your problem. Desertarun (talk) 21:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I can see that. I've just shown you NSPORT clearly said that GNG had to be met. The sport-specific SNGs were supposed to be aligned to the GNG. Cricket wasn't. SportingFlyer T·C 21:40, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- NSPORT has always required its subjects meet GNG, and as NCRIC is a subset of NSPORT it was not exempt from this requirement. Plenty of AfDs resulted in deletion/redirection of NCRIC-passing cricketers prior to NSPORT2022: [6][7]
The result was redirect to Federally Administered Tribal Areas cricket team. The "keep" !votes argue that this person meets NCRIC. However, that is only a guideline designed to be a shortcut to identify persons that are likely notable according to GNG. Once notability is challenged, however, NCRIC is not enough and it has to be established whether or not the subject meets GNG.
[8]The result was delete. There is by now a relatively broad community consensus that participation in certain sporting events establishes a presumption of notability per the sport-specific notability guidelines, but that this is not enough to establish actual notability if, as here, no sources beyond participation records can be found at AfD.
[9]
[10]The result was delete. Consideration of this discussion was almost perfectly balanced in terms of numerical consideration. Moving to consideration of policy, two major disputes occur: the traditional NSPORTS/NCRIC vs GNG one, and the belief that there must be sources in other languages and it should be kept on those grounds.
Meeting an NSPORTS criterion does not remove the need to pass GNG when challenged, as multiple editors pointed out. Those arguing that NCRIC was met did not generally also argue that GNG was met.The result was delete. As pointed out by a number of editors, passing an SNG is irrelevant if an article doesn't pass GNG.
[11]The result was delete. While there is some consensus that he satisfies the SNG those suggesting that the SNG was met have not provided any sources exist and there is a consensus that he does not pass the GNG.
[12]The result was delete. Inclusion requires that WP:GNG is met, which requires WP:SIGCOV (significant coverage) from multiple, reliable sources. This means coverage that is more than trivial and mentions more than stats. Whether it is cricket, football, underwater basket weaving, whatever, it doesn't matter. That is the core of what is required to pass the first test for inclusion for any article, regardless of what any other guidelines on notability says, simply because they all derive their authority FROM WP:GNG. Through this lens, weighing the !vote not on their numbers as much as on the strength of their policy based rationale, I see a consensus to delete.
[13]The result was delete. Subject-specific notability guidelines (SNG) do not override the general notability guideline (GNG). SNGs are simply shortcuts that say, "a topic will probably have enough sources to fulfill GNG if it satisfies the SNG criteria".
[14]The result was delete. This is a fairly standard NCRIC vs GNG dispute. As NSPORTS specifically requires GNG to also be met, and there isn't a clear IAR exemption case made here, and there is a very clear consensus that GNG is not met, deletion is the appropriate outcome.
[15]- Note that these were closures by 9 different admins. JoelleJay (talk) 23:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Nope. Ncric did follow Nsport, if you can't see that - this is your problem. Desertarun (talk) 21:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- At the time, the "presumed" notability functioned as de facto automatic notability (with the exception of one-game soccer players and those without known first names) - also, you're missing the part where it says in bold that to be notable, "The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below." BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:04, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- First - the bold part is about making sure sourcing exists in the article to demonstrate either a GNG pass or a SNG pass. And "presumed" was de facto notability, apart when GNG wasn't met - for instance the arguments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abel Valdez (I did a lot of sleuthing to find an old AfD where it was clear GNG trumped SNG, even though this was no consensus.) It did mean a lot of players which passed the SNG weren't brought to AfD, but the entire reason we're here discussing this now is because that ice got thinner and thinner over time and finally broke. SportingFlyer T·C 21:38, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- As I said, it acted as de facto automatic notability except for soccer players with low amounts of appearances, plus those who we didn't have names for (e.g. the baseball player Smith) - until Pete Vainowski in December 2021 (after these cricket articles were created), which resulted in the destruction of NSPORT (the NSPORTS2022 discussion was due to that), meeting NSPORT functioned basically as automatic notability. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- That's true, but Reywas92 is still correct: the phrase
In addition, standalone articles must meet the General Notability Guideline.
has specifically been a part of WP:NSPORT since 2010, and was incorporated via linking to WP:BIO before that. So they've always been required to meet GNG, but whether we enforced it properly is a different question. SportingFlyer T·C 22:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)- But then it also said "Subjects that do not meet the sport-specific criteria outlined in this guideline may still be notable if they meet the General Notability Guideline or another subject specific notability guideline," which implies that satisfying the sports criteria was sufficient to have an article; the whole thing was contradictory, but the practice at the time was that it was alright to have stubs and that they were notable if they met the sports criteria (playing top-level cricket games). I don't see why we're arguing about this though, since the criteria have changed, so I'm done discussing this point. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:08, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- That's not what that sentence implied - just that the SNGs were not exclusionary - but it doesn't matter. SportingFlyer T·C 10:18, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- But then it also said "Subjects that do not meet the sport-specific criteria outlined in this guideline may still be notable if they meet the General Notability Guideline or another subject specific notability guideline," which implies that satisfying the sports criteria was sufficient to have an article; the whole thing was contradictory, but the practice at the time was that it was alright to have stubs and that they were notable if they met the sports criteria (playing top-level cricket games). I don't see why we're arguing about this though, since the criteria have changed, so I'm done discussing this point. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:08, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- That's true, but Reywas92 is still correct: the phrase
- As I said, it acted as de facto automatic notability except for soccer players with low amounts of appearances, plus those who we didn't have names for (e.g. the baseball player Smith) - until Pete Vainowski in December 2021 (after these cricket articles were created), which resulted in the destruction of NSPORT (the NSPORTS2022 discussion was due to that), meeting NSPORT functioned basically as automatic notability. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- First - the bold part is about making sure sourcing exists in the article to demonstrate either a GNG pass or a SNG pass. And "presumed" was de facto notability, apart when GNG wasn't met - for instance the arguments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abel Valdez (I did a lot of sleuthing to find an old AfD where it was clear GNG trumped SNG, even though this was no consensus.) It did mean a lot of players which passed the SNG weren't brought to AfD, but the entire reason we're here discussing this now is because that ice got thinner and thinner over time and finally broke. SportingFlyer T·C 21:38, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Don't nope me. I quoted very first line from WP:NSPORT from a random date in late 2021 - before all of this happened. Here is the link. First, as a sport guideline, NCRIC had to follow NSPORT, and second,
- Nope. Let me tell you exactly what Nsports used to say about cricket - and I quote policy "A cricket figure is presumed notable if they; 1) Have appeared as a player or umpire in at least one cricket match that is judged by a substantial source to have been played at the highest international or domestic level". One first class match was sufficient to presume notability. There is no wriggle room or ifs and buts. Desertarun (talk) 19:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- We're cherry-picking. NSPORT said in 2021, "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." Articles which passed SNGs were still deleted for clearly failing GNG. SportingFlyer T·C 18:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- This is untrue: per WP:MASSCREATE, approval has always been required for large-scale page creation, and WP:NSPORT has always said "In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline" as well as "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may be used to support content in an article, but it is not sufficient to establish notability. This includes listings in database sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as the College Football Data Warehouse." Lugnuts just blatantly ignored these. I believe it's poor faith to expect countless pages created in seconds by one person have to be debated for a week each by many, consuming many times more manhours. For the same reason no one wants to have thousands of individualized discussions, no one wanted to research these to create them properly individually either. Reywas92Talk 14:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. As noted by many above this comment, this draftication (actually deletion) does nothing to improve the encyclopedia. Let's build an encyclopedia instead. If there is a concern that these articles are introducing content that fails verification, we should act. Ktin (talk) 15:31, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per BilledMammal. I checked ten of these at random and was unable to find significant coverage for any of them. Checking these ten articles took me about an hour; editors should not be required to spend this amount of time establishing the non-notability of these mass-created stubs. My first choice would be outright deletion, but I support draftification as a compromise. The information contained in these articles is readily available online, and none of them took more than a few minutes to create, so any one of them can be easily re-created if better sources are found. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- User:Sojourner in the earth, as a courtesy to avoid possible duplication of work, might you be able to list here the ten articles you spot-checked? Or mention on their respective Talk pages that you were unable to locate sources? Folly Mox (talk) 22:08, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The articles were Al Bashid Muhammed, Bikash Chowdhury (cricketer), Bakhtarullah Atal, Athi Mafazwe, Ashby Mutumbami, Arthur Dean (cricketer), Anuj Raj, Andrew Durham, Alok Chandra Sahoo, Alfred Black (cricketer). The most promising of these was Alfred Black, who according to this source took part in the Eureka Rebellion, but even with this lead I didn't find anything but passing mentions. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 05:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'd like to add to my comment, in answer to those who are citing WP:NORUSH, that kicking the can down the road is not a sensible solution. As DFlhb said above:
Non-notable articles must eventually be deleted, so to keep them around is to require editors to eventually go through each and decide whether to merge, redirect, or delete.
The purpose of this proposal is to save thousands of hours of editor time. The urgency of the problem is not a relevant consideration; the only question is whether one thinks that the possibility of saving some of these articles is worth the massive expenditure of time that it will take to evaluate each one individually. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 05:55, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- User:Sojourner in the earth, as a courtesy to avoid possible duplication of work, might you be able to list here the ten articles you spot-checked? Or mention on their respective Talk pages that you were unable to locate sources? Folly Mox (talk) 22:08, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Neutral Comment I have fewer strong opinions on cricket notability than I do on Olympic notability, nor do I know the Cricket Notability requirements as well. I am generally in agreement with @WhatamIdoing and @Abzeronow's concerns, particularly that this will disproportionately affect Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan cricketers, but am aware that this is an area where I can't really help in expanding stubs so would feel bad giving a full oppose, given @BilledMammal's logic is reasonable. 20:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redfiona99 (talk • contribs)
- Oppose, largely per Thryduulf and Whatamidoing. In addition, given that the underlying authority for deletion here appears to be the GNG, I would also note that doing mass-anything under a guideline, which is intended to have common-sense exceptions, is somewhat contradictory. (It does not appear to me that these articles fail WP:V#Notability, since the objection is not that they have no reliable sources, but that the source is a database.) Beyond that, I am troubled by the false urgency and the unsubstantiated claims that these articles are somehow hurting the encyclopedia by existing. From where I sit these stubs seem obviously to provide a net benefit to the interested reader, even if they are never expanded. Moreover, content attracts contributors, so mass deleting these articles (which is the only realistic outcome of mass draftification) is only going to aggravate the shortage of contributors who have the knowledge and interest to improve our coverage in the area. In sum, this seems to me to be unambiguously harmful to the project: mass removal of encyclopedic content can only diminish Wikipedia. -- Visviva (talk) 03:50, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per Rhododendrites, BeanieFan11, and Rschen7754. There's no rush, and it does seem like this plan violates several policies. GretLomborg (talk) 05:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Could you explain what policies those are, GretLomborg? Because the existence of these articles as they currently are are already a violation of WP:NSPORT and would otherwise result in them immediately all going to AfD for deletion. This draftification alternative, which was already approved of in a previous RfC, is a way to ensure any notable subjects do get articles kept rather than just mass deleting/redirecting them. SilverserenC 05:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose as they are less likely to be improved as drafts than as articles. I they are trash, just delete as it may be better to have nothing, and let someone write from scratch if they wish to. I can easily see many of these getting a G13 demise if they are converted to drafts. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Graeme Bartlett: I'm a little confused. A major argument of other opposers is that draftification is a backdoor to deletion and this is bad. If you're okay with deletion, and if these articles are all truly beyond salvaging (which I believe to be largely true), then draftification will eventually accomplish this after 5 years passes. This seems like it should maybe be a "Support but should go even further" vote, but maybe I'm misinterpreting you. SnowFire (talk) 03:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Well I will change this to strong oppose to make this clearer. A 5 year in draft space with other drafts having only 6 months is a bad idea. If all drafts have a 5 year delay before G13 it would not be so bad. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Graeme Bartlett: I'm a little confused. A major argument of other opposers is that draftification is a backdoor to deletion and this is bad. If you're okay with deletion, and if these articles are all truly beyond salvaging (which I believe to be largely true), then draftification will eventually accomplish this after 5 years passes. This seems like it should maybe be a "Support but should go even further" vote, but maybe I'm misinterpreting you. SnowFire (talk) 03:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Individual AfD discussions appears to be the accepted way to delete articles.Harper J. Cole (talk) 09:15, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. Disruptive mass-creation of database-entries masquerading as stub articles can only be effectively remediated by mass action - individual discussions at AFD is not practical with volumes this high. Mass-deletion would be entirely appropriate; however, this proposal is a reasonable compromise that allows interested parties a substantial window to expand these database entries into actual articles (although the percentage where that will be possible is very low) and return to main space. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support but only with the standard 6-month term, no special 5 year system which is setting up more exceptons for the sake of exceptions. Stifle (talk) 10:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. I have concerns regarding checks and balances with this proposal. Where does it stop? This could easily snowball to become a backdoor deletion 'policy', lacking community input and consensus. A much more constructive option would be to create a taskforce which methodically goes through each one and expands them; then a decision can be reached, as there will be articles there which can be signficiantly expanded upon. StickyWicket aka AA (talk) 12:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- What exactly do you think this is? It's community input and seeking consensus. Please don't make baseless slippery slope arguments. This is so unrealistic to actually think that anyone will be going through so many thousands of articles (a task they can also do in draftspace). Seems you're concerned about your pages like Jack Sterland, who played a mere two games and similarly lacks significant coverage. Reywas92Talk 13:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- It's cute you stalk my contributions. I wonder if you have a problem with Francis Lacey, or Milo Talbot, or Erroll Tremlett, or perhaps John Manners? I'm actually more concerned about notable individuals being deleted, who might not appear to be notable. If we can take the time to go through this entire process, then yes, we can find the time to go through each on a case-by-case basis. StickyWicket aka AA (talk) 13:48, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- What exactly do you think this is? It's community input and seeking consensus. Please don't make baseless slippery slope arguments. This is so unrealistic to actually think that anyone will be going through so many thousands of articles (a task they can also do in draftspace). Seems you're concerned about your pages like Jack Sterland, who played a mere two games and similarly lacks significant coverage. Reywas92Talk 13:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per well reasoned rationale from DFlhb (that everyone should read). Aza24 (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support, rather reluctantly, as the best of two bad choices. It seems likely that the great majority of these would be deleted at AfD, and there is definitely harm to the encyclopedia in choosing an option that leads to massive extra work. Editors' labour is a finite resource and that has to be taken into account. And there's no prejudice against recreating any given one of these for which notability can be shown. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:27, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Adding a note to say that listification is also fine with me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. Mass-created articles with minimal amounts of information don't benefit the encyclopedia, and overwhelm our ability to handle them through normal deletion processes. The list of articles to be impacted has been tightly curated, and while any list of this scale is going to be inherently imperfect, it bears remembering that WP:NODEADLINE applies to creation just as much as to deletion: if a subject is notable, I trust that the community at large will eventually identify it and give it a proper article. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:26, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose I don't think merely not being notable is a sufficiently serious concern to bypass the usual deletion processes like this, and there don't seem to be any policy-based objections to these articles. Hut 8.5 17:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Suggestion - start taking these 10 at a time to AfD now. Don't cherry-pick. Just take 10 in a sequential row. See what happens. It may shed greater light on the pros and cons of mass-deletion here. It'll also demonstrate how unwieldy (or wieldy?) the alternative of AfDs is. Plus, if this RfC fails, you've at least got a small head-start on cleanup. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 18:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- P.S., I'm not talking about doing many batches of 10 right now -- just 1 or 2 as an experiment to better inform this discussion. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 18:19, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- I might suggest taking the next ten to AfD (although ten is a lot if there's scope for improvement - perhaps with the caveat that if we think they genuinely can be improved that we put a hold on it?) - i.e. the ones that would be next on the list. I've not looked at them but will dig the links out in a minute and add them here with my initial thoughts. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Blue Square Thing, thank you for the many dozens of hours of careful thought, analysis and cricket expertise you've put into this initiative. I have a lot of confidence in this project based on your work.
- -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 14:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- I support this kind of experiment with a small set of articles (and I left a comment to that effect below). Just a note to say that the "next ten" approach is much less informative than a "random ten" approach, as first name is a confounder here. Suriname0 (talk) 15:21, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Although the random 10 nature means you might easily get 10 one-appearance Sri Lankans, say (which I might also easily have gotten with the next 10 fwiw). If someone wants to generate 25 random numbers between 1 and about 5,000 I'll create a list of articles that people can look at. I'd rather have a few more than 10. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- 1323, 2344, 4592, 1206, 1387, 1569, 438, 3650, 1452, 2775, 3930, 4888, 313, 2216, 3558, 2524, 1539, 4457, 4776, 1250, 2941, 925, 1904, 666, 2160, according to my phone app that uses brownian motion in its gyroscopes to generate true random numbers. Folly Mox (talk) 16:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not wed to the particulars of my suggestion above. 25 at random, 10 in-a-row, whatever. Mostly, I'm interested in a good experiment to partially prove or disprove many of the assertions made here. Also, something not cherry-picked to produce a certain result. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 16:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Understand that, but it might be interesting to try anyway. If anyone can think of a better way I have a spreadsheet with 4,102 names in it... Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Although the random 10 nature means you might easily get 10 one-appearance Sri Lankans, say (which I might also easily have gotten with the next 10 fwiw). If someone wants to generate 25 random numbers between 1 and about 5,000 I'll create a list of articles that people can look at. I'd rather have a few more than 10. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- I might suggest taking the next ten to AfD (although ten is a lot if there's scope for improvement - perhaps with the caveat that if we think they genuinely can be improved that we put a hold on it?) - i.e. the ones that would be next on the list. I've not looked at them but will dig the links out in a minute and add them here with my initial thoughts. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- P.S., I'm not talking about doing many batches of 10 right now -- just 1 or 2 as an experiment to better inform this discussion. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 18:19, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Next ten
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The next ten would be:
So, we'd be 2 probable delete based on lists not existing and up to 8 redirect - with my gut feeling between 1 and 3 kept based on expansion, but we might not get any in this set of ten. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC) |
Sample list of 21
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Based on the list of who I believe are the remaining 4,102 cricketers after the 1,200 above are removed (so 4 of the numbers are out of range - I'm happy to add four more if numbers are generated. I can't promise it's a perfect source list, but it's about right and is based on the mammoth list at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox6 and filtering out everything apart from national identification from the cats. This list of 21 is also at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox8. I've not looked at it yet. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
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- Oppose I might support a more targeted attempt at mass draftification - the issues with Lugnuts' work are well-documented by now, and I don't think much of the "played two matches in 1905" sorts of stubs - but a lot of these articles are on contemporary players on top-level teams in major South Asian countries. Given how popular cricket is in India, for example, I have a hard time believing that the likes of Chintan Gaja and Agniv Pan didn't generate plenty of coverage playing for state teams. (I know very little about both cricket and the Indian sports media landscape, so I'm the wrong person to investigate, but Gaja at least seems to have plenty of coverage just from a cursory search.) I'm persuaded by the concerns that incubation on this scale is a backdoor route to deletion, and I think removing this many articles on likely notable subjects from South Asia would reinforce Wikipedia's systemic bias. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 20:30, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Strong support A good gentle middle of the road solution for this mess. So anyone who wants an article to stay can adopt it. I also don't like the "backdoor" (to deletion) pejorative characterization of the motive or process. This type of thing doesn't work at AFD. AFD (where it takes 100 times as much volunteer time to delete a microstub as it did to create it) would make this unsolvable. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Clarifying, my post was answering the "draftification" question. Like others, I was misled by the section title and did not directly answer the actual RFC question which was to move (in some way) out of article space. Although the answer can be deduced from my response, per the first close, that might be missed. I'll now answer it directly. Support moving out of article space Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 19:45, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per James500's concerns. I agree with the premise and the need to clean up these articles in a bundled manner. I think the current implementation needs more work, as there's both a lack of sufficient clarity on the overall lists (and which of it got manually rechecked after), as well as James' point about skipping articles with references. Soni (talk) 23:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support mostly per ActivelyDisinterested. This measure is unfortunately necessary given how overburdened AfD is. — SamX [talk · contribs] 00:47, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Addendum: I disagree with those who argue that this is a
backdoor to deletion
. Yes, unilaterally moving the articles to draftspace one by one would be a backdoor to deletion, and one that I would not support. I agree with Folly Mox—a widely advertised and well-attended RfC is absolutely not a "backdoor" process. This is essentially a mass AfD that's being conducted at an unorthodox venue, with draftification as the desired result rather than imminent deletion. If this were a traditional AfD, I would !vote draftify or redirect. It's been established that Lugnuts failed to exercise due care when verifying that the databases he used to create the stubs were reliable sources. Their sheer volume prevents them from being examined individually, so their continued presence in mainspace is an ongoing threat to Wikipedia's reliability and credibility. To prevent citogenesis and other misfortunes, the articles should be moved to draftspace until they can be thoroughly checked for accuracy and notability. — SamX [talk · contribs] 21:50, 21 July 2023 (UTC) - Second addendum: I also disagree with the opposers who argue that the stubs should be kept in order to be expanded into full-fledged articles. The stubs (at least in the state Lugnuts left them in) read as follows:
[Name] is a [Nationality] [former] cricketer. [He/she/they] played in [event].
None of that information useful for an expansion, and it can all be found by having a quick look at the databases Lugnuts used. BLP is also a serious concern—many of the articles are about living people, and if the databases contain inaccuracies we may have a ticking time bomb on our hands. — SamX [talk · contribs] 05:26, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- Addendum: I disagree with those who argue that this is a
- Support, like the Olympians they may be notable, but they currently fail to demonstrate this, and to see these being kept because of their presumed, but unproven notability, must be frustrating for new editors when their own submissions are required to be of a much higher quality. The argument that this is backdoor deletion does not work for me. The rapid speed with which editors are finding sources in an effort to oppose this proposal demonstrates that five years in draftspace gives plenty of time for improving these articles, especially with the support of a wikiproject dedicated to the subject area. If this proposal fails will editors continue from the current interest in improving the A-D articles or will the E-Z articles be forgotten about. EdwardUK (talk) 12:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per cogent points by Whatamidoing and BeanieFan11; and above all, as being contrary to policy WP:ATD-I. Draftfication is not to be used as a backdoor to deletion, and, as I expected, the previous exception granted by the Olympians RfC (and all the accompanying drama) has lead to a slippery slope of draftifying more generally useful and harmless articles. There is no deadline. If you want to prevent a similar case of mass-creation in the future, go draft a new appropriate policy, but as it stands, mass
deletiondraftification of articles just because who their author was flies in the face of pretty much all existing policies. No such user (talk) 13:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)- I'm not even sure I'm in favour of this proposal, but it's somewhat astonishing to me how many opposers are characterising a CENT-listed Village Pump discussion as a "back door" to anything. The only places more visible are ANI and the Main Page. Sorry to single out your comment, User:No such user, and the reason I've chosen to express my somewhat astonishment here in a reply to you is that you've also characterised the sole reason for draftification as authorship. If any other user had flooded the encyclopaedia with such quantities of barely sourced, possibly notable microstubs, we'd be having the same conversation (and judging from the RFCBEFORE, we will be, with regards to similar articles by users BlackJack and Carlossuarez46). Folly Mox (talk) 13:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- The "backdoorness" isn't about it being done in secret, but about circumventing our deletion policy. It's use of draftspace to effectively delete a lot of articles that haven't actually been evaluated for notability, and which themselves do not violate any policies. If this went through proper process for deletion, we'd first ask "do they qualify for CSD?" (perhaps, if any were created after consensus was clear that articles shouldn't be mass created based just on databases, but not for all of these). Then we'd ask "would deletion be controversial" (apparently the answer is yes, so PROD is out). Then we'd go to AfD, where (assuming AfD weren't flooded to the point of being unable to function) they would be evaluated for notability, etc. Nothing in the deletion process says an article qualifies for deletion if it was created by Lugnuts + below a certain size + uses only databases as sources. Would a lot of these be deleted if they went through AfD? Probably, but not all, and at least then we wouldn't be signalling [again] that it's ok to delete things just for being stubs (which, based on comments throughout here, is a broader goal of several supporters). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not even sure I'm in favour of this proposal, but it's somewhat astonishing to me how many opposers are characterising a CENT-listed Village Pump discussion as a "back door" to anything. The only places more visible are ANI and the Main Page. Sorry to single out your comment, User:No such user, and the reason I've chosen to express my somewhat astonishment here in a reply to you is that you've also characterised the sole reason for draftification as authorship. If any other user had flooded the encyclopaedia with such quantities of barely sourced, possibly notable microstubs, we'd be having the same conversation (and judging from the RFCBEFORE, we will be, with regards to similar articles by users BlackJack and Carlossuarez46). Folly Mox (talk) 13:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per North8000. --Tserton (talk) 13:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support This seems like an extremely fair compromise on at least one part of an issue that generates a lot more controversy than seems warranted. CarringtonMist (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - this is a notability issue and we have a process for that: tag with {{notability}} to add to the queue, PROD/AFD for more serious cases, or, you know, fix it. Presumably these are BLPs and WP:BLPREMOVE could apply, but what is the contentious information we're compelled to remove? That these individuals play[ed] cricket? I fail to see how that could be considered contentious to a degree warranting mass deletion. There are currently nearly 60,000 articles tagged for notability review, why do these 1,200 warrant special treatment? The answer is that they don't. This proposal fails WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP and WP:BEFORE. Also, if any of these stubs are demonstrably non-notable, moving them to draft would prevent their deletion per WP:NDRAFT, which could just make the problem the proposal is trying to address worse in the long run, especially with the 5-year carveout from G13 deletion. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- I wonder if BilledMammal can run a query to tell us how many are possible BLPs? Out of interest. The whole set includes a great many dead New Zealanders and (probably) Australians for example Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Should be possible, I'll give it a go when I have time. BilledMammal (talk) 00:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- I wonder if BilledMammal can run a query to tell us how many are possible BLPs? Out of interest. The whole set includes a great many dead New Zealanders and (probably) Australians for example Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. According to our deletion policy, draftification
must not be used as a "backdoor to deletion"
. This is an explicit backdoor to deletion that is being proposed, and I do not find the benefits sufficient to ignore our deletion policy here. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)- Can you explain why you see it as a backdoor to deletion? That certainly isn't the intention; while deletion will be the result for many of these, some can and will be restored to mainspace, as evidenced by that having already happened for some of the articles on Olympians. BilledMammal (talk) 00:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
as evidenced by that having already happened for some of the articles on Olympians
– that's not evidence at all! Since then, only 2/1000 (0.2%) of the articles (of which, many, many more are notable) have been restored; if anything, that's clear evidence its a backdoor to deletion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)- 912 were draftified, and so far 7 have been restored; ~0.75%. However, the draftification was only done a month and a half ago, so we are only 2.5% of the way through the period that editors have to restore these articles.
- To me, that is evidence that this is working as intended; editors are given time to discover and improve the ones that are notable, and the ones that are not notable will eventually be deleted without the need to waste disproportionate amounts of the communities time. In other words, it's not a backdoor deletion process. BilledMammal (talk) 01:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- And of those seven that were restored, five had been previously improved and never should have been draftified in the first place. That leaves us with Ivanyi and Godfree, so 2/912 - 0.2% - I was correct. And while you say that
the draftification was only done a month and a half ago, so we are only 2.5% of the way through the period that editors have to restore these articles
, do you not realize that you are at the same time trying to dump tens of thousands more there? We do not have the editor time to go through all of those; many are notable, and thus it will act as a backdoor to deletion as many will never be gotten to in time. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)- The correct figure of improved articles appears to be five (the extra two were turned into redirects to different people with similar names); Alexander Duncan (athlete), Alfred Keene, Douglas Godfree, Gyula Iványi, Julius Jørgensen. Jørgensen was improved during the draftification process, but I think it is reasonable to count him giving that the improvement reason was
Seeing that this was suggested for draftification, expanded with additional refs.
- Of course, if we include all the articles improved during the extended draftification process and as a consequence of the process then the percentage will be even higher and your argument even weaker.
- If you don't think we have the editor time to go through these then what do you propose we do? Take them all through AfD, at a rate of 500 or a 1000 a month, and consume even more editor time? The fact is that this is the way most likely to result in their improvement and restoration; less will be deleted than taking them through AfD and applying the time pressures of that process, and less community time will be wasted as we will be saved from needing to spend hours discussing those that are not notable. This is why it is not a backdoor to deletion, because aside from going through the frontdoor with a herald announcing that it is doing so it is going to result in far less deletions than taking these articles through AfD would result in. BilledMammal (talk) 01:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't care if its 0.2% or 0.7%, in what absurd world do you live in where 99%+ of articles being deleted through the backdoor is classified as not being backdoor deleted due to "about five of the one thousand being improved"? That is a ludicrous suggestion!
If you don't think we have the editor time to go through these then what do you propose we do? Take them all through AfD, at a rate of 500 or a 1000 a month, and consume even more editor time?
Doing nothing at all would also be a perfectly acceptable solution, as would tagging them for Template:Notability or Template:No significant coverage (sports), the latter of which you created for the sole purpose of not having to mass remove articles; additionally taking some to AfD, redirecting some (I don't think all that many would be contested, really), PRODDING them, etc. etc. (and my favorite, actually improve the encyclopedia and expand them) would all be much better solutions and would help the encyclopedia better than getting rid of articles with decent chances of notability by the masses. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)I don't care if its 0.2% or 0.7%, in what absurd world do you live in where 99%+ of articles being deleted through the backdoor is classified as not being backdoor deleted due to "about five of the one thousand being improved"?
As I said before, we are only 2.5% of the way through the time that has been provided to improve the articles - and if you feel longer is needed you are free to move them to your user space, which is further evidence that this is not backdoor deletion.Doing nothing at all would also be a perfectly acceptable solution
I disagree, because they are WP:NOT violations, and because of the reasons I presented in my !vote. I don't think we are going to agree here, so I'm going to step back from the conversation; I think I have adequately proven that whatever this process is, it is not intended to be nor does it function as a backdoor to deletion. BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't care if its 0.2% or 0.7%, in what absurd world do you live in where 99%+ of articles being deleted through the backdoor is classified as not being backdoor deleted due to "about five of the one thousand being improved"? That is a ludicrous suggestion!
- The correct figure of improved articles appears to be five (the extra two were turned into redirects to different people with similar names); Alexander Duncan (athlete), Alfred Keene, Douglas Godfree, Gyula Iványi, Julius Jørgensen. Jørgensen was improved during the draftification process, but I think it is reasonable to count him giving that the improvement reason was
- And of those seven that were restored, five had been previously improved and never should have been draftified in the first place. That leaves us with Ivanyi and Godfree, so 2/912 - 0.2% - I was correct. And while you say that
- And yet the first RfC found sufficient consensus for draftification... How many editors would change their !votes if the draftification time limit was infinite? I doubt many supporters would care (because the intent isn't to get these deleted, it's to get them out of mainspace), but I also doubt it would change the minds of many (any?) opposers. JoelleJay (talk) 00:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- If there wasn't a totally arbitrary deadline for deletion, then I'd switch to support moving them to drafts. Like I said in my comment, it's ambiguous if all of these are actually notable per WP:NSPORTS. If this isn't going to produce a backdoor mass deletion in violation of policy, then it's fine to take a batch questionable stubs and move them to drafts. People do that boldly all the time. Steven Walling • talk 00:28, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling, all of them objectively fail NSPORTS as they do not meet SPORTCRIT #5. We had very strong consensus that a SIGCOV IRS source must be cited in all athlete bios to remain in mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Where is the consensus that the sources cited by these articles don't constitute reliable significant coverage? Steven Walling • talk 05:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think it is quite obvious that such database sources don't constitute significant coverage. However, if you need a consensus for this position, see WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 which requires sports biographies to include
at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources
emphasis mine. BilledMammal (talk) 06:45, 18 July 2023 (UTC)- Ok if you believe these are all 100% non-notable according to sports guidelines, then why aren't you filing deletion requests or just boldly mass merging to the existing lists of cricket players?
- This draft proposal isn't worth anyone's time if the articles are known with certainty to not be notable. They should just be deleted. The only conclusion I can draw is that you actually don't know for certain that they lack notability, and therefore the entire proposal to mass draft-ify, merge, or delete them is not valid. These articles need to evaluated and dealt with individually without an arbitrary deadline, like normal on Wikipedia. Steven Walling • talk 20:54, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think it is quite obvious that such database sources don't constitute significant coverage. However, if you need a consensus for this position, see WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 which requires sports biographies to include
- Where is the consensus that the sources cited by these articles don't constitute reliable significant coverage? Steven Walling • talk 05:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling, all of them objectively fail NSPORTS as they do not meet SPORTCRIT #5. We had very strong consensus that a SIGCOV IRS source must be cited in all athlete bios to remain in mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- If there wasn't a totally arbitrary deadline for deletion, then I'd switch to support moving them to drafts. Like I said in my comment, it's ambiguous if all of these are actually notable per WP:NSPORTS. If this isn't going to produce a backdoor mass deletion in violation of policy, then it's fine to take a batch questionable stubs and move them to drafts. People do that boldly all the time. Steven Walling • talk 00:28, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Can you explain why you see it as a backdoor to deletion? That certainly isn't the intention; while deletion will be the result for many of these, some can and will be restored to mainspace, as evidenced by that having already happened for some of the articles on Olympians. BilledMammal (talk) 00:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support Though this discussion should not need to be held, as this was decided already at the gargantuan Olympics. That decision should be a Green Light to just draftify and get it done. Zaathras (talk) 00:51, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- The Olympics discussion (just barely) reached a decision to draftify only that group of Olympians, not thousands to tens and hundreds of thousands more of other articles... BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Strongest possible oppose, many of the articles are notable and should be looked at on a case by case basis, even if it takes forever.--Ortizesp (talk) 03:15, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- ... and you should have up to forever, if you wish it, to look at those articles on a case by case basis, from draft space. Ravenswing 18:23, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Nope. They get deleted beyond a point :)
Which is a major issue, and why some people have called it "backdoor deletion". Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 18:12, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Nope. They get deleted beyond a point :)
- ... and you should have up to forever, if you wish it, to look at those articles on a case by case basis, from draft space. Ravenswing 18:23, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support - per my vote at WP:LUGSTUBS. These articles represent a highly unusual pattern of disruptive editing (the former editor carelessly created hundreds of mini-stubs sourced only to a single database daily), and a highly unusual process is necessary to address the well-established need to remove these from mainspace. If anything, our AfD processes are more overloaded in recent weeks with post-WP:NSPORTS2022 notability failures than they were when LUGSTUBS began. We simply cannot use the conventional processes over the next tens of years to clean up Lugnuts' mess. 03:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jogurney (talk • contribs) 03:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support in strongest possible terms per my previous comments; I genuinely believe that the fact that we need to hold even this RFC is already far too much of a barrier to removal (that is to say, I think that someone ought to have been able to draftify them without discussion) - a sweeping, multi-article action that was taken with no discussion, and which has no significant interveining edits or discussions building an implicit consensus for it, should always be reversable without discussion. Lugnuts took a WP:BOLD action, people objected, now it gets reversed until / unless an affirmative consensus is found for it. We shouldn't need to demonstrate a consensus to draftify them - now that there's an objection, anyone who wants to keep them in article space must demonstrate an affirmative consensus to place them there. To do otherwise encourages WP:FAIT actions and further WP:BOLD mass-edits without consensus, as well as encouraging people to simply ignore objections knowing that article creation is so difficult to reverse. People who believe that there is something salveagable here can always examine and restore individual articles, preferably after getting consensus for doing so if they want to restore large numbers (now that doing so is clearly controversial, per the usual principles of WP:BOLD), but per WP:BURDEN, the burden for doing so rests on them - the people above who argue that the responsibility to demonstrate that each individual article is ought to be draftified are turning BURDEN on its head. If you want to retain or create something, you must step up and produce the sourcing necessary to support it; you can't demand that other people somehow prove that they're allowed to undo a plainly WP:BOLD action. --Aquillion (talk) 08:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Most of these are properly sourced, and there is a backlog of articles with no sources at all; there are more in the 2007 categories than in this list, and the date in the template is usually when the template was added sometimes several years after an article was created. Quality has been mentioned, and that one or two sentences in a list would be acceptable, but an increase to three or four with an infobox, more than would be included in a list, could never be acceptable quality and would require either an increase to five or more or reduction to one or two in a list, but I disagree, as quality is unrelated to article length. This looks more like a WP:BATTLE against Lugnuts, or against cricket, and not an attempt to improve Wikipedia. Not opposing, as random AFDs leaving gaps in the coverage would be worse. Obviously there should be two (or more) Wikipedias. To make it easier to maintain all would be edited at the same site; there could be one that only displays articles that are longer than stubs. Peter James (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support Once draftified, editors can work on those drafts and move them out of draft-space when ready. Also, I would suggest that the draftified articles be auto-deleted after a year instead of the proposed 5 years (5 years is too long). Some1 (talk) 23:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Userfy to the userspace of User:Lugnuts, with the same intention, except do not complicate the WP:G13 rule or the processes of draftspace. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Meh. Stubs are not a problem, if you come across one that you find, after proper WP:BEFORE searches, that needs to be dealt with, do so. These kind of mass reactions to harmless stubs are pointless. We don't have to do anything, except the normal process of expanding, editing, merging, deleting, etc. stuff when we come across it. --Jayron32 12:02, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support: If, in all these months after Lugnuts was shut down, the cricket project had felt moved to do the work to source these articles, we would have less of a problem. (If Lugnuts himself had ever felt moved to do the work to source his tens of thousands of sub-stubs, he never would've been sanctioned or banned in the first place.) If the cricket project had been less focused for many years in general obstructionism with respect to sub-stubs and the need for tighter notability guidelines, we not only would have had less of a problem, but the movement to deprecate participation standards sports-wide may never have gotten up a head of steam. I am mortally tired of the time of dozens and hundreds of editors sucked into the deletion and sourcing whirlpool while others piously maintain that there's no real problem here. By all means, let's move to draftify these articles, and let the people who claim that They're! All! Notable! do the sourcing work to prove their claims. The same way we've been doing on the other end: one article at a time.
And by the bye? This IS the compromise option. This gives people who want to do the work -- as should have been done in the first place -- to source the articles. My preferred option would be to simply take every cricket bio Lugnuts ever created with a current byte size of less than 2,500, mass delete them all, and leave it to those editors who profess to care to do the work to recreate them, one article at a time. I recognize that would never gain consensus, but enough's enough. Ravenswing 14:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment This is a very technical discussion and proposal, yet, to me, it seems like a case of the Law of triviality. Can anyone say what the benefits would be if all these articles were draftified, or if they were not draftified? Notability was mentioned, as well as What Wikipedia is not. This is actually a discussion about heuristics. In that case, it raises a bigger question, and everything here is moot, aside from serving a case example. Namely, it applies to all articles of the nature outlined in the OP, and it's not limited to just Lugnuts. I assume we have tens of thousands of such articles, maybe in the 100k-200k range. Looking at it through that lens, I don't really know what to say. For whom are we incubating these aticles? The majority of them receive few views anyway, and I assume that enthusiasts don't mind the sparsity as much. This does lead us back to WP:NOT, but then, draftspace is not an indefinite repository, and 5 years is really stretching the limits. Why not just give all the articles 5 more years, and then decide whether mass-deletion is appropriate? This is really a way of 'cleaning up' a blocked user's mistakes. That is an understandable motive. However, it also feels like doing something for the sake of doing something. Dege31 (talk) 15:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Can anyone say what the benefits would be if all these articles were draftified?
Here's one benefit: every article in mainspace carries a maintenance burden that eats away at editor time. There are ~40,000 active editors attempting to curate an encyclopedia that contains over 6,600,000 articles; it's in our best interest to minimize the time we spend working on articles that are going to end up being deleted.Take a look at the history of some of these articles. Some of them have had more edits than others, but all the ones I've checked so far have had at least one or two edits from people other than Lugnuts; mostly small things like changing categories or adding short descriptions. For instance, look at Anmol Malhotra. Its categories have been altered twice; its references have been renamed; it has been vandalized by IPs twice; another two IPs have made good-faith but incorrect edits which were reverted; a minor bit of information has been added to the infobox; a wikilink has been removed; and some empty spaces have been added and removed. Each of these edits might have only taken a few seconds; but add to that another few seconds per edit wasted by anyone who has that article on their watchlist, and then multiply that by 94,000 (the number of articles created by Lugnuts), and now you have a major timesink on your hands.The amount of time we spend editing and maintaining these articles pales in comparison to the time we could potentially spend discussing them, if we had to AfD them one-by-one, so if we believe that non-notable articles should be removed from Wikipedia, it makes sense to do so en masse where possible – but if anyone says (as you seem to be saying) that non-notable articles should just be left in mainspace, the maintenance burden I described above is one reason why I can't agree with that. There are other reasons (e.g. little-watched articles are more likely to contain errors, which have the potential to proliferate across the internet; the existence of non-notable articles encourages the creation of more), but the timesink factor is one that's easy to overlook. Putting these articles out of the way would just save us a heck of a lot of wasted time, and consequently give us more time to work on the encyclopedia proper. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 21:13, 15 July 2023 (UTC)- I don't necessarily disagree, since I was not primarily arguing for or against the proposal. My opinion is that this argument is broad, and the selection is arbitrary, since it applies to many more articles than the ones listed. Therefore, I cannot view it in isolation, and I do not think that makes sense. Dege31 (talk) 10:07, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. 5 years is long enough for anyone to fix the issue and bring them to mainspace if the subject is notable enough. Taking all of these to AFD would be tiresome and burdensome. It feels like a tiny little "backdoor to deletion" but our AFD process can't handle this volume of discussions. Draftyfying for a long time is a good middle ground. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 17:22, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
5 years is long enough for anyone to fix the issue and bring them to mainspace if the subject is notable enough
– for what will be tens of thousands of articles on old athletes, for which sources have always been more difficult to find? I don't think so. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:25, 15 July 2023 (UTC)- Then they shouldn't have been created in the first place, if that was done with no intention to source them, should they have? And we shouldn't keep them around indefinitely, if those editors who would otherwise want to save them have no intention to work to maintain them, should we? Ravenswing 03:32, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11: It's my understanding that provision #2 of the proposal would allow you to move every one of these articles to your own userspace, if that's what you want to do. Then you could work on them for as long as you like without any threat of deletion hanging over you. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 17:05, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Still, there's absolutely no way I can write tens of thousands of articles (its taken me years to do 800 and article creation has been my main contribution) - even if I moved them to my userspace, it may not be deletion, but it in a way functions as that since they will almost assuredly never be mainspace articles again. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- If no one cares enough/has time enough to do the work (and surely this proposal neither rises or falls on your personal ability to pick up the slack), then they shouldn't be mainspace articles. Ravenswing 22:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Would it be better if I were to say that the Wikipedia community as a whole does not have the time to go through the quantity of the articles in the timespan of the proposal, which would thus make many draftified articles that would survive at AfD be deleted through the backdoor, which is explicitly against Wikipedia's deletion policy as the articles do not meet WP:DRAFTIFY's required standard of "obviously unready for mainspace"? BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- They are obviously unready for mainspace. They fail SPORTSCRIT #5, so they should not be in mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 23:10, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- SPORTCRIT does not say that "all articles failing this must immediately be removed from mainspace"; and also, BilledMammal created Template:No significant coverage (sports) for the sole purpose of not having to mass remove SPORTCRIT-failing articles from mainspace. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:14, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- SPORTCRIT says
Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources.
We also don't say all articles sourced only to a primary source must immediately be removed; that doesn't mean such articles are PAG-compliant and "ready for mainspace", and the existence of the primary sources template does not prevent draftification. JoelleJay (talk) 00:43, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- SPORTCRIT says
- SPORTCRIT does not say that "all articles failing this must immediately be removed from mainspace"; and also, BilledMammal created Template:No significant coverage (sports) for the sole purpose of not having to mass remove SPORTCRIT-failing articles from mainspace. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:14, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- They are obviously unready for mainspace. They fail SPORTSCRIT #5, so they should not be in mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 23:10, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Would it be better if I were to say that the Wikipedia community as a whole does not have the time to go through the quantity of the articles in the timespan of the proposal, which would thus make many draftified articles that would survive at AfD be deleted through the backdoor, which is explicitly against Wikipedia's deletion policy as the articles do not meet WP:DRAFTIFY's required standard of "obviously unready for mainspace"? BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- If no one cares enough/has time enough to do the work (and surely this proposal neither rises or falls on your personal ability to pick up the slack), then they shouldn't be mainspace articles. Ravenswing 22:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Still, there's absolutely no way I can write tens of thousands of articles (its taken me years to do 800 and article creation has been my main contribution) - even if I moved them to my userspace, it may not be deletion, but it in a way functions as that since they will almost assuredly never be mainspace articles again. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Listify all as first choice. I didn't have a strong opinion about this until today, after I spent several hours fixing miscited page numbers on hundreds of moth substubs, often where the incorrectly cited source was the only one, and in some cases where the article was so short my addition of a citation template now accounts for more than 30% of the byte size. Now I have feelings about maintenance burdens someone mentioned above.
- Listifying articles retains the entire content, and can be performed with rapid cut-paste manoevres.
- Listifying leaves redirects for easy expansion when interested editors find additional sourced information.
- Listifying lowers maintenance burden, since many smol related changes can be made on a single page instead of thirty or two hundred.
- If a player can be placed into multiple lists, Labeled section transclusion can be used to keep the data in one place for consistency and ease of maintenance.
- Although some of these subjects pass WP:N, by certain objective measures these are amongst Wikipedia's worst articles, and they degrade the average quality of the encyclopaedia (whether "average quality" is a valuable metric is an open question).
- Articles like these make WP:N look like a mockery to newcomers. It's tough to explain with just a handwave to WP:OSE that someone's favourite youtuber with thirty million subscribers doesn't qualify for an article because traditional media have not reported on them, but a dead athlete whose professional career spanned all of a half dozen matches is worth holding on to a single sentence standalone article about.
- People come to the Teahouse with some frequency asking specifically how to exclude sportsperson biographies from Special:RandomPage, because such articles are so numerous it degrades that page's functionality for the user.
- All this stems from the choice to make the Article the fundamental unit of Wikipedia. There's no fixing that, but User:Iridescent's excellent Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway is the ideal example of what we can do about borderline notable content. Contextualise it, have a smol sourced blurb for everything contextually relevant, with a link to a standalone article if and only if the topic warrants it. This applies in general too: cricketers, moths, and substubs in my own content area of concentration, early China. Some dude was monarch of a polity of a few thousand at some point for an unknown period of time, and all we know about him is his name, predecessor, and successor, but now we have to have an article just for him specifically? All the information present in these articles is more useful in context anyway, as well as easing navigation and reducing cruft.
- Userfy to User:Lugnuts/* as second choice. Clears up all the problems of leaving the articles in mainspace, and avoids the G13 ticking time bomb. As a bonus, treat parsimoniously. Treat active players with greater leniency. Maybe leave their articles in place while the dead and retired are moved. Active players are more likely to be searched and more likely to attract interested contributors, and as a bonus a greater proportion of them are from outside the Anglosphere, so it would help a little with our systemic bias problem. Folly Mox (talk) 05:20, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose for at least the Australian cricketers. Having sampled some Australians from the list and researching on Trove, an Australian newspaper database, I've been able to expand and source perhaps half the sample, notably David Mailer, David Taylor (Australian cricketer), Daniel Cullen (New South Wales cricketer). (Note I'm not saying every article I could expand is certainly notable, but they would definitely merit a proper AfD discussion if they were up for deletion). I didn't do a particularly thorough job on each and I don't even have any pre-existing experience in researching cricketers – I'm sure someone who knew the quirks of the subject area and spent more time looking would do even better. I'm satisfied that if this proposal passed, it would put an unacceptably large number of notable articles at risk of unjustified deletion. – Teratix ₵ 06:26, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- If they're truly notable, they can easily be recreated. SportingFlyer T·C 22:26, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer: I've seen this point made repeatedly by those who support this but in reality, no, that's not going to happen; the notable ones will not be "easily recreated." Since NSPORT has been destroyed, people just don't really make many articles on historical athletes (for example, I've been pretty much the main creator of decent biographical articles in American football for a while now). Do you know the difficulty it takes to create articles nowadays on historical athletes, especially the older ones? To dig through tons of newspaper archives, then determine which are useful, then rephrase the text and add it to the article, include the references, the formatting, etc. etc. and hope it passes NPP (though autopatrollers don't have to go through that last step)? In reality, what's going to happen if this passes are a very low number of the actually notable articles here are going to be improved (like the 0.2% of the Olympians) and BilledMammal is then going to propose to get rid of 40,000 more, which will make it even more difficult to go through as we do not have the editor time to work on that many articles with deletion the consequence if we don't! BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- User:BeanieFan11, I certainly appreciate your passion for the sportsbio space and all the work you've done in it. I don't even want to draftify these articles (I just opined listify above, and disagree there should be any deadline for improvement if the articles are removed from mainspace), but it seems to me the process you're describing – research, rewriting source material, adding references, and properly formatting – are just the basic steps of article creation. If I didn't know better from your participation here and in the preceding Olympians RFC, I could interpret your statement above as an argument against these articles existing at all, due to the clear lack of diligence and care in their creation. Folly Mox (talk) 23:14, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- What I am trying to say is this: we've got these articles here currently – many are notable, and they do not meet WP:DRAFTIFY's standard of "obviously unready for mainspace," and on top of that creation of historical athletes has gotten ten times harder than it was in the past. Draftifiying these would result in very few actually being improved/returned, and would only make the deletion of huge quantites of notable articles (not to mention BilledMammal wants to propose getting rid of tens of thousands after this; there is no possible way to get through that many before they're deleted). That does not improve the encyclopedia at all. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:23, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Folly Mox - The issue isn't notability, it's that there's few editors here, limited cricket knowledge and extra hurdles like non-romantic language barriers and overly eager AfD debaters that dissuade people like myself from even beginning to look into these people.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- But we have no way of knowing which of these are actually notable or not notable, because no one has bothered to check. That's both why we are here and why NSPORT became deprecated in the first place! Listifying would be fine because it would give potential creators a place to start. SportingFlyer T·C 08:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't care that we don't know which are notable, the fact that we would be deleting large amounts of notable ones is what makes this unacceptable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:21, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- I sympathise with the cricket editors here, and I'm in agreement with the opposition in that I don't want the information in these articles removed from the encyclopaedia. I just think the way we're managing the information (thousands of individual tiny articles) is far from ideal. Maybe the farthest from ideal? Folly Mox (talk) 19:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- But we have no way of knowing which of these are actually notable or not notable, because no one has bothered to check. That's both why we are here and why NSPORT became deprecated in the first place! Listifying would be fine because it would give potential creators a place to start. SportingFlyer T·C 08:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- User:BeanieFan11, I certainly appreciate your passion for the sportsbio space and all the work you've done in it. I don't even want to draftify these articles (I just opined listify above, and disagree there should be any deadline for improvement if the articles are removed from mainspace), but it seems to me the process you're describing – research, rewriting source material, adding references, and properly formatting – are just the basic steps of article creation. If I didn't know better from your participation here and in the preceding Olympians RFC, I could interpret your statement above as an argument against these articles existing at all, due to the clear lack of diligence and care in their creation. Folly Mox (talk) 23:14, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- The fact remains that this proposal will probably mean deleting many articles on notable topics. That shouldn't be acceptable to us. – Teratix ₵ 00:05, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer: I've seen this point made repeatedly by those who support this but in reality, no, that's not going to happen; the notable ones will not be "easily recreated." Since NSPORT has been destroyed, people just don't really make many articles on historical athletes (for example, I've been pretty much the main creator of decent biographical articles in American football for a while now). Do you know the difficulty it takes to create articles nowadays on historical athletes, especially the older ones? To dig through tons of newspaper archives, then determine which are useful, then rephrase the text and add it to the article, include the references, the formatting, etc. etc. and hope it passes NPP (though autopatrollers don't have to go through that last step)? In reality, what's going to happen if this passes are a very low number of the actually notable articles here are going to be improved (like the 0.2% of the Olympians) and BilledMammal is then going to propose to get rid of 40,000 more, which will make it even more difficult to go through as we do not have the editor time to work on that many articles with deletion the consequence if we don't! BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- If they're truly notable, they can easily be recreated. SportingFlyer T·C 22:26, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Suuport on the same grounds as my support in the original LUGSTUBS, and per ActivelyDisinterested and Aquillion here. XAM2175 (T) 10:00, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I have been considering this since my comment below, questioning the much more diverse range of articles here than in the previous RfC. I lean now towards support. All the articles share the same issues that defined the query, being procedurally (and uncaringly, if they have similar effort to the Olympic stubs) generated from databases. The inclusion of WP:BLPs initially concerned me, as they would be much more likely to have so-far unadded coverage (especially South Asian cricketers, whose coverage may not be in English), but conversely, BLPs are where we should be most cautious about these sorts of slapdash efforts. I find the reference to WP:DEADLINE in oppose votes curious. This proposal is being considered now, not in the future. There is no deadline to have some stats in the mainspace, especially not for BLPs. CMD (talk) 07:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- There's also no deadline for removing these articles out of mainspace - and right now we have these articles. That is what the opposers are arguing. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:21, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - Counting very roughly I make it 47 support 35 oppose at this point, with maybe 2 listify/userfy. That's very roughly that same 60:40 split as at the original LUGSTUBS discussion. FOARP (talk) 09:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- WP:DETCON says "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." The number of !votes is irrelevant. James500 (talk) 02:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- The number is not decisive, but nor is it irrelevant. If I'm saying anything at all here, it's that if the final numerical split of the votes is similar, and the arguments are similar, the outcome should also be similar. FOARP (talk) 13:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The policy says that the number of !votes is irrelevant. One of the reasons that the consensus policy does not take into account the number of !votes is because such an approach would encourage sockpuppetry and other forms of vote stacking.
- The arguments are not similar. These articles have far more coverage than the Olympians. James500 (talk) 23:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The number is not decisive, but nor is it irrelevant. If I'm saying anything at all here, it's that if the final numerical split of the votes is similar, and the arguments are similar, the outcome should also be similar. FOARP (talk) 13:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- WP:DETCON says "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." The number of !votes is irrelevant. James500 (talk) 02:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Weak support as long as all the criteria in the nomination are correct, and if any have been expanded since the start of the RFC, then they are excluded from this move. Most of these articles are likely non-notable based on the criteria for their selection, and those that are can always be expanded and then moved back to article space. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:02, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per pervious RfC. This is basically the same situation just on a different subset so all previous rational applies here. I would have preferred a much shorter time period than the 5 years, but the proposal is still better than the current situation. --Gonnym (talk) 17:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per the previous RfC and Donald Albury and SMC. Ealdgyth (talk) 17:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support some of those stubs are in my watchlist and all I'm going to do is expand them until they surpass 2,500 bytes (I know they're notable). Any notable figure that gets their article deleted will eventually get their article recreated in theory precisely because they're notable. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 19:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- But why would notable articles need to be moved to draftspace and/or deleted for them exist as non-stubs? Why not go through the much more simple process of expanding them in mainspace? And to
Any notable figure that gets their article deleted will eventually get their article recreated in theory precisely because they're notable
– that's not necessarily the case. Creating notable articles on historical athletes has gotten many times harder since NSPORT was destroyed and there's already enormous quantities of notable athletes that have never been created in 20 years of wikipedia (so using logic, if the articles get much harder to be created and already huge amounts of notable ones that have never been written, how would getting rid of tens of thousands of the notable ones we already have make it likely they'll all be recreated in a better state?) BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:56, 17 July 2023 (UTC)- In my opinion some of Wikipedia's most problematic articles are those that are right below the threshold of notability. It might take years until someone realises there's not actually that much to say on a given person. I've been on Wikipedia for years and it is still hard for me to judge whether some people are notable or not, and I believe it will always be like that because of the quite abstract nature of the policy.
- Lugnuts has created tons of short articles based on data repositories. Some are definitively not notable. Whether on draftspace or on mainspace, it will take us years to go through all of them. I believe in that case that it is better to keep bad content out of the mainspace and to progressively recover good articles than to keep trash for years here. This is a really exceptional treatment for a really exceptional (once-in-a-Wikipedia so far) case. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 20:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Super Dromaeosaurus - I think there's maybe only two others whose article-production in the long-term deserves this analysis. I'm not going to put them on blast by naming them here but if you're familiar with Iranian village stubs and bot-created Indian sub-continent geostubs you'll know who I'm talking about. FOARP (talk) 13:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Also, on a side note, @Super Dromaeosaurus:, you can expect the deletionists to give you hell whenever they can for all the draftified articles you move back to mainspace after expanding (as evidence, when I spent about an hour expanding the draftified Gyula Iványi from the prior discussion, I then had to waste several more hours arguing in several places with multiple users about why he was worth moving to mainspace and only after that did they finally agree he deserved an article - expanding it alone they don't view as sufficient and only block-worthy "gaming the system"; you also have to find SIGCOV which they agree is SIGCOV (very rare) and that they agree is a reliable source and that they agree covers said athlete in the correct context (I've had articles I did significant work on deleted because although they had sufficient SIGCOV, that SIGCOV didn't cover them in the right way) - and usually you need to have multiple pieces of it). BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Deletionist–inclusionist conflicts are going to happen no matter what solution we apply and also outside of this group of articles until the end of Wikipedia. I don't think the same will happen to every single other article.
- For the record: I would define myself as an inclusionist. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 20:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- But why would notable articles need to be moved to draftspace and/or deleted for them exist as non-stubs? Why not go through the much more simple process of expanding them in mainspace? And to
- Support. It's theft. Summarizing two or more sources is not stealing, that's creating a new work, but simply copying from another website and pasting the contents onto this website is just plain stealing. Scraping another website and copying thousands, or tens of thousands, of its pages and pasting them onto Wikipedia, that's just theft on a large scale. It's highly immoral. It doesn't matter if what's being stolen are "just" statistics; these websites are doing all the work (and investing the money) to gather these statistics, and then Wikipedia comes along and just copies them by the thousands? Not cool. In addition, when I Google "Aadil Rashid" [16] (to take one example), Wikipedia comes up first and ESPNcricinfo comes up second. So not only are we stealing their content, but we're stealing their traffic as well. Is this what we want? When people want to look up a cricketer, we want them to come to Wikipedia instead of some other website, even if all the information we have was simply copied from the other website? No way. This sort of content theft contradicts the ethos of what Wikipedia should be; it's hypocritical of Wikipedia to permit it (nevermind celebrating it), and we should delete all of these articles for no other reason than to deter anyone else from engaging in this sort of immoral mass-copying-and-pasting.
Nobody has actually read these "articles." Aadil Rashid received less than 0.5 page views per day this year. I do not believe Lugnuts read all the 90,000+ articles he created. The difference between these mass-copied-and-pasted articles and a regular article is that when an editor creates articles one at a time, they actually read the articles they create, so at least one human being has actually read the article before we publish it. Not so with these mass creations, we don't know if even one human being has ever read it. It's irresponsible of Wikipedia to publish something that nobody has read first (nevermind verified). At least some of these articles are WP:BLPs. Publishing unread BLPs is not just irresponsible, it's reckless.
While I prefer WP:CSDing these immoral and irresponsible if not reckless mass-stolen articles (or at least the BLPs), not everyone is on board with deleting them all at once. There are too many to take them to AFD, even in batches (neither spending years going through this, nor flooding the AFD queue, are reasonable options). This proposal is a good compromise that takes them out of mainspace while still allowing 5 years for interested editors to improve them and bring them back to mainspace as articles or redirects, whichever is better for the particular article, just like the last RFC about Olympians. Levivich (talk) 03:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- - Levivich - Pageview counts don't matter WP:NOBODYREADSIT.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:25, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
It's theft.
– Are you kiddin' me? That's one of the most nonsensical suggestions I've seen in this entire discussion! If this is stealing, than all of Wikipedia is! Actually, summarizing sources is much more "stealing" than going from a stats website, and creating a one-sentence stub article based on the fact that Beanie Fan played two XI cricket matches for Gloucestershire in 1997 - you claim we're taking their "hard work and money" but there's much more in those databases that Lugnuts wouldn't mention (for example, stats – and ESPNcricinfo (if I remember correctly) also has prose for some of the athletes; if Lugnuts was actually word-for-word copying that, than I would agree they should be deleted; but he wasn't.) You claim that we're also stealing their views; I'd claim the opposite. First, you can click on them as the second result on google or you could read our Wikipedia article, which is very short and contains a link to that website; the fact that its very short would likely incline its readers to click on the link, thus giving them more views actually. And you say that, but right after say that "nobody reads these articles in the first place" (a side note: if no one reads these, how are we stealing other websites' views?) – you point to a link that shows a cricketer getting 0.5 views a day and say that we shouldn't have articles no one reads, but right there that's evidence that over 100 people reading it per year! BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)- @Levivich@BeanieFan11 - Since IP is my profession, I have given this some thought over the years. Morally I can't disagree that simply going through a database and reproducing the numbers from it as Lugnuts clearly did is cheesy in the extreme. Legally, well, mere facts are not copyright protected. Barring the existence of "trap listings" (e.g., fake listings put into the database just to catch copiers) it is hard to see where the legal case could be. Where it gets murkier is things like database rights where any liability would rest on things that I have little insight into (e.g., to what extent did Lugnuts reproduce the structure of the Cricinfo database and to what extent is that protected?). I don't see any clear case for IP infringement but I don't know everything.
- On the readership point, 100 hits a year almost certainly represents zero actual humans reading the article, as articles will get crawled by bots (e.g., search-engine indexers) about that many times in a year. FOARP (talk) 13:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The page view statistics count human and non-human views separately. For example Agniv Pan last month received views from 94 users,[17] 64 spiders,[18] and 5 "automated" (i.e. non-spiders non-humans) [19]. While the determination of "user" isn't exactly equal to "human" it is close and typically fewer than 5-10 "user" hits a year can be attributed to non-humans. Thryduulf (talk) 08:04, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
Arbitrary break 2: Survey (mass draftification of cricket articles)
- Strong Oppose I was leaning support upon initial reading of the discussion. Doubtless, many of these are poor articles that do deserve to be deleted. However, many are not; they are simply articles that have not been improved to the level we expect at Wikipedia. Those would not pass deletion at AfD, and should not pass here. I would encourage a much more thorough list, that looks into vernacular sources, though I acknowledge that it will need much more effort than what has been expended here already. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 04:26, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- This is similar to the spirit of WP:PRESERVE, but what good is PRESERVE for zero-effort, mass-created articles? There's no work to preserve. Another assumption underlying PRESERVE is that articles are more likely to reach X state (e.g. B-class) by a given date, if they exist, than if they need to be remade from scratch. That assumption holds true for articles that are merely bad. Not for barren articles that contain nothing but database info. DFlhb (talk) 12:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- For the record, my research suggests it isn't even true for stubs in general, although it is more true for stubs like those than micro-stubs like these. BilledMammal (talk) 12:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- By keeping the useful ones in mainspace, we encourage people to add to them. How many casual visitors go and edit drafts vs how many edit mainspace? I support the removal of articles where there is truly no notability, but a mass draftification essentially puts the burden of improvement on a very small number of editors, thus being de-facto deletion. I would support a second list if it came with checks regarding vernacular sources. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 15:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- How many casual visitors are we expecting to come across these articles in mainspace and add multiple sources of IRS SIGCOV to produce a PAG-compliant article? No one besides Lugnuts has substantially edited any of these stubs ever over the last 10 years. And I suspect the vast majority of cricket Lugstubs that have been expanded satisfactorily by others have been expanded by the most active members of the cricket wikiproject, all of whom should be aware of this proposal and thus aware that they can visit the list and work on drafts should they wish to. Their being in draftspace won't impede these editors if they happened to come across SIGCOV of some player and want to add it; they'll know to check the list if the name is a redlink. JoelleJay (talk) 01:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The argument that someone who isnt an extremely dedicated Wiki editor wont be able to add SIGCOV is wrong; Even a casual fan might drop by and add the day's news report on the cricketers career. Putting the burden on a small section of editors is essentially backdoor deletion, which I dislike.
If this is supposed to be an AfD, then it should come with better checks. I am not satisfied with the criteria. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 12:30, 21 July 2023 (UTC)- That just does not happen. You can look at the histories of the articles that didn't meet the draftification criteria to see who has added genuine SIGCOV and when they added it. For example, out of all 48 pages in category:cricketers from Manipur, we have only 2 that have a secondary independent source other than Cricinfo stats. One has a match recap added by Lugnuts, the other has a primary match recap added by another cricket project member. Neither is non-routine/SIGCOV, so wouldn't qualify to get out of draftspace anyway. Out of the 7 additional pages in category:Manipur cricketers, which is a separate category for some reason, one has a routine match recap added by Lugnuts.
- 2/12 Lugstubs in category:cricketers from Allahabad have sources besides stats databases: one with some obits added by a highly active sports contributor, the other with a news report added by Lugnuts.
- 4/11 Lugstubs in category:cricketers from Lucknow: 1,2,3 with non-stats sources added by Lugnuts, 1 with sources added by a highly active cricket project member.
- 3/18 Lugstubs in category:cricketers from Dhaka: 1,2,3 with non-stats sources added by Lugnuts.
- 0/9 Lugstubs in category:cricketers from Fremantle with non-stats independent sources.
- 5/29 Lugstubs in category:cricketers from Newcastle, New South Wales: 1,2 with non-stats sources added by active project members, 1 with primary, non-independent sources added by a random editor, 1 with an ANYBIO #2 source unrelated to cricket added by an admin, 1 with a non-stats source added by Lugnuts. JoelleJay (talk) 01:00, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
- The argument that someone who isnt an extremely dedicated Wiki editor wont be able to add SIGCOV is wrong; Even a casual fan might drop by and add the day's news report on the cricketers career. Putting the burden on a small section of editors is essentially backdoor deletion, which I dislike.
- How many casual visitors are we expecting to come across these articles in mainspace and add multiple sources of IRS SIGCOV to produce a PAG-compliant article? No one besides Lugnuts has substantially edited any of these stubs ever over the last 10 years. And I suspect the vast majority of cricket Lugstubs that have been expanded satisfactorily by others have been expanded by the most active members of the cricket wikiproject, all of whom should be aware of this proposal and thus aware that they can visit the list and work on drafts should they wish to. Their being in draftspace won't impede these editors if they happened to come across SIGCOV of some player and want to add it; they'll know to check the list if the name is a redlink. JoelleJay (talk) 01:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- This is similar to the spirit of WP:PRESERVE, but what good is PRESERVE for zero-effort, mass-created articles? There's no work to preserve. Another assumption underlying PRESERVE is that articles are more likely to reach X state (e.g. B-class) by a given date, if they exist, than if they need to be remade from scratch. That assumption holds true for articles that are merely bad. Not for barren articles that contain nothing but database info. DFlhb (talk) 12:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Listify, followed by draftify – there's no good answer here, but I think one of listifying or draftifying would be the best solution. Listifying keeps the content in mainspace, while also keeping it all in one place where anyone can pick one and expand it if they meet standalone notability criteria. Draftifying isn't great, and honestly these articles took such little work to create that I don't think deleting them loses much of anything, but outright deleting articles on potentially notable subjects would also be subpar. I don't like the backdoor to deletion possibility, but I think 5 years is enough for anyone who cares to make an edit and postpone G13 in draftspace. I'd also much prefer just looking at the full set rather than a subset, as the result won't change much for the rest of the set. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 19:34, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know if this is the case, but I suspect that all of these are already in mainspace lists containing much of the same bare data found in the stubs. JoelleJay (talk) 22:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, there's already lists by team, by country and so-forth. What's the point in listifying? FOARP (talk) 13:33, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- It sounded like we didn't have everything covered in lists (African players, etc.), but if I'm wrong on that front then there is not much point. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 23:41, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- The current list articles only contain career stats, but not vital dates, birthplaces, or individual citations to their cricinfo entries. My !vote for listification was based on a process whereby all the information in the current articles would make its way into an appropriate list article. Folly Mox (talk) 00:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, there's already lists by team, by country and so-forth. What's the point in listifying? FOARP (talk) 13:33, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know if this is the case, but I suspect that all of these are already in mainspace lists containing much of the same bare data found in the stubs. JoelleJay (talk) 22:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Listify (and then possibly draftify). It was hard to oppose outright, but mass draftification proposal as stated seemed both too complex and still a bit heavy-handed. But I didn't want to oppose only on principle in hopes that we could find a way to improve the encyclopedia. So I'm glad other editors have come up with this solution. It's actually pretty good. —siroχo 19:45, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Siroxo - This same process was already applied in the previous WP:LUGSTUBS case, so, complex or not, it is perfectly do-able. I'll also say, the articles draftified in the previous case haven't exactly been missed. FOARP (talk) 13:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- I can appreciate that. Still, I feel that do-able in the moment can lead to complexity after the fact. The 5 year clause is the most clear example of something that will certainly be confusing to some editors in a couple of years. Thus I prefer to keep things more within the realm of standard processes. —siroχo 09:05, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Siroxo: In regards to
The 5 year clause is the most clear example of something that will certainly be confusing to some editors in a couple of years
, the deletion after six months of drafts is a semi-automated process (admins are given a list of articles that are coming up on a deadline), and the exception for the five years clause has already been incorporated into that process. BilledMammal (talk) 09:08, 24 July 2023 (UTC)- Complexity is a fickle beast. It's very difficult to reduce complexity without changing requirements, mostly the complexity ends up shifted. I appreciate that people are trying to shift the complexity into an automated system. However, the state machine editors keep in their heads will have another set of states for this particular subset of drafts, due to this, and some editors may not even realize this in a couple years time. —siroχo 09:19, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Siroxo: In regards to
- I can appreciate that. Still, I feel that do-able in the moment can lead to complexity after the fact. The 5 year clause is the most clear example of something that will certainly be confusing to some editors in a couple of years. Thus I prefer to keep things more within the realm of standard processes. —siroχo 09:05, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Siroxo - This same process was already applied in the previous WP:LUGSTUBS case, so, complex or not, it is perfectly do-able. I'll also say, the articles draftified in the previous case haven't exactly been missed. FOARP (talk) 13:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support Levivich makes some interesting points and BeanieFan's reply seems to me to miss the point. What do these articles add to the body of knowledge on the internet? Sure, a regular article must combine pre-existing information. But that combining and and then presenting it in a different way is the value add of a Wikipedia article. As Levivich demonstrates that's not what's happened with these articles.(Looking at the example Levivich gave, BeanieFan's claim that is not the case is unconvincing) Without these articles nothing is lost - the source it was "stolen" from (in Levivich's terms) provides it just the same. The proposal is a workable compromise. DeCausa (talk) 10:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment . I'd support this per Levivich and this report on the way AI machines are poaching massively on wikipedia's articles, hijacking the often arduous reading and writing of volunteer editors. If, as it appears to be the case, editors here are using similar algorithms to sweep the net and mechanically reproduce sporting material without the critical eyes of editors combing independently through the web sources to winnow rubbish and build an article, then they are putting global knowledge in double jeopardy, since the A1 world, which hopes to cannibalize wikipedia's distinctive verifiable knowledge base, will like the proverbial moronic computer that 'thinks' at the speed of light', reproduce massive loads of data here that have been inserted indiscriminantly and indeed by a form of automatic larceny. It would be painful for me, as a cricket addict from infancy, to uncritically support this erasure, despite the cogency of the case for deletion, but whatever the cost we must be accountable, and give warrant for our reliability in verifying, editor by editor, the content here. My reserve relates to WP:Systemic bias, that blanket erasure without close supervision, case by case, will mostly affect non-European cricketers. But articles like those on Afghani cricket (one of the two good things to come out of the devastatingly stupid war, the other being female access to education) show that solid individual work can or does cover thirdworld cricketers who otherwise might have risked neglect in coverage. Automatic erasure, like automatic stub generation, in annuling the human agency that is fundamental for wikipedia, is equally problematic.Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- These articles (and especially the Australians) are being expanded and improved right now. Moving them into draftspace would prevent expansion and improvement by editors who are not prepared to expand or improve pages while they are in the draftspace.
- It would have been better to have revived Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub improvement and then given the list of stubs to the wikiproject. The wikiproject could have done the search for sources, and the article improvement, that the draftification supporters are unwilling or unable to do, and then reported back a revised list of stubs for which no additional sources are available. James500 (talk) 20:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Editors have had up to ten years in some cases to improve these articles (not just the cricketer ones) in mainspace. They didn't. Many people have also suggested wikiprojectifying these sort of stubs in the past, and that is in fact an option for editors to do for any draftified stub in this proposal. But that suggestion has also been shot down by project members (not necessarily (just) cricket) who have been unwilling to and/or uninterested in expanding these stubs because many they don't believe the stubs are problematic or potentially unencyclopedic in any way. Additionally, these stubs are so lacking in content that the difference in effort between expansion and recreation is essentially a single template and a database source, so it's not like removal from mainspace presents some insurmountable hurdle for anyone trying to add SIGCOV. JoelleJay (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- - JoelleJay - See WP:NOEFFORT. The article shouldn't be deleted for its current status only because no one has improved it yet. Such deletion would prevent editors from improving it in the future.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- This assumes that the articles are improvable, but the truth is that 99% of them or more just aren't, and the remaining ~1% or less need essentially re-writing as new articles. FOARP (talk) 14:33, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- I highly, highly, highly doubt what you're saying is true. There's several different editors above who have found plenty of expandable ones. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- BF, you were the most active opponent of the original LUGSTUBS proposal and even you were only able to bring back a hand-full of the articles that were eventually draftified. I'm pretty happy with my 1% estimate to be frank. FOARP (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Because (1) I only have access to old American and Canadian newspapers, and (2) because I've got other things in life I want to do than endlessly expand old Olympian articles. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The key fact here is (1), because it means that no sources exist as far as we know. "But there must be sources" is a well-worn fallacy on here. BTW, if it's UK coverage you're looking for the Wikipedia Library has the British newspaper Archive in its collection, also there are free online archives of Welsh and Australian newspapers. FOARP (talk) 15:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Because (1) I only have access to old American and Canadian newspapers, and (2) because I've got other things in life I want to do than endlessly expand old Olympian articles. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- BF, you were the most active opponent of the original LUGSTUBS proposal and even you were only able to bring back a hand-full of the articles that were eventually draftified. I'm pretty happy with my 1% estimate to be frank. FOARP (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- FOARP - Multiple articles here have already been improved and taken off the list. But just as a bunch of articles were created without a ton of researching going into them, a bunch of articles are now facing deletion/draftication without a ton of research going into them. Two sides of the same coin. This is despite there being WP:NORUSH.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:42, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- In my commment below I gave the figures for the number from the original LUGSTUBS proposal that were draftified and have since returned to mainspace - it's roughly one-half of one-percent. I'm sorry, but this proposal is just taking out articles that are overwhelmingly notability fails. FOARP (talk) 15:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The fact that 0.5% of the articles have been returned does not show that they are overwhelming notability fails; rather, it shows quite clearly that both proposals are just attempts to backdoor delete (i.e. violate policy to delete) enormous quantities of articles which the proposer does not like. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry I don't follow you here: how is the fact that vanishingly few of the articles previous draftified will ever get returned to mainspace evidence that this is back-door deletion? What it is is evidence suggesting that we should just delete and not draftify as nearly all of them are deletion-worthy, but I'm OK with draftification because ultimately the few that hand be saved will be saved and the overwhelming majority that can't will be deleted.
- What if I switch it around: if more articles were being returned to mainspace, would you accept that as evidence that draftifying them was the correct decision? Or would you say it was evidence that they should not have been draftified? Then how is the opposite contention viable - i.e. that very few of them being returned to mainspace means that they should not be draftified but instead should be kept in mainspace? FOARP (talk) 15:22, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- The fact that 0.5% of the articles have been returned does not show that they are overwhelming notability fails; rather, it shows quite clearly that both proposals are just attempts to backdoor delete (i.e. violate policy to delete) enormous quantities of articles which the proposer does not like. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- In my commment below I gave the figures for the number from the original LUGSTUBS proposal that were draftified and have since returned to mainspace - it's roughly one-half of one-percent. I'm sorry, but this proposal is just taking out articles that are overwhelmingly notability fails. FOARP (talk) 15:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- I highly, highly, highly doubt what you're saying is true. There's several different editors above who have found plenty of expandable ones. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Well lucky for you these articles are being draftified, not deleted, so editors are still able to improve any they consider viable. JoelleJay (talk) 19:00, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- This assumes that the articles are improvable, but the truth is that 99% of them or more just aren't, and the remaining ~1% or less need essentially re-writing as new articles. FOARP (talk) 14:33, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- @JoelleJay - 100% agree here. Throwing the problem to a Wikiproject that is itself the source of the problem (via the previous WP:NCRIC guide, and their bitter-end defence of Lugnuts's and his mass-created stubs) is not a viable solution. FOARP (talk) 13:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- - JoelleJay - See WP:NOEFFORT. The article shouldn't be deleted for its current status only because no one has improved it yet. Such deletion would prevent editors from improving it in the future.KatoKungLee (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Editors have had up to ten years in some cases to improve these articles (not just the cricketer ones) in mainspace. They didn't. Many people have also suggested wikiprojectifying these sort of stubs in the past, and that is in fact an option for editors to do for any draftified stub in this proposal. But that suggestion has also been shot down by project members (not necessarily (just) cricket) who have been unwilling to and/or uninterested in expanding these stubs because many they don't believe the stubs are problematic or potentially unencyclopedic in any way. Additionally, these stubs are so lacking in content that the difference in effort between expansion and recreation is essentially a single template and a database source, so it's not like removal from mainspace presents some insurmountable hurdle for anyone trying to add SIGCOV. JoelleJay (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment . I'd support this per Levivich and this report on the way AI machines are poaching massively on wikipedia's articles, hijacking the often arduous reading and writing of volunteer editors. If, as it appears to be the case, editors here are using similar algorithms to sweep the net and mechanically reproduce sporting material without the critical eyes of editors combing independently through the web sources to winnow rubbish and build an article, then they are putting global knowledge in double jeopardy, since the A1 world, which hopes to cannibalize wikipedia's distinctive verifiable knowledge base, will like the proverbial moronic computer that 'thinks' at the speed of light', reproduce massive loads of data here that have been inserted indiscriminantly and indeed by a form of automatic larceny. It would be painful for me, as a cricket addict from infancy, to uncritically support this erasure, despite the cogency of the case for deletion, but whatever the cost we must be accountable, and give warrant for our reliability in verifying, editor by editor, the content here. My reserve relates to WP:Systemic bias, that blanket erasure without close supervision, case by case, will mostly affect non-European cricketers. But articles like those on Afghani cricket (one of the two good things to come out of the devastatingly stupid war, the other being female access to education) show that solid individual work can or does cover thirdworld cricketers who otherwise might have risked neglect in coverage. Automatic erasure, like automatic stub generation, in annuling the human agency that is fundamental for wikipedia, is equally problematic.Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - I see a lot of people, particularly amongst oppose !voters, commenting as though WP:LUGSTUBS hadn't already happened and we weren't already in a position to assess the outcome of it. WP:LUGSTUBS closed on 11 May 2023, and of the 960 stubs in the originally-proposed list just 18 of them are presently blue-linked. Of those 18 blue-links:
- 8 were never draftified.
- 3 were returned to mainspace on the day they were draftified
- 2 were returned to mainspace within a week of being draftified, and
- 4 are redirects.
- Only 1 has been returned to mainspace since the start of June.
- Even assuming (dubiously in some cases) that every one of the articles returned to mainspace actually belongs here and won't ultimately end up getting deleted/upmerged/redirected, this represents a grand total of roughly one-half of one percent of the total that actually got draftified. Given the lack of any articles being returned to mainspace in the past month, it is very possible that in the end no more than about 1% ever get returned to mainspace during the five years that draftification of these articles is due to last, and those that will return, will return as essentially new articles. The mass-slaughter of potentially-expandable articles did not happen. What happened instead was we cleared out hundreds of failing articles in a way that allows time for the vanishingly-small percentage of them that could be an article to come back to mainspace. If anything, the evidence very clearly supports the position of those that preferred straight deletion of the articles. However, I'm still happy to endorse draftification since in the end they'll all go the same way. FOARP (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Cricket is the national sport, or the national summer sport, in some Commonwealth countries. English and Australian cricketers are far more likely to receive coverage than the vast majority of Olympians. In England and Australia, cricket receives an exponentially greater degree of coverage than the vast majority of Olympic sports and disciplines. Any estimate that tries to equate cricketers with Olympians is obviously mistaken because it is based on a false premiss. James500 (talk) 23:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- This is somewhat wild hyperbole. I lived in the UK during the 2005 Ashes and in China during the 2004 Olympics, and it would be hard for me to say which was more hyped. Obviously I was way more interested in the cricket, being British, but the nationalistic fervour with which stuff like pistol-shooting and synchronised diving (or anything with a Chinese competitor in it) were treated in China was something to behold. They were still regularly showing replays of every Chinese medal win on the CCTV channels in China getting on a year after the end of the Athens games.
- But more to the point, there just isn't coverage out there for most late 19th/early-20th century cricketers who played a handful of tests and ar ethe subject of presently-failing stubs. FOARP (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- It is not hyperbole. It is a verifiable fact that is verified by a very large number of reliable sources, which say that in express and unambiguous words: [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25].
- Your analysis of English and Australian newspapers is simply mistaken. The sort of sports that are likely to receive coverage in an English newspaper are football (including soccer and rugby), cricket, tennis, horse racing, Formula One, boxing and snooker. In Australia, you can add Australian rules to that list. Those sports (and especially football, cricket and horse racing) receive endless massive coverage every day of every year. The Olympics (and most of their sports and disciplines) get a brief burst of limited coverage once every four years, and they get far less coverage, both in absolute terms, and relative to the number of sportsmen, than county cricket. An Olympian normally only gets coverage in an English newspaper if he is British and he wins a gold medal. That is why Torville and Dean are famous, and most British ice skaters have virtually no coverage at all and languish in total obscurity. Whereas English county cricketers get endless massive coverage, second only to (the winter sport) football today (and second to none in the nineteenth century).
- As far as I can tell, most of the Australian cricketers did not play a handful of matches. The problem is that the numbers in the articles usually only include the inter-state Sheffield Shield games played for Australian states, and do not include grade cricket (ie Premier Cricket) games played below that level. That is like counting the number of games a footballer has played in the British Home Championship and ignoring games played in the Premier League and the Scottish Premiership. As far as I can tell, most of the Australians played games for grade cricket (ie Premier Cricket) clubs as well as for the states. Grade cricket (ie Premier Cricket) is a statewide competition and has plenty of suitable coverage.
- As far as I can tell, there is sufficient coverage out there for most of the late 19th/early-20th century Australian cricketers. I have actually have examined the sources for a large sample of them, and I am satisfied that the coverage actually exists.
- In any event, criteria 4 of this proposal says that it is for articles referenced "only to CricketArchive or ESPNcricinfo". That is what everyone is !voting for. If a cricketer has coverage in Trove or other periodicals, or in a book like The A-Z of Australian Cricketers, he does not satisfy the criteria of this proposal and should not be draftified, because nobody has !voted for that. If you want to start a separate proposal for "articles referenced only to Trove", I cannot stop you, but I can predict with the assurance of a prophet that such a proposal would have WP:SNOW chance of success. James500 (talk) 23:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- "WP:LUGSTUBS closed on 11 May 2023" ... and who says that 2 months later is a fair deadline for assessing the proposal? Those drafts will be autodeleted after five years. That's the point at which a fair conclusion can be drawn about whether it was in effect AFD or not. Steven Walling • talk 03:22, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Steven Walling - We're talking about a list of 960 articles. For even 10% of these to returned to mainspace in five years we would expect roughly 2 a month to be returned. Instead none of them are being returned, because they were exactly the overwhelmingly-failing articles that the people who supported the original LUGSTUBS proposal said they were. FOARP (talk) 13:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)
none of them are being returned, because they were exactly the overwhelmingly-failing articles that the people who supported the original LUGSTUBS proposal said they were
– That is completely false. The actual reason that they are not being returned is not because they're not notable (I've actually identified several other notable ones but haven't gotten to them yet, not to mention BilledMammal et al gave me hell for the ones I did try to improve), but because (1) we don't have many interested editors, (2) its difficult to find sources for them (but with enough work is possible), and (3) because all of those who were interested in improving them are now occupied with this proposal. If you dump a thousand articles in draftspace, a few might be improved, but if you dump a thousand more, and then right after 40,000 more, do you really think we will get to all of them? (contrary to what you say, many are actually notable) The interested editors do not nearly have enough time to do that. There is WP:NODEADLINE to get rid of these articles. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)- OK BF, you totally have notability for those articles but I wouldn't know them, they go to another school. FOARP (talk) 16:03, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- May I please ask @BeanieFan11 to turn down on the rhetoric a bit. Gave me hell can be understood as a personal attack in a rather large environment and directing that to et al. is not really fair as well. At least I am trying my best to help making wikipedia a more informative encyclopedia with less articles that leave one still wondering about what that actually is after having read them.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:18, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- I understand that you (and BilledMammal, etc.) believe that this proposal will help the encyclopedia; I do not. As for
gave me hell
, it certainly felt unpleasant spending about an hour of my time expanding an article, then immediately after I return it to mainspace I had to spend three more hours arguing over whether it was notable (which it was), not to mention all the debate it took for me to remove the few that I did during the Olympian discussion (for which one user brought me to ANI for edit-warring, when I had not violated it, and BilledMammal had doubled it). That seemed pretty unfair to me and the stress it caused has made me cease expanding the other Olympians from that list for now. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:28, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- I understand that you (and BilledMammal, etc.) believe that this proposal will help the encyclopedia; I do not. As for
- (edit conflict)
- @Steven Walling - We're talking about a list of 960 articles. For even 10% of these to returned to mainspace in five years we would expect roughly 2 a month to be returned. Instead none of them are being returned, because they were exactly the overwhelmingly-failing articles that the people who supported the original LUGSTUBS proposal said they were. FOARP (talk) 13:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- The analysis is inherently flawed.
Indeed, what the data presented shows is that after draftification, the interest in participation drops off substantially with time and the "draftification" becomes de-facto deletion.
As such, we should hold the articles to the same standard as we do at AfD, which is clearly not met by this proposal. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 12:34, 21 July 2023 (UTC)- @CapnJackSp - Arguing in favour of keeping these articles on the basis that:
"the interest in participation drops off substantially with time and the "draftification" becomes de-facto deletion"
- is contradictory - either these articles will eventually be improved into viable articles and should be kept, or they overwhelmingly will never be improved (because they can't be) and therefore draftification of them is sensible. It cannot be that they are viable articles BUT ALSO no-one will ever improve them into viable articles. Being in main space or not doesn't really affect this. Few if any of which have any obvious evidence of having been read, much less edited, by human hands since their creation - the number of hits they get is consistent with being visited by webcrawlers only, so no-one is looking at them. FOARP (talk) 13:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- Im not arguing for all of these to be kept.
Im arguing for a better list of articles, which include things like checks against vernacular sources.
Draftifying drastically reduces visibility, and therefore pushes the burden on a small group of editors to improve the notable ones.
Assuming that a draft wont be improved only because it cant be improved is essentially assuming these deserve deletion and working backwords. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 16:32, 21 July 2023 (UTC)"Im not arguing for all of these to be kept"
- If you're opposing this measure, this is what you are effectively doing since these articles will never be dealt with in any other way."Draftifying drastically reduces visibility"
- But these articles are already not being read by human beings. The number hits per year is consistent with them being crawled by web-crawlers every few days and zero humans reading them."Assuming that a draft wont be improved only because it cant be improved
- That's not just an assumption, that's simply the way logic works: if it can't be done then it won't be done. The steel-man version of your argument is that you expect WP:CRIN to come back and WP:NSPORTS2022 to be undone at some point in the future so they won't need to be improved any more? But that's just not going to happen. FOARP (talk) 08:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)If you're opposing this measure, this is what you are effectively doing since these articles will never be dealt with in any other way.
No.
These will be dealt with when someone nominates with a better set of checks, even if in a mass format.
Not in the current format, however.But these articles are already not being read by human beings.
I am admittedly not the expert on web crawlers, but I doubt these generalisations hold for all the articles.That's not just an assumption, that's simply the way logic works: if it can't be done then it won't be done.
Logical fallacy, just because A-->B does not mean B-->A.
If it wasnt done, does not mean it cannot be done. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 08:59, 23 July 2023 (UTC)But these articles are already not being read by human beings. The number hits per year is consistent with them being crawled by web-crawlers every few days and zero humans reading them.
as already explained at least once in this discussion this is completely false - human views and webcrawler views are counted separately and when you look at the evidence you will see your claim is utterly false. Here are 7 examples selected at random:
- Im not arguing for all of these to be kept.
- @CapnJackSp - Arguing in favour of keeping these articles on the basis that:
- Cricket is the national sport, or the national summer sport, in some Commonwealth countries. English and Australian cricketers are far more likely to receive coverage than the vast majority of Olympians. In England and Australia, cricket receives an exponentially greater degree of coverage than the vast majority of Olympic sports and disciplines. Any estimate that tries to equate cricketers with Olympians is obviously mistaken because it is based on a false premiss. James500 (talk) 23:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
| Article | User (i.e. human) views (2022) | Spider views (2022) | Automated views (2022) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abdul Naseri | 96 | 235 | 85 |
| Abinash Saha | 120 | 357 | 80 |
| Alfred Black (cricketer) | 88 | 292 | 82 |
| Arthur Bauer | 209 | 398 | 141 |
| Chingakham Ranjan | 56 | 161 | 50 |
| Danush Peiris | 78 | 267 | 86 |
| Derreck Calvert | 75 | 180 | 71 |
- Even the least view of these, Chingakham Ranjan, was viewed by a human on average more than once per week. Thryduulf (talk) 09:32, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Two things; first, to identify automated views, I believe the system relies on what the user agent tells the system. That means there are a significant number of false negatives caused by bots and spiders that don't properly identify themselves.
- Second, a significant number of those views will come from humans using Special:Random. I haven't been able to determine exactly how many times that button is clicked per year, but this Wikimedia article suggests it is approximately two billion times per year.
- Due to how Special:Random functions, these page views aren't evenly distributed, but they can easily account for most if not all of the views articles like Chingakham Ranjan receive. BilledMammal (talk) 11:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Even the least view of these, Chingakham Ranjan, was viewed by a human on average more than once per week. Thryduulf (talk) 09:32, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support per Avilich and others. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:41, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment. The arguments about this being some form of "illegal" backdoor to deletion strike me as bureaucratic wikilawyering designed to prevent any actual action from ever being taken. What we have here is a ton of stubs that are of questionable notability, low quality, and have essentially no visibility. It is reasonable to have an argument over whether these are valuable to keep around in their current state. What is unreasonable is to oppose this on the grounds that it's not the "right" way to do it, full well knowing that there isn't a standard way of doing this (and WP:LUGSTUBS is the closest we have). A mass AfD would be an obvious WP:TRAINWRECK, 1182 individual AfDs would not be much better, and of course if someone goes through and takes actions on individual articles without an RfC they'll be accused of skirting consensus process. It's fine to think that no action should be taken here, but if an RfC listed in centralized discussion isn't the right way to determine whether action should be taken here, what is? Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 16:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- What is?
Well, do the exact same thing done here, but put in slightly more effort and check for sources from where these guys play. Quite a few examples have been shown above where the person is notable. I would support a second list if they checked for vernacular sources. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 17:23, 21 July 2023 (UTC)- To clarify, I think your opposition is entirely reasonable and well reasoned. I think many of the oppose !votes are entirely reasonable. I also haven't reviewed these in depth and don't have a strong opinion if this should or shouldn't happen. I just find all the kafkaesuqe "the only valid way to do this is one by one at AfD" arguments silly enough that I felt it was worth saying so. Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 17:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Dylnuge - Right. But this is the argument that is always made about why we can't clear up mass-created articles. Someone creates en-masse tens of thousands of low-quality single-sentence stubs with coverage only in an all-encompassing database, and then a group of editors on a Wikiproject will simply decide that the articles will never be touched even if they obviously know that they fail our policies and guidelines. Any way of dealing with them is stymied by a Kafkaesque merry-go-round of:
- AFD the articles and you get endless "Keep - obviously notable, what was the nom thinking!? They should be TBAN'd from AFD!" !votes, or at best redirection (but never as the first step).
- PROD the articles and you get taken to ANI for "abusing" the PROD system.
- Redirect the articles and you get told you have to AFD them by exactly the same people who abuse you for AFDing them.
- Propose draftifying and that's deletion-by-the-back-door.
- All from people who regularly say that they are well-aware that these articles fail our standards.
- I'm not even the person who is the target of all this - what I'm describing above is just what I've seen other editors who tried to deal with mass-created articles go through (mostly @BilledMammal and @Dlthewave). Let's not forget that the articles we are talking about ones the creators of which said they purposefully put errors into and which, purposefully or not, regularly included systematic errors. FOARP (talk) 08:41, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Dylnuge - Right. But this is the argument that is always made about why we can't clear up mass-created articles. Someone creates en-masse tens of thousands of low-quality single-sentence stubs with coverage only in an all-encompassing database, and then a group of editors on a Wikiproject will simply decide that the articles will never be touched even if they obviously know that they fail our policies and guidelines. Any way of dealing with them is stymied by a Kafkaesque merry-go-round of:
- To clarify, I think your opposition is entirely reasonable and well reasoned. I think many of the oppose !votes are entirely reasonable. I also haven't reviewed these in depth and don't have a strong opinion if this should or shouldn't happen. I just find all the kafkaesuqe "the only valid way to do this is one by one at AfD" arguments silly enough that I felt it was worth saying so. Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 17:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- What is?
- Support. I can somewhat understand the concerns raised by others above about the precedent involved here, but ultimately I find those 'slipper slope' arguments uncompelling in this case. We are talking about a very unique situation created by a problem user whose own actions in mass creating the articles in question was itself out of process and inconsistent with article creation guidelines. I find the proposal very narrowly tailored in its scope and reasonable, all factors considered. It sets five strict criteria (each of which is narrow in its own right and all five of which have to be met for any given article) for creating the pool of articles to be draftified, and it carves out robust rules for permitting whatever small fraction of these articles may meet GNG/have some actual hope of becoming legitimate articles that meet our content guidelines to be rescued by any parties actually willing to do the requisite work. This option feels to me to be more restrained and less disruptive in the long run than the only real alternative under typical process: mass AfD nominations, which are going to run into huge hurdles when it comes to making the case to make immediate final decisions on such a sweeping scale and monolithic/non-specific analysis. Honestly, this feels like a very thoughtfully considered solution, given the circumstances. SnowRise let's rap 21:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't want to bludgeon, so I will strike my comment if this is in violation- but I have not yet seen a compelling explanation as to why this is a unique case. Disregard the current issue and the pro vs contra for a moment: how and why does it make sense to limit the scope, when there are many other articles of the same nature, except that they have a different creator? The "slippery slope" is the contra interpretation, but it's something that inevitably follows. Dege31 (talk) 19:38, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Disregard the current issue and the pro vs contra for a moment: how and why does it make sense to limit the scope, when there are many other articles of the same nature, except that they have a different creator?
When you are talking about articles with the same issues, are you talking about other mass created articles, or just low-quality articles that were created artisanally?- The former may well be addressed by this process; for example I have considered applying this process to articles created by BlackJack, although I will need to improve the tools I use first. The second can't be, for many reasons, of which I consider three particularly important:
- First, problematic mass creations can only be addressed through mass action; our normal processes cannot deal with them. Our normal processes can handle articles that weren't mass-created fine, and so the justification for these extraordinary measures don't exist.
- Second, mass created articles by a single editor follow an extremely similar pattern that allows us to group them together. When we start looking at articles created by multiple editors that pattern fades and it becomes less appropriate to group them. Even when we only look at mass created articles the pattern fades; for example, BlackJack's mass created cricketers differ significantly from Lugnuts, to the extent that I don't feel grouping them together would be appropriate.
- Third, mass creation is indiscriminate. The fact that these articles were chosen to be created is no indication that they are possibly notable because all the editor was doing is working down a list and churning them out in the same manner as a bot would. That isn't true for non-mass created articles; if an editor who only created a few articles on cricketers chose to create one on a specific cricketer there is likely to have been prompted by something, even if the article doesn't currently indicate it, and it is worth giving that possibility more consideration than this process affords.
- This process can only be applied to mass created articles that lack significant coverage; it wouldn't work for other articles, such as the ones you create, and that is why approving this group isn't a slippery slope. BilledMammal (talk) 07:32, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- BilledMammal - When talking about other articles with the same issues, I refer to all articles that meet the exact same criteria, except "created by Lugnuts". As for your third point, the exact same argument is often used here- "the (vast) majority of them will never be improved beyond stub-class". Statistically, this is true.
- It is clear that this is a reflection of wider disagreements within the community, so having a bunch of incremental RfCs is upside-down. Also, I just think it would be better if the proposal kept them in mainspace- draftification feels like it was reflexively chosen. That is, unless it is forbidden to delete articles after a certain time if they're not in draftspace, and I'm not aware. Dege31 (talk) 18:49, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
- Dege31, apologies, I am just seeing your question. As it happens, BilledMammal adressed substantially the same points I would have, and if anything more fulsomely. But I will summarize in my own terms. This really comes down to pragmatics. We can identify with a high degree of confidence that the contributions by this editor in this area almost exclusively fail to meet basic inclusion criteria, and the selection criteria themselves are honestly more narrow than they need to be. Further, draftification is a more reserved (if anything, very generous, given the deficits in reliable sourcing) approach to mass handling this inappropriate content. I stand by my assessment that I don't think the "slippery slope" argument is a nonsequitor: we have a banned user who mass created nearly a hundred thousand articles using automated methods and non-reliable source databases entries, and the vast, vast majority of those articles have been found to fail even the most generous of readings of our WP:Notability standards. That's an incredibly rare situation and the requested greenlight here is tied specifically to these precise circumstances. There's no reason to believe we will see any bleed-over impact into the normal deletion policy as a consequence of this. And any analogous scenario with a similar problem editor using similar methods to generate junk articles mounting into the tens of thousands arguably should have a similar technique applied. It's pretty justified and to the benefit of maintaining our content standards and protecting the project from abuse. Otherwise any sufficiently motivated SPA, superfan, or even LTA will be empowered to use similarly mechanized tactics to mass generate content of their favourite sort and overwhelm the project, which needs a handful of editors debating over the course of usually at least a week to remove each and every AfD entry using the standard community response. The math for the amount of disruption enabled versus the amount of effort necessary to undo it just is too ridiculous to contemplate anything but a semi-automated response by the community, and BM's proposal is very reserved one for formulating a methodology for that. I honestly don't see what the other choices are, other than "just leave all of these junk articles on the project, for years or decades to come, knowing full well that most of them come nowhere near GNG (or even the relevant SNG for that matter)", which to my mind, is no solution at all. SnowRise let's rap 09:05, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
- Snow Rise - My point is that pragmatics is the wrong way to do it in this case, due to the broader context. As I said, I am expressing neither positive nor negative assessments of a "slippery slope", which does logically follow. There is no reason based in statistics or policy to limit it to this one user.
- If anything, I think it would be more fair and would solve many long-standing issues, for the time being, if the scope was vastly expanded, so that the issue was deliberated extensively.
- Aside from that, I just think draftification is a weird measure; it would be better if the proposal had been to keep them in mainspace, but delete them after 5 years (or less). Dege31 (talk) 18:26, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
- Well, I feel we might be talking past eachother a bit here, so I will attempt to be more precise in my response this time:
"...a "slippery slope", which does logically follow.
- I simply fundamentally disagree with this. I see no reason why the idiosynratic approach taken in the semi-unique circumstances we are dealing with here has to or would lead to knock-on effects for the normal AfD process. Can you explain in more detail how you imagine this would happen? This proposal is isolated to discrete and concretely identified articles. And if the approach were to be adopted in any speculative future cases of other problem editors creating tens or hundreds of thousands of articles that violate content policies, using mechanized methods, I fail to see how that would be a negative thing.
"There is no reason based in statistics or policy to limit it to this one user."
- Except there clearly is. We have an established process for dealing with most articles which violate content policies to an extent where deletion is warranted (typically but not exclusively on notability grounds). Those systems work, albeit with a fair amount vigorous debate shall we say, and the community clearly has no appetite for fundamentally changing them. Nor should we, imo. However, this is a unique circumstance needing a unique response, as there is no remotely realistic chance that a task force or other solution will otherwise be able/willing to nominate all of these articles--and if they did, it would constitute months or years in editor work hours in order to have all of those AfD discussions, all just to delete articles that we know, right now, with a high degree of certainty do not meet inclusion criteria. So, why on earth should we choose such a labour intensive solution to removing content we know is a problem, as defined by the very criteria of the proposal? What happens when vandals, LTAs, and tendentious fan account realize we will not meet automation with automation and use increasingly sophisicated tools to overwhelm our capacity to respond to this kind of mass created content? The statistical basis here is 1) that we know virtually every article created by this user violates fundamental polices, 2) that the very terms of this narrow proposal limit the current group of articles in question to those which expressly do not meet policy, and 3) there is no realstic way that even a fraction of the problematic articles will be appropriately processed according to those same policies without a mass approach.
"If anything, I think it would be more fair and would solve many long-standing issues, for the time being, if the scope was vastly expanded, so that the issue was deliberated extensively.
- As to that, you may be correct, if you are saying we should have a standard policy response to mass created / un(RS)-sourced stubs. But that's not the proposal in front of us at the moment, and I see no reason not to work out the wrinkles of such a methodology with this proposal first.
"Aside from that, I just think draftification is a weird measure; it would be better if the proposal had been to keep them in mainspace, but delete them after 5 years (or less)"
- But here I must return to disagreement again: that is clearly reversing the normal standard for inclusion on this project: we do not give grace periods for complying with basic content / notability policies. And if we did, this would be the opposite of the circumstances where it would be most warranted, given we already know these articles (by definition of the search paramters that populated the page list) lack any reliable source support. Five years of presumptive right to remain in mainspace for articles we know do not comply with even basic sourcing policies makes no rational sense to me. In my opinion, BM's proposal is, if anything, overly generous in maintaining even a draft space reserve for these articles for such a long period of time; giving ample opportunity for anyone who wants to build upon them the chance to do so--though in the majority of cases, that is just not going to be possible because of sourcing shortfalls. Keeping them in mainspace meanwhile is a non-starter, and likely to only encourage further disruptive additions in the manner done here, until the community recognizes the fact that you can't respond to this manner of disruption / problem content with purely manual responses. We'll lose that fight every time, exhaust immense amounts of community resources, and create unending an volume of needless disputes in the effort. Why do that? I don't see the counter-argument for burying our heads in the sand in this way. Aside from "this is not how we usually remove problematic content", which is not sufficiently compelling in the circumstances. SnowRise let's rap 19:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, we are talking past each other. You're repeating counterarguments for why this should be done, as if I'm arguing it should not be done, in the broad sense. I am not talking about that. It is precisely the idiosyncratic approach that's the issue. We both know that the fundamental problem is not mass-creation: would you say mass-creation of featured articles is bad? No, of course not. The problem is the articles. Therefore, it's purely out of pragmatic concerns that it is limited. However, precisely because this is a topic of long-standing disagreement in the community, the incremental, idiosyncratic, piecemeal approach is not good.
- As for your last point: draftification is already a grace period, and I'm not sure how deletion from mainspace is any more encouraging than deletion from draftspace, I didn't mention AfDs. The only difference is that you limit how many people can improve it, and, if we're making an exception in one place, why not also make it here?
- Yes, the proposal might be generous. Or it might not be. That's the thing, the proposal is not the contention, noone views it as an isolated thing. Dege31 (talk) 20:25, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
- Well, I feel we might be talking past eachother a bit here, so I will attempt to be more precise in my response this time:
- I don't want to bludgeon, so I will strike my comment if this is in violation- but I have not yet seen a compelling explanation as to why this is a unique case. Disregard the current issue and the pro vs contra for a moment: how and why does it make sense to limit the scope, when there are many other articles of the same nature, except that they have a different creator? The "slippery slope" is the contra interpretation, but it's something that inevitably follows. Dege31 (talk) 19:38, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. I hope I'm putting this in the right place. This runs counter to the basis of our collaboration and will undermine our objectives of breadth of coverage and avoidance of systemic bias. Disregarding notability and sourcing on the basis of disapproval of the editor who created themt imposes a deadline (regardless of deferral, that deadline will eventually arrive) and places the onus on other Wikipedians to improve a whole class of articles in order to save them. "Lugnuts liked to create articles about this topic" does not equal "This is a non-notable topic". Fellow editors should not be compelled in this way to work on a particular class of articles; AfD is bad enough, and at least that leaves a trail for someone who later realizes an article existed but was deleted. Also, while I appreciate the offer of a place to list articles that have already been improved in order to forestall deletion, its being in BilledMammal's user space implies an element of personal control of this process that does not sit well with me. The functional requirement to list an article there also undercuts the basis of this discussion, especially Criterion #5,
No significant contributions from editors other than Lugnuts
. During the Olympians discussion, I read the list and chose Julius Jørgensen to improve; here's my edit. Nonetheless, almost a month later, along came BilledMammal to escape the categories, and it got draftified. Luckily I'd kept a note of the article title and thought to find that note and check; I then had to waste 5 edits restoring the article, plus one reassessing it on the talk page. Not doing that (I don't like to presume to evaluate my own work) may have been my fatal error; or I may have missed a similar offer to note my effort on some list, whether in BilledMammal's user space or not. But nobody who improves an article should be expected to draw attention to that in order to forestall its being ignored and ultimately deleted. Mass draftification without examination of whether the articles all meet the criteria is ultimately damaging in exactly the same ways as unexamined actioning of speedy deletion nominations, including its potential to turn off editors who happened to arrive at an article and improve it in ignorance that it was under a swinging ax. Moreover, while in the discussion about draftifying Olympics articles, one rationale was that Lugnuts had said he included deliberate inaccuracies, I don't see that rationale being mentioned here. I have seen little evidence that such inaccuracies were found, and in any case not mentioning it here makes the argument here, in my view, fall quite heavily into the IDONTLIKEIT basket. So no. The Olympics round demonstrated that the dangers outweigh the putative advantages, and the advantages being adduced here are not even as great. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:22, 22 July 2023 (UTC)- These articles all objectively fail NSPORT's requirement that sportsperson articles must cite a SIGCOV source. They're not eligible for mainspace from that alone. And the reasons this group was selected are not dislike of the creator or baseless worries over intentional errors. I've participated in hundreds of sportsperson AfDs including many Lugnuts cricket stubs (and a substantial proportion had more sources cited than what we have here). The strong majority of them have been removed from mainspace because GNG could not be established or even presumed; cricket project members have themselves been responsible for the deletion/redirection of dozens of these articles. If these stubs didn't have such an abysmal track record already, I'm 100% certain @BilledMammal would not have pursued this draftification proposal. JoelleJay (talk) 05:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Not all.
Several examples have been found, see above. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 06:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)- Can you point those examples out to me? A few examples were found early in the process, but I believe I have updated the query to ensure that neither they nor any like them are included in the proposal; if I have missed any, please say so. (There are some articles that have been improved, but that isn't the same thing). BilledMammal (talk) 06:30, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- See my survey above - a grand total of 6 articles have been returned to mainspace out of the 960 articles originally listed for draftifying in the WP:LUGSTUBS proposal. That's less than 1%. @Yngvadottir may be irked by that, but this appears to me to be a very good example of why this draftification process was the correct way to go. You probably would see a higher rate of re-creation at AFD than this. FOARP (talk) 08:48, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- That's one way of seeing it: that very few have been improved and thus saved, so on the whole, they were without merit. It's equally plausible—more so, in my view, since many editors who might have worked on an article will now be unlikely to realize there was such an article—that hiding them away in draft space has inhibited work on them. These discussions, with people arguing in a broad manner that the whole class of topics lack notability, also have a discouraging effect. Plus, I need to point out that there's supposedly a 5-year grace period for the draftified articles in these groups, rather than the usual 6 months. Your argument seems to imply that we can discount the remaining 4.75 years. But I hope you counted Jørgensen. Yngvadottir (talk) 09:20, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
"many editors who might have worked on an article will now be unlikely to realize there was such an article"
- We're going round in circles here, but these articles have been around for years with scarcely anyone even reading them, let alone working on them. The NEWEST stub articles by Lugnuts date to December 2021 (you know, when he was banned from creating any more because he was creating such trash articles...) and many of these are 10+ years old. No-one's coming to rescue these overwhelmingly-failing articles, but if they are any time in the next five years, these articles will still be there in draft space.- These articles only exist because of the crazily-lax CRIN standard, which has now been abolished. Without that, no new Lugnuts is in the wings to mass-create stuff based just on a database. FOARP (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- "No-one's coming to rescue these overwhelmingly-failing articles" Can we see into the future now? Wikipedia is by its very nature a work in progress and we are not here to make all articles immediately perfect right now. If anyone thinks they can prove that 100% of these 1,000+ articles with sources are not notable, take them to AFD and discuss each one on its merits, like we should be doing when we evaluate articles for notability. That is the way our deletion policy is designed to work for a reason. Steven Walling • talk 02:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
Can we see into the future now?
No, but we can see into the past. Lugnuts has created approximately 12,000[g] articles on Cricketers. Of these 12,000, 93% still have the most significant contributor being Lugnuts. Of the rest, 5% were improved by members of WikiProject Cricket, and 1% was improved by non-members, although I recognized some of those names as being associated with the project. (The final 1% were improved by editors who only improved one article; I did not check those editors for affiliation with the project, although there were a significant number of obvious COI editors such as Muhammad Farrukh 1 at Mohammad Farrukh and Fahadshahnawaz at Fahad Shahnawaz)- Further, of these articles, 70 were improved by editors with less than 1000 edits (including the WP:SPE/WP:COI editors), and an additional 91 were improved by editors with less than 10,000 edits. History proves that these aren't articles that some new editor was going to stumble across and decide to improve; the few that are improved are done so by established editors, and most of those established editors are involved with Wikiproject Cricket and thus will be aware of the draftification.
Wikipedia is by its very nature a work in progress and we are not here to make all articles immediately perfect right now.
That's true; articles don't have to be perfect. However, articles do have to abide by our minimum standards; in the case of sports biographies this means not violating WP:NOT or WP:NSPORT. These articles violate both WP:NOTDATABASE and WP:SPORTSCRIT #5.If anyone thinks they can prove that 100% of these 1,000+ articles with sources are not notable, take them to AFD and discuss each one on its merits, like we should be doing when we evaluate articles for notability.
And any editor who tried to take these 1000+ articles through AfD in a reasonable timeframe would quickly find themselves hauled off to ANI, even though the result of those AfD's would no doubt demonstrate that the nominations were proper. Would you argue in that editors defence if that happened?- Further, even if the editor was not dragged to ANI, doing this would make it harder to save the articles; it would mean that editors interested in doing so only have six months or a year to review the entire group, rather than five years. In addition, they would only have a week or two for each article; they wouldn't be able to put one aside becasue they believed there may be SIGCOV in a resource they didn't currently have access to but would have access to at a later date.
- I genuinely believe that there will be less articles incorrectly deleted using this process than would be deleted if we used AfD.
- And these issues are before we get into the exorbitate amount of editor-hours that 1200 AfD's would consume, an amount that would be ludicrously disproprortionate to the time spent creating these articles. BilledMammal (talk) 08:54, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
Would you argue in that editors defence if that happened?
Yes actually. I saw that in the past you got hauled off to ANI for nominating a couple dozen Swedish footballers or something. There is no policy that says there is a limit to how many pages we can discuss whether to delete or not. There is, however, a section of deletion policy that explicitly says older articles shouldn't be draftified as an alternative to deletion. The reason is because when you do this, you're in effect deleting the articles because there is no redirect from mainspace to the draft, and drafts aren't visible in search engines. Steven Walling • talk 06:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)- Thank you, I am glad to hear that.
- Regarding that section of ATD-I, I think you have misread it. It does allow older articles to be draftified; what it doesn't allow is for them to be silently moved to draftspace, as in such circumstances it is possible, even likely, that no one will notice and thus the article is in effect being deleted.
- Looking at the debate that added that section, that reason was indeed why I supported it, and it appears why the broader community supported it. It wouldn't apply to this extremely prominent discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- "No-one's coming to rescue these overwhelmingly-failing articles" Can we see into the future now? Wikipedia is by its very nature a work in progress and we are not here to make all articles immediately perfect right now. If anyone thinks they can prove that 100% of these 1,000+ articles with sources are not notable, take them to AFD and discuss each one on its merits, like we should be doing when we evaluate articles for notability. That is the way our deletion policy is designed to work for a reason. Steven Walling • talk 02:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
- The vast majority of editors who would have worked to improve any of these articles are already aware of the draftification. I suspect it is very, very, very rare for random editors not in the cricket project or involved in general sports editing to encounter these stubs at all, let alone add a GNG-contributing source to them. The latter is what is required for these stubs to be in mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 22:20, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- That's one way of seeing it: that very few have been improved and thus saved, so on the whole, they were without merit. It's equally plausible—more so, in my view, since many editors who might have worked on an article will now be unlikely to realize there was such an article—that hiding them away in draft space has inhibited work on them. These discussions, with people arguing in a broad manner that the whole class of topics lack notability, also have a discouraging effect. Plus, I need to point out that there's supposedly a 5-year grace period for the draftified articles in these groups, rather than the usual 6 months. Your argument seems to imply that we can discount the remaining 4.75 years. But I hope you counted Jørgensen. Yngvadottir (talk) 09:20, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- See my survey above - a grand total of 6 articles have been returned to mainspace out of the 960 articles originally listed for draftifying in the WP:LUGSTUBS proposal. That's less than 1%. @Yngvadottir may be irked by that, but this appears to me to be a very good example of why this draftification process was the correct way to go. You probably would see a higher rate of re-creation at AFD than this. FOARP (talk) 08:48, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- The subjects for which a GNG source has been added won't be in the draftification pool. So yes, all of the articles eligible for draftification objectively fail NSPORT. JoelleJay (talk) 22:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Leaving aside the dozens of articles that do now cite a SIGCOV source: Some of the articles do not need to satisfy NSPORTS because they are about "gentleman amateurs" who are primarily notable for things that have nothing to do with sport.
- In any event, the guideline NSPORTS does not authorise violations of the policy WP:ATD. NSPORTS does not authorise draftification without an AfD in violation of the policy WP:ATD-I. Further, WP:ATD says "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page". Accordingly, if the article does not cite any SIGCOV source, but a SIGCOV source exists in Trove or elsewhere, then it is mandatory (not optional) to add a citation to that source to the article, instead of deleting the article on grounds that it lacks such a citation.
- NSPORTS assumes that a WP:BEFORE search will be done before an article is taken to AfD. NSPORTS assumes that a citation to any SIGCOV source found during that search will be added to the article. NSPORTS assumes that the instructions given in WP:ATD will be followed. James500 (talk) 04:40, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
- Can you point those examples out to me? A few examples were found early in the process, but I believe I have updated the query to ensure that neither they nor any like them are included in the proposal; if I have missed any, please say so. (There are some articles that have been improved, but that isn't the same thing). BilledMammal (talk) 06:30, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Not all.
lso, while I appreciate the offer of a place to list articles that have already been improved in order to forestall deletion, its being in BilledMammal's user space implies an element of personal control of this process that does not sit well with me.
I placed it there because if there is a consensus for this proposal I am likely to be the one implementing it, and that list (with the right format) will be used to aid in that implementation and then forgotten about as no longer being relevant. However, if you or another would feel more comfortable with it being elsewhere, feel free to move it; perhaps to under Wikiproject Cricket?Nonetheless, almost a month later, along came BilledMammal to escape the categories, and it got draftified.
Yes, unfortunately I missed that. My initial attempt to findd improved articles involved a less prominent broad request to list articles that had been improved, approaching editors who I knew had been working on them and asking for their lists, and running queries focused on said editors to catch any they forgot to provide.- I've since improved on that initial approach; I now run a general query to list articles that may have been improved to allow for manual inspection, and hopefully the more prominent broad request will be also be beneficial. The issue should not reoccur this time; part of the benefits of using a standardized approach will allow us to improve it over time, make the system more robust and better at minimizing both false positives and false negatives - although I'll note that due to the extremely conservative nature of the query false negatives are near-zero, and the few that do occur are corrected for by modifying the query. For example, Quarry queries are limited in that they don't allow us to run queries on the text of the article, which is why I am working on script that will do so.
Moreover, while in the discussion about draftifying Olympics articles, one rationale was that Lugnuts had said he included deliberate inaccuracies, I don't see that rationale being mentioned here.
The rationale does exist, and I think a few editors have mentioned it; Lugnut's claim to have introduced deliberate inaccuracies wasn't limited to just his Olympians. The inaccuracies do exist, but I'm not certain they were introduced deliberately; it is reasonable to believe that they were made accidentally due to manual aspects of his semi-automated process and a lack of care over those aspects. BilledMammal (talk) 07:06, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- These articles all objectively fail NSPORT's requirement that sportsperson articles must cite a SIGCOV source. They're not eligible for mainspace from that alone. And the reasons this group was selected are not dislike of the creator or baseless worries over intentional errors. I've participated in hundreds of sportsperson AfDs including many Lugnuts cricket stubs (and a substantial proportion had more sources cited than what we have here). The strong majority of them have been removed from mainspace because GNG could not be established or even presumed; cricket project members have themselves been responsible for the deletion/redirection of dozens of these articles. If these stubs didn't have such an abysmal track record already, I'm 100% certain @BilledMammal would not have pursued this draftification proposal. JoelleJay (talk) 05:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose All our criteria concerning notability, including specific notability criteria, are guidelines, not policies. People are allowed to express their own opinions on deletion and have their views scrutinised and considered. There are no "wrong" opinions. Unless our deletion policy changes for people no longer living, mass deletion and draftification are completely contrary to Wikipedia's principles. Thincat (talk) 15:56, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose I have already commented, but this is now my vote. Ultimately, I think this is the wrong approach for the core of the problem. Dege31 (talk) 19:34, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose as per WP:NOTPAPER and that in my experience most draft articles are abandoned pretty quickly once the creator disappears. Having said that, am not opposed to conversion to lists with redirects providing no information is lost and then a list entry can be converted to a standalone article if an editor finds enough significant coverage, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment: Some articles there listed already exceed 2500 bytes (as of now). Alfa-ketosav (talk) 15:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I concur with so many other people here who support this move, that the creation was excessively careless, that these articles are a burden, fail SPORTBASIC, and that holding good-faith discussions on each and every one of these would be exhausting and we would run out of steam quickly. Some users also suggested moving them to subpages of Lugnuts's user page, and that sounds good to me. In addition, I suggest we visit how SNGs interact with GNG. NSPORT used to lower the bar significantly, but now says people should meet GNG. Should SNGs be an alternative GNG, or should they established the "presumed" criteria of GNG instead? SWinxy (talk) 18:43, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose, for the same reason I opposed draftifying the Olympics articles: Draftspace is a graveyard. If the articles can be improved, that won't happen in draftspace - they will become invisible, and will eventually be deleted. If the articles cannot be improved, just delete them now. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 23:00, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support - These articles fail SPORTBASIC, many have no potential for expansion and funneling all of them through AfD would be an enormous time sink. –dlthewave ☎ 12:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support: Many of these articles are stubs supported only by lists of stats showing the subject existed, which have little chance at gaining the needed WP:SIGCOV. Giving 5 years in draftspace for the articles of actually notable subjects is a very fair compromise. User:Let'srun 03:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support: They are junk and there is no reason to keep them around. scope_creepTalk 23:11, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support just like I did last time. There are a lot of articles here that add no value to the encyclopedia, and although they CAN be improved, the real question is if they WILL be. That's what the Draft space is for. (Also, having a list of these somewhere would be very helpful.) casualdejekyll 16:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- Most of the pre-1960s Australians (who are certainly notable because they have a mountain of WP:SIGCOV in Trove, and I have seen that coverage) absolutely will be expanded and improved if they remain in the mainspace, because I will personally see to it that they are expanded and improved. If they are moved into the draftspace they will probably not be expanded or improved, because I am probably the only person willing to expand and improve most of them in the near future, and I will not expand or improve them while they are in the draftspace. James500 (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- So they aren't going to be expanded in draftspace, because you are not willing to expand them while they are in draftspace? Thats stupid2600:4040:475E:F600:BCEA:1857:BCB9:FD4F (talk) 21:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- Who is going to expand or improve these articles if they are moved into the draftspace? Has anyone promised or offered to expand or improve them if they are moved into the draftspace? (I can't find any such promise or offer on this talk page). Will anyone promise or offer to expand or improve them if they are moved into the draftspace? Are you going to expand or improve them if they are moved into the draftspace? Will you promise to do that if they are moved there? James500 (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- This is just an attempt to create an WP:IQUIT-style veto. You claim to be able to improve these articles, which have not been improved to meet our standards in all the years they have been in mainspace, but refuse to do so if they are draftified. If you could do it, why haven't you done it already? If you're going to do it, why don't you do it in draft-space and return the articles to mainpsace when you have? Also, colour me sceptical that a bunch of match-reports in Aussie newspapers, with a low likelihood of any actual SIGCOV of cricketers themselves, will be sufficient to meet our notability standards for sports-people. FOARP (talk) 12:28, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- I have only just seen this thread.
- Regarding FOARP's question
why don't you do it in draft-space . . .?
: The draftspace does not benefit readers. The draftspace is impossible for readers to navigate. The draftspace breaks links. The draftspace is not indexed in external search engines or included in the default settings of our search engine. Readers never visit or see pages in the draftspace. The draftspace makes it hard to delete bad articles and easy to delete good articles. The draftspace is a disruptive content fork. The draftspace either causes duplicate articles (the mainspace article sometimes being worse than the draft) or prevents the creation of new improved better articles in the mainspace. The presence of these pages in the draftspace for five years would make it impossible to end the disruptive dispute over Lugnuts, but would cause that disruptive drama to continue for another five years. Keeping these articles in the draftspace would pour more petrol on that fire and keep it going for five years. The draftspace is a toxic environment. Draftifying these articles would create a toxic atmosphere around these articles, that would be likely to follow them out of the draftspace. If these articles are draftified, the implication is that something nasty might happen to me if I mainspace them or ask for them to be mainspaced. There is no satisfactory procedure for moving these articles out of the draftspace. The draftspace is offensive. Asking me to expand these articles while they are in the draftspace is an insult. I do not expand pages while they are in the draftspace, and I am not prepared to start now. Allowing others to coerce me into expanding pages while they are in the draftspace, by threatening to delete the articles if I don't expand them while they remain there, would create a very dangerous precedent. Trying to force people to expand pages while they are in the draftspace is stalkerish. Expanding these articles while they are in the draftspace would condone and encourage the continued existence of the draftspace. - The five year deadline is not really a factor, and the comments below in this thread are mistaken in assuming this my primary concern. I think I could probably expand a group of articles that seems to be on the order of two hundred articles within a period of several months, provided they remain in the mainspace and the threat of draftification is taken away.
- The bottom line is that making edits to Wikipedia is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. No-one is not entitled to demand that I make edits in the draftspace, or any other namespace. No-one is are not entitled to demand that I make any edits to Wikipedia at all.
- I have made an offer to improve the pre-1960s Australians in Trove. Since I am the one making an offer to do something that I would otherwise have no obligation to do, I am entitled to qualify that offer with such terms and conditions as I see fit. My offer is final and non-negotiable. The community is entitled to either accept my offer or decline my offer. That choice is yours. What other editors are not entitled to do is to demand that I change the terms of my offer.
- The most disturbing thing about FOARP's comment is that he does not answer the question that I asked, but instead tries to change the subject. If the community reaches a consensus that these cricketers should not have stand-alone articles in the mainspace (and I don't believe such a consensus exists for all of these articles at this time), and no-one will promise to expand them in the draftspace . . . then they should be listified or otherwise merged, or redirected, or deleted as soon as possible, and should not be subjected to a WP:DRIVEBY draftification by editors who have no intention of expanding them. James500 (talk) 02:28, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
why haven't you done it already?
because there isn't a deadline and they haven't had the time to do so.f you're going to do it, why don't you do it in draft-space and return the articles to mainpsace when you have?
mainly because there isn't time to do it before the deadline, and secondly there are countless examples of editors needing to spend a lot of time explicitly justifying this action on the talk page, at AFD, etc.Also, colour me sceptical that a bunch of match-reports in Aussie newspapers, with a low likelihood of any actual SIGCOV of cricketers themselves, will be sufficient to meet our notability standards for sports-people.
your skepticism is noted but it's not at all relevant because notability is judged based on what sources actually exist or don't exist, not on editors' beliefs about what they think is likely to exist based on vague feelings (particularly when those vague feelings have been proven incorrect in several cases). Thryduulf (talk) 13:13, 30 August 2023 (UTC)mainly because there isn't time to do it before the deadline
Five years isn't long enough? Further, there is the option of moving the articles to user space that would remove any deadline. BilledMammal (talk) 13:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)- Moving the articles to userspace makes it even harder for editors to discover these articles exist, which is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Also five years is still an arbitrary deadline and probably isn't enough time to properly evaluate thousands of articles when time has to be spent fighting off attempts to delete them all without review (like this one), time spent rebutting challenges to the closures of attempts like this. Then repeat that for the next subject that takes your fancy, and then the one after that. Thryduulf (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Moving the articles to userspace makes it even harder for editors to discover these articles exist, which is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing.
Perhaps, but it does address the concern about there not being time for specific editors to do it before the deadline. Further, if you are concerned about editors not discovering the articles, move them to space within WP:WikiProject Cricket. Of the very few Lugnuts cricket substubs that are being improved, almost all are being improved by editors affiliated with that project; there should be no impediment to them discovering these there.- However, given your concerns about these time limits I'm curious. At some point, all of these articles need to be reviewed for notability. I assume you propose they are reviewed individually?
- How long do you propose we wait before doing that, and when we do do it how many do you propose we do per day, and how long do you believe the community should spend on each of these? Keeping in mind that Lugnuts created dozens of articles most days, sometimes hundreds, and that he spent just minutes, sometimes just seconds, on each one. Would you object if, should this be closed without a consensus for draftification, I took them to AfD at the same rate that Lugnuts created them? BilledMammal (talk) 15:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Every article should be evaluated individually, and this should not be done to any arbitrary deadline. Each review should take as long as it takes to either improve it so that it is at least Start class or to determine, after attempting and failing to find sources in (at least) the place most likely for those sources to exist (which may or may not be known to and/or accessible by Google). If it is determined that the article is not notable after such a review then it should be taken to AfD where the nomination should summarise the findings of the review, including noting where and how sources where attempted to be found (to avoid duplication of effort). The community has repeatedly rejected nominating AfDs at the rate you suggest ("dozens, sometimes hundreds a day") so if you do that then please prepare for a swift trip to ANI.
- In summary every article in Wikipedia that does not meet one or more speedy deletion criterion must not be deleted without giving the community sufficient time to find sources that demonstrate it is (or is not) suitable for Wikipedia. Flooding AfD with similar nominations does not allow this. Sending hundreds or more articles to draftspace does not do this. Thryduulf (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- You create a standard here that would make it impossible to address these. For articles that took minutes or seconds to make you ask editors to spend hours doing a review that goes far beyond what WP:BEFORE asks for, even though there is no obligation to follow BEFORE in circumstances like this.
- You then make that situation worse by suggesting you will drag editors to ANI for trying to review these in the same timeframe they were created.
- The creation of such standards is considered incompatable with the nature of our project; see WP:FAIT.
- You ask for sufficient time to find sources to demonstrate that an article is or is not suitable for Wikipedia; I ask for a process that allows us to address these in a manner compatable with FAIT and that doesn't consume disproportionately more of the communities time and effort than was spent creating them. This proposal is a compromise that does exactly that. BilledMammal (talk) 16:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Insisting on slow-rolling individual AFDs for tens of thousands of identikit database-entry stubs that were disruptively mass-created necessitates an unacceptable drain on community resources that is more disruptive than the creation itself. Remedial action for disruptive mass-activity is necessarily a mass-activity. A cursory check of the current article state and immediate deletion would be appropriate here. However, an alternative has been presented here as an alternative and any drawn-out evaluation of these policy and guideline failing database entries would then be done in draft space, with an excessively long time being given for sources to be found. wjematherplease leave a message... 16:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Creating articles in accordance with all the policies that existed at the time of creation is not disruptive, no matter how much you want it to be. The only FAIT we're risking is the deletion of notable subjects because nobody has had time to review them because you don't like they way they were created. I'm not asking for anything disproportionate, I'm asking only that we follow the policies that exist - i.e. we determine whether articles are actually notable before deleting them on notability grounds. Thryduulf (talk) 17:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- To those discussing disruption versus creation according to policy at the time: we've had this discussion many times already, with some editors being unpersuaded by the others. I suggest not rehashing it here, and seeing what can be done to improve the state of Wikipedia overall. That may be some compromise of getting interested WikiProjects involved, and some flexibility on a rolling target date. I imagine if steady, sustained progress is made, editors will be open to allow the work to go on for as long as needed. isaacl (talk) 17:44, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I imagine if steady, sustained progress is made, editors will be open to allow the work to go on for as long as needed.
Personally, I believe five years will be more than long enough, but if I am wrong and in five years editors are still making progress on the drafts and wish to continue working on them in draft space (as opposed to user space or project space) I would support extending the period in draft space for as long as those editors need.- In response to Thryduulf's comment, I'll just say that the articles weren't created in accordance with policy at the time, including but not limited to MASSCREATE which required approval at BRFA. BilledMammal (talk) 17:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
seeing what can be done to improve the state of Wikipedia overall.
the easiest way to do that would be to stop attempting to mass delete or draftify hundreds or more articles at a time (and then objecting every time consensus is found not to support that) and instead spend that energy improving them (or at the very least allowing other editors to do that without artificial deadlines). Thryduulf (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2023 (UTC)- Yes, that's the current status quo. The question is if something can encourage more improvement of articles for subjects that do meet Wikipedia's standards of having an article, and reducing maintenance costs of having articles for subjects that fail these standards. Some WikiProjects maintain improvement lists, for example, to provide a tangible overview of progress. There may be some middle ground that helps both objectives. isaacl (talk) 18:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I'll just say that the articles weren't created in accordance with policy at the time, including but not limited to MASSCREATE which required approval at BRFA
- Did I miss something? Were these articles created using automated or semi-automated tools? Otherwise, I know you know that's not an applicable policy, because we both participated in the RfCs that attempted to change it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:10, 30 August 2023 (UTC)- Lugnuts used semi-automated tools; he created boilerplate texts that were automatically populated using excel. BilledMammal (talk) 19:25, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Please show me the consensus that using boiler-plate texts is "using semi-automated tools" because the last time I remember this being discussed the consensus was against such a definition. Thryduulf (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)\
- I don't recall that consensus, but I think you missed part of what I said:
created boilerplate texts that were automatically populated using excel
. BilledMammal (talk) 19:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)- The discussion I remember did not make any distinction between how boilerplate texts were produced or populated (because it's frequently impossible to tell and generally irrelevant even if it were possible). So once again, please point to the policies this actually violated, rather than ones you would like it to have violated. Thryduulf (talk) 19:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Lugnuts used a simple computer program to fill in fields in a boilerplate text. If you want, you can argue that filling in the fields manually does not cross the line into "semi-automated" (although MEATBOT would apply), but automatically filling the fields clearly does.
- If it helps, I can prove that Lugnuts did this. BilledMammal (talk) 19:42, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- The discussion I remember did not make any distinction between how boilerplate texts were produced or populated (because it's frequently impossible to tell and generally irrelevant even if it were possible). So once again, please point to the policies this actually violated, rather than ones you would like it to have violated. Thryduulf (talk) 19:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- I don't recall that consensus, but I think you missed part of what I said:
- (edit conflict) Where is the consensus that that could as "semi-automated content page creation"? I do recall you made an effort (several, perhaps) to include language about "boilerplate" creation in a guideline about mass create, but none of those found consensus. Yet now you're just skipping the consensus part and insisting that's part of the definition. The WP:GAMING is exhausting. Is the issue Excel? Are you counting that Excel is a semi-automated page creation tool? Presumably if Lugnuts drafted in Google Docs, used a screen reader, or copied a style guide from a WikiProject, he was also using "automated or semi-automated content page creation" tools? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:36, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I do recall you made an effort (several, perhaps) to include language about "boilerplate" creation in a guideline about mass create, but none of those found consensus.
There was a discussion about making an explicit definition of mass-creation, with my proposal involving the use of boilerplate texts (now outdated by the advent of large language models). That discussion never went to RfC, and there was never a consensus that boilerplate texts weren't included within the current definition of mass creation. However, that is not relevant, because in this case Lugnuts used excel functions to automatically populate fields in the boilerplate text; as I said to Thryduulf,you can argue that filling in the fields manually does not cross the line into "semi-automated" (although MEATBOT would apply), but automatically filling the fields clearly does.
BilledMammal (talk) 19:45, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Please show me the consensus that using boiler-plate texts is "using semi-automated tools" because the last time I remember this being discussed the consensus was against such a definition. Thryduulf (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)\
- Lugnuts used semi-automated tools; he created boilerplate texts that were automatically populated using excel. BilledMammal (talk) 19:25, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- The justification of barely clearing the low-bar notability guideline in place at the time was never a green light to bypass policy. Blindly duplicating a database (with no regard for it's questionable accuracy) has not been compliant with policy right from the very early days of the project. And yes, you are absolutely asking for disproportionate remedial actions to deal with what was always disruptive mass-creation. wjematherplease leave a message... 18:23, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Once again I'm going to have to ask what policies in place at the time this actually violated, rather than ones that you would like it to have violated or which have since been changed so they would now be in violation. Blindly duplicating databases of notable topics was, in the early days of the project, generally regarded as a Good Thing. Any disruption which these creations caused, which has yet to be actually demonstrated (despite much assertion to the contrary) pales into comparison to the disruption caused by this debate and which would be caused by mass draftification or deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
"Once again I'm going to have to ask what policies in place at the time this actually violated"
- Lugnuts violated WP:MASSCREATE, WP:N, WP:NPA, WP:DISRUPT (via WP:CIR but also intentionally if his parting statement about intentional errors is to be believed) to name just four, not once but continually. He kept doing this right up until he finally was stopped last year, this wasn't just some early-days stuff. I'm sorry if he was a mate of yours or something, but he didn't get banned because of something that was just made up on the spot is only recent practise.- The reason why Lugnuts managed to carry on for so long is not because the rules only changed recently. It's because the Friends of Lugnuts(TM) managed to stop anything being done about it every time anyone tried. FOARP (talk) 20:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Once again I'm going to have to ask what policies in place at the time this actually violated, rather than ones that you would like it to have violated or which have since been changed so they would now be in violation. Blindly duplicating databases of notable topics was, in the early days of the project, generally regarded as a Good Thing. Any disruption which these creations caused, which has yet to be actually demonstrated (despite much assertion to the contrary) pales into comparison to the disruption caused by this debate and which would be caused by mass draftification or deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- There was no attempt by Lugnuts to verify that the subjects of his articles actually did meet GNG, which has always been a requirement of NSPORT. JoelleJay (talk) 19:28, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Here's a link to the version of NSPORT that was in place on the day he created the first article listed above. Could you point out to me where it says that editors were required to verify that the subjects of their articles actually did meet GNG? The main line says "The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below", which is not quite the same as requiring editors to verify that the ones meeting the sport-specific criteria additionally meet the GNG
- (We can't, of course, know what any editor did or didn't "attempt" to do.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
- To those discussing disruption versus creation according to policy at the time: we've had this discussion many times already, with some editors being unpersuaded by the others. I suggest not rehashing it here, and seeing what can be done to improve the state of Wikipedia overall. That may be some compromise of getting interested WikiProjects involved, and some flexibility on a rolling target date. I imagine if steady, sustained progress is made, editors will be open to allow the work to go on for as long as needed. isaacl (talk) 17:44, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Creating articles in accordance with all the policies that existed at the time of creation is not disruptive, no matter how much you want it to be. The only FAIT we're risking is the deletion of notable subjects because nobody has had time to review them because you don't like they way they were created. I'm not asking for anything disproportionate, I'm asking only that we follow the policies that exist - i.e. we determine whether articles are actually notable before deleting them on notability grounds. Thryduulf (talk) 17:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Moving the articles to userspace makes it even harder for editors to discover these articles exist, which is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Also five years is still an arbitrary deadline and probably isn't enough time to properly evaluate thousands of articles when time has to be spent fighting off attempts to delete them all without review (like this one), time spent rebutting challenges to the closures of attempts like this. Then repeat that for the next subject that takes your fancy, and then the one after that. Thryduulf (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- This is just an attempt to create an WP:IQUIT-style veto. You claim to be able to improve these articles, which have not been improved to meet our standards in all the years they have been in mainspace, but refuse to do so if they are draftified. If you could do it, why haven't you done it already? If you're going to do it, why don't you do it in draft-space and return the articles to mainpsace when you have? Also, colour me sceptical that a bunch of match-reports in Aussie newspapers, with a low likelihood of any actual SIGCOV of cricketers themselves, will be sufficient to meet our notability standards for sports-people. FOARP (talk) 12:28, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- Who is going to expand or improve these articles if they are moved into the draftspace? Has anyone promised or offered to expand or improve them if they are moved into the draftspace? (I can't find any such promise or offer on this talk page). Will anyone promise or offer to expand or improve them if they are moved into the draftspace? Are you going to expand or improve them if they are moved into the draftspace? Will you promise to do that if they are moved there? James500 (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- So they aren't going to be expanded in draftspace, because you are not willing to expand them while they are in draftspace? Thats stupid2600:4040:475E:F600:BCEA:1857:BCB9:FD4F (talk) 21:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia.
If the article meets the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.
In addition, the subjects of standalone articles should meet the General Notability Guideline. The guideline on this page provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline.
Q1: How is this guideline related to the general notability guideline?
A1: The topic-specific notability guidelines described on this page do not replace the general notability guideline. They are intended only to stop an article from being quickly deleted when there is very strong reason to believe that significant, independent, non-routine, non-promotional secondary coverage from multiple reliable sources is available, given sufficient time to locate it. Wikipedia's standard for including an article about a given person is not based on whether or not they have attained certain achievements, but on whether or not the person has received appropriate coverage in reliable sources, in accordance with the general notability guideline.
JoelleJay (talk) 23:12, 31 August 2023 (UTC)Q2: If a sports figure meets the criteria specified in a sports-specific notability guideline, does this mean they do not have to meet the general notability guideline?
A2: No, the article must still eventually provide sources indicating that the subject meets the general notability guideline.- Note
given sufficient time to locate [sources]
(something you omit from the answer to the Q2, where it is phrased as "a reasonable amount of time") andeventually
. This proposal is all about preventing editors from being given sufficient time to locate sources by imposing arbitrary deadlines, and changing "eventually" to "now" if they are in article space. Also omitted from the quote is the note that sources are harder to find for historical sportspeople, which means that the period of time which qualifies as "reasonable" and "sufficient" is longer than for contemporary sportspeople. The majority of articles this proposal would impact are historical figures and/or from non-English speaking nations - another factor that increases the complexity of finding sources and thus increases the length of time which is necessary to give editors a "reasonable" opportunity to find sources. Thryduulf (talk) 23:36, 31 August 2023 (UTC)- Thanks for that, JoelleJay. I appreciate it. It's hidden in a collapsed box. The version on the page at the relevant time (3.7 years ago) is slightly different, but not, I think in ways that significantly change the meaning.
- I suspect, then that this, ultimately boils down to one side saying "eventually means 'in less than 3.7 years'" and "longer than 3.7 years is not IMO 'reasonable'", and the other side saying "eventually means not today" and "3.7 years is IMO 'reasonable'". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- The point here is that "eventually" is not "at the time of creation" so the creation was entirely within policy as it stood at the time and thus was not disruptive. Maybe with enough searching the supporters will manage to find some rule it violated, but given they haven't been able to do so in many months and this is the only thing they are relying on demonstrate these were and/or are in any way disruptive (the ostensible reason for wanting to remove them from article space) it's not looking likely. Thryduulf (talk) 01:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- The policy compliance at the time of creation isn't the only reason editors want these articles out of mainspace. The major reason for me at least is that they currently violate the global consensus that all sportsperson articles must cite a SIGCOV source to exist in mainspace, a requirement that has no explicit exception for historical athletes and no grandfathering in of articles created prior to the RfC. This is coupled with the fact that the majority of cricket lugstubs that have been taken to AfD so far--including those with substantial contributions from other editors and sources beyond stats--have ultimately been removed from mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 02:21, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do note
majority
- this is important because after individual review some of the articles were deemed appropriate for inclusion in the encyclopaedia. Deleting (directly or via draftspace) these articles would have harmed the encyclopaedia in exactly the same way you are proposing to harm the encyclopaedia with this proposal. And while there is no explicit exception for historical athletes or grandfathering in old articles, the lack of consensus to do anything about them en mass shows that there is an implicit agreement that these factors must be taken into consideration. Thryduulf (talk) 12:33, 1 September 2023 (UTC)- That it's merely the "majority" is strongly influenced by the fact that some of the articles taken to AfD already had non-stats references and prose expansion. Those wouldn't have been included in this batch. And anyway, how is deleting a stub on even a "notable" topic always "harmful to the encyclopedia"? NOPAGE exists for a reason, and in basically every case the individual is already mentioned in the relevant lists, so really--what encyclopedic info is being lost? Also, there has been a consensus to get historical athlete stubs out of mainspace en masse: LUGSTUBS. JoelleJay (talk) 17:32, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- IMO it is harmful for readers searching for a specific bit of information ("That Australian cricketer dad was always going on about – which team did he play for again?") to be sent to a privacy-invading site to get the information they want because some editors decided that having information on a subject that qualifies for a separate article ('a "notable" topic', in your words) was undesirable because the page wasn't WP:FINISHED yet.
- Just to be clear, a statement like "Alice Athlete played for Team A from 1924 to 1932" is encyclopedic info. It is encyclopedic info that could additionally or alternatively be presented in a list, but it is still encyclopedic info. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- .............So your argument is that wikipedia should host standalone pages that have no info beyond what is already in a list on another page, because that protects readers from having to retrieve that same info from one of those professional, comprehensive, constantly-updated free databases famously known to invade privacy? Seriously? Didn't you argue in some other thread that blacklisting a certain crappy pseudoscience-peddling health site wasn't necessary because it's not Wikipedia's job to protect readers from the websites we link to in references? JoelleJay (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- You're right: I have long believed that the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist should not be used as a censorship tool. It should be used to stop spammers, not to stop readers. People should be able to read whatever they want. If they want to get their information here, then I support them reading it here. If they want to get it in the form of a two-sentence stub rather than a 100-line list, then letting them have the two-sentence stub is no skin off my back. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- .............So your argument is that wikipedia should host standalone pages that have no info beyond what is already in a list on another page, because that protects readers from having to retrieve that same info from one of those professional, comprehensive, constantly-updated free databases famously known to invade privacy? Seriously? Didn't you argue in some other thread that blacklisting a certain crappy pseudoscience-peddling health site wasn't necessary because it's not Wikipedia's job to protect readers from the websites we link to in references? JoelleJay (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- That it's merely the "majority" is strongly influenced by the fact that some of the articles taken to AfD already had non-stats references and prose expansion. Those wouldn't have been included in this batch. And anyway, how is deleting a stub on even a "notable" topic always "harmful to the encyclopedia"? NOPAGE exists for a reason, and in basically every case the individual is already mentioned in the relevant lists, so really--what encyclopedic info is being lost? Also, there has been a consensus to get historical athlete stubs out of mainspace en masse: LUGSTUBS. JoelleJay (talk) 17:32, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do note
- The policy compliance at the time of creation isn't the only reason editors want these articles out of mainspace. The major reason for me at least is that they currently violate the global consensus that all sportsperson articles must cite a SIGCOV source to exist in mainspace, a requirement that has no explicit exception for historical athletes and no grandfathering in of articles created prior to the RfC. This is coupled with the fact that the majority of cricket lugstubs that have been taken to AfD so far--including those with substantial contributions from other editors and sources beyond stats--have ultimately been removed from mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 02:21, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- The point here is that "eventually" is not "at the time of creation" so the creation was entirely within policy as it stood at the time and thus was not disruptive. Maybe with enough searching the supporters will manage to find some rule it violated, but given they haven't been able to do so in many months and this is the only thing they are relying on demonstrate these were and/or are in any way disruptive (the ostensible reason for wanting to remove them from article space) it's not looking likely. Thryduulf (talk) 01:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- 5 years -- or really, 8+ years -- is more than a reasonable enough time to find sources. JoelleJay (talk) 02:23, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- For up to 90,000 articles? No way. Even if sources were available for every single athlete, and I tripled the amount of time I spend here and did it only to expand Lugnuts' creations, I still don't think I could come even close to improving every single one he wrote. BeanieFan11 (talk) 12:26, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- 90,000 articles are not in danger of being draftified, come on. I don't know if @BilledMammal has run a query on the percent of all of Lugnuts' articles that would meet the "stats source + no expansion by other editors" criteria, but it is certainly much less than 90k. But even if all his microstubs were deleted right now, what info would be lost from the world? Nothing, because the exact same info--actually, much more comprehensive, accurate, and automatically updated info--is still available in the stats sources; Lugnuts imparted zero biographical value by creating those stubs. All that would happen is there would be some redlinks in team rosters. The difference between improving stubs on the truly notable subjects and just recreating their articles once GNG sourcing is found is utterly trivial (literally click the red link, add the prose + sources you would have added to improve the article in the first place, click publish; if the sources are actually sufficient for GNG or even just SPORTSBASIC you don't need anything else besides a sentence asserting significance that meets the very low threshold for passing CSD), plus the latter has the added benefit of letting someone else increase their article creation count, the only parameter that anyone here seems to care about anyway. JoelleJay (talk) 17:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Last I heard, BilledMammal had not made any undertaking to restrict his deletion-esque efforts to only pages with those two criteria; perhaps you have updated information? The metrics he chose in his essay on Wikipedia:Abandoned stubs suggests that he has concerns with fully a third of Wikipedia's 6,826,517 articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Last I heard, this RfC was about a strict subset of ~1000 cricketer stubs that objectively fail our guideline requirements for being in mainspace, not whatever metrics you're reading into an essay that wasn't cited as justification for and doesn't share inclusion criteria with this RfC. JoelleJay (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- @JoelleJay: See here (and the talk page for it), where it was discussed several options to propose getting rid of ultimately 40,000 articles and to afterwards
stretch the boundaries of what the process can be used for ... [by doing the following]: [1] Change the article selection criteria, to avoid the specific values of the first group becoming a standard part of the process; [2] Nominate articles created by editors other than Lugnuts, to avoid the process becoming a "Lugnuts cleanup process"; [3] Nominate articles on topics outside the sports topic area - or at least the Olympics topic area - to avoid the process becoming a "sports cleanup process"; [4] Nominate a larger number of articles, to avoid the process being limited to ~1000 article batches
– that implies to me that BilledMammal wants to do more than just these 1,000. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)- What good does speculating on future RFCs now do, save off-topic debating.? Sanctioning BM for this or preventing the creation of further RFCs in LUGSTUBS' vein are unserious proposals. Mach61 (talk) 21:26, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well, for me at least its another reason to oppose - I don't want this to be a gradual step in the ultimate reduction of tens-to-hundreds of thousands of historical sports articles - especially since the criteria will be loosened and loosened more for further proposals and they will increase and increase in quantity. This should be rejected unless we want to lose tens-to-hundreds of thousands of potential-to-likely notable sports articles and waste enormous quantities of editor time when we could have just been improving them instead. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:30, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Mach61, I think that when someone's telling you that he'd really like to go down a very long path, you should think about whether or not you want to take the first steps with him. If we draft-delete a 500 articles here and 1000 there, then eventually that might feel like a normal thing to do. If you don't want that to become normal, then one option is not to do it at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- There've been any number of incremental changes we've made over time that we look back and think "Yeah, that was the right direction to go in, even though 100 years ago it was unthinkable and at the time some thought it would cause the end of the world". The most recent incredibly profound one I can think of is probably same-sex marriage. Did we get there in incremental steps? Yes. Does that mean it was a bad thing? Valereee (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's a slippery slope argument, which is a logical fallacy. Let's stop it where we think it should be stopped instead of saying "If we don't stop it at X, it'll eventually become Y." Stop it at X if X is bad. But don't argue we can't do X because while X is fine it might lead to Y, and Y would be bad. Valereee (talk) 01:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- So? I'm totally fine with it becoming normal to draftify large groups of mass-created articles via discussions like this. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- ...And I'm not, which is why I opposed... BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
Stop it at X if X is bad
. X is bad, Y would be even worse. Thryduulf (talk) 08:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- So? I'm totally fine with it becoming normal to draftify large groups of mass-created articles via discussions like this. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- Mach61, I think that when someone's telling you that he'd really like to go down a very long path, you should think about whether or not you want to take the first steps with him. If we draft-delete a 500 articles here and 1000 there, then eventually that might feel like a normal thing to do. If you don't want that to become normal, then one option is not to do it at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well, for me at least its another reason to oppose - I don't want this to be a gradual step in the ultimate reduction of tens-to-hundreds of thousands of historical sports articles - especially since the criteria will be loosened and loosened more for further proposals and they will increase and increase in quantity. This should be rejected unless we want to lose tens-to-hundreds of thousands of potential-to-likely notable sports articles and waste enormous quantities of editor time when we could have just been improving them instead. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:30, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- What good does speculating on future RFCs now do, save off-topic debating.? Sanctioning BM for this or preventing the creation of further RFCs in LUGSTUBS' vein are unserious proposals. Mach61 (talk) 21:26, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- @JoelleJay: See here (and the talk page for it), where it was discussed several options to propose getting rid of ultimately 40,000 articles and to afterwards
The metrics he chose in his essay on Wikipedia:Abandoned stubs suggests that he has concerns with fully a third of Wikipedia's 6,826,517 articles.
I don't know why it suggests that to you, because the thought has never crossed my mind. BilledMammal (talk) 21:35, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Last I heard, this RfC was about a strict subset of ~1000 cricketer stubs that objectively fail our guideline requirements for being in mainspace, not whatever metrics you're reading into an essay that wasn't cited as justification for and doesn't share inclusion criteria with this RfC. JoelleJay (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Last I heard, BilledMammal had not made any undertaking to restrict his deletion-esque efforts to only pages with those two criteria; perhaps you have updated information? The metrics he chose in his essay on Wikipedia:Abandoned stubs suggests that he has concerns with fully a third of Wikipedia's 6,826,517 articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11 -
"For up to 90,000 articles? No way. Even if sources were available for every single athlete..."
- you get why this is bad, right? You get why the articles should have been properly sourced right from the start? You get why this is an argument to just deep-six this whole junkyard of broken articles? FOARP (talk) 20:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- 90,000 articles are not in danger of being draftified, come on. I don't know if @BilledMammal has run a query on the percent of all of Lugnuts' articles that would meet the "stats source + no expansion by other editors" criteria, but it is certainly much less than 90k. But even if all his microstubs were deleted right now, what info would be lost from the world? Nothing, because the exact same info--actually, much more comprehensive, accurate, and automatically updated info--is still available in the stats sources; Lugnuts imparted zero biographical value by creating those stubs. All that would happen is there would be some redlinks in team rosters. The difference between improving stubs on the truly notable subjects and just recreating their articles once GNG sourcing is found is utterly trivial (literally click the red link, add the prose + sources you would have added to improve the article in the first place, click publish; if the sources are actually sufficient for GNG or even just SPORTSBASIC you don't need anything else besides a sentence asserting significance that meets the very low threshold for passing CSD), plus the latter has the added benefit of letting someone else increase their article creation count, the only parameter that anyone here seems to care about anyway. JoelleJay (talk) 17:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- For up to 90,000 articles? No way. Even if sources were available for every single athlete, and I tripled the amount of time I spend here and did it only to expand Lugnuts' creations, I still don't think I could come even close to improving every single one he wrote. BeanieFan11 (talk) 12:26, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Note
- Most of the pre-1960s Australians (who are certainly notable because they have a mountain of WP:SIGCOV in Trove, and I have seen that coverage) absolutely will be expanded and improved if they remain in the mainspace, because I will personally see to it that they are expanded and improved. If they are moved into the draftspace they will probably not be expanded or improved, because I am probably the only person willing to expand and improve most of them in the near future, and I will not expand or improve them while they are in the draftspace. James500 (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. As others have shown above, a number of these articles are about notable subjects. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 10:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support Either we have standards or we don't. If you are an inclusionist and disagree with the current standard, please accept that your personal philosophy is not in keeping with the community. Corrupting the community to satisfy your policy desires is wrong in itself. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Either we have standards for deletion or we don't. If you are a deletionist and disagree with the curernt standard of scruitiny reuqired, please accept that your personal philosophy is not in keeping with the community. Corrupting the community to satisty your desire to delete encyclopaedic and potentially encyclopaedic information without adequate review is wrong in itself. Thryduulf (talk) 19:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- He he... Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 05:31, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Either we have standards for deletion or we don't. If you are a deletionist and disagree with the curernt standard of scruitiny reuqired, please accept that your personal philosophy is not in keeping with the community. Corrupting the community to satisty your desire to delete encyclopaedic and potentially encyclopaedic information without adequate review is wrong in itself. Thryduulf (talk) 19:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I believe this will help to address a huge number of articles that are currently non-compliant with policy. Plenty of time is provided to allow articles to be salvaged and these can always be recreated in future if necessary. MarchOfTheGreyhounds (talk) 15:49, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Had ignored this discussion before it was re-opened. Was initially inclined to support but WhatamIdoing's arguments here, alongside the existence of WP:NODEADLINE, has caused me to oppose this. If a good percentage of these can be expanded, then best not to make future editors re-do what's already been done. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Elli, what is a "good percentage"? And note that the evaluation of SIGCOV for sportspeople requires coverage be non-routine (rules out most match recaps, almost all transaction announcements) and excludes almost all coverage of subjects when they were minors. A lot of the sources editors unfamiliar with NSPORTS have been putting forth would fail at AfD. JoelleJay (talk) 17:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support It's clear that, were these articles created today, they would not survive NPP. It's time we have consistent standards, not de-facto grandfather clauses. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:14, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Nobody here is disputing this. How to enforce those standards is the question: whether to evaluate subjects for notability or assume they all fail, whether to follow the deletion policy or mass draftify so we don't have to actually evaluate them before removing, etc. It's "IAR to get rid of Lugnuts' stubs?" more or less. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:59, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I said "de facto grandfather clauses'. If this proposal fails, then almost certainly nobody will actually do that work and the result will be that the stubs, through no further fault of anyone, will have been grandfathered. * Pppery * it has begun... 14:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- You (or anyone else) will be free to take them to AfD individually or in small groups as long as you do an appropriate BEFORE and don't overload the processes. There is no grandfather clause, de facto or otherwise, that immunises these articles against normal community processes - just abnormal processes. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, in theory the process could work that way. In practice it almost certainly won't. I think it's clear further discussion is unlikely to convince either of us to change our minds. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:00, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have stated, multiple times now, that I will personally expand the Australians in Trove if they remain in the mainspace. If I say that I will do that, then I will actually do that, unless I am physically unable to edit. I have already done a WP:BEFORE search for them. That task has been done. James500 (talk) 21:14, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- My understanding is that every Australian has an existing valid redirect target (and if they don't, I am confident I can create them, like I created List of Western Province representative cricketers). As such, per my commitment to Blue Square Thing and #5 of If this proposal is successful, even those Australians that you haven't found and added sources for (thank you for doing that, by the way) will remain in mainspace, as redirects. Does that address your concerns? BilledMammal (talk) 21:23, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- If you did a WP:BLAR on the existing page for each of those Australians, and the existing page was not moved out of the mainspace, and the existing page history of that page was retained beneath the redirect, and the page was tagged with Template:R with possibilities, and no draft was created, that would certainly be better than draftification, and it would not violate WP:ATD. I cannot, however, endorse the redirection of large numbers of Australians in Trove who I know satisfy GNG, especially without the merger of encyclopedic content not in the lists (such as full names, dates and places). Apart from violating GNG itself, redirection without merger would also violate WP:PRESERVE. In any event, I can merge or redirect any remaining non-notable pre-1960s Australians myself, after I have expanded the notable ones in Trove. James500 (talk) 03:53, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- My understanding is that every Australian has an existing valid redirect target (and if they don't, I am confident I can create them, like I created List of Western Province representative cricketers). As such, per my commitment to Blue Square Thing and #5 of If this proposal is successful, even those Australians that you haven't found and added sources for (thank you for doing that, by the way) will remain in mainspace, as redirects. Does that address your concerns? BilledMammal (talk) 21:23, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have stated, multiple times now, that I will personally expand the Australians in Trove if they remain in the mainspace. If I say that I will do that, then I will actually do that, unless I am physically unable to edit. I have already done a WP:BEFORE search for them. That task has been done. James500 (talk) 21:14, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, in theory the process could work that way. In practice it almost certainly won't. I think it's clear further discussion is unlikely to convince either of us to change our minds. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:00, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- You (or anyone else) will be free to take them to AfD individually or in small groups as long as you do an appropriate BEFORE and don't overload the processes. There is no grandfather clause, de facto or otherwise, that immunises these articles against normal community processes - just abnormal processes. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I said "de facto grandfather clauses'. If this proposal fails, then almost certainly nobody will actually do that work and the result will be that the stubs, through no further fault of anyone, will have been grandfathered. * Pppery * it has begun... 14:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Nobody here is disputing this. How to enforce those standards is the question: whether to evaluate subjects for notability or assume they all fail, whether to follow the deletion policy or mass draftify so we don't have to actually evaluate them before removing, etc. It's "IAR to get rid of Lugnuts' stubs?" more or less. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:59, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support, no one would approve a bot to mass import cricketers in x databases today, which is effectively how Lugnuts acted. Systematic problems need systematic solutions. NSPORTS2022 applies retroactively. Mach61 (talk) 05:45, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- What Lugnuts did is still allowed today (apart from the sourcing). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:59, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- It is allowed today (apart from the sourcing), only if BRFA granted approval for his semi-automated mass creation - and as Mach61 says,
no one would approve a bot to mass import cricketers in x databases today
. BilledMammal (talk) 13:24, 3 September 2023 (UTC)- You keep saying this, but it's based on your own definition of "semi-automated tool" to apply to off-wiki software that people use to prepare an article. "Semi-automated editing tools" are tools you use to edit Wikipedia. AWB, for example. It doesn't apply to spreadsheets, word processors, citation management tools, note-taking software, and all of the other things Wikipedians use apart from Wikipedia. If they're editing the article themselves, by every definition of "automated or semi-automated" I've seen, they're not doing so, and I'd appreciate a link to show otherwise. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's also worth noting that not only is this your (BilledMammal's) personal definition, community consensus has rejected that definition. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can you link that consensus? BilledMammal (talk) 14:29, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- At Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 44#Ideas sought to arrive at a definition of "article creation at scale (aka mass creation) you repeatedly floated the idea of incorporating boilerplate text into the definition and got basically no support from anyone. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 181#WP:MASSCREATE and WP:MEATBOT contains some relevant discussion, from a quick glance the suggestion to include boilerplates garnered two explicit opposes and no support. Neither of these are the discussion I remember (which came to a clearer consensus against) but I've run out of time to continue searching for that now. My search results did not include any editor clearly expressing support for a proposed definition of mass creation that included boilerplate text. Thryduulf (talk) 16:01, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I remember seeing this at WP:ACAS#Question 17: Amend WP:MASSCREATE but it closed as "no adequately robust consensus", not consensus against. Folly Mox (talk) 16:28, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) First, in those discussions I proposed that the use of a boilerplate alone, even when the fields are manually populated, constitutes "assisted editing". That is a different situation to what Lugnuts did, which is use a simple program to automatically populate the fields - a much less ambiguous situation which clearly meets the definition (added in 2008, five years before the earliest of these creations) in WP:BOTPOL. This consensus may be relevant to this situation.
- Second, there is no consensus in those discussions against any of the proposals, mine or anyone elses, with most editors discussing the ideas without supporting or opposing them in preparation for the RfC that never happened. BilledMammal (talk) 16:40, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- At Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 44#Ideas sought to arrive at a definition of "article creation at scale (aka mass creation) you repeatedly floated the idea of incorporating boilerplate text into the definition and got basically no support from anyone. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 181#WP:MASSCREATE and WP:MEATBOT contains some relevant discussion, from a quick glance the suggestion to include boilerplates garnered two explicit opposes and no support. Neither of these are the discussion I remember (which came to a clearer consensus against) but I've run out of time to continue searching for that now. My search results did not include any editor clearly expressing support for a proposed definition of mass creation that included boilerplate text. Thryduulf (talk) 16:01, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can you link that consensus? BilledMammal (talk) 14:29, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- The definition at WP:BOTPOL is
the use of tools which assist with repetitive tasks, but do not alter Wikipedia's content without some human interaction.
A repetitive task would be manually filling out a boilerplate tens of thousands of times; a tool to assist with that would be an excel sheet that automatically fills them out. BilledMammal (talk) 14:28, 3 September 2023 (UTC)- (edit conflict)
Your alternative definition would also not make sense; it would allow editors to do things like mass create articles using ChatGPT
- There is a difference between allowing and not addressing. Hence WP:LLM. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:29, 3 September 2023 (UTC)- We could have an extensive debate over how BOTPOL applies to the use of large language models, but it isn't relevant to this discussion and would be a distraction. Which is why I removed that part of my comment 15 minutes after I made it - 45 minutes before your reply. BilledMammal (talk) 15:42, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- (Your second edit may explain why Rhododendrites got an edit conflict.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- We could have an extensive debate over how BOTPOL applies to the use of large language models, but it isn't relevant to this discussion and would be a distraction. Which is why I removed that part of my comment 15 minutes after I made it - 45 minutes before your reply. BilledMammal (talk) 15:42, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)
- It's also worth noting that not only is this your (BilledMammal's) personal definition, community consensus has rejected that definition. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- You keep saying this, but it's based on your own definition of "semi-automated tool" to apply to off-wiki software that people use to prepare an article. "Semi-automated editing tools" are tools you use to edit Wikipedia. AWB, for example. It doesn't apply to spreadsheets, word processors, citation management tools, note-taking software, and all of the other things Wikipedians use apart from Wikipedia. If they're editing the article themselves, by every definition of "automated or semi-automated" I've seen, they're not doing so, and I'd appreciate a link to show otherwise. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- It is allowed today (apart from the sourcing), only if BRFA granted approval for his semi-automated mass creation - and as Mach61 says,
- What Lugnuts did is still allowed today (apart from the sourcing). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:59, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support poor quality stubs created against policy, draftification provides mechanism for any that do have potential to be sourced and improved by interested users. Polyamorph (talk) 12:47, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Leaving them in article space provides also provides a mechanism for those that do have potential to be sourced and improved by interested users, with the added benefits of them being very significantly easier to find and there being no deadline for them to do so. Any articles that do not have such potential can be evaluated and nominated for deletion just as easily in either location. Thryduulf (talk) 12:52, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- My comment is based on the fact that it would be vastly more resource intensive to nominate what would be the vast majority for deletion just to save the very few that may one day be expanded. Polyamorph (talk) 13:09, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- If you have any evidence that "the vast majority" cannot be expanded? Despite many claims that this is the case nobody has yet managed to actually provide any evidence to support it that isn't just guesswork and supposition. Thryduulf (talk) 13:16, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- The burden for what you ask is on the creator, they are tiny stubs, created by a site-banned user who admitted adding factual inaccuracies into articles. TBH I would support mass deletion of the lot. Redlinks have more potential than these creations. That's my opinion and my !vote. Polyamorph (talk) 13:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- There is a slight consensus that the "factual inaccuracies" claim is itself the factual inaccuracy. You are entitled to your opinion, but it is just that - an opinion - and carries no more weight than any other that is unsupported by evidence. Thryduulf (talk) 14:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well there is evidence that these are poor quality stubs, with little or no prospect for expansion, users above me have provided this. Maybe provide the evidence that I'm wrong instead, otherwise yours is also simply opinion. Polyamorph (talk) 14:24, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Many of these are indeed poor quality stubs. However users above me have proved that many of them actually do have prospect for expansion, in some cases great than 50% of the ones they spot checked. That to me is clear evidence that you are wrong. Thryduulf (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Not those spot checked by Sojourner in the earth. The fact that some might have prospect for expansion justifies the move to draft-space, and not outright deletion (although I would support that). In any case, as I alluded to, it's no more difficult to expand a red-link in the case of the articles that have been selected for draftification. I don't see a convincing rationale for keeping any of these in mainspace. Polyamorph (talk) 14:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Many of these are indeed poor quality stubs. However users above me have proved that many of them actually do have prospect for expansion, in some cases great than 50% of the ones they spot checked. That to me is clear evidence that you are wrong. Thryduulf (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well there is evidence that these are poor quality stubs, with little or no prospect for expansion, users above me have provided this. Maybe provide the evidence that I'm wrong instead, otherwise yours is also simply opinion. Polyamorph (talk) 14:24, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- There is a slight consensus that the "factual inaccuracies" claim is itself the factual inaccuracy. You are entitled to your opinion, but it is just that - an opinion - and carries no more weight than any other that is unsupported by evidence. Thryduulf (talk) 14:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- The burden for what you ask is on the creator, they are tiny stubs, created by a site-banned user who admitted adding factual inaccuracies into articles. TBH I would support mass deletion of the lot. Redlinks have more potential than these creations. That's my opinion and my !vote. Polyamorph (talk) 13:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- If you have any evidence that "the vast majority" cannot be expanded? Despite many claims that this is the case nobody has yet managed to actually provide any evidence to support it that isn't just guesswork and supposition. Thryduulf (talk) 13:16, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- My comment is based on the fact that it would be vastly more resource intensive to nominate what would be the vast majority for deletion just to save the very few that may one day be expanded. Polyamorph (talk) 13:09, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Leaving them in article space provides also provides a mechanism for those that do have potential to be sourced and improved by interested users, with the added benefits of them being very significantly easier to find and there being no deadline for them to do so. Any articles that do not have such potential can be evaluated and nominated for deletion just as easily in either location. Thryduulf (talk) 12:52, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
collapsing extended discussion
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- Support per many above reasonings and the nomination. Mass-draftify is a suitable answer to mass-creation by editors who couldn't be bothered to expand their own creations and instead left them to rot. Taking these all to AfD is patently unfeasible, so draftifying them and letting them either be expanded by editors who want to, or eventually deleted as stale, is acceptable. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support This sort of mass creation needs a mass-draftity. These articles which mostly only contain statistical information are really of no use. The stats site that the information is from will be updated, but who's checking the Wikipedia "mirror"? Nigej (talk) 17:32, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose: there's no evidence that spending more time in the Draft namespace helps the quality of Wikipedia. Nemo 04:38, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per last time. Anarchyte (talk) 14:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Discussion (mass draftification of cricket articles)
If there is a consensus for this proposal than I plan to boldly create the following redirects in line with If this proposal is successful #5, unless there are issues with doing so that I have missed. This is in response to a request by members of WikiProject Cricket.
BilledMammal (talk) 06:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Convenience break (mass draftification of cricket articles)
- @BilledMammal: - why only A-D? How about E-Z? starship.paint (exalt) 06:47, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Doing from A-Z would have involved nominating ~5000 articles. We decided that was too large a step up from the first RfC and so decided to limit this nomination to the first 1200. BilledMammal (talk) 07:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I see. Thank you. starship.paint (exalt) 07:30, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Who is "we"? Why do the discussions among this unspecified "we" not appear in the Background section of this RfC? It would seem like important background. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Since @BilledMammal did not feel it necessary to answer this question, I did it myself. The discussion happened on this subpage of his user page, and the "we" in question appears to be Paradise Chronicle, Avilich, Levivich, Dlthewave, S Marshall, and FOARP. It does not seem to be a widely publicized discussion. I wouldn't call it "secret," because it is a public page; but I will note that when MatthewAnderson707 found it via Google, BilledMammal's reaction was
I'm a little confused how you found this discussion
, and when BeanieFan11 commented, the reaction was the same (I found it by going through BilledMammal's contributions. I suppose I should apologize for drawing public attention to this public page.) - I would agree with the comment by @Spike 'em:
hiding this away in user space and demanding to know how people found it does not come across as collaborative to me.
Its omission from the "Background" section is misleading. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2023 (UTC)Since @BilledMammal did not feel it necessary to answer this question
I did not notice this question; it had only been up for two hours and this discussion has already become extensive. It would have been helpful if you had pinged me on the first message you left, rather than just the second.- Regarding the rest of your comment, there have already been a couple of discussions on that opened by an LTA; see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1129#Failure to assume good faith and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 182#NSPORTS proposal and outcome should be null and void. BilledMammal (talk) 18:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for the links to the discussions. (I had assumed you had seen it since you had responded to other comments in the intervening time; apologies for the assumption.) These should also have been included in the Background section; "the proposal was successful and this proposal continues this process" elides a lot of context. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I liken the idea of "mass draftification" of articles to be similar to what Richard Beeching did with British Railways in the 1960s. Removing vast pieces of the system without much care creates issues that still impact the United Kingdom today. This is very much the Wikipedia equivalent to the "Beeching Axe" and appears to be more of a reckless mass purge than something that would benefit the website. "The Great Purge", if you will. This action could easily be taken or misunderstood by the general public as "Wikipedia is purging articles as part of an agenda" or something of the like, coming back to impact the entire website in a negative light. I'd like to please appeal to the masses that this is a bad idea and will only create negative repercussions. I would also like to add that this could be a "back door" to bypass the AFD process and save time. I left a similar comment expressing the red flags mass draftification put forward in the discussion I was apparently not supposed to see, according to Gnomingstuff. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 18:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Gnomingstuff, BilledMammal is being hounded. His edits are followed and targeted by people who want to disrupt what he's doing. He started a discussion in his own userspace about which RfC to pursue next, and his stalkers materialised very promptly indeed. Note that there is no reason at all why that discussion had to be public. It was a strategy discussion, not one that would lead directly to a change. But prominent pointers to it were swiftly posted in the places where sports inclusionists gather, and they soon arrived en masse. I agree with you that there's un-Wikipedian behaviour in evidence here. I don't agree with you about who's perpetrating it.—S Marshall T/C 18:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I sincerely hope this isn't an accusation that I'm hounding or "stalking" BilledMammal, considering this was a reply to my own comment and not Gnomingstuff. If this was an accusation, then allow me to provide a defense in response. I came across the discussion in question by chance and have never interacted with or paid much attention to said user before or since. The only reason I even participated in this discussion is because I was notified after being mentioned. I have a right to partake in a discussion involving myself in any shape or form. If anything, I felt I should share my misgivings about the situation since I was brought into the conversation. I would like further to clarify the link to the discussion in question was provided most kindly by Gnomingstuff, allowing me to refresh my mind on this topic. I would like to conclude with if this happens to be an accusation directed at myself among others, I do not appreciate defamation or being likened to slanderous behavior or implied of causing such, and would ask you take your personal attacks elsewhere. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 19:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- You think its the "inclusionists" who are hounding others and are being un-wikipedian? I would say the opposite; there's at least one "deletionist" who's hounded the heck out of me for the past several months. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @S Marshall: I can confirm this has happened, after reviewing talk page archives for BeanieFan11, linked for everyone's convenience. I apologize in advance if this assessment is wrong, but at a glance, it appears BilledMammal has also participated in hounding, as there are several messages on BeanieFan11's archives, accusing the user of negative activity. Your accusations and slander are not only a potential violation of WP:CIVIL, but are a case of the teapot calling the kettle black. Also, accusations of hounding doesn't change the fact key details pertaining to the goals and purpose of this RfC were withheld from the RfC discussion page in a private talk page that would normally be unseen by users participating in this discussion. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- FWIW, MatthewAnderson707, BilledMammal wasn't the user I had in mind, though he's done a bit of that as well. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @S Marshall: I can confirm this has happened, after reviewing talk page archives for BeanieFan11, linked for everyone's convenience. I apologize in advance if this assessment is wrong, but at a glance, it appears BilledMammal has also participated in hounding, as there are several messages on BeanieFan11's archives, accusing the user of negative activity. Your accusations and slander are not only a potential violation of WP:CIVIL, but are a case of the teapot calling the kettle black. Also, accusations of hounding doesn't change the fact key details pertaining to the goals and purpose of this RfC were withheld from the RfC discussion page in a private talk page that would normally be unseen by users participating in this discussion. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Calling people "stalkers" is, unquestionably, a personal attack. (As someone with several friends who have experienced actual, real-world stalking, I find it rather offensive.) For that matter, I don't especially care about sports (besides very casually watching the NBA playoffs), let alone enough to be a "sports inclusionist" or to "gather" wherever those people gather. One of these days, people will start enforcing WP:CIVIL, which is official, longstanding policy.
- As far as "disrupt[ing] what he's doing," it is more disruptive to create a RfC with an incomplete version of the context, discussion, and planning leading up to that RfC than to provide links to it so that people can make informed arguments. It is more disruptive to hold an un-publicized discussion among a handful of editors with the stated intent of deleting thousands of articles and bypassing established deletion processes, while questioning anyone who happens to find it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I believe S Marshall is only saying that hounding has occured, which is obviously true, not that any of the editors here where involved. It's more likely some LTA trying to cause arguments. Also this wasn't planned in secret, although user space isn't necessary high visibility it is still publicly viewable. If it had been planned offwiki then it could be an issue, but that's not the case here. It was also brought to light both at ANI and VPP that the discussion was ongoing in BMs userspace. I do feel though that having somekind of pre-discussion at VPI could have alleviated some of these concerns. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- The question is, why were key details only talked about in a private user talk page, rather than on the RfC for better transparency? It's still withholding key details from the public to easily see or access without stumbling across it by accident or actively searching through Billed's activity to find. If an RfC is being made, people deserve to know all details involved with it and not have those details kept to private discussions, otherwise it gives the impression there is something to hide from people voting on the decision. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- There's often discussions done between editors before RfCs, and anything not in the RfC isn't considered by the closer. It's normal. SportingFlyer T·C 08:55, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The question is, why were key details only talked about in a private user talk page, rather than on the RfC for better transparency? It's still withholding key details from the public to easily see or access without stumbling across it by accident or actively searching through Billed's activity to find. If an RfC is being made, people deserve to know all details involved with it and not have those details kept to private discussions, otherwise it gives the impression there is something to hide from people voting on the decision. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I believe S Marshall is only saying that hounding has occured, which is obviously true, not that any of the editors here where involved. It's more likely some LTA trying to cause arguments. Also this wasn't planned in secret, although user space isn't necessary high visibility it is still publicly viewable. If it had been planned offwiki then it could be an issue, but that's not the case here. It was also brought to light both at ANI and VPP that the discussion was ongoing in BMs userspace. I do feel though that having somekind of pre-discussion at VPI could have alleviated some of these concerns. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Gnomingstuff, BilledMammal is being hounded. His edits are followed and targeted by people who want to disrupt what he's doing. He started a discussion in his own userspace about which RfC to pursue next, and his stalkers materialised very promptly indeed. Note that there is no reason at all why that discussion had to be public. It was a strategy discussion, not one that would lead directly to a change. But prominent pointers to it were swiftly posted in the places where sports inclusionists gather, and they soon arrived en masse. I agree with you that there's un-Wikipedian behaviour in evidence here. I don't agree with you about who's perpetrating it.—S Marshall T/C 18:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Since @BilledMammal did not feel it necessary to answer this question, I did it myself. The discussion happened on this subpage of his user page, and the "we" in question appears to be Paradise Chronicle, Avilich, Levivich, Dlthewave, S Marshall, and FOARP. It does not seem to be a widely publicized discussion. I wouldn't call it "secret," because it is a public page; but I will note that when MatthewAnderson707 found it via Google, BilledMammal's reaction was
- Doing from A-Z would have involved nominating ~5000 articles. We decided that was too large a step up from the first RfC and so decided to limit this nomination to the first 1200. BilledMammal (talk) 07:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal: - Help me out here - there are ones in the top list (Arthur Nott for example - just happens to be the first one I clicked on!) who should almost certainly be in this list aren't there? Is this list the ones where there was a link in the article to "List of..."? Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Is this list the ones where there was a link in the article to "List of..."?
Yes. Happy to work on trying to add others to the list if you have any suggestions; where do you think Arthur Nott should redirect to? BilledMammal (talk) 08:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- List of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club players I should think. I'll check the other Gloucs ones at some point as it might well be that they were all done in one set and so the link wasn't included. Thanks btw - it makes sense to have filtered them on that inclusion. It would possibly be useful to include a column in the top table that indicates they're in the bottom table? Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:42, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Luguts created the Gloucs ones in 2014. It seems the List of... links started to be added in 2015, so this might be an easier thing to deal with than I thought. What's going to be easiest - add the List of link to those articles are re-run the redirect query? Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think I'll be able to fix that looking at the categories; it shouldn't be necessary to add the links unless you want to do so for unrelated reasons. I'll look into it when I finish looking into the Brett Matthews problem.
- Regarding adding a column to the top table, I want to keep this possible WP:BOLD action separate from the formal proposal; however, if you want a list of articles that do not currently have a redirect target (I assume that is the reason you wanted that column) I can create that for you elsewhere? BilledMammal (talk) 08:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Ta - it might make life slightly easier. You could add it at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox7 if that's suitable. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Done. Will work on using categories to expand the list of proposed redirects when my mind is fresher. BilledMammal (talk) 13:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Ta - it might make life slightly easier. You could add it at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox7 if that's suitable. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Luguts created the Gloucs ones in 2014. It seems the List of... links started to be added in 2015, so this might be an easier thing to deal with than I thought. What's going to be easiest - add the List of link to those articles are re-run the redirect query? Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- List of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club players I should think. I'll check the other Gloucs ones at some point as it might well be that they were all done in one set and so the link wasn't included. Thanks btw - it makes sense to have filtered them on that inclusion. It would possibly be useful to include a column in the top table that indicates they're in the bottom table? Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:42, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- This is a much more mixed list than the last one. In particular, the mixture of much older athletes (eg. Arthur Nott) together with BLPs of currently active players (eg. Chintan Gaja) creates different considerations. Unlike with Olympic athletes, it's also less obvious to me where their context (if encyclopaedic) might be contained. (The Olympics info was already present elsewhere happily, how orphaned or not are these cricket articles?) CMD (talk) 09:58, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Most are contained within lists. Some, like Chintan Gaja, aren't because some of the lists are incomplete - although I have added him now. I'm going to try to craft a query that will allow me to identify those that should be in a given list but aren't. BilledMammal (talk) 12:28, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- BilledMammal Like the last RFC, I notice that there is mention of a Quarry query using those 5 metrics, but no accompanying query with it. Can you first show the query itself as well? In particular I am curious how you plan to implement #4 (only CricketArchive or ESPNcricinfo refs) and #5 (no other editors) without adding some assumptions.Likewise, you should have added #6 (Alphabetically first 1200 among all articles that follow 1-5), because it wasn't clear to me without reading discussions that you restricted this to A-D (As opposed to taking everything that matched 1-5). In other words, I want to confirm again that the list provided above has no assumptions other than the 5 points mentioned aboveSoni (talk) 12:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Quarry:query/73984
- Regarding your #6, I did say
these 1,200 articles are a subset of the articles that meet the following criteria
, emphasis mine, but I could have made it clearer. BilledMammal (talk) 12:28, 8 July 2023 (UTC)- @BilledMammal That still does not clarify my main question. Did you apply any other metric other than #1-#5 (and #6, alphabetcal) when curating this list? I'm trying to figure out how much additional filters were applied.
- For example, did someone do a run-through of the list manually to quick-check things and remove any "this is obviously a mistake"? I'm trying to tell if there was any manual (or automatic) filtering from the quarry query Soni (talk) 06:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, while not every article in the list was reviewed we did review a substantial portion; when errors were discovered (articles that should be excluded per the criteria) we would modify the query to ensure that those errors, and any like them, were excluded. BilledMammal (talk) 07:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I estimate that I've probably looked at 300 or so in some detail - clicking through to the CricInfo reference on each - and maybe another 200 or so briefly. Obviously people have looked at others as well. The scale of the list and the sheer amount of work required the check is really problematic and something that I'm still not entirely comfortable with (although, as indicated above) I'm not unhappy to compromise). I think there are better ways to approach future lists - the list with team categories that BilledMammal provided is a really helpful way of picking out people that are more likely to show up as interesting. In some ways, providing a list for checking of, say, English cricketers (there are 298 that Lugnuts created that fall into the sort of category of articles BM is suggesting) would be much more manageable - it would let us pick out people like David Partridge (cricketer) quickly (he played in over 100 top-level games in England - there will be a tonne of coverage on him, although he falls into the time span where it'll be difficult to find online sources (he's worth removing from the list actually - I already have three or four sources)). I appreciate that there's a demand to get through the 5-6000 articles that have been identified, but smaller, more targeted lists might be a better longer-term approach perhaps Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal: Can we make a "Draftified Lugnuts articles" category to keep track of all of the Cricket and Olympic draftifications? It would be quite useful. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- See Category:All drafts subject to special procedures BilledMammal (talk) 16:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- See what? QuicoleJR (talk) 16:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- NVM, I see it now. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:52, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I messed up the link; thank you BeanieFan11 for fixing it. BilledMammal (talk) 16:54, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- See what? QuicoleJR (talk) 16:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- See Category:All drafts subject to special procedures BilledMammal (talk) 16:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think there are around 573 articles in the list for redirection, yes? On a rough count. BilledMammal provided me with a list of 625 articles (at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox7). Working through that and looking for other redirects I **think** I have another 306 or so which have lists to redirect to. That leaves 319 to draft - lists at that sandbox. There are a number of shortcuts that we could adopt in this sort of situation in future - I've noted those at that sandbox. I'll comment above regarding this as well as there are a few issues. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Random question: are we going to treat suspected WP:BLPs differently? SportingFlyer T·C 21:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think I've come across a BLP of this kind where there's anything in the articles that isn't 100% verifiable fwiw Blue Square Thing (talk) 06:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I understand the thought process of discussing these mass created articles in chunks rather than all at once, but it raises another question: are we going to have to go through this agonizing debate every single time? I don't see the level of consensus significantly changing between WP:LUGSTUBS, this discussion, and the next one, but I do see it taking up many cumulative hours every single time a new one of these is opened, and more bad blood forming each time. And let's say that becuase of who happens to show up for a given discussion, the consensus does change. Say the consensus for E-H tilts oppose while the consensus for A-D and I-L tilts support. Does this mean we have an island of thousands of cricketers whose names start with E, F, G, and H that are immune to mass draftification and have to be sorted manually simply because of a procedural quirk? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:21, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is that there's so many to check, especially when it comes to identifying redirect targets. The 625 that I checked through yesterday to identify redirects (309 ahve redirect targets) cost me a few hours of time. I think there are some future shortcuts we might take to be clever, but it's not straightforward Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm definitely going to be able to create the redirects targets in an automated way even when the article doesn't currently include a link to the list using categories. I also expect to be able to expand lists that are currently missing players based on the categories, but I will want to take that through a WP:BRFA first.
- In general I will want to go through larger groups in the future - my plan if there is a consensus for this is to do the rest of the articles that meet this criteria in a single group - but I also want to do whatever I can with quarry and possibly a bot to make it easier for you. BilledMammal (talk) 08:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not sure you'll get consensus for that many at once. I'm not sure that I could be persuaded that it's a good thing. There are better ways of dealing with these I think. We can get it done in a decent timeframe still, but there are significant issues that a number of editors have raised about checking articles; I don't think this passing gives consensus for presenting a much longer list you know. Trying to check 1,200 has been hard work; over 4,000 in one hit is a different ball game. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- My thinking is that while these RfC's are better than 1200 AfD's in terms of consuming the communities time they still do consume considerable amounts of time, and the community will become worn with them if done too often or frequently. At a rate of one every four months, and ~1200 in each, it will take us ten years to go through Lugnut's mass creations alone, assuming that half of them need to be brought through a process like this or similar.
- That doesn't mean we can't adjust the process. Perhaps if the list was provided to the relevant WikiProject - in this case WikiProject Cricket - three months in advance? BilledMammal (talk) 13:20, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Be much easier to deal with the lists broken down by nationality. There are about 1,200 Australians in all, for example. We know what we're doing with them - there are redirects for virtually all of them, but we might also be able to filter out some articles that there's clearly a good reason for setting to one side. The problem with the way they're broken down right now is that you're jumping around geographically so much, which has a major impact when you're considering redirects and sources and so on. If we broke those Australian's down further it would be even easier - people can cope with a list of 234 Tasmanians or 320 Victorians. That's manageable. Someone can sensibly sit down and push through most of the list in a day or so, make some decisions and then recommend some solutions. I think that's a way forward. Well, for me it is, but there's probably people who have created cricket articles who are sticking pins in effigies of me right now. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Would it be suitable if I provide the lists with groupings like that to WikiProject Cricket, but when it comes time for the RfC to group them together? I would prefer not to keep them split in that manner both because it limits the size of the group and because it will result in accusations about racism and systematic bias regardless of which nationality the group is "targeted" at. BilledMammal (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I was worried about that element as well - but the reality is that we have much better sourcing for some nations than others. And people have more of an interest in some teams than others - someone's already looked over the Surrey ones to check that there's nothing obvious that really shouldn't be there, for example. It's also going to be worth asking at various other wikiprojects - there are IPL and PSL projects and they might fancy looking at Indian and Pakistani articles. There are certainly enough people editing cricket articles from the south Asian area that if they saw a list might do something about it perhaps.
- I think the list at my Sandbox6 probably already does what we need to a greater or lesser extent. I'v just worked up a formula in Excel to check how many cats a players is in - if it's not 2 then there are decisions to be made. There are probably some other technical things that we could do to make things a little simpler to handle, but it'll take a little while to get that done. It would certainly be easier to categorise in various ways, just so as someone can say "hey, I got the Otago list; can someone else do Canterbury" Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:54, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm happy to send the subsets anywhere you like; it would make sense to let editors from the area take a look and see what they can do.
I'v just worked up a formula in Excel to check how many cats a players is in - if it's not 2 then there are decisions to be made.
It's probably easier for me to get that done in Quarry; just let me know the sorts of categories you want included in the count. In general, if there is some questions you have about the full dataset it might be easier to ask me; even if you're not convinced that it can be automated I might be able to manage something, particularly since I've recently started looking at bots - I'm hoping I can use them to reduce both the false negative and the false positive rate from our article selection criteria (for example, a bot would allow us to look at the number of words of prose, rather than estimating whether an article is substantial based on the number of bytes.)- If it needs a bot rather than a quarry query it might take a little more time for me to get you the answer, but I suspect it will still take far less time than doing it manually. BilledMammal (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Would it be suitable if I provide the lists with groupings like that to WikiProject Cricket, but when it comes time for the RfC to group them together? I would prefer not to keep them split in that manner both because it limits the size of the group and because it will result in accusations about racism and systematic bias regardless of which nationality the group is "targeted" at. BilledMammal (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Be much easier to deal with the lists broken down by nationality. There are about 1,200 Australians in all, for example. We know what we're doing with them - there are redirects for virtually all of them, but we might also be able to filter out some articles that there's clearly a good reason for setting to one side. The problem with the way they're broken down right now is that you're jumping around geographically so much, which has a major impact when you're considering redirects and sources and so on. If we broke those Australian's down further it would be even easier - people can cope with a list of 234 Tasmanians or 320 Victorians. That's manageable. Someone can sensibly sit down and push through most of the list in a day or so, make some decisions and then recommend some solutions. I think that's a way forward. Well, for me it is, but there's probably people who have created cricket articles who are sticking pins in effigies of me right now. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not sure you'll get consensus for that many at once. I'm not sure that I could be persuaded that it's a good thing. There are better ways of dealing with these I think. We can get it done in a decent timeframe still, but there are significant issues that a number of editors have raised about checking articles; I don't think this passing gives consensus for presenting a much longer list you know. Trying to check 1,200 has been hard work; over 4,000 in one hit is a different ball game. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is that there's so many to check, especially when it comes to identifying redirect targets. The 625 that I checked through yesterday to identify redirects (309 ahve redirect targets) cost me a few hours of time. I think there are some future shortcuts we might take to be clever, but it's not straightforward Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - I supported the previous draftification, but I'm hesitant to support this process in general. In particular, the selected query criteria seem a little arbitrary, and I would love to see better justification for the selected criteria. This process makes me think of bot approvals discussions for things like vandalism removal or error fixing: a total set of articles is identified, but a small random sample is retained for initial, manual evaluation. Basically, what is the precision of your query, i.e. what percentage of these articles should we expect to be truly non-notable vs what percentage would be found to be notable (and improved) if submitted to WP:AFD? I would suggest that a test would be relatively cheap: submit a random 50 of these articles to AFD and see what happens. Has there been a thought about running a test like this, rather than Village Pump discussions about 1000 articles at a time with slightly varying criteria? Suriname0 (talk) 04:57, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment -@Suriname0 - The plan at one point seemed to be to mass draft even more than 1,000 articles at a time. KatoKungLee (talk) 17:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Multi-article AfDs have generally ended as train wrecks, and sending 50 articles singularly to AfD has resulted in threads at ANI as the AfD process isn't up to the task of some many discussions happening at the same time. Hopefully a better solution than these RFC's can be found, but other methods have already been attempted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- ActivelyDisinterested - If the people who want these articles gone don't want to actually see if these people are notable and if the same people also don't feel like even making the case for them to be deleted in AfD, are the articles really problems? The more this goes on, the more it becomes clear to me that the people mass creating these articles without proper research and the people calling for these articles to be deleted without proper research, really seem to be two sides of the same coin. The articles just HAVE to be made/deleted without proper research as soon as possible despite there being WP:NORUSH.KatoKungLee (talk) 13:27, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- My comment was in regard to how the AfD processed isn't really setup to handle large volumes, if you have any ideas about that I'm more than willing to listen. I have no interest in redoing the argument that has been going on, as it's been going round in circles for months. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:10, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, I was suggesting 50 independent AfD submissions, with the intent of estimating the precision of the query used to identify this set of articles. If the concern is that this is a backdoor to deletion, it would be nice to know approximately how many notable articles would be incorrectly "deleted" in this way. Suriname0 (talk) 02:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- And as I said if you send 50 articles to AfD today, you find yourself at ANI tomorrow. This isn't a new issue, it has gone round and round these ideas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- ActivelyDisinterested - If the people who want these articles gone don't want to actually see if these people are notable and if the same people also don't feel like even making the case for them to be deleted in AfD, are the articles really problems? The more this goes on, the more it becomes clear to me that the people mass creating these articles without proper research and the people calling for these articles to be deleted without proper research, really seem to be two sides of the same coin. The articles just HAVE to be made/deleted without proper research as soon as possible despite there being WP:NORUSH.KatoKungLee (talk) 13:27, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Comment. I think the "If this proposal is successful" caveats 1-5 make this proposal too complex. I think it'd have a better chance of passing and of being implemented smoothly without those caveats. For example, trying to make G13 not apply to these for 5 years is going to mess up reports and require special tracking of when the 5 year timer is up. The special tracking will require special reports, special templates, special categories, and modification of the text at WP:G13. Requiring that these pass GNG to be returned to mainspace would require some kind of detection and enforcement mechanism. Allowing userfication and adoption by WikiProjects is already allowed and probably doesn't need to be mentioned explicitly. I think the normal draftify rules would be best, and the only caveat should be that no one is allowed to return these to mainspace en masse. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- Would you have any objection to anyone bringing them back en masse as merge and redirects? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry if I'm being obtuse, not enough coffee yet, but how logistically would bringing them back en masse as merge and redirects actually work? If this is just a stupid question from a non-techie editor, feel free to take it to my talk instead of here. Valereee (talk) 10:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Imagine a world in which a group of dedicated volunteers got together to build an encyclopedia that was both inclusive of all encyclopedic content, and laid out usefully so that little bits of it were not scattered around and hard to find. Maybe some of them have the skills to code a gadget to take some of the the scattered bits and put them in places that make the encyclopedia more user-friendly by adding them to articles where they are in context by category, and easily accessible by searches. While you are indulging these flights of whimsy, imagine that the editors had the good sense to do this in the first place... Then drink your coffee and come back to reality, and the herding of cats. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:13, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry if I'm being obtuse, not enough coffee yet, but how logistically would bringing them back en masse as merge and redirects actually work? If this is just a stupid question from a non-techie editor, feel free to take it to my talk instead of here. Valereee (talk) 10:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Would you have any objection to anyone bringing them back en masse as merge and redirects? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Just noting I'm sampling and investigating some of the Australian cricketers to see if there's coverage on Trove – a useful but often overlooked Australian newspaper archive. So far I have investigated and found sources for David Taylor (Australian cricketer), which I believe would now need to be removed from the list. – Teratix ₵ 02:36, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Per many others' comments. In addition, I see such a step leading to prevention of steps such as taken by Teratix, and by myself with Alfred Grace, which is now quite a decent article. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 11:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose The collateral damage would make the site worse than the benefit provided in saving people work. The remedy for what Lugnuts did was to catch him earlier; not to indiscriminately remove from coverage a large number of articles that have a reasonable possibility of passing the notability criteria. Jack4576 (talk) 13:43, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Alternative proposal (mass-draftification of cricket articles)
- Most of these substubs would be quite acceptable content if merged into an existing article which already meets general notability.
- The existing database references are adequate for mention in an already accepted topic. I.e. the information itself, while minimal, is encyclopedic, verifiable, neutral and non-trivial. Someone may even find it useful educational or interesting. It is within scope for Wikipedia.
- Most of the articles already give enough information to find a suitable article or list to merge them into.
- A category for all these articles can be divided into subcategories based on the category of article which they could be merged into without dispute. This would make it quicker to find merge targets
- A few new articles and lists might be needed for the outliers. This should not be a problem in most cases.
- Merging one of them into a list and leaving a redirect would be about the same amount of work as commenting meaningfully and usefully on AfD for that article, and would be constructive and almost always non-controversial. Far less a waste of time than this RfC, because all of the work and time expended would actually be fixing the problem and building the encyclopedia.
- Some of the substubs might be found unusable, AfD them.
Looks like a no-brainer, what have I missed? Cheers · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 13:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
- We're a bit short of lists in some parts of the world. Yesterday morning I created List of Sikkim cricketers which is a quick one to do. There are others that will be harder to do and that *I* won't have time to anytime soon. The majority of the easy to access source information that would be most useful to use is behind a slightly annoying paywall as well. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps the WMF could be persuaded to put some of the donors' money into access to that paywalled stuff, though it might be a bit of a shock to the donors to see their money going towards expanding content. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- The BOLD redirecting of such articles seems a simple solution, as a simple revert brings it back if someone wants to improve it. It's something I was for in the last RFC, unfortunately it didn't get much support. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, me too. For some reason hardly anyone sees it as obviously logical. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Merging the articles into one master list or a series of lists is a significantly better proposal and wouldn't require an RFC at all if the content and sources were largely preserved. Steven Walling • talk 01:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
- And we would end up where this whole farce should have started, with encyclopedic information preserved where it best fits. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 16:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- So given that it's within policy, why don't we just do it? We can propose a list grouping scheme to WikiProject Cricket. Steven Walling • talk 00:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- In the past such changes have been reverted so some caution is suggest, but you could always give it a go. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:11, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- So given that it's within policy, why don't we just do it? We can propose a list grouping scheme to WikiProject Cricket. Steven Walling • talk 00:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- And we would end up where this whole farce should have started, with encyclopedic information preserved where it best fits. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 16:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Merge work is pretty tedious. I don't have an objection to merging, but what I've often seen after merge discussions end with consensus to merge is that no one actually wants to do that work. Valereee (talk) 18:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Sorting the stubs into categories would be a good start, as a large part of the work would be finding a suitable destination article. For a job this big, maybe some skilled hacker could write us a script for the actual merge and redirect work, as it would be fairly repetetive. Perhaps some of those who are so keen to get rid of the stubs would put in a bit of constructive work, and perhaps some of those who are keen to not lose the content would help. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 05:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Also, though tedious, it is actively constructive, which puts it ahead of tedious and unconstructive debate, and much less tedious than AfD first, then merging. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:21, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- Also far less pointy than AfD or mass draftifying. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:24, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
- BlueSquareThing and I have been discussing ways to do this. If there is a consensus for this proposal we are likely to take a WP:BOLD action to merge and redirect many of these in line with If this proposal is successful #5. BilledMammal (talk) 10:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Merging and redirecting to lists eliminates any objection centered on this violating deletion policy, per WP:ATD-M. Any particular article that editors want to expand with additional sources can be unmerged later, but in the meantime that route preserves the minimal current content and reader ability to access it. The main thing remaining is to get a mapping of which stubs would go to which lists, but the obvious framework seems to be country of origin and year they played. Steven Walling • talk 02:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Regarding the years they played in, some of the difficulty is that these stubs don't include that information; for example, Dean Mazhawidza. Indeed, this is part of the issue with Lugnut's mass creations; if we really wanted these mass created we should have written a bot to do it; it would have taken considerably less work, would have permitted the inclusion of considerably more information, and would have prevented the inaccuracies - whether deliberate or accidental - that we see in many of Lugnut's creations.
- When I have the initial draft of the plan for merging and redirecting I'll ping you to it, as I believe you'll have useful insights on what can be added or changed. BilledMammal (talk) 07:41, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
- Merging and redirecting to lists eliminates any objection centered on this violating deletion policy, per WP:ATD-M. Any particular article that editors want to expand with additional sources can be unmerged later, but in the meantime that route preserves the minimal current content and reader ability to access it. The main thing remaining is to get a mapping of which stubs would go to which lists, but the obvious framework seems to be country of origin and year they played. Steven Walling • talk 02:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Improved articles
Editors who have improved any of the articles on this list please add them to User:BilledMammal/Improved cricketers, so that I can ensure they are not draftified with the rest at the end of the discussion. While I should catch any that have been improved I may miss some, and adding them to that page will ensure I don't miss yours. Pinging James500, who I know has improved some. BilledMammal (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- I have anything I've worked on watchlisted, so I'll pick anything up that way. Tbh I've been working on lots of articles, only some of which might be on this list, so I think we'll catch any that way - I assume that a bold revert would be entirely appropriate in these circumstances! I'll try and get to some of the other things above when I have time, but I've missed quite a bit of this. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
- Just noting I've added the ones I've improved so far and will continue to do so. – Teratix ₵ 21:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Structural observation for closer(s)
The actual question of the rfc (bolding added) is "Should the following 1,182 biographical microstubs, which were mass-created by Lugnuts and cover cricketers, be moved out of article space? Much of the discussion does not directly answer that question but instead discusses several different particular ways of moving them out of article space. IMO the close still needs to respond on the actual RFC question. It's possible there there could be a consensus to move out of article space but no consensus on any particular way to do that in which case a second RFC might be required. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:35, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think most of the oppose votes see the various means of removing from article space without direct deletion as de facto or "backdoor" deletion, since once removed from mainspace that is where they will likely end up anyway even if consensus to delete doesnt exist. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 04:34, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- The question at the top of the thread is not the proposal the community has been asked to discuss. The section Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Details (mass draftification of cricket articles) says "If this proposal is successful: All articles on the list will be draftified, subject to the provisions below". That statement is the proposal the community has been asked to discuss. James500 (talk) 08:04, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can we not create new sections just to bias the whole discussion? Yes, if you only look at the support !votes, this is the framing. I thought about creating yet another subsection to clarify that "The actual question of the rfc (bolding added) is 'Should we disregard the deletion policy in order to remove 1,182 articles out of process, based only on the size, current sourcing, and name of the creator?' Much of the discussion does not directly answer the question about the deletion policy but instead focuses on the manner of creation or guesses as to notability of the group." ... but creating new subsections just to skew things towards a position that I happen to agree with is...not ideal. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:23, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- As with the first discussion, the fact this is happening at VPP and the nature of the question is inherently that this will be an exception to the normal process. I would hope that no-one was unsure about that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:07, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you mean by "an exception to the normal process"? The proposal is to take actions contrary to the normal process regarding over a thousand articles, but the discussion about it should follow the normal processes of discussions - including those regarding canvassing, determining consensus and attempting to bias the closer. Thryduulf (talk) 21:22, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think we're getting cross-wired. My point was that I believe editors knew this was meant as an exception to the normal process. Not anything about 'canvassing, determining consensus' etc. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:40, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you mean by "an exception to the normal process"? The proposal is to take actions contrary to the normal process regarding over a thousand articles, but the discussion about it should follow the normal processes of discussions - including those regarding canvassing, determining consensus and attempting to bias the closer. Thryduulf (talk) 21:22, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- As with the first discussion, the fact this is happening at VPP and the nature of the question is inherently that this will be an exception to the normal process. I would hope that no-one was unsure about that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:07, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - Here's as good a place to post this as any: I count 66 support !votes versus 44 oppose !votes. That's 60% support, and growing. Of course WP:NOTAVOTE, but then the oppose !votes are overwhelmingly based on slippery-slope/IAR/deletion-by-backdoor arguments that were already rejected in WP:LUGSTUBS and - crucially - have not been born out by what happened after WP:LUGSTUBS. There has been no "slippery slope" as a result of WP:LUGSTUBS so how could there be one on this practically-identical issue? We have not open a new route that allows deletion to happen undiscussed - far from it! There can be no justifying keeping articles that don't meet WP:NSPORTS, least of all under IAR. The weight of the arguments is very much in favour of the support !voters. FOARP (talk) 10:29, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is an incredibly biassed summary. Most of the oppose !votes are not actually based on slippery slope arguments, but a great many support !votes are based on "IDOTLIKEIT" and IAR arguments and have not even attempted to address the legitimate arguments in opposition (and some that do just handwave them away). LUGSTUBS is not precedent-generating, but even if it were it has been explained in detail somewhere above how this is sufficiently different that it would not be reliable to regard it as such for this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Notifications (mass draftification of cricket articles)
The following people/pages will be notified:
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket:
Done (link) BilledMammal (talk) 06:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Those who commented in the previous RfC:
- @Abzeronow, ActivelyDisinterested, AirshipJungleman29, Ajpolino, Anarchyte, Aquillion, Avilich, Barnards.tar.gz, BeanieFan11, BhamBoi, BillHPike, BilledMammal, Bilorv, Blue Square Thing, BluePenguin18, Bluerasberry, BogLogs, Bradv, Buidhe, Casualdejekyll, Cbl62, Chipmunkdavis, Chris troutman, Curbon7, DFlhb, David Eppstein, David Fuchs, Donald Albury, Dr. Blofeld, Dr vulpes, Dweller, Ealdgyth, EdwardUK, Enos733, FOARP, Femke, Folly Mox, Freedom4U, Fyunck(click), GRuban, Galobtter, Gnomingstuff, Gonnym, GoodDay, Highway 89, Hobit, HouseBlaster, Hydronium Hydroxide, Iffy, and Indy beetle: BilledMammal (talk) 06:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @Isaacl, Ixtal, J947, JMWt, Jayron32, JeffUK, JoelleJay, Jogurney, Joseph2302, JuxtaposedJacob, KatoKungLee, Kevin McE, Kingsif, Kusma, Lepricavark, Levivich, Ljleppan, Loopy30, Moabdave, Mr.weedle, Mx. Granger, Nerd1a4i, Nononsense101, North8000, Nosferattus, Oaktree b, Occidental Phantasmagoria, Ortizesp, Paradise Chronicle, Pawnkingthree, Pelmeen10, PerfectSoundWhatever, Phil Bridger, Pppery, ProcrastinatingReader, QuicoleJR, Randy Kryn, Red-tailed hawk, Redfiona99, Renata3, Reywas92, Rlendog, Rschen7754, S Marshall, SMcCandlish, SWinxy, Schierbecker, Schwede66, Sennecaster, and Silver seren: BilledMammal (talk) 06:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- @SmokeyJoe, SnowFire, Sojourner in the earth, Soni, Starship.paint, Steven Walling, SunDawn, Suriname0, Terasail, Therapyisgood, Thryduulf, Tim O'Doherty, Toa Nidhiki05, Tvx1, Valereee, Visviva, WhatamIdoing, XAM2175, Zaathras, Lettherebedarklight, and Scope creep: BilledMammal (talk) 06:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Done BilledMammal (talk) 06:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Please list any other groups of editors you notify here. BilledMammal (talk) 06:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
- Noting that JoelleJay seems to be WP:CANVASSING by notifiying the new page patrol of this discussion. I'm not seeing how they're relevant at all to this discussion - this looks like an attempt to try to get more to vote "support." BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC) @BeanieFan11 and JoelleJay: Moved here from #Arbitrary break 2: Survey (mass draftification of cricket articles); it's an obscure section in a huge discussion and I can see why you both missed it, but I believe it is the best location for this discussion.BilledMammal (talk) 07:57, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- There are ongoing discussions on the impact of, in particular, mass-produced articles from autopatrolled editors, as well proposed changes to draftification procedures. Why wouldn't editors there be interested in this discussion, especially the 5-year draftification option? And why would NPP be expected to have any bias on whether and where the articles should remain? Sure, the content being "cricketer stubs" isn't relevant to NPP, but the proposed alternative to 6-month draftification and the conversations here surrounding draftifying in general are apropos. JoelleJay (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- But why notify them now, over a month after the start of the discussion and at a time when there's borderline no consensus for the proposal (i.e. a time when there's a need for more support to pass)? And NPP has historically been known for being more harsh towards sports articles so many of the members would be more likely to support than not. If Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron was still active, would you be alright with me notifying them, too? BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:17, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Because I only became aware of their current discussions on autopatrol and draftification/redirect suppression after they leaked into other venues a few days ago, and I thought those were adjacent enough topics that NPPers would be interested in this RfC as well. This discussion would benefit from fresh participants who are already familiar with notability guidelines and draftification policy. What evidence is there that they are especially biased against sports articles? And I think there's a sizable difference between a group accorded special user rights by admins to review new articles and a wikiproject dedicated to preventing article deletions... JoelleJay (talk) 21:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- But why notify them now, over a month after the start of the discussion and at a time when there's borderline no consensus for the proposal (i.e. a time when there's a need for more support to pass)? And NPP has historically been known for being more harsh towards sports articles so many of the members would be more likely to support than not. If Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron was still active, would you be alright with me notifying them, too? BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:17, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- While I generally support restrictions on notifying partisan groups of formal discussions, I find it odd that you are objecting to this notification given that in WP:LUGSTUBS you considered it appropriate to notify 24 sports-related WikiProjects, including seven that were unrelated to the articles being discussed. I also agree with JoelleJay that this conversation is pertinent to NPP, and find it hard to believe that they are collectively partisan (although if you are interested, I have thought of a few methods to identify partisan WikiProjects that we could also apply to assess whether NPP is partisan; feel free to open a discussion on my talk page).
- Finally, I disagree that this is borderline no consensus; given the size of the majority in support of the proposal, and the fact that the strength of argument on each side is roughly equal, it appears to my WP:INVOLVED eyes that there is a consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 07:57, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Based on the strength of the arguments it appears to my INVOLVED eyes that there is nothing approaching a consensus - sure there are more people making the same arguments in favour of the proposal, but almost none of them engage with the strong arguments in opposition whereas the clear majority of those opposed do directly relate to the supporting arguments. No new objective arguments supporting the proposal have been made since an uninvolved editor determined there was no consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 09:41, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think we're going to agree on which side has the strongest arguments so I won't argue that further, but I will point out that the close in which an
uninvolved editor determined there was no consensus
was overturned. BilledMammal (talk) 09:58, 2 September 2023 (UTC)- Since you agree that the arguments on both sides are equally strong, and since they are diametrically opposed, the only proper close would be No Consensus; Consensus is not a vote, and is determined by weight of arguments. This isnt a WP:1AM situation that numbers would be relevant.The vacating of the close was not based on the belief that there was consensus; The vacate was based on insufficient rationale and WP:INVOLVED. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 11:24, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- To clarify, I see the arguments as equally strong, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia Policy, as policy is silent on this question.
- When policy is silent we aren't deadlocked into doing nothing; this would result in absurdities, like not being able to change a policy because aside from the policy under discussion policy is silent on the issue. Instead, we assess if there is clear support for a position among the community, and if there is we see a consensus (a few exceptions apply, such as when core policies are involved, but no exceptions are relevant here).
- This is also the case when policy is not silent, but instead are conflicting or provide multiple options. Again, the arguments are equally strong, but rather than resulting in deadlock we instead ascertain consensus by seeing which position, in the specific instance under discussion, has the most support among the community; see WP:POLCON, which says
Editors must use their best judgement to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the specific situation at hand.
BilledMammal (talk) 12:03, 2 September 2023 (UTC)- A closer should pick the best of the supported options despite none of them getting consensus only when there is a clear consensus against the status quo. Given that a large proportion of the votes in opposition to this proposal are arguing in favour of the status quo (i.e. the articles should remain in article space, at least for now) a closer doing that here would be completely inappropriate. The most appropriate thing to do here is to stop beating a dead horse, acknowledge there is no consensus to do anything to these articles en mass and move on in a way that consensus agrees will not harm the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 12:31, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Since you agree that the arguments on both sides are equally strong, and since they are diametrically opposed, the only proper close would be No Consensus; Consensus is not a vote, and is determined by weight of arguments. This isnt a WP:1AM situation that numbers would be relevant.The vacating of the close was not based on the belief that there was consensus; The vacate was based on insufficient rationale and WP:INVOLVED. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 11:24, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think we're going to agree on which side has the strongest arguments so I won't argue that further, but I will point out that the close in which an
- Based on the strength of the arguments it appears to my INVOLVED eyes that there is nothing approaching a consensus - sure there are more people making the same arguments in favour of the proposal, but almost none of them engage with the strong arguments in opposition whereas the clear majority of those opposed do directly relate to the supporting arguments. No new objective arguments supporting the proposal have been made since an uninvolved editor determined there was no consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 09:41, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11, notifying a related project isn't canvassing. The notification was neutrally worded, the timing is completely reasonable given that this discussion was closed once already, and that talk has nearly 400 watchers. Neither the notification nor the timing are evidence of nefarious intent, and this discussion is contentious enough without making accusations of bad faith about people we're in disagreement with. Valereee (talk) 12:14, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Valereee: Eh, it just doesn't seem that relevant a project to this to me... not to mention that I was brought to ANI twice for the same issue when I notified actually relevant projects (e.g. the NFL for discussions about the NFL), and a significant number of those in support of this proposal (i.e. Joelle, BilledMammal, etc.) suggested that I should be warned and eventually sanctioned if I were to continue. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:58, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that the advertisement done here was unusual (and done at a noticeboard likely to draw a certain types of votes), but best to WP:AGF and let it be. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 16:01, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I understand, its just annoying how it doesn't work that way for me... BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:03, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @BeanieFan11, so, two things. First, without links or diffs I can't really assess the situation and whether it worked for you or not. For instance, did you get warned or sanctioned after leaving an announcement everyone agreed was neutral on a noticeboard many agreed could reasonably be considered relevant? Second, this kind of sounds almost like something between snark and retaliation, neither of which would be great strategies in a contentious discussion. :)
- Look, I get that this is an extremely annoying and frustrating discussion for a ton of people. That's why it's so important to AGF the hell out of things, even if you have to grit your teeth or walk away from the keyboard to do it. When you don't AGF in discussions like this, the person you're making look bad is yourself. Valereee (talk) 16:27, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Valereee: You can spend the next two hours of your time reading them here and here if you'd like - I was not sanctioned, but still did find it really annoying that I was called things like "a net negative and community time sink" and "incompetent," among other things (despite my enormous contributions to this website), partly for doing exactly what Joelle has done here. But anyway, I'm going to take your advice and walk away - at least from this discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:55, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- So, the first of the discussions linked above was the ANI where Beanie was reported for being uncivil and almost all discussion focused on that. I really hope the message Beanie took away from that discussion wasn't "the people who reported me and/or !voted for a warning suck" rather than what it should have been which was "maybe you shouldn't swear at people on Wikipedia". FOARP (talk) 12:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Valereee: You can spend the next two hours of your time reading them here and here if you'd like - I was not sanctioned, but still did find it really annoying that I was called things like "a net negative and community time sink" and "incompetent," among other things (despite my enormous contributions to this website), partly for doing exactly what Joelle has done here. But anyway, I'm going to take your advice and walk away - at least from this discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:55, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I understand, its just annoying how it doesn't work that way for me... BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:03, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that the advertisement done here was unusual (and done at a noticeboard likely to draw a certain types of votes), but best to WP:AGF and let it be. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 16:01, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Valereee: Eh, it just doesn't seem that relevant a project to this to me... not to mention that I was brought to ANI twice for the same issue when I notified actually relevant projects (e.g. the NFL for discussions about the NFL), and a significant number of those in support of this proposal (i.e. Joelle, BilledMammal, etc.) suggested that I should be warned and eventually sanctioned if I were to continue. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:58, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- There are ongoing discussions on the impact of, in particular, mass-produced articles from autopatrolled editors, as well proposed changes to draftification procedures. Why wouldn't editors there be interested in this discussion, especially the 5-year draftification option? And why would NPP be expected to have any bias on whether and where the articles should remain? Sure, the content being "cricketer stubs" isn't relevant to NPP, but the proposed alternative to 6-month draftification and the conversations here surrounding draftifying in general are apropos. JoelleJay (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Notes (mass draftification of cricket articles)
- ^ This excludes many mass-created microstubs, but it keeps the number of false positives extremely low
- ^ With the exception of ESPNcricinfo references with the subheading of "Stories" or "Wisden" as such references are not database sources
- ^ "Significant contributions" is defined as "larger than 200 bytes, excluding edits that are reverts or were reverted"
- ^ This does not mean that the article is guaranteed to be kept at AfD on the basis of the sources contained within it, just that it is possible to make a good faith argument at AfD that WP:GNG is met on the basis of those sources.
- ^ This option is provided to support editors who may determine that some of the articles on this list would be more useful as redirects than drafts.
- ^ Nominating 500 articles a month would increase by a third the number of articles going through AfD, and conservatively assuming that only half of Lugnut's creations have notability issues would take almost eight years
- ^ Most of these aren't candidates for draftification due to the extremely conservative nature of the query we decided to use
Replace nyt with reuters
i disagree with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3AFind_sources%2Ftemplates%2FFind_sources&diff=prev&oldid=722553515 . i propose to replace nyt with https://www.reuters.com/ .
reuters search link format is https://www.reuters.com/site-search/?query=Canton+Hong+Kong if keywords are "Canton Hong Kong". RZuo (talk) 20:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Because...? Why do you disagree with that change from 2018? Why are you making this proposal? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- there was no argument for why nyt was preferred over other news agencies to justify that edit.
- nyt is US-oriented. reuters is world-oriented.
- nyt has a paywall.
- just any of AP, reuters or AFP is better than nyt. RZuo (talk) 21:50, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Those sounds like "I don't like it", not an actual reason to change. Zaathras (talk) 22:18, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- I dunno, I think the paywall issue is a reasonable point. Schazjmd (talk) 22:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- I think all of them are reasonable points. --stultiwikiatext me 00:25, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
- I dunno, I think the paywall issue is a reasonable point. Schazjmd (talk) 22:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- Reuters also has a paywall that kicks in after a few complimentary articles.
- No reason we can't use both, though. We definitely should be suggesting both Reuters and AP. Masem (t) 22:47, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- If we were going to any more links, they should ideally be to non-paywalled articles. Reuters paywalls after a few articles, and NYT does similar. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- The Guardian begs for contributions, which apparently it sorely needs, but has been trying to stay solvent without a paywall (however non-subscribers will see a small, voluntary, "please contribute" box). It may not be quite so comprehensive as the AP, AFP or Reuters, and not everyone likes its political slant (any more than everyone likes those of The New York Times’ or The Wall Street Journal’s), but it's still (after 2 centuries) a sound source. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:50, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- reuters has a registration wall.
- it can be easily bypassed by browsing incognito. hit the wall? close and open incognito again.
- RZuo (talk) 21:12, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- If we were going to any more links, they should ideally be to non-paywalled articles. Reuters paywalls after a few articles, and NYT does similar. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- Valid points. Reuters tends to write with less editorial bias than the NYT. The US orientation can be a useful aspect in regards to US specific things. UnironicEditor (talk) 06:25, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that Reuters maintains a more neutral approach, because they make money by supplying news to anyone who will buy it from them. Yet responding to other comments above, I have also observed that Reuters is slowly moving to a more aggressive paywall model to ensure that they do in fact get paid. For this reason, I give less credence to paywall arguments and more to neutrality arguments. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:59, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
- Replacing NYT with Reuters in the find sources default seems controversial, but adding Reuters (or AP) search to the module (specifically Module:Find sources/links) as a link code option for templates to use (which it currently isn't) seems uncontroversial and is a necessary precursor for replacement or addition of Reuters/AP to default source search options. I've put in an edit request to add both AP and Reuters to the link codes. Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 00:27, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that Reuters maintains a more neutral approach, because they make money by supplying news to anyone who will buy it from them. Yet responding to other comments above, I have also observed that Reuters is slowly moving to a more aggressive paywall model to ensure that they do in fact get paid. For this reason, I give less credence to paywall arguments and more to neutrality arguments. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:59, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
- Those sounds like "I don't like it", not an actual reason to change. Zaathras (talk) 22:18, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- I agree I feel if there can be three sources for any given citation or story, it is better to look as unbiased as possible, with non profit sources, at least one so nothing seems tainted Coopaloop1984 (talk) 02:59, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Previous discussion: All, please see Module talk:Find sources/Archive 1#New York Times for prior discussion about this. There has been discussion about implementing a newspaper of record functionality so that the link will differ based on the article's geographic scope, but that has not been completed. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:17, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
- This inappropriately centres a certain worldview and should be removed at once. Jack4576 (talk) 13:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- Additional insight: NYT left-bias source 1, NYT left-bias source 2 non-biased alternatives --stultiwikiatext me 00:33, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
- Quoting from your own source about the NY Times:
- They are considered one of the most reliable sources for news information due to proper sourcing and well-respected journalists/editors.
- I see a lot of editors tossing out comments about NYT being left-biased which appear to fail to recognize a basic fact of the news business in the U.S., which is the separation of op-ed and editorial from the news side. As it happens, editorial and news at NYT are completely separate: if you work in editorial, you don't write news articles, and vice versa.(This article might enlighten.) Our WP:Verifiability for factual assertions should never be based on opinion or the views of the editorial board, but exclusively on reliable news reporting. That is one area where the NYT really shines, and is considered highly reliable for factual reporting by most observers, and in particular by your source. Searches such as
most reliable newspapers in the worldregularly turn up NYT in the top ten. The first result for that search happens to result in this Forbes article, which lists the New York Times as the #1 most reliable newspaper in the world. Reuters, AP, BBC, WSJ, The Guardian, C-Span, The Economist, and others regularly turn up on these "best of" or top ten lists as well. Mathglot (talk) 06:27, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- Quoting from your own source about the NY Times:
- Additional insight: NYT left-bias source 1, NYT left-bias source 2 non-biased alternatives --stultiwikiatext me 00:33, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
- I realize I never actually expressed an opinion here, partially because I don't feel particularly strongly. There is extremely strong consensus that NYT is a generally reliable source (with the usual reminder that this does not mean "unbiased" or "lacks an opinion section", nor does it mean "all claims can be accepted uncritically in all circumstances" or "by using only this source, you can build a neutral and complete article"). Though there have been a few less RSN discussions, there is similarly strong consensus that Reuters is a generally reliable source (with the same disclaimers). Including NYT, Reuters, both, or neither in "Find sources" all seem like perfectly fine options.
- Personally where I tend to start my source searches depends on what I'm looking for, but it's usually some form of aggregated search like Google News, newspapers.com, Archive.org book search, or Google Scholar. I also pretty much never use the template links though. Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 00:12, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
- nyt doesnt cover the world as much as the major agencies. for example:
- https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=Botswana&sort=newest
- https://www.reuters.com/site-search/?query=Botswana
- https://apnews.com/search?q=Botswana&s=1
- enwp is about the world, not usa. RZuo (talk) 07:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
- This inappropriately centres a certain worldview and should be removed at once. Jack4576 (talk) 13:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- I agree with GreenC here. The NYT remains a generally reliable source, though its fact-checking and neutrality seem, subjectively, to have been declining lately. But it offers a distinctively US East Coast-centric view on the world. Reuters is not behind a paywall (yet), merely a registration wall, and probably offers a more neutral take on world affairs. Fiachra10003 (talk) 20:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
- I don't understand why you agree with GreenC .. I said the agencies (Reuters etc) are not always neutral they produce multiple versions of the same story with different political slants so buyers can choose which is best for their local audience ie. The Texas Register might choose a version of the story that has a right-leaning slant, while the San Francisco Times might choose the version with a left-leaning slant. Same article, different emphasis for different readers. -- GreenC 17:04, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
- Can you provide some sources for this claim?
- The wire agencies started providing different leads some years back, but the difference was magazine-style vs traditional newspaper style, and it only affected the first sentence/paragraph. I have never heard of any of them offering a service for "slanting" the news. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- Seconding request for sources regarding Reuters producing stories with varying perspectives that media partners can choose from. Are you sure what you're seeing isn't the wire customer's in-house staff "contributing" to the wire story by adding interpretations that cater to their subscriber base? I do note that Reuters offers content creation partnership, so you can contract with them to produce content that fits your bias, but that doesn't seem to include their wire stories, and it's not clear if they even host the partnered content on the reuters.com domain. Folly Mox (talk) 18:42, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- @GreenC, I would like to learn more about the claims you're making. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't understand why you agree with GreenC .. I said the agencies (Reuters etc) are not always neutral they produce multiple versions of the same story with different political slants so buyers can choose which is best for their local audience ie. The Texas Register might choose a version of the story that has a right-leaning slant, while the San Francisco Times might choose the version with a left-leaning slant. Same article, different emphasis for different readers. -- GreenC 17:04, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Remove nyt
look, if a so called consensus to replace nyt cannot be established after 2 months, remove it then.
there was no consensus to choose nyt over any other sources in the first place, before the edit in question was made. so, now that the edit is contested, revert it.
maybe then in future you will find a consensus to use one or more websites, or not, but as it stands, contested edits without consensus should be reverted.--RZuo (talk) 11:07, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
- If we don't have a consensus to replace it (or to otherwise change it), why would we remove it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo, I'm wondering if you mean that if consensus to keep NYT can't be established, we should remove? Valereee (talk) 15:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- point to the consensus for its addition https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3AFind_sources%2Ftemplates%2FFind_sources&diff=prev&oldid=722553515 .
- afaict, there's never such a thing.
- yet there have been repeated questions and objections to using nyt. i'm not the first user to raise objection.
- i offered an alternative. maybe users like or dont like reuters, it doesnt matter. the problem is using nyt and nyt alone was never endorsed. why nyt? why not one of the other List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States#Top_10_newspapers_by_circulation, wsj, lat, wapo or the trib? (or List_of_newspapers_by_circulation#Top_newspapers_by_circulation, The Times of India?) the answer to that is obviously it was arbitrary and not discussed. RZuo (talk) 07:04, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Enterprisey, do you have any memory of the reasoning behind this, or whether there was discussion at the time? The edit summary doesn't provide any information on the rationale. Valereee (talk) 11:56, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Agree to the reasoning above. --stultiwikiatext me 13:09, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know for sure, but I vaguely recall that it might've been because AfC wanted it for their submission template, because they were already linking to a NYT search. Enterprisey (talk!) 16:37, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Without a clear consensus to change it (which I don't think we have yet) I think it should stay. If there were a newspaper source that was clearly regarded as more reliable it would be easier to get consensus but I can't imagine there's a single paper that someone won't object to. And as Mathglot says above, although the NYT's editorial stance is clearly left-leaning, their news reporting has as high a reputation as any in the country. They are a very reliable source for news and I see no reason to replace them here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:19, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Enterprisey, do you have any memory of the reasoning behind this, or whether there was discussion at the time? The edit summary doesn't provide any information on the rationale. Valereee (talk) 11:56, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- I do think that the NYT has become a bit more corporatized towards consumers, but I am not sure whether it's a good idea to go with Reuters instead. I would recommend maybe both NPR and BBC, as well as for non-Qatarian topics, Al Jazeera. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 17:01, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- A choice would be ideal, I see no reason to prefer NYT over AP, say.Selfstudier (talk) 17:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- I do think we should change NYT to something else. It's a fine source, but it's paywalled. AP and BBC might be my top two choices, but I would also support AFP, Reuters, Al Jazeera, or CBC. Folly Mox (talk) 16:43, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
Shortening US Township names
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.
So there's quite a few US township names which I would recommend that we shorten. The present naming scheme is X township, X County, X state, but in a lot of cases where there is only one township in such state, we shouldn't need to further complicate and disambiguate beyond necessity. I would propose mass-moving these township articles to a naming scheme that only names the township and state, and only disambiguating with the county when there are multiple townships in a state.
As an example, it makes sense to have this naming scheme for Peters Township, Pennsylvania, as one exists in Washington County and one more in Franklin County. However, the name for Upper St. Clair Township shouldn't be as long as its present incarnation, Upper St. Clair Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, as since there's only one Upper St. Clair in the entire state (not to mention the entire country), we don't need to disambiguate further. A relatively giant addition to giant text containing the county in the title when not needed is a major inconvenience and a waste of time; we have infoboxes and article body space which can do the same thing much more efficiently.
If examples outside of Pennsylvania are needed, more can be found. Blendon Township, Ohio only exists in Franklin County, so we don't need to add a giant Franklin County to the title for the only township of its name in Ohio. Likewise, there is only one Aitkin Township in all of Minnesota. And only one South Loup Township in Nebraska. Michigan townships already do this (see Beaver Township, Bay County, Michigan and Holmes Township, Michigan) disambiguating only when multiple townships of the same name exist like with Beaver Township in Newaygo and Bay counties. Michigan's naming scheme seems to have worked out well, so isn't it about time we expand this to the rest of the township-having United States? InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 12:47, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- I support this proposal. The change seems sensible and is in line with WP:PRECISE's guidance against over-precision. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
- Not sure if you want to restrict only to townships or not; townships are not a feature of every state, and if one source I checked (Ballotpedia) is correct, only 11 of the 50 states have them. In others, "towns" or other forms of municipality are used. If you extend beyond just states that have townships, then for example, New York State, which does not use townships, comes into play, and does have towns with duplicate names in different counties. See, for example, the lead of List of towns in New York. Mathglot (talk) 06:00, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- Since states that don't have townships won't use the token "township" in the title, I don't see what the problem is. "X, New York" will still be clearly distinct from "X Township, Minnesota". And if for some reason there are conflicts, we have tons of existing disambiguation guidelines to handle those. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:14, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support, but we may need some new hatnotes to distinguish township from city, etc., once the county is removed, as has been done at Addison Township, Michigan and Addison, Michigan. Certes (talk) 14:16, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- If "X" (a settlement that isn't a township) and "X Township" both exist in the same state then the former should have a hatnote regardless of whether the township article includes the county in the title or not. Thryduulf (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- That's a shame. We seem to have about 3300 that don't. Some of those may be covered by an "other uses" or similar hatnote giving access to several townships via a dab, but the sample I checked don't. Certes (talk) 17:18, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- If "X" (a settlement that isn't a township) and "X Township" both exist in the same state then the former should have a hatnote regardless of whether the township article includes the county in the title or not. Thryduulf (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I agree with ModernDayTrilobite. Thryduulf (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support. This is natural disambiguation and shorter article titles are better whenever possible. casualdejekyll 16:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I also agree with ModernDayTrilobite. Rocfan275 (talk) 15:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support With the caveat that "X Township" in one state may be named just "X" in another state; in some states, Townships are minor administrative divisions, like a second-order county and should be named "Anywhere Township, Foo"; in other states townships are municipalities, and should be treated as such, and the name "Anywhere, Foo" is appropriate. I agree that, if only one township exists in a state, there should never be the county name used, but nomenclature varies from state to state, and we should reflect usage rather trying to force a consistency into Wikipedia that doesn't exist in the world. --Jayron32 15:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - the nature of sub-county entities varies across the United States.
- In New Jersey, county government does little, if anything. NJ townships and boroughs provide local government functions.
- 90+% of adult North Carolinian don’t know their counties are technically divided into townships. These NC townships serve no purpose, have no authority and no administrative organization.
- Alaska has boroughs in some areas but sort-of-maybe-a-borough in other places.
- I don’t know how you get a uniform convention for 50 states. If you try, some good hearted, slightly OCD editor is going to go on a tear changing things in the wrong states to fit the rules. (No aspersions on slightly OCD editors- they’ve made Wikipedia great!)
- —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 00:42, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- Just as a tiny correction to North Carolina; township names are used for land survey purposes among a few other uses; title deeds for example will list the township(s) that a plot of land is in when defining it. And a few townships are also used as the name of a local unincorporated place, but that really should be treated as two separate entities that coincidentally share a name. That being said, you're basically right, no one at all knows what township they live in in North Carolina. --Jayron32 12:44, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
- I left a notice of this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography.—A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:00, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support - total no-brainer. In Wisconsin, where townships have governmental powers, I never use a county name unless necessary to disambiguate (which it sometimes is; Rome, Wisconsin is a notorious example). --Orange Mike | Talk 15:51, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Opposeas unworkable per my comment above. Also, we keep getting more and more rules. We should avoid adding more unless absolutely necessary. See our policy, ”Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy”
- —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 19:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- I would challenge this – as mentioned above, Michigan townships do this already. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 17:05, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- @InvadingInvader, help me out, here. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the proposal.
- Does this mean we end up with Concord, Township 2, Poplar Tent, North Carolina? Or maybe Concord, Township 3, Odell, North Carolina. Or one of several other dinky townships that Concord spreads across?
- North Carolina has 1035 townships that are mostly vestigal. Our civil township article has a paragraph describing the role of NC townships but there's no citation given and I've never seen any of those uses for them. 90+% of North Carolinians probably don't even know they exist.
- People in Concord just know they live in Cabarrus County, a strong local government unit that handles schools, EMS, taxing, zoning, law enforcement, etc.
- Can we get a carveout for states where townships don't have substantive powers?
- If a carveout is unacceptable, can you devise a good scheme for the many cities that spread across multiple townships? (As opposed to Concord, Township 2, Poplar Tent / Township 3, Odell / Township 12, Concord / etc., North Carolina)
- Thanks,
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 18:04, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- By the way, somebody has actually added a few township articles as denoted by blue links at List of townships in North Carolina. We don't need any of those articles.
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 05:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think you're misunderstanding the proposal. The proposal is seeking to shorten article titles when possible, not make them longer. To use one of the nominator's examples: Blendon Township, Franklin County, Ohio is the only Blendon Township in the state, thus the title should just be Blendon Township, Ohio. You link to NOTBURO above; this proposal seems to be going against the overly-bureaucratic current naming convention for townships. Curbon7 (talk) 06:03, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- My mistake. You're right, I misunderstood. Thanks for setting me straight.
- --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 16:20, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think you're misunderstanding the proposal. The proposal is seeking to shorten article titles when possible, not make them longer. To use one of the nominator's examples: Blendon Township, Franklin County, Ohio is the only Blendon Township in the state, thus the title should just be Blendon Township, Ohio. You link to NOTBURO above; this proposal seems to be going against the overly-bureaucratic current naming convention for townships. Curbon7 (talk) 06:03, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- I would agree with Curbon7 in his phrasing, and it's basically the same thing he said. Only disambiguate when necessary. For example, since there is only one Upper St. Clair Township in all of Pennsylvania, move it to Upper St. Clair Township, Pennsylvania instead of the current title at Upper St. Clair Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. However, since there are multiple Adams Townships in Pennsylvania, keep the current naming scheme for them. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:37, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- InvadingInvader: If the need to disambiguate a township by adding its county was rare then I'd be less dubious about the proposal... but evidence shows it's actually very much the reverse, which is one of the reasons that in many states we include the county name for all those states' township articles.
For example, you earlier cited Blendon Township, Franklin County, Ohio, and you're right that it is the only township of that name in the state. But if we look at the rest of the townships in that county we see that all but one is repeated, sometimes a truly impressive number of times: Brown (8 times), Clinton (7 times), Franklin (21 times), Hamilton (5x), Jackson (37x), Jefferson (24x), Madison (21x), Mifflin (5x), Norwich (2x), Perry (26x), Plain (4x), Pleasant (15x), Prairie (2x), Sharon (4x), and Washington (43x), leaving just Truro as the only other unique one. All the rest have to be disambiguated with the county name no matter what.
Since this is the case for so many, adding it for all makes for a more consistent and predictable set, per the guidance at WP:CONSISTENT (which advises using similar patterns for similar articles "to the extent that this is practical"). ╠╣uw [talk] 20:04, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- If this query is correct, there are 13,890 township articles with 10,027 different town+state combinations, including 8,659 unique combinations. Certes (talk) 21:17, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- Across all minor civil divisions nationwide I'm sure that's correct, but per WP:USPLACE we're directed to make such determinations on a per-state basis — and states vary quite considerably in how they name such divisions. The number of townships with duplicated names in New Jersey, for instance, is only about 11% (28 out of 241), whereas in some others the repeated names are a sizable majority: in Ohio they're 65% (884 out of 1362); in Indiana over 70% (707 out of 1008); etc. One size doesn't sensibly fit all in this case, so I strongly recommend following the guidance in our geographic naming conventions to consider this at the per-state level, not nationwide. ╠╣uw [talk] 00:01, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- If this query is correct, there are 13,890 township articles with 10,027 different town+state combinations, including 8,659 unique combinations. Certes (talk) 21:17, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
- InvadingInvader: If the need to disambiguate a township by adding its county was rare then I'd be less dubious about the proposal... but evidence shows it's actually very much the reverse, which is one of the reasons that in many states we include the county name for all those states' township articles.
- I would challenge this – as mentioned above, Michigan townships do this already. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 17:05, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support. Including the county name when there is only one township with the name in the state is over-precision. -- Tavix (talk) 20:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose. Per the minor civil divisions instructions at WP:USPLACE, changes to the convention for things like townships need to be approached at the state level, not unilaterally for the entire US, since minor civil division vary from state to state. I don't see any mention of this proposal at the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), so I must assume this proposal will be raised there for input in due course, as well as at all affected state-level Wikiprojects.
Also, for many states that have township divisions, township names are so frequently repeated that a majority would need the county name included regardless, so including it for all produces a set that's more predicable and consistent. For example, among the names of Indiana's 1008 townships, 707 names appear more than once within the state, and some are repeated literally dozens of times. (There are a staggering 47 Jackson Townships in Indiana; 46 Washingtons; 35 Unions, 28 Jeffersons, etc.)
Further: while in some states townships share features with towns or settlements, in others they're just subdivisions of a county and are rarely if ever identified in reliable sources without reference to its parent county. In short, I think this proposal would not be helpful or advisable. ╠╣uw [talk] 15:04, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Refideas notification upon editing an article
I propose that whenever a user clicks "Edit" on any article that has the Template:Refideas on its talk page, that the user will see a small yellow text box above the editing area that says "There are suggestions for sources on the talk page that you may find useful."
I brought this idea up at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Refideas notification upon editing an article[32] and received positive feedback from @Edward-Woodrow, @Donald Albury, @JimmyBlackwing, @A. B., @Folly Mox, @Timur9008, and @Freedom4U so I am bringing it for a proposal. See that discussion for more background. BOZ (talk) 17:51, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- I do support this idea and am unclear on the implementation details. Will this require a software change? Can it be implemented as an Editnotice? Would a bot-delivered usertalk message after an editor first edits the article, in the vein of User:Qwerfjkl (bot)#Task 17, be an acceptable fallback method? Folly Mox (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- I imagine it working somewhat similarly to how users get a notification of an existing draft page when an article of the same name that does not exist. For example, pulling a random draft: [33] I would not want anyone to get a talk page notification for this idea I had. BOZ (talk) 18:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- I'll admit I don't know much about how technical implementation works so I may not be able to answer questions about that. BOZ (talk) 18:21, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- Pinging two arbitrary very helpful technical users who seem to have a strong knowledge of the software: @PrimeHunter and Pppery: sorry to pick on yall, but what's the most realistic way this idea might be implemented? Folly Mox (talk) 18:01, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
- Probably via an edit to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main (which any admin can do), although for historical (?) reasons the related Template:Disambig editintro and Template:BLP editintro use JavaScript code instead - those should probably also be moved into Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:16, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
- Pinging two arbitrary very helpful technical users who seem to have a strong knowledge of the software: @PrimeHunter and Pppery: sorry to pick on yall, but what's the most realistic way this idea might be implemented? Folly Mox (talk) 18:01, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
- Support: pretty clear benefit to the project. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:46, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- I also support the idea, but have no insight on implementation. Donald Albury 20:56, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- I can get behind this. Refideas is something I have made use of in the past, in order to mention that I found useful articles for other editors (who have more experience in the subject area) to use. It's a shame they're not super prominent, because it's a really great feature! SWinxy (talk) 04:13, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
- I would suggest at this point creating a template {{Refideas editnotice}} to the effect of
{{Editnotice | image = [[File:Nuvola apps package editors.png|35px]] | style = background: #FFFAEF | text = There are suggestions for sources on the talk page that you may find useful.}}. It can be trialed manually with several pages (rather than all 17,000(?) pages that transclude Refideas) to see if people find it helpful. Placing the editnotice on a limited number of pages (say, with an expiry of 30 days) would just require the assistance of a template editor, page mover, or admin.
There are suggestions for sources on the talk page that you may find useful.
- SilverLocust 💬 07:06, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
- Ooh, I love how that looks. :) I'm also 100% open to suggestions if anyone can think of a better wording. BOZ (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
- I kind of wish that the normal talk page banners (the "coffee roll" color) was lighter/higher contrast like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Ooh, I love how that looks. :) I'm also 100% open to suggestions if anyone can think of a better wording. BOZ (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think the crudest implementation would be via a bot. Is there a way for an edit notice to read the content of the attached talk page? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:11, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
- Um I think that might be possible if {{Refideas}} were edited to include code allowing for labeled section transclusion, which the editnotice could then transclude using the {{TALKPAGENAME}} magic word for the article it's being called from? But I'm not sure this is what you're asking, or why it would be desirable (to preview the reference ideas?).I just reread Wikipedia:Editnotice, and it says that editnotices are kept in subpages of Template:Editnotices, like Template:Editnotices/Page/Cao Wei, so the act of adding the editnotice would just involve creating a subpage which calls a single template like User:SilverLocust's mockup above. I'm also not sure if this is what you're asking. I'm also not a particularly technical user, nor very smart in general. Folly Mox (talk) 02:56, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Give yourself more credit, I wouldn't have even thought of those ideas. ;) Although it may be my idea as the genesis, it's really up to anyone in the community to find the best way for this to work for everyone. The example you gave makes a lot of sense; I also just recalled that we get a notice whenever we edit a BLP and I think the same could work when we edit an article with the Refideas template on the talk page. I feel this is coming together. BOZ (talk) 15:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Namely, Template:BLP editintro BOZ (talk) 16:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- So what is the next step for this proposal? BOZ (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- One other thought I had, if the technical implementation on this further point would be challenging we can skip it or make the change in the future, but we could have it where the actual refideas template shows on the editnotice but is hidden? So that someone who doesn't want to be bothered going to the talk page just to see what is there, could click "show" on the editnotice and see the transcluded contents of the refideas template to even more quickly see what sources are available for that article.
- This is not in any way a priority in my opinion, just a "hey that would be nice", right now I just want to see if we can get this editnotice in place to begin with. :) BOZ (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- Um I think that might be possible if {{Refideas}} were edited to include code allowing for labeled section transclusion, which the editnotice could then transclude using the {{TALKPAGENAME}} magic word for the article it's being called from? But I'm not sure this is what you're asking, or why it would be desirable (to preview the reference ideas?).I just reread Wikipedia:Editnotice, and it says that editnotices are kept in subpages of Template:Editnotices, like Template:Editnotices/Page/Cao Wei, so the act of adding the editnotice would just involve creating a subpage which calls a single template like User:SilverLocust's mockup above. I'm also not sure if this is what you're asking. I'm also not a particularly technical user, nor very smart in general. Folly Mox (talk) 02:56, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
RfC: Enabling collapsible templates on the mobile site
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Should a JavaScript gadget be installed and enabled by default to enable collapsible templates on the mobile site? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:35, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Background (enabling collapsible templates on the mobile site)
When users of the mobile site encounter content in a collapsed template, they always see the content in an uncollapsed state with no way to collapse it. On some pages this can result in a long list to scroll past. For example, compare the "official status" section in the infobox of the article about the English language on the mobile site with the same article on the desktop site.
This has been a longstanding issue, phab:T111565 has been open since 2015. In response to myself and @Izno, @Matma Rex (who works for the WMF) said the following: As there are people opposed to making this change in MediaWiki core, I would suggest doing it in your wiki's MediaWiki:Common.js or a gadget, as long as your community finds that agreeable.
The reason some oppose making the change in MediaWiki core is the "fat finger problem", some people may have difficulty to tap short links titled "Hide" or "Show". The proposed gadget alleviates this issue by enforcing a minimal link element width of 6em.
The gadget can be tested on betacommons. If any bugs or serious issues with the gadget surface the deployment will be delayed until those issues are resolved. Similar to WP:ENOM, if the gadget is deployed this will be done in waves. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:35, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Survey (enabling collapsible templates on the mobile site)
- Support as proposer. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:44, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Default for now - the use case is niche for forcing a gadget on to every single reader on every single page load. — xaosflux Talk 10:39, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Mostly indifferent on Opt-In along with user:Folly Mox below. — xaosflux Talk 15:22, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support
at least making the gadget available as opt-in.Although honestly this should be done in the mediawiki core without concern for whether or not people will be able to register a tap on the expand / collapse element at default zoom. The [^]"back to citation" carets (and letters for reused citations) to hop from the References section back to the prose are already too small to register a tap reliably, but of course mobile users know to zoom in on anything they're not able to select due to size.I feel like up until a few months ago, collapsible templates were always just stuck in their default state, so anything set toautocollapsewas just hidden entirely and required hopping into desktop view. Having everything uncollapsed everywhere is better, but still incredibly inconvenient for certain pages. For example this page, WP:VPR, which still currently features WP:LUGSTUBS2 at the top, with an uncollapsed list of over a thousand entries to scroll past before reaching the discussion, or User:XOR'easter/sandbox/ReferenceExpander, with something like 2300 table entries to scroll past before reaching the diffs that have not yet been repaired.This doesn't address the larger issue of the mobile interface hiding navigation templates, but it feels like a step directly towards that direction. Folly Mox (talk) 13:35, 3 September 2023 (UTC) Switched to full support 18:14, 4 September 2023 (UTC) - Support as opt-in. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:31, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have no true objections. Overall i think collapsibility is generally a failure of authorship, but that ship has long since sailed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:25, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support as default - This would bring a much-needed basic function to the mobile interface. Any solution should be enabled by default for logged-out users since they make up the vast majority of our readership and don’t have the ability to opt-in or, for all intents and purposes, ask for changes to be made. –dlthewave ☎ 14:30, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- But logged-in users don't make up the mast majoriy of our readership, just the majority of the editorship. Kind of a big difference. Only about 6% of our readers have ever edited here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:20, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support as default for logged-out users. Don't much care what the default is for logged-in users, as long as each user can select their own preferred setting. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:56, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support as an option, unsure on whether to make it default. People who want collapsible stuff on mobile should be able to get collapsible stuff. I do think further discussion is needed on whether this should be the default for logged out users. I get that it could be useful, but I also have to give due consideration to the idea of the gadget potentially being "forced" on users. Ideally, I'd like for Wikipedia to avoid any situation reminiscent of the Vector 2022 RFC, or the niche but much more controversial recent drama on the Minecraft server 2b2t. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 16:58, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support, but prefer collapsed not the default. Collapsibility should work, but content shouldn't be hidden by default. No reason to distinguish between logged-out and logged-in users, if possible, except to allow logged-in users to set a preference that sticks. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:20, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- SMcCandlish, just to clarify here: the gadget enables collapsible templates just like the desktop site. (
with one exception: "autocollapse" is always collapsed, but this affects pretty much exclusively navboxes which aren't rendered on mobile anyway atm and I suspect many people don't even know how autocollapse actually worksautocollapse also functions the same as on desktop now) Whether anything is collapsed by default depends on the classes/template parameters used, just like the desktop site currently. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:10, 6 September 2023 (UTC)- Great. That works for me. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:44, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- SMcCandlish, just to clarify here: the gadget enables collapsible templates just like the desktop site. (
- Support, including for editors logged out. The gadget is only about 10 lines of code and brings the mobile website inline with how the desktop website works. Editors logged in don't use the mobile website, more or less. We're trying to target the ones using the mobile site, which is the set of people who don't have access to an opt in. Subsequently, I don't really understand why the several editors above have said "only opt in". Izno (talk) 00:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - Right now, the mobile and desktop experience is very fragmented and inconsistent, but the long term solution is not to bodge together some JavaScript gadget that will be unnecessary and that might break when the two are reunified. There is this long term goal of unifying the mobile and desktop experiences through making Vector 2022 responsive (see phab:T106463) but that seems mostly stalled because some editors really despise responsive skins. And I agree - coming from wikiHow, where a responsive skin was deployed in 2020, responsive designs done wrong can make the experience worse for everyone. But when done right, like in Timeless, it makes the experience so much more consistent. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 13:58, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Awesome Aasim, just to clarify, the gadget doesn't really implement collapsible templates. After checking if any collapsible elements are present on the page it just loads the MediaWiki module that handles this. If native MediaWiki support arrives some day, it'll be virtually identical. This also means that if support for collapsible elements on Minerva is ever added to MediaWiki core this gadget can simply be disabled as it's expected to be functionally identical anyway. See also the patch that was submitted but sadly not merged.
Note that plwiki has already deployed something similar, though somewhat less efficient because they load the module unconditionally. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:25, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Awesome Aasim, just to clarify, the gadget doesn't really implement collapsible templates. After checking if any collapsible elements are present on the page it just loads the MediaWiki module that handles this. If native MediaWiki support arrives some day, it'll be virtually identical. This also means that if support for collapsible elements on Minerva is ever added to MediaWiki core this gadget can simply be disabled as it's expected to be functionally identical anyway. See also the patch that was submitted but sadly not merged.
- Support, as opt-out. I would prefer to not have collapsed as the default though. Some page elements in mobile can be very unwieldy and often annoying to scroll through. Given that most of our traffic comes from mobile devices, we shouldn't have elements that are hidden in mobile only. I feel adding a small show/hide button on collapsible elements would cause the least amount of disruption. Ca talk to me! 23:41, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support, as in mobile such templates could not be seen which makes the reading experience worse than desktop. Lightoil (talk) 03:40, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Discussion (enabling collapsible templates on the mobile site)
@Xaosflux, there are actually quite some use cases. {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}} for example is disabled on mobile because mobile can't collapse anything. As a result, any content that is shown using that template is inaccessible on mobile. {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}} is transcluded nearly 90.000 times. While this template won't suddenly become visible with this gadget (it uses the nomobile class), editors will be able to decide on a case-by-case basis if such a sidebar should also be visible on mobile which can be viable once collapsible elements are made available. For another example of an even longer list of countries in an infobox, see IPhone 14.
Some numbers on performance impact: the gadget is currently just 911 751 bytes and gets cached in localStorage. Measuring how long the script takes to load on a page without collapsible elements is difficult because a duration of less than 1 millisecond is hard to measure accurately. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:09, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure that discussion has already occurred that it was appropriate to not show this content on mobile; if it isn't it should be just fixed. — xaosflux Talk 15:20, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, if at some point collapsible elements become available on mobile, like with this gadget, the editorial decision could be made on a per-article basis. There are other considerations regarding sidebars and navboxes, but there would be options. The status quo for existing usage of {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}} wouldn't change, but for existing usage a parameter could be implemented to suppress the
nomobileclass or it could switch to a different template. Module talk:Sidebar/Archive 6#How to override "class=nomobile" to display sidebar in mobile view? is an example where this could be done. According to that thread, "nomobileis used because the old classvertical-navboxis already hard-coded to be removed on mobile, but I wanted to change that class name to reflect the name of this module and because it was shorter for the purposes of TemplateStyles, so I addednomobileas a result." It doesn't say why, but the fact nothing can be collapsed on mobile will surely be one of the reasons for this.nomobileis actually a hack, quote from User talk:Jon (WMF)#nomobile is my current annoyance today: "as the Minerva maintainer I'd love to remove the `nomobile` class in the Minerva skin eventually. Now all that said I wouldn't rely on `nomobile` at all to be honest. It was a short term fix for a long term problem. If you are using TemplateStyles just add a media query and display: none anything that you don't want to show on mobile and avoid the class entirely. There's no need to rely on it. Sure this will increase the HTML payload of mobile, but leave that to us WMF staff - we can always add rules for DOM-heavy elements at a later date."
The overall sentiment seems to be that navboxes should be enabled on mobile. See also phab:T124168. In what exact form is TBD, but one thing seems clear: without the ability to make elements collapsible on mobile, it can't ever happen. As a side note,the proposed gadget has one extra trick up its sleeve: it enables the creation of elements that are collapsible on mobile but don't become collapsible on desktop. This would make it possible to make long lists or tables collapsible on mobile only, potentially saving mobile users from some lengthy scrolling.Update: this mobile-only feature has been commented out for now and may be revisited if the gadget gets enabled as a default gadget. This gadget now more purely aims to replicate the functionality of the desktop site without alterations. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:32, 4 September 2023 (UTC)- The reason these don't display on mobile is partially the display. But a bigger reason is that navboxes do not suit the mobile need, which is predominantly get in and get out with the desired fact. This quality, combined with the basically useless and usually quite large HTML downloaded just to inevitably not need a navbox is why these are "disabled". (Why yes, MobileFrontend does rip them fully out of the HTML.) IznoPublic (talk) 15:45, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, if at some point collapsible elements become available on mobile, like with this gadget, the editorial decision could be made on a per-article basis. There are other considerations regarding sidebars and navboxes, but there would be options. The status quo for existing usage of {{Sidebar with collapsible lists}} wouldn't change, but for existing usage a parameter could be implemented to suppress the
Question - As a Gadget, would this be enabled for logged-out users? –dlthewave ☎ 14:35, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Dlthewave, the way I phrased the proposal ("installed and enabled by default"), yes. However, if many votes include the condition that it be made opt-in I would consider that a valid outcome as well. If it would be enabled by default it would allow editors to assume the feature is available to mobile users when writing templates and articles which won't be the case if it's opt-in, but c'est la vie. If the proposal passes (without opt-in condition) the gadget will be deployed in waves. At first it'd be enabled for admins only and every week or so another group would be added: WP:extendedconfirmed, wp:autoconfirmed and finally everyone (including logged-out users). — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Good! I wasn't quite sure how gadgets worked, wanted to make sure it would eventually be available to all users. –dlthewave ☎ 02:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Dlthewave, a gadget is a collection of JavaScript and/or CSS pages, similar to WP:User scripts. Unlike user scripts, they are centrally governed in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. Some gadgets, for example mw:Reference Tooltips, have the "default" parameter set in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, those are enabled and loaded by default. The wording "enabled by default" in the proposal refers to the
defaultparameter in Gadgets-definition. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:57, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Dlthewave, a gadget is a collection of JavaScript and/or CSS pages, similar to WP:User scripts. Unlike user scripts, they are centrally governed in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. Some gadgets, for example mw:Reference Tooltips, have the "default" parameter set in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, those are enabled and loaded by default. The wording "enabled by default" in the proposal refers to the
- Good! I wasn't quite sure how gadgets worked, wanted to make sure it would eventually be available to all users. –dlthewave ☎ 02:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for working on this. I left some suggestions for the implementation at Wikipedia talk: MakeMobileCollapsible.
Before enabling the gadget, please consider whether the "mobile-only collapsible" feature is really desirable. Personally I think we should avoid adding any mobile-only and desktop-only features these days, to avoid confusion for people who only use desktop or only mobile and see different things. It might also lead people to use collapsible elements in cases where other approaches would be better (per MOS:COLLAPSE): moving the content to a separate section (which are already collapsible on mobile, and easier to navigate using the TOC on desktop), or to a separate page – and since it would be mobile-only, the desktop power-users might not notice it.
And while we're talking about MOS:COLLAPSE, it will need some updating about the mobile support. Matma Rex talk 12:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Matma Rex, interesting points. I added the "mobile-only collapsible" feature because it was easy and I believe there is a difference between mobile and desktop here: scrolling is more labor-intensive on mobile devices as you have no page up/page down keys and dragging the scrollbar is more difficult without a mouse or touchpad. If it turns out the feature goes unused or causes people to use less optimal approaches it could be removed easily and any existing uses could be updated by a bot in that case.
Header levels above level 2 don't become collapsible on mobile. I guess the only way to find out if it's a good idea is to just see if and how people would use it. If people don't use it or only use it when other approaches would be better, it could be scrapped at a later point. Btw, one way to use that feature is to combine mw-collapsible with mw-collapsed-mobileonly, resulting in a collapsible element on both mobile and desktop but which is only collapsed by default on mobile. I also think mobile-only collapsing could be an alternative for the nomobile class in some cases. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:32, 4 September 2023 (UTC)- Firefox won't even let me drag the scrollbar. It only supports manual scrolling. On the pages I linked to in my not-vote, it might take me forty or sixty seconds to scroll all the way down to what I'm tryna read. Usually I end up all the way at the foot of the page and have to work my way back up, but too aggressive of an upscroll will – alas – trigger a page reload. Anything to help ameliorate this would be quite welcome. Folly Mox (talk) 18:11, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- While we're on this tangent, adding a collapsibility to level three subheadings, defaulted to uncollapsed, would be pretty nice. Some of those get real long, and it would be convenient to collapse them if I'm editing them one after another. Folly Mox (talk) 18:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree with Matma Rex here: let's not introduce mobile specific behavior, especially since that's not the primary point of the change we're trying to make here. (And were you going to do it, using the same class namespace as core functionality is a bad idea "mw-".) IznoPublic (talk) 15:51, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Matma Rex, what specifically needs updating about MOS:COLLAPSE? IznoPublic (talk) 15:48, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- For example this part: "the mobile version of the site, which has a limited set of features and does not support collapsing". Matma Rex talk 16:50, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- It... Doesn't, still. We just went from "displays nothing" to "displays everything", so I think that statement remains valid. (Perhaps less than obviously the context of that section ignores MF collapsing whole sections.)
- As for limited set of features for mobile, yeah, less true, but also not totally relevant to that section, so removing it in toto might be called for. Izno (talk) 00:20, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- For example this part: "the mobile version of the site, which has a limited set of features and does not support collapsing". Matma Rex talk 16:50, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Matma Rex, following your and Izno's comments, I commented out the mobile-only collapsing feature for now. If the gadget gets enabled by default I plan to open a discussion on enabling it again. Maybe in some more limited form, like only changing the default collapse state on mobile. For now, the gadget just aims to replicate the collapsing functionality from the desktop site. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Mobile viewers should be able to see the same templates as desktop users. It's somewhat baffling to me that we have different versions of the site for desktop and mobile viewers. The latter cannot, for example, expand a {{cot}} or a {{hat}} (why?). Many navigation templates in articles are just unusable on mobile, meaning that if you want readers to actually be able to see what you're writing, you must include it twice. jp×g 21:32, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- JPxG, the answer to your "why?" question is in the background info:
The reason some oppose making the change in MediaWiki core is the "fat finger problem", some people may have difficulty to tap short links titled "Hide" or "Show". The proposed gadget alleviates this issue by enforcing a minimal link element width of 6em.
This is why jquery.makeCollapsible doesn't get loaded on the mobile site. The proposed gadget loadsjquery.makeCollapsibleon the mobile site. @Awesome Aasim, I should have mentioned it in my reply to you above some time ago, butjquery.makeCollapsibleis the module that I was talking about. A WMF developer suggested that individual projects should load this module using MediaWiki:Common.js or a gadget, so this isn't expected to break anything in the future. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 22:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- JPxG, the answer to your "why?" question is in the background info:
Proposal to change the venue for new community-authorized general sanctions
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.
Should the venue for seeking consensus to establish a new general sanctions program, and amending or revoking existing general sanctions programs, be changed to the village pump for proposals (with a courtesy notification at the administators' noticeboard)? 21:46, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Specifically, should the text at Wikipedia:General sanctions § Community sanctions be amended as follows?
The community may also impose general sanctions on all editors working in a particular area
, usually after a discussionby consensus at theadministrators' noticeboard ("AN")village pump for proposals (VPR), following a notice at the administrators' noticeboard (AN). While community-authorised discretionary sanctions are not bound by Arbitration Committee procedures and guidelines, they usually follow the Arbitration Committee standard discretionary sanctions model. Deviation or additions to these standards typically requires community consensus, unless purely clerical in nature. Requests for amendments, clarification, or revocation (if sanctions are no longer required) should also be discussed atthe administrators' noticeboardVPR, following a notice at AN.
- Background
The Wikipedia community may impose "general sanctions" upon an entire topic area. Current examples of active community-imposed general sanctions include:
- Topicwide 1RR and community discretionary sanctions on pages related to the blockchain and cryptocurrencies (WP:GS/Crypto)
- Standing authorization for admins to put indefinite semiprotection on any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet (WP:GS/PAGEANT)
- Topicwide extended-confirmed restriction (a requirement to have 500 edits and 30 days' tenure to edit within the topic area) on all articles and discussions related to the Russia-Ukraine War (WP:GS/RUSUKR)
The place that the community currently imposes these "general sanctions" schemes is at WP:AN, as provided by Wikipedia:General sanctions § Community sanctions:
The community may also impose general sanctions on all editors working in a particular area, usually after a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN"). [...] Requests for amendments, clarification, or revocation (if sanctions are no longer required) should also be discussed at the administrators' noticeboard.
This proposal, if enacted by the community, would change the appropriate venue to the village pump for proposals (WP:VPR) and require a courtesy notification of such discussions at WP:AN.
Discussion (GS authorization venue)
- Support. AN is ill-suited for discussions that can set significant rules – sometimes extended-confirmed (500/30) editing restrictions – on entire broadly-defined topic areas that can last for years and years. AN threads are archived in a matter of days, and sometimes GS authorization threads at AN are prematurely archived and need to be unarchived. AN also doesn't have the right visibility for GS authorizations, which can be buried under the many threads that concern individual issues (not policy- or topic- level discussions) that AN sees every day. By contrast, VPR is better suited for discussions involving questions of broad application. I solicited feedback for this RfC at my talk page (permalink), and this proposal reflects changes in wording as a result of input there. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support - I'll admit with some chagrin I misunderstood the original intent of the proposal as it was then written : ) - But I support this as written above if only because these are community-applied sanctions to a topic-area, not admin-applied sanctions to a topic-area. So having the discussion at the VP seems more appropriate than AN. - jc37 21:59, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support. AN is ill-suited for this purpose both because of its "admin-central" nature and its rapid archival process. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:13, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support, I think this format makes more sense than the current model. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:53, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support. (Summoned by bot) I find each of the OP's points rationale and compelling. That said, it may be wise to further emphasize the importance of the AN notice. It also would not necessarily hurt to make it clear that the business of applying / discussing purported violations of the sanctions themselves (whether its disruption of a community-validated CTOP area, or issues resulting from some other community-based GS restriction) remains an ANX affair. SnowRise let's rap 03:39, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support per jc37. These are community sanctions, not admin sanctions, so keep them in a community space. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 12:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support per all the above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Broadly support - not sure if VPR is the right specific page (it deals with a lot of other stuff)… but I do agree with shifting this to Village pump space. Perhaps a new VP page, specifically dedicated to dealing with these discussions. Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Kinda support I'm not sure that VPR is the right venue, but it's less wrong than WP:AN, which is for administrator issues. Community sanctions are not an administrator issue (though, of course, administrators are part of the community too, and may participate in such discussions). --Jayron32 17:38, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- Weak oppose given that the status quo means it gets more eyeballs on it. I also think if we're changing this we should require CENT notification. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:58, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that most of the time a CENT listing for GS discussions would be worthwhile, but anyone can make that notice happen. As a matter of bureaucratization, I'd rather not codify a mandatory CENT listing, especially considering that comparatively minor amendments and clarifications might not warrant a CENT listing. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:25, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes - I think ANB is great for discussing user conduct, but for discussing changes to policy such as authorization of community designated contentious topics, VPPR seems like a better venue. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 14:02, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support per Jayron32 (summoned by bot), but agree with Barkeep49 on CENT notification for visibility. No objection to additional notifications at other places that might be relevant. I question the assertion that the status quo gets more eyeballs. Do we have data to support this? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:20, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think we have anecdata that could go both ways. As I linked above, a recent GS discussion at AN saw very little engagement at all and was archived before action; even after unarchiving, there were only two additional participants until the initiator of the discussion mass-pinged over two dozen other editors to the discussion. On the other hand, sometimes AN does see a lot of participation. I initiated the WP:GS/COVID discussion at AN (permalink), which received 15 supports before being closed less than three hours after opening (too soon, in my opinion, but that's another story). Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- Neutral. I mainly want to point out that AN is treated in many cases as a place where the whole community provides its opinion on matters that are related to administration. For example, it's a venue for challenging discussion closures and appeals of contentious topic blocks. There are many support rationales above that do not rely on the understanding of AN as being just for administrator issues, so I'm ultimately undecided. I do think there's a need to show that this move is worth the loss of page-watchers. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:35, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- Strong support per L235's concerns, which I strongly agree with, and indeed I think I've suggested this change in venue in the past. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:48, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support. The venue for community input has usually been the village pump. This would help further centralize discussions which affect the wider Wikipedia project. AN is usually for incidents or stuff concerning mostly towards the admins. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 18:02, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support because AN is archived quickly and discussions there are easily drowned out by ambient noise from various dramahs. I also think a CENT listing is a good idea since the impacts of such sanctions are often far-reaching. — SamX [talk · contribs] 19:44, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support. I'm in favor of anything that helps to alleviate the present situation where ANI – a rather hectic, nasty place to begin with – is considered the "everything zone" and made even more inscrutable. Important decisions really shouldn't be happening in a place where the archive age is a couple days to a week. jp×g 00:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Close
This feels like a nearly perfect example of If the matter under discussion is not contentious and the consensus is obvious to the participants, then formal closure is neither necessary nor advisable.
from WP:RFCEND and suggest we close and implement as such. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:57, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
RfC on Module:Find sources - replace New York Times with Associated Press
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Currently, the only media outlet in Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources is the newspaper The New York Times (nytimes.com). Should we replace it with the news agency Associated Press (apnews.com)? Previous discussions here and here. starship.paint (RUN) 04:18, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Survey (Find sources: NYT vs AP)
- Support as proposer on these three fronts. (1) Accessibility: The New York Times requires a paid subscription to read, the Associated Press does not. We should avoid paywalls for our editors and readers. (2) Content focus: The Associated Press is more internationally focused and operates in 94 countries, while the New York Times is more U.S.-focused and operates in around 30 countries. (3) Less biased: The Associated Press has been rated as less left leaning, and more neutral, than The New York Times by two media bias assessors - Media Bias Fact Check on NYT versus AP, AllSides on NYT versus AP. starship.paint (RUN) 04:20, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'd also like to add that I did not propose news agency Reuters as it requires registration, while news agency Agence France Presse doesn't seem to actually post news articles on its website? Or maybe it is here but you need a login? starship.paint (RUN) 04:28, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support per nom, with particular emphasis on (1). Directing editors to a source which requires a paid subscription after opening five(?) articles is just not best practice. In addition to making it more difficult for editors to find sources initially,
it also has the potential knock-on effect of increasing the number of citations to the NYT in mainspace, citations which are more difficult to verify than those to free sources(this is a dumb concern and I'm dumb for saying it.)Associated Press is internationally regarded as – at minimum – a pretty good press agency. It should be more than adequate as a replacement suggestion in this module. The main downside I can think of is that Citoid works impeccably with the NYT, always correctly resolving authorship and publication date, only missing the|url-access=subscriptionparameter. I don't remember if AP always works so consistently, although it might. Folly Mox (talk) 04:53, 9 September 2023 (UTC) edited 08:20, 9 September 2023 (UTC)- Oh no, now I remember that Citoid does correctly identify the important parameters from AP sources, but invariably chooses to render the
|work=parameter in all caps, as "AP NEWS". Pretty trivial downside all things considered. Folly Mox (talk) 05:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)- Not at all opposed to just adding more sources, for clarity. Folly Mox (talk) 08:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Speaking of ALL CAPS, what's annoying about citiod and the NY Times is that it doesn't handle the historical NY Times style of ALL CAPS headlines.[1]. It's annoying having to manually convert those into title case as required to pass a GA review (I can't actually find anyplace in the MOS which requires that, but reviewers seem to insist on it). RoySmith (talk) 21:24, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oh no, now I remember that Citoid does correctly identify the important parameters from AP sources, but invariably chooses to render the
- Support AP, and other options as well. I think that the NYT, nothing against it as a reliable source, should not be considered the most reliable source and promoted the same way as it is. The NYT is nowhere near deprecation like the Daily Mail, but it should be treated as a source with a lean-left American bias. I personally think that the AP and Reuters are best, and for non-Qatari content, Al Jazeera should also be encouraged due to its general lack of bias on non-Qatari topics based on its ownership. Inclusion of the NYT should only be in concurrence with a counter-balancing reliable source, such as the Wall Street Journal. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 04:57, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'd be happy to see apnews.com on the list, but why "replace"? Why not just "add"? WP:PAYWALLED sources are okay. I'd be happy to see half a dozen news sources. Maybe we need to add the BBC and The Globe and Mail, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Using paywalled sources is okay, but what we are doing here is recommending a paywalled source to everyone, which would surely cause inconvenience to non-subscribers as the paywall can prevent them from reading article text. Why make life harder in this way? starship.paint (RUN) 06:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think that convenience is the right way to measure news. First of all because it's not a primary factor when selecting verifiable sources, but also because convenience seems to be a placeholder for free. The first AP news article I opened was indeed without up-front cost, but has infinite tracker-laden Tablooa spam all over it; that is definitely not convenient from a privacy or bandwidth perspective. In practically all other areas of Wikipedia, sources are measured by the fundamental quality they bring to the encyclopedia, and I don't see why news should be treated differently. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 07:26, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Using paywalled sources is okay, but what we are doing here is recommending a paywalled source to everyone, which would surely cause inconvenience to non-subscribers as the paywall can prevent them from reading article text. Why make life harder in this way? starship.paint (RUN) 06:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose removal of the NYT -- as has been pointed out elsewhere on this page the NYT's factual reporting is neutral, and removing something because it has a paywall I think is a mistake -- we should recommend the best sources, not the most accessible ones. I'd be fine with adding other reliable sources, including the AP, as WhatamIdoing suggests. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 07:12, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- this is a distraction. no discussion supported "addition of nyt" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3AFind_sources%2Ftemplates%2FFind_sources&diff=prev&oldid=722553515 . you first need to find support for "addition of nyt", before debating about its "removal". RZuo (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo, -- and to be clear, this is not a comment on the proposal, just on this argument, which you've made several times -- it's not actually correct that there had to be some discussion supporting the addition before it was made. The addition was made in (2016? too lazy to check) and apparently created no controversy at the time. The fact it's remained this long, even with occasional discussions about removing it, is the evidence for consensus. You'd be better off dropping this argument and simply arguing merit rather than process. Valereee (talk) 11:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Consensus#Through_editing: "An edit has presumed consensus until it is disputed or reverted."
- Wikipedia:Silence_and_consensus#Silence_is_the_weakest_form_of_consensus: "Consensus arising from silence evaporates when an editor changes existing content or objects to it."
- even if there ever were any implicit consensus, it has evaporated no later than 2018. RZuo (talk) 12:46, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'll answer at your talk, as this probably is becoming tangential. Valereee (talk) 12:49, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo, I'm having a hard time interpreting this as meaning anything but that you don't actually want to discuss unless it's in a public forum? Trying really hard to AGF here...why did you delete that instead of responding? Would you prefer I explained it here, where it doesn't really add anything? I was trying to avoid distracting people from the question at hand. Valereee (talk) 18:48, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'll answer at your talk, as this probably is becoming tangential. Valereee (talk) 12:49, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo, -- and to be clear, this is not a comment on the proposal, just on this argument, which you've made several times -- it's not actually correct that there had to be some discussion supporting the addition before it was made. The addition was made in (2016? too lazy to check) and apparently created no controversy at the time. The fact it's remained this long, even with occasional discussions about removing it, is the evidence for consensus. You'd be better off dropping this argument and simply arguing merit rather than process. Valereee (talk) 11:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- this is a distraction. no discussion supported "addition of nyt" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3AFind_sources%2Ftemplates%2FFind_sources&diff=prev&oldid=722553515 . you first need to find support for "addition of nyt", before debating about its "removal". RZuo (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose removal of NYT, support addition of AP - No special fondness for NYT, but in the areas I edit in, it's more useful than AP. I agree with the editors saying having a greater mix would be better. Red Fiona (talk) 14:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support - for the above reasons as articulated by starship.paint. The associated press I think it is fair to say, is a source moreso associated with worldwide NPOV viewpoints than the NYT. On pages like this sources like the AP are preferable as to avoid centering the US perspective. Wikipedia can and should be more than an American website Jack4576 (talk) 11:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC) {this is a copied comment}
- Note: I copied this over from my talk page because Jack4576 is blocked from Wikipedia-space pages like Wikipedia:Village pump, but Jack4576 has said that he is not topic banned from Wikipedia-space. starship.paint (RUN) 14:48, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support removal of NYT because of the paywall, and therefore support addition of AP in its place. I could propose a scheme where ENWP would establish a floating account with the name of Nicholas Bourbaki to read NYT articles, but that would be too complicated and weird. We need our reliable source to be accessible, because most of us have the disability of not having paid the NYT. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose removal of the NYT for reasons described in the previous discussions and mentioned below. The NYT is an excellent, top tier source that is exactly the kind of thing that should be offered as a suggestion, including for non-American news. I have no opinion on the AP, but the decision should be whether to add the AP, not to replace the NYT with the AP. SnowFire (talk) 04:30, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support As I said previously, a choice is better but no real reason to prefer NYT (or the BBC) over a global news source.Selfstudier (talk) 14:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support as proposed, still, for the reasons listed in the nomination and that I gave in the last discussion. We don't need to clog talk pages with multiple listings in "Find sources", and AP is international, not paywalled, and neutral. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose as the NYT is a high quality source and has more in-depth coverage in some areas than the AP; though I do agree with the argument that it is too US-centric. I think we shouldn't favour one publication over all others though, so the most ideal option in my mind would be to add multiple sources or remove all sources and make the "WP refs" search (which retrieves results from plenty of newspapers including both NYT and AP) more prominent. ― novov (t c) 07:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support Removal of NYT.
Oppose adding of AP.I absolutely understand the frustration of New York Times paywalls.However, I don't think switching to another for-profit journalistic source is the solution.We can maybe also link to NPR, PBS, CBC, BBC, (Australia)BC, and other not for profit journalism that is more in line with our goals. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 17:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)- Can you clarify "more in line with our goals"? A news source that is non-profit is not more in line with our goals as an encyclopedia than one with a reputation for high-quality journalism, even though it might align ideologically. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:18, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I am not doubting that NYT is high quality journalism. But public broadcasters and several news sources are not incentivized by advertising in general. The removal of NY Times is less to do with its quality as it has to do with being able to ensure that Wikipedians are able to quickly access a good source for stuff like WP:V and WP:N. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 13:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm all for "information should be free", and would certainly support adding entries for other sources, but we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we started down the road of deprecating sources behind paywalls just because they're behind paywalls. Full disclosure: I'm a paid NYT subscriber. RoySmith (talk) 13:48, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I never said that NYT should be deprecated. Only that it should not be included in {{find sources}}. If there is a way to access NYT through programs like WP:TWL then that is what should be linked. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 14:13, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Removing it from {{find sources}} is a step down that road. I agree it would be wonderful if the NYT were available through WP:TWL, but whether it is or not should not be a factor in how we treat it as a source. RoySmith (talk) 14:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe I misread the question, but I thought this was about {{find sources}} for a minute, not the associated module. I think the only entries that should be listed there are those related to what the module is for - finding sources. Linking to one publisher in the module is not "find sources", it's "find source". In other words, I only think search engines querying a wide variety of databases and curated news reports across the world should be there. Google News and Bing News which in turn pull up articles from NYTimes and AP and other high (and low) quality sources will suffice enough. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 14:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Removing it from {{find sources}} is a step down that road. I agree it would be wonderful if the NYT were available through WP:TWL, but whether it is or not should not be a factor in how we treat it as a source. RoySmith (talk) 14:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I never said that NYT should be deprecated. Only that it should not be included in {{find sources}}. If there is a way to access NYT through programs like WP:TWL then that is what should be linked. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 14:13, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm all for "information should be free", and would certainly support adding entries for other sources, but we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we started down the road of deprecating sources behind paywalls just because they're behind paywalls. Full disclosure: I'm a paid NYT subscriber. RoySmith (talk) 13:48, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I am not doubting that NYT is high quality journalism. But public broadcasters and several news sources are not incentivized by advertising in general. The removal of NY Times is less to do with its quality as it has to do with being able to ensure that Wikipedians are able to quickly access a good source for stuff like WP:V and WP:N. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 13:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can you clarify "more in line with our goals"? A news source that is non-profit is not more in line with our goals as an encyclopedia than one with a reputation for high-quality journalism, even though it might align ideologically. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:18, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support removal of NYT. Oppose adding AP. I don't like the idea of promoting one or two specific media outlet(s) above others. Perhaps a set of several, but that's not really in scope for this RFC. —siroχo 17:46, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose addition of AP. The value of having nytimes.com comes from its archival nature. Searching there returns matches dating back to 1851. On apnews.com, on the other hand, I can't even find an article from earlier than 2021. It's pretty clear which is useful for a wider range of subjects. If regionality is a concern, replace it with Google Newspapers (I'm surprised it's not there). Nardog (talk) 07:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose removal of the New York Times, which is by far the best and most comprehensive US newspaper source. Most high quality journalistic sources are behind paywalls these days. I subscribe to several paywalled sources and limit my usage of others that restrict my access to X articles a month or whatever. But I will never support any limits on or any discouragement of other editors using paywalled sources. The Associated Press is great for routine coverage of breaking news and the like, but it is a news agency, not a newspaper. AP does not decide which of their content that actual newspapers run. Those decisions are made instead by actual living and breathing newspaper editors. The AP does not cover stories with anywhere near the depth or breadth that the New York Times does. Or the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and many others, or my little hometown paper, The Union, which has been published since 1864. It would be a terrible mistake to start down the path of deprecating sources behind paywalls. That is where the very best journalism can be found these days. The expectation that outstanding journalism can always be consumed for free is pernicious, and will lead to the death of independent journalism if followed to its logical end. Cullen328 (talk) 08:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- +1! Donald Albury 14:46, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- then why nyt? why not the union or wsj? RZuo (talk) 14:31, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well, this proposal was to replace NYT with AP. Any other outcome will require a new RfC. Donald Albury 17:17, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- for anyone who still hasnt read the discussion or understood the origin of this rfc: nyt was added without any consensus or discussion https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3AFind_sources%2Ftemplates%2FFind_sources&diff=prev&oldid=722553515 , so any user supporting using nyt should first explain why nyt should be chosen over any other sources.
- yet i could readily give 2 reasons why for example wsj is a better us newspaper than nyt. RZuo (talk) 07:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- RZuo, Valereee responded to this argument of yours, above and on your talk page, giving what I would consider good reasons for discounting your point. You've ignored their post above and silently deleted their post from your talk page. If you're going to continue making this argument I think it would be helpful if you explained why you disagree with their response. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:04, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- RZuo, I'm not sure it's fair to assume the edit was made with no discussion simply because no discussion was referenced in the edit summary. The editor who made that edit thinks there had been discussion. The fact no one has dug it out doesn't mean it doesn't exist. As I mentioned at your talk, we should at minimum assume good faith on that. This argument, which you have made over and over again, including after objections, is starting to feel like an intentional unsupported accusation of bad faith. Valereee (talk) 16:12, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- instead of busy lecturing other users, you two can answer the question at hand instead: why is nyt chosen over all other sources? RZuo (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I've given my reasons for keeping the NYT in my !vote above; I have no objection to adding other sources. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:19, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know why it was chosen, but I assume it was because some 2016 discussion suggested it. I can't know because I haven't seen the original discussion which, as someone AGFing, I assume happened. It doesn't mean it was the best choice, it doesn't mean consensus hasn't changed since, and I'm completely open on the question.
- @RZuo, I am going to tell you: stop making unsupported accusations of bad faith. The fact this pisses you off does not mean you can accuse another editor of intentionally operating in bad faith without evidence. Valereee (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Valereee:
- you're making a claim without evidence. that's not what "assumption of good faith" means. you better stop.
- you're falsely accusing me of assumption of bad faith. you better stop. i've been asking a simple question, which any supporter of nyt can answer, regardless their awareness of a non-existent discussion you're handwaving to.
- RZuo (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- You've accused another editor of intentionally acting in bad faith. Your first intimation was here. You accused the other editor of editing without discussion or consensus, implying BOLD didn't exist or apply and that because there was no mention of a discussion in the edit summary, there was no discussion, even though the other editor said they thought there was discussion, here and here and here and here. I objected here and here. You ignored/deleted my attempts to discuss.
- I literally have no opinion on this question. Please explain what you mean by "handwaving to", as I am not sure what you're saying. Valereee (talk) 21:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Valereee:
- instead of busy lecturing other users, you two can answer the question at hand instead: why is nyt chosen over all other sources? RZuo (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well, this proposal was to replace NYT with AP. Any other outcome will require a new RfC. Donald Albury 17:17, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose removal of the NY Times. It has a comprehensive archive and most stories contain an attributed author. Not opposed to adding additional sources. --Enos733 (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Absolutely not. The NYT is, in my view, the single most high-quality respected news publication in the Western world of all time. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:43, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support defaulting to a global source focused on factual reporting improves Wikipedia's neutrality. – Teratix ₵ 00:44, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose removal, but support addition. In general, I would have multiple newspapers listed, rather than just one. Google has been getting shittier and not pulling up everything. AP, WaPo, AFP, Reuters, etc. would all be useful, in addition to the NYT. The NYT is still a very reliable source for information, globally. SWinxy (talk) 04:13, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have a love-hate relationship with Google search. On the one hand, they're the most comprehensive compendium of what's available on the internet; any search for sources which didn't include Google in some way is clearly defective. On the other hand, I hate how much information Google collects about their users, and from a more practical point of view, the results they give are biased by your previous browsing (and other application use) history. I use Duck-Duck-Go as my everyday search engine, but I still do Google searches as needed to ensure complete coverage.
- As for WaPo, I think they're a great news source. I maintain paid subscriptions to both NYT and WaPo. On the other hand, I recognize that those two papers overlap in both their US-centric coverage (obviously they have great international coverage, but overall, US-centric) and in their political biases (i.e. liberal-leaning). I would like to see more news outlets listed, but we should make an effort to cover both the political spectrum and geographic diversity. Surely we can satisfy that without compromising on journalistic excellence. RoySmith (talk) 14:54, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Discussion (Find sources: NYT vs AP)
- @SandyGeorgia, Shibbolethink, Sdkb, Mathglot, SilkTork, Mr. Stradivarius, Wikmoz, Hog Farm, SnowFire, ProcrastinatingReader, and Nemo bis: - notified from past discussion. starship.paint (RUN) 04:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- @RZuo, JohnFromPinckney, Zaathras, Schazjmd, Stultiwikia, Masem, Joseph2302, Shakescene, UnironicEditor, Orange Suede Sofa, Dylnuge, Jack4576, GreenC, Fiachra10003, WhatamIdoing, Folly Mox, Valereee, Enterprisey, Mike Christie, InvadingInvader, and Selfstudier: - notified from above discussion. starship.paint (RUN) 04:33, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Are these the right metrics? Without expressing a preference for any of the choices, I'm not sure the metrics given above are what we should be prioritizing. First being paywall; we should strive for the most neutral and accurate sources, not the most free-as-in-beer. Unlike media (such as images or sound), for which we prefer freely-licensed content as we host and display that content directly, news sources should be the most accurate available, as it is in many other areas in Wikipedia that are not news-oriented. Next is international coverage— the "countries operated in" statement is not quite accurate. For example, NYT has actively staffed bureaux in many countries but that's more of a logistics matter; they will send reporters to any country in the world as needed and permitted. And I found at least three different figures in different areas of the AP site so I'm not sure what is going on there. Finally, I fear that a lot of this is moot because many news organizations' public-facing search capabilities are often terrible. As a test, I took the first linked term in today's WP:ITN (Tharman Shanmugaratnam) and tried it with both the AP and NYT search. The AP search returned nothing and the NYT search returned a lot of things, yet notably none of them relevant to the ITN item in question. Are we focusing on the right issues here? Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 05:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- https://www.reuters.com/site-search/?query=Tharman+Shanmugaratnam
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=Tharman+Shanmugaratnam RZuo (talk) 06:23, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Are these the right metrics? Without expressing a preference for any of the choices, I'm not sure the metrics given above are what we should be prioritizing. First being paywall; we should strive for the most neutral and accurate sources, not the most free-as-in-beer. Unlike media (such as images or sound), for which we prefer freely-licensed content as we host and display that content directly, news sources should be the most accurate available, as it is in many other areas in Wikipedia that are not news-oriented. Next is international coverage— the "countries operated in" statement is not quite accurate. For example, NYT has actively staffed bureaux in many countries but that's more of a logistics matter; they will send reporters to any country in the world as needed and permitted. And I found at least three different figures in different areas of the AP site so I'm not sure what is going on there. Finally, I fear that a lot of this is moot because many news organizations' public-facing search capabilities are often terrible. As a test, I took the first linked term in today's WP:ITN (Tharman Shanmugaratnam) and tried it with both the AP and NYT search. The AP search returned nothing and the NYT search returned a lot of things, yet notably none of them relevant to the ITN item in question. Are we focusing on the right issues here? Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 05:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Some premises are wrong here and strongly suggest that interested editors read the previous discussions. In particular, the claim that the NYT is "left-leaning" is misleading. It is well-known that the NYT's editorial section is mostly left-leaning (although, interestingly enough, they've gotten heat from the left in the past year as well - see this article for example). However, "find sources" is about the news stories as editorials should only be referenced rarely, so the claim that this is addressing some left-wing bias is weak. (The same is true in reverse of the Wall Street Journal.) The larger concern is accuracy - the NYT is handy for having fairly deep coverage of many topics, and from the sources cited on bias as pointed out by Mathglot in the previous discussion:
- They are considered one of the most reliable sources for news information due to proper sourcing and well-respected journalists/editors.
- If the NYT were a "conservative" outlet in its editorial page but still had lines like that, then they'd still be fine to use. Maybe we can add AP stories but NYT is a good start and not in any way "problematic." SnowFire (talk) 06:09, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'd second the comment about the strict wall that most U.S. newspapers follow in separating hard news (reporters' own personal opinions, or lack of opinion, disregarded so long as they report all sides fairly) from opinion-editorial and both of them from the business side (advertising and circulation).
- A good counter-example is The Wall Street Journal, whose conservative opinion-editorial bent is if anything sharper than the Times' left-liberal one. Nonetheless, liberal and left-wing Americans constantly cite the Journal both for important economic and corporate facts, and for the enterprising original investigations that its reporters (of any persuasion or none) undertake. The American socialist leader Michael Harrington told young socialists fifty years ago that they should read the Journal regularly, and a very bohemian friend of mine pointed out that the business press (cf. The Financial Times) can't let politics or ideology interfere with the hard facts that their readers need to make sound corporate, financial and investment decisions. However both The WSJ and The FT have rigid paywalls that are, if anything, higher than the NYT's. —— Shakescene (talk) 14:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Actually, who is the target audience here? When was the last time anyone in this discussion ever had Module:Find sources appear in the course of normal editing, then clicked on a link in it to find sources? I feel like most of us probably have our methods already, and will do the same kinds of searches at the same places for similar kinds of information.I fielded a question at one of the helpdesks the other day, where a user was trying to get information about some 19th century book. I pointed them at Internet Archive, google scholar, Jstor, and told them to check their school library resources, like they had zero idea where to start since we didn't have an article specifically about this one book. I kinda get the impression that this find sources template has a similar purpose, and I think for this use case, finding easier sources does make a difference, even if for a more experienced user going through a quality assessment process, it absolutely doesn't.It may in fact be the case that NYT has more information readily available via search than AP does per Orange Suede Sofa's comment. That's a pretty strong argument against this particular swap. Higher quality sources are always going to be ceteris paribus more important than easy sources. I just don't think for the people this template most benefits, that all other things are equal.I'm never going to argue that ease of access or ease of verification are the most important things about a source. My own topic area of concentration, Early China, is woefully outdated and often doesn't reflect modern scholarly consensus, because so much of the sourcing is from centuries-old classics that have been digitised and are freely available multiple places. It sucks. But if someone hit me up with no idea where even to start, I'd probably still point them at things I know they'll have access to at home for free with no special accounts anywhere. It's a better starting point than asking if someone can afford a subscription or a particular book. Folly Mox (talk) 08:15, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comment I am concerned that we not set a precedent that accessibility is more important than reliability in ranking sources. For many topics, the best sources are on paper, or, if available on-line, are behind paywalls. I understand that many editors are at a disadvantage over access to such sources, but I think we still need to recommend the best sources first. Freely-accessible sources are fine, it they reliably support the content they are cited for, but they should not be a permanent substitute for better sources that may be behind paywalls or only available on paper. - Donald Albury 13:46, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
- Absolutely right. This is the most important comment that anyone has made here. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree though there should be a preference for sources not behind paywalls be it subscriptions to news outlets or academic journals. UnironicEditor (talk) 07:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- For most topics, the emphasis in sourcing should be on scholarly sources rather than breaking news. Both NYT and AP are not ideal sources for an encyclopedia simply because they are news sources and may not reflect scholarly consensus on a particular topic. Their only notable advantage is being more up to date, thus being citable for current events. (t · c) buidhe 15:37, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- ^ "GERALDINE'S NEW RECORD; MADE YESTERDAY AT THE NEW RACE TRACK. A MOST SUCCESSFUL OPENING DAY AT THE FINEST RACE TRACK IN THE WORLD". The New York Times. 1889-08-21. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-14.
- ^ Nast, Condé (2012-02-23). "The Beauty and Tragedy of Hungary's Supple Stringbike". WIRED. Retrieved 2023-05-27.
mondonomo.ai should be blacklisted
mondonomo.ai is used on WP as if it was a reliable source. However, the website seems to be a mere content farm. Thus, mondonomo.ai should be blacklisted. Veverve (talk) 09:21, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- The correct place for proposals to blacklist sources is Wikipedia:Reliable sources noticeboard. As far as I can tell the source has not been discussed there previously so you'll be better to add a bit more background information than you have here. Thryduulf (talk) 10:00, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- If the goal is blacklisting, then please see Wikipedia:Spam blacklist#Requests for listing. If the goal is to list it at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, then – assuming it's actually a source of "perennial" discussions, and not just one of the zillions of websites that is easily identified as undesirable – RSN will be the right place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- See the link search. Why not blacklist *.ai? Johnuniq (talk) 10:05, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Changes to GEOLAND
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Regarding the section "Settlements and administrative regions" of the notability guide for geographical features (WP:NGEO), which of the following should we do?:
- Option 1: Status quo. Leave it as it is
- Option 2: Replace the "Settlements and administrative regions" section with:
- Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable content for an encyclopedic article. Editors should avoid creating very short articles on these topics, e.g., "Village X is in County Y, Province Z of Country A, at coordinates C, with a population of P." is not enough content for a stand-alone article.
- If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).
- This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.
- This change to be made in combination with the amonishment that editors should avoid flooding AFD with articles (e.g., more than 10 nominations per day as with minor planets) that fail the amended guide. FOARP (talk) 16:22, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
The current "Settlements and administrative regions" guideline, which would be removed in favor of the text above
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References |
Background
The proposed amendment is the result of a discussion on the NGEO talk-page involving the editors @Davidstewartharvey, Bookku, Certes, North8000, Horse Eye's Back, Selfstudier, Crouch, Swale, Visviva, BilledMammal, Hut 8.5, Bkonrad, Newimpartial, Hike395, Donald Albury, Viridiscalculus, Mxn, Avilich, Dlthewave, Choess, Joe Roe, Ezhiki, Rschen7754, Atlantic306, XOR'easter, and Imzadi1979:. This change was prompted by discussions involving sets of mass-created articles about Geographical entities based primarily or solely on database sources including:
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Carlossuarez46
- Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive332#Mass_deletion_of_Iranian_abadis
- Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1064#Mass-creating_articles_based_on_one_unreliable_source
- Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive691#User:Dr._Blofeld
- Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_357#RfC:_GNIS
- Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_362#GEOnet_Names_Server_(GNS)
Survey (Changes to GEOLAND)
- Option 2 - This change is needed, particularly in an era of LLMs, to avoid the further flooding of Wikipedia with articles about geographical entities based solely on statistical data from a database and containing no "human" data on the entity in question. The policy basis for this is plain since Wikipedia is not a directory, and Wikipedia is not a database. In as much as Wikipedia has a gazetteer function, it is fulfilled by articles that extend beyond a single sentence and an infobox, and as such the proposed standard, which is a long way short of full WP:GNG, is a reasonable minimum standard guaranteeing that, going forward, we will have articles that at least tell you something about the place beyond simple statistics. It also avoids the mass-creation of articles about geographical entities that are purely bureaucratic such as irrigation districts and the like, which presently is allowed under the GEOLAND standard.
The present situation, where any geographical entity of any kind that has a population is granted notability pretty much automatically, has repeatedly led us into bad situations. Far from raising the profile of poorer countries, the present GEOLAND standard serves to elevate countries that have easily-accessible electronic databases of geographical entities that the poorest states typically lack but, for example, richer countries tend to have. Given the problems that mass-created articles on EN Wiki about Iranian "villages" (that were not actually villages) based on the Iranian census caused for editors Persian Wikipedia (see here for them begging for Carlossuarez46 to stop) it simply cannot be said that the present standard helps the disadvantaged. Rather, it is a vehicle for mass-creation of poor-quality stubs that are of no use to anyone and which will not be expanded, but which also find their way into mirrors and become confusing artefacts on Google Maps thus trashing the information space. FOARP (talk) 16:22, 15 September 2023 (UTC) - Option 1 as an "everything not mandatory is forbidden" problem. The basic problem with these guidelines -- that I'm currently in the progress of writing up something much longer and more centralized about -- is that too many people, on both 'sides' of the grander sweeping debate here, interpret "something is notable" as meaning "something must have a stand-alone article". This is explicitly contradicted by WP:NOPAGE, and editors have full freedom to 1. upmerge content better covered in a centralized place and 2. not mass-create articles, which is the real problem here (ACAS was hideously botched by the fact no one can agree what mass creation is, but I'd certainly support a flat ban on bot creation). "Notable vs not notable" is not "mandatory article vs option of a list", it's "option of article or list vs mandatory list".The practice we consistently see across "X thing where functionally any true case of it will be notable, so is nominally said to have default notability, stops being said to have default notability" is disparate impact. It's still extremely rare for, say, Anglosphere schools or train stations to be deleted, but much more common where sources are less accessible. This is complicated; as someone who's done a lot of scheduling for multiple areas of the main page, I've seen enough view patterns to know how reader interests intertwine with national/regional bias, and there's a reasonable case to be made that the idea we need to improve coverage through such article genres specifically (that is, these sorts of "practical individual elements", rather than much-harder-to-write articles about e.g. culture) is wrong. Both the arguments that mass creation somehow "helps other countries" and the one that deletion standards that specifically try to get at the mass creation problem don't have disparate impact are flatly wrong, observably wrong to anyone who watches the project with open eyes.Everything that all these recent arguments are trying to get at is the mass creation problem. Mass creation is the single most commons-burning thing on the project, because it takes completely valid, usable notability standards and sees them tightened in an attempt to prevent the "congratulations on your 2 billion new inaccurate stubs" failure mode. This is because people on both sides don't get that things can be neither mandatory nor forbidden. Notable things do not have to have articles -- but non-notable things have to not have articles. Tightening notability standards, specifically, in response to mass creation is the worst of all results, because the commons-burning articles remain while potential valid articles in the future are prohibited. (Low notability standards are in and of themselves encouraging; people are much more enthusiastic to work where they don't feel like they'll need to prove a borderline case. This means that a standard that "totally allows bad articles!" is one that allows many more good articles than one that's theoretically high enough to only allow the cream of the crop; people writing the cream of the crop overlap heavily with people who do not care to fight at AfD.) The response is to recognize that NOPAGE is a guideline and to be much stricter about merging permastubs. The real response is to recognize that notability standards are a poor proxy for quality standards and that's where all these cagematches really come from, but..."I don't think you're ready for that one yet, but your kids are gonna love it". Vaticidalprophet 16:54, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- While I agree that WP:NOPAGE is under-considered, I don't think it is applicable here because there are no circumstances where we should have an article when
information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates
does not exist. BilledMammal (talk) 17:50, 15 September 2023 (UTC)- Sure, we shouldn't have articles that don't demonstrate any reason for them to be articles. Note that this is a carefully separate statement to "where X doesn't exist" -- it's hard to determine in many cases whether one editor's absence of evidence for X is a true evidence of absence, and I've seen plenty of both merges and deletions where such sources could be found with very little trouble. I'm not enthused at all by that, but I also don't shed any tears for articles in the shape those are in when they get merged or prodded. Redlinks can encourage good articles more than bad articles do.
- But I don't see any clear reason why we shouldn't have lists, or other ways-of-covering-a-subject, for things of clear relevance to a reference work that nonetheless aren't best covered independently. We have many lists of settlements in X, cricketers in X, etc. These provide reference-work value and allow us to cover a greater range of subjects.
- I want to reiterate the "generous notability standards encourage good articles" point, because I think it's lost in a lot of discussions that fall for other myths like the idea inclusion-deletion has any "quality vs quantity" component. It is so much easier to write to a high standard when you don't have to worry someone could erase it on a technicality. The generosity of NBOOK bears fruit -- 1.7% of articles in WikiProject Books are GA/FA compared to 0.7% of the project as a whole. Medicine holds at about 1.25% non-stubs being quality-assessed, and the standards for a medical article to pass GA/FA are markedly higher than just about anywhere else (ask me how I know) -- but all diseases are notable. (And yet, we've had no trouble getting stuff deleted when it doesn't want or need a dedicated article, even if it's technically a described human disease.) Medicine also happens to have a significant majority non-stub articles despite such a low standard and an admitted history of mass creation, implying people are generally willing to expand articles past their minimum notability-demonstrating threshold in at least this topic area. Very few people enjoy arguing at AfD, and those who do enjoy it less for one's own articles. The unexpected consequences of raising notability standards -- as opposed to other standards -- need to be considered. Vaticidalprophet 18:26, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
But I don't see any clear reason why we shouldn't have lists, or other ways-of-covering-a-subject, for things of clear relevance to a reference work that nonetheless aren't best covered independently.
This change won't have any impact on whether or not we can create such lists; currently such lists are permitted under WP:LISTN with WP:GEOLAND being silent on the topic, and that status quo will continue regardless of whether there is a consensus for this change. BilledMammal (talk) 19:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)- Your specific contention is that NOPAGE (
When creating new content about a notable topic, editors should consider how best to help readers understand it. Often, understanding is best achieved by presenting the topic on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so; at times it is better to cover a notable topic as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context (and doing so in no way disparages the importance of the topic). Editorial judgment goes into each decision about whether or not to create a separate page, but the decision should always be based upon specific considerations about how to make the topic understandable, and not merely upon personal likes or dislikes.
) is inapplicable here. How is it inapplicable? If there's too little to write about a place for a useful article, don't have one; if there's enough, write one if you want. ("Statistics" for a populated place are rather broadly construed, such that it's very possible to conceive of an all-'statistics' article providing unambiguous reference work value -- the example bot-stubs are not this, but that's exactly the problem with using inspecific and arguable terminology here.) Vaticidalprophet 19:39, 15 September 2023 (UTC)- It's inapplicable here because it has no bearing on discussions about whether we should keep or delete a list; NOPAGE doesn't grant notability to the list (the "broader topic"), NLIST does. To put it another way: can you provide an example of a list that would be deleted if this change was implemented? BilledMammal (talk) 19:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Your specific contention is that NOPAGE (
- While I agree that WP:NOPAGE is under-considered, I don't think it is applicable here because there are no circumstances where we should have an article when
| Thebiguglyalien explained it better BilledMammal (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC) |
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| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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- Vaticidalprophet I think that the miscommunication here is this: the contention is that if it is permitted to create a stub about a village, then someone will create said stub, and this will include mass creation. And when someone suggests that these microstubs be merged into a single list, enough people will say "no, it's notable per WP:GEOLAND" and the microstubs will remain regardless of any list. As someone who advocates such listification, I've seen this happen. So either we'll debate every single microstub one at a time to decide if WP:NOPAGE should be applied (Option 1), or we need to say "secondary sources are required for individual articles" and then the deleted microstubs can be preserved in lists (Option 2). BilledMammal, is this a fair analysis in your view? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- There's actually nothing wrong with mass creation here as long as whoever is mass creating has demonstrably verified that these are populated places. We've only gotten into trouble where a census is vague or unreliable, and we're really at the point where there shouldn't be that many places left to create articles for. SportingFlyer T·C 20:26, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
@SportingFlyer: I hear your concern about uncritically relying on an external reference work, but I have to disagree that "we're really at the point where there shouldn't be that many places left to create articles for". Peek into any other Wikipedia language edition (that isn't written in Cebuano) and you'll find lots of opportunities for expansion. I still occasionally find the time to write articles about places in Vietnam; it's quite clear to me that we have a ways to go for places with a longer history and more population than analogous places in Europe or North America.
Very often, when I need to learn more about a place I've stumbled upon in OpenStreetMap or OpenHistoricalMap, I end up needing to run a Chinese or German or Spanish Wikipedia article through Google Translate because there's no English coverage and the Wikidata item can only say so much.
When someone creates a glut of pro forma stubs, the problem doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the subjects of those stubs themselves. It could have everything to do with the manner in which they were created. The problem with regulating this activity in a notability guideline is that it also casts a chilling effect on others who come along wanting to write about the same subjects with more care.
– Minh Nguyễn 💬 01:08, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, it is; thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 20:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- There are plenty of editors actively merging geo-microstubs into lists. I've seen this happen, probably in far greater number than the argument version (because the argument version revolves around individual articles while upmergers can get tens of articles at once easily). Most stuff people do on Wikipedia isn't discussed, they just make the edits. If you're watching discussions rather than edits, you're coming away with an inaccurate view of the project; this is true in pretty much every problematic area (RSN/RSPS is the classic example). Vaticidalprophet 20:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose this is one of those instances where it's two different approaches to a similar result. The way I see this is that the benefit of cleanly setting the bar now outweighs any downside of setting a restriction against articles that (in my opinion) universally should be upmerged anyway. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:42, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Vaticidalprophet - I upmerged some of the Turkish “neighbourhood” articles that were the subject of one of the discussions listed in the background section. Someone went through recently and restored every single one of them back to being “X is a neighbourhood in Y” microstubs they were before, making exactly the “they’re GEOLAND passes so they should have articles” argument @Thebiguglyalien refers to. FOARP (talk) 20:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose this is one of those instances where it's two different approaches to a similar result. The way I see this is that the benefit of cleanly setting the bar now outweighs any downside of setting a restriction against articles that (in my opinion) universally should be upmerged anyway. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:42, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- There's actually nothing wrong with mass creation here as long as whoever is mass creating has demonstrably verified that these are populated places. We've only gotten into trouble where a census is vague or unreliable, and we're really at the point where there shouldn't be that many places left to create articles for. SportingFlyer T·C 20:26, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Vaticidalprophet I think that the miscommunication here is this: the contention is that if it is permitted to create a stub about a village, then someone will create said stub, and this will include mass creation. And when someone suggests that these microstubs be merged into a single list, enough people will say "no, it's notable per WP:GEOLAND" and the microstubs will remain regardless of any list. As someone who advocates such listification, I've seen this happen. So either we'll debate every single microstub one at a time to decide if WP:NOPAGE should be applied (Option 1), or we need to say "secondary sources are required for individual articles" and then the deleted microstubs can be preserved in lists (Option 2). BilledMammal, is this a fair analysis in your view? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm also not convinced that low inclusion standards result in a high average quality - WP:WikiProject Geography, the WikiProject that is pertinent to this discussion, has just 0.15% as good or featured articles. BilledMammal (talk) 19:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal: As far as I know, most place articles aren't even listed under WikiProject Geography; there are lots of more local WikiProjects that cover geography as a matter of course. Regardless, I think this metric mostly just demonstrates the sheer ambition of a WikiProject Geography versus a WikiProject Elements (to unfairly pick on a random WikiProject). Minh Nguyễn 💬 01:22, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. Nothing in the present guidelines prevents merging small articles into larger ones, nor deleting articles that fail WP:V. This means that there is not a problem that needs solving. I also completely disagree with the premise that articles which are primarily statistical are in some way a bad thing - they provide readers with verifiable encyclopaedic information about a topic they are looking for. Thryduulf (talk) 17:19, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- If you had looked at the original discussion, most of us were against mass deletion of articles. The discussion started because "legal defined place" is impossible to define when you actually start to research around the world. The phrase Settlements and Administrative regions actually means most articles are now covered by GEOLAND.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Davidstewartharvey how is that relevant to anything in my comment? Thryduulf (talk) 19:11, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- If you had looked at the original discussion, most of us were against mass deletion of articles. The discussion started because "legal defined place" is impossible to define when you actually start to research around the world. The phrase Settlements and Administrative regions actually means most articles are now covered by GEOLAND.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2, per FOARP. If
information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates
does not exist then we can not have an article on them as such an article provides no benefit to the reader; this change will ensure that we don't. Of course, content can still be included in an appropriate parent article for which such information does exist. BilledMammal (talk) 17:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)- Too add to this, Wikipedia is not a database;
data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources
. If all we have isstatistics, region, and coordinates
- if all we have is basic data - then we lack the explanations to put the data in context and any such article is a WP:NOT violation. This proposal will align the guideline WP:NGEO with the policy WP:NOT. BilledMammal (talk) 18:56, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- To expand further, if all we have are
statistics, region, and coordinates
then that almost always means that all we have are primary sources; WP:OR tells usDo not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
For example, elsewhere in this discussion, an example of an article that those in opposition to this proposal believe should exist is Salisbury East, South Australia as they were able to expand it, but even the expanded version is sourced solely to the Australian census, a primary source. - In addition, others have pointed out that such sources often have reliability issues resulting in our articles containing significant inaccuracies to the detriment of our readers; this change won't only align NGEO with NOT, it will also align it with two of our core policies, OR and WP:RS. BilledMammal (talk) 03:05, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- To expand further, if all we have are
- Too add to this, Wikipedia is not a database;
- Option 2 I started this whole shebang off when I asked the question about the existing wording. The question was what is a legal recognised place?. From there it became apparent that others saw the reasoning behind needing change. The current wording is not clear and we need it clarifying. I think the proposal is the best compromise.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:04, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 I certainly did not, and do not endorse this proposal. This is another symptom of the rampant deletionism/GNG witch-hunt taking place across the site (just see the cricket proposal at the top of the page). It also completely ignores WP:NEXIST. --Rschen7754 18:06, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Thryduulf. Dave (talk) 18:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 (Cautious support) There are several good changes in here on minor and housekeeping things. Also the one significant change is that it sort of sets a "1/3 of GNG" standard....merely that some non-trivial coverage is known to exist. I was involved in lengthy discussions related to this. I think that it was near-unanimous intent to not create any big upset of the apple cart regarding current articles but instead to avoid mass creation of immense amounts of microstubs which could be a huge problem in this area. I think that widespread sentiment would provide an extra layer of insurance against the former regarding current articles. I think that the wp:notability ecosystem has it's finger slightly on the scale towards geographic articles, and I think rightly so in view of these tending to be more enclyclopedic. On the flip side, the current standard sets us for being ripe for creation of hundreds of thousands of mictostubs or a random selection from amongst those. I think that the proposal treads the "best of both worlds" middle ground. North8000 (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sort of middle of the road. I think that the net effect of our current system has been OK. My concern is that there are 2,000,000 - 4,000,000 yet-to-be written permastubs which could pass the current SNG.North8000 (talk) 03:50, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Strong Option 1 Articles about where people live are one of the key components of Wikipedia, which functions as a gazetteer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a page on a place where we can verify people live or have lived, which is a very easy test to apply. If the only thing we discuss at the moment is simple statistics, that does not mean the article cannot be potentially expanded in the future, even for very small, remote places - it is important to maintain a consistent international standard so we don't start redirecting places which aren't as well documented. I think a change that needs to be made based on recent AfDs are something along the lines of just being listed in a census is not de facto evidence of verification, due to different standards across international censuses. Any one bulk creating articles from censuses is disruptive. SportingFlyer T·C 19:50, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Problem: houses, streets, hotels, pest-control districts etc. are all “places where people lived” and for which statistical data can be provided. FOARP (talk) 20:35, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's been flagrantly obvious for a long time what NGEO is meant to include, which clearly does not apply to houses, streets, hotels, pest-control districts... SportingFlyer T·C 23:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Problem: houses, streets, hotels, pest-control districts etc. are all “places where people lived” and for which statistical data can be provided. FOARP (talk) 20:35, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. We've been a gazetteer from the start of the project. Unlike articles on BLPs, where conceivable harm exists from short articles about people of borderline notability that can be a target of bad edits/vandalism, there is no harm to having articles on populated settlements that exist. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:05, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2. There is absolutely no reason to have an article about something if there are not reliable secondary sources covering it. The whole point of notability guidelines is to avoid articles about random topics of which there's nothing meaningful to write about. For this particular subject, GNG should be more than sufficient to determine whether the topic is notable, and I don't see the need for this SNG at all. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:11, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Then why have we allowed this exception for two decades? We decided a long time ago that we're a gazetteer. SportingFlyer T·C 20:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- We never decided anything of the kind. There is no consensus, anywhere on Wikipedia, ever, that EN Wikipedia is a gazetteer (i.e., a geographical dictionary) per se. At most we have elements of gazetteer, just as we have elements of other non-encyclopaedic text books. Gazetteers are typically long lists of feature-names paired with statistical data. FOARP (talk) 20:40, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is absolutely false. I've dug through it before, it occurred a long time ago, will try and find it again soon. SportingFlyer T·C 21:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that Wikipedia should have gazetteer-like content. But I believe that this content belongs in list form, not as a separate encyclopedia article for every individual entry. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:44, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- We never decided anything of the kind. There is no consensus, anywhere on Wikipedia, ever, that EN Wikipedia is a gazetteer (i.e., a geographical dictionary) per se. At most we have elements of gazetteer, just as we have elements of other non-encyclopaedic text books. Gazetteers are typically long lists of feature-names paired with statistical data. FOARP (talk) 20:40, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Then why have we allowed this exception for two decades? We decided a long time ago that we're a gazetteer. SportingFlyer T·C 20:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 per above commenters. Makes perfect sense to me. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 While in principle I support option 2, I think the wording of the proposed replacement is exceptionally poor. The current version is tight and specific, while the proposed replacement is far too wordy. I think it it would be far better if the proposed changes were added to the current version rather than replacing it outright; it'd actually be quite simple and could be done in only one or two sentences. Curbon7 (talk) 20:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 Wikipedia is a gazetteer. From my understanding, the main issue people have with GEOLAND is it leads to many stub articles that will never really progress past a stub. However, as many have pointed out, these can be upmerged whenever needed. Plus as Espresso Addict added, there is no tangible harm that really arises from even these articles. ULPS (talk • contribs) 22:09, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Google Maps now contains random, non-existent “villages” based on them scrapping innaccurate data from Wikipedia. The Iranian case linked above is another example of harm that has come from mass-production of articles based solely on a database. FOARP (talk) 05:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- If that is true, it is a reason to prohibit the citation of Google Maps as a source in Wikipedia articles, not other sources that don't do that. We are not responsible for what mirrors of Wikipedia choose to scrape. Even if we were responsible, that is an argument to restrain scrapping, not an argument to delete accurate articles just because they are presently short or their present content is statistical. James500 (talk) 05:27, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Ok, Google Maps sucks and shouldn't be used as a source. We should not be overcorrecting because of one bad incident that is somewhat related. ULPS (talk • contribs) 19:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- What? It is our fault that Google Maps – a resource many people routinely use – is now innaccurate. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:55, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Of course we're not responsible for which information other parties choose to source from us, or their lack of double checking before republication. But we are responsible for our own inaccuracies. "It's their fault for trusting us" is not a particularly strong argument. Folly Mox (talk) 20:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
@FOARP: This is an oversimplification. Google Maps maintains their own proprietary database of places that they source from a variety of official databases, including GNIS, Geonames, and TIGER (all of them notorious for mixups and duplication). [34][35] The fact that you're seeing these places on Google Maps is a coincidence. We also know that they maintain their own database of place names, because sometimes they're well ahead of Wikipedia in acknowledging a place's new name. However, in underresourced languages, they pull place names directly from Wikidata. (Their Vietnamese place labels were full of disambiguators until I cleaned them up in Wikidata earlier this year.)
Yes, Google Maps does look for a matching Wikipedia article if you ask it for more information about a place you see on the map. They aren't going to dump the user into the GNIS database, after all. You could argue that Wikipedia's coverage of the place lends it more legitimacy in the user's eyes than if it had remained a bare place name with no information, but not that we're leading Google astray.
– Minh Nguyễn 💬 23:45, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Google Maps now contains random, non-existent “villages” based on them scrapping innaccurate data from Wikipedia. The Iranian case linked above is another example of harm that has come from mass-production of articles based solely on a database. FOARP (talk) 05:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Thryduulf. Villages generally satisfy GNG. There is generally either extensive written historical records or extensive archaeology. There is a mountain of history books based on those. Even Roman and medieval villages that now exist only under the ground are the subject of an extensive archaeological literature, because they get excavated. Similarly, a parish used as a unit of local government etc is generally going to satisfy GNG from at least the middle ages onwards, due to the records and the history books based on those. Contemporary settlements are the subject of a gigantic mountain of newspapers. Since these topics generally satisfy GNG, they should be presumed notable. We don't want another spree of mass nominations based on the principle of "this village/civil parish satisfies GNG, but the sources are not in the article yet, so let's mass nominate it without a WP:BEFORE search". If, for the sake of argument, a region of local governement was particularly short lived due to boundary changes, it can be merged without affecting the general principle, because notability only creates a rebuttable presumption. The Iranian census incident is a red herring, because those places were not villages. James500 (talk) 22:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Vaticidalprophet. –Fredddie™ 23:58, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1
Option 2 is blatantly anglocentric and comes across as a attempt to radically decrease Wikipedia's level of coverage on geographic areas outside of the anglosphere.There are multiple villages and/or significant settlements across much of India that may have only been listed in the census or other related database specific websites. Finding reliable third party coverage of these places are hard to come by especially based on just English search phrases (not to mention one place might have multiple transliterations which complicates searching for sourcing even further). Any such article sent to AFD will result in a near certain delete (due to the historically low participation of editors in this area). -- Sohom (talk) 00:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- I doubt the intent of the proposal is "anglocentrism". I personally see it as WP:NOTDB issue. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 12:21, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Edward-Woodrow I've struck out the portions refering to the anglocentricness of the proposal, however, I think the meat of the oppose is valid, from my POV, it's less a NOTDB issue and more a issue with having the ability to delete articles that might have some coverage (say in one or two local newspapers) in non-english sources that might not be easily accessible on the internet/via a straight/obvious Google search (ping on reply) -- Sohom (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, I think there will always be a bias towards the anglosphere on enwiki, not because we want one, but because, well, all editors speak english, so many live in the english-speaking world. There will always be a bias towards les pays francophones on frwiki, and so on. Edward-Woodrow • talk 20:16, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- And english editors will have higher average difficulty in correctly reading, say, a Telugu source, just as Telugu Wikipedia editors have higher average difficulty in reading an English source. @Sohom Datta: forgot to ping. Edward-Woodrow • talk 20:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, I think there will always be a bias towards the anglosphere on enwiki, not because we want one, but because, well, all editors speak english, so many live in the english-speaking world. There will always be a bias towards les pays francophones on frwiki, and so on. Edward-Woodrow • talk 20:16, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Edward-Woodrow I've struck out the portions refering to the anglocentricness of the proposal, however, I think the meat of the oppose is valid, from my POV, it's less a NOTDB issue and more a issue with having the ability to delete articles that might have some coverage (say in one or two local newspapers) in non-english sources that might not be easily accessible on the internet/via a straight/obvious Google search (ping on reply) -- Sohom (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's not as if Indian people and journalists are incapable of providing non-trivial coverage of their "significant" communities. Language barriers and language preferences are an inherent barrier to the development of certain spheres of topics in any given language specific Wikipedia due to the editing base which each may attract. Shockingly, we have might have less coverage of Burundian topics than by a hypothetical active Wikipedia.ku, but that doesn't mean universal standards still can't be applied, even if results are imperfect. A new standard would also apply to hundreds/thousands of places in the Anglosphere as well, but that doesn't mean it is Anglophobic. Yes, a person living in the Anglosphere (the average English Wikipedia editor) might have to work a little harder to find "notable"/includable communities under Option 2. But I think outright dismissing it as a total inequity assumes that people in other countries are incapable of writing their own newspaper articles on places that are politically, economically, or culturally significant to them. Ask yourself, how "significant" are these Indian villages if for example, after extensive search, it appears not even an Indian journalist has bothered writing about them? Should they still be included because it would make a white-majority internet community feel better about itself, since they think they have better judgement of what is important than the people of those nations? -Indy beetle (talk) 09:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Indy beetle I am not arguing that people outside the Anglosphere are incapable of creating newspaper articles (not sure what gave you that impression). What I'm pointing to is the fact that finding that one article in a major newspaper about a populated area (that is notable for having a burger joint) in the United States of America is probably easier than finding the one articles in a Indian local-language newspaper (that pronounce the name of the place differently) that tells you that the place in question is a semi-major hub because it has the only hospital within the next few 100 or so miles. (if you are lucky). (Also, pls ping on reply) -- Sohom (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Sohom Datta: My wording was inappropriate for my message, my apologies (though I have encountered others before on Wikipedia who seem to think they know a great more about what is important to a given people than the people themselves). I do not mean to suggest that you were exercising prejudice. What I am saying is that I think we'd be way better off writing articles about localities in any country because we have at least one secondary SIGCOV RS to help us do so (thus implying their relative significance) rather than assuming that just because it was listed as an entry in a census means it is notable. And I understand challenges exist with regards to trying to write articles about a topic/area with which most of our editors are unfamiliar, but as someone who has written about undercovered subjects, I think it's worth the extra work necessary to make the start to a proper article. I don't see how copying what the Indian census might say about a random small town but in different words is a great victory for CSB. Pretending that it is such a victory implies that we are either doubtful that the Indian media (or whoever) are incapable of distinguishing important places in their society or that we editors are incapable of digging up relevant secondary RS to evidence notability. I think that sets the bar way too low. Because inevitably we'll end up with a bunch of insignificant places while pretending that they're not, and that follows for both the Anglosphere and outside of it. Start crawling through obscure Indian place news articles and we might actually be able to CSB instead of just including everything in a census and pretending like that's good enough for an encyclopedia. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:03, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Indy beetle I am not arguing that people outside the Anglosphere are incapable of creating newspaper articles (not sure what gave you that impression). What I'm pointing to is the fact that finding that one article in a major newspaper about a populated area (that is notable for having a burger joint) in the United States of America is probably easier than finding the one articles in a Indian local-language newspaper (that pronounce the name of the place differently) that tells you that the place in question is a semi-major hub because it has the only hospital within the next few 100 or so miles. (if you are lucky). (Also, pls ping on reply) -- Sohom (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- I doubt the intent of the proposal is "anglocentrism". I personally see it as WP:NOTDB issue. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 12:21, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2. "Gazetteer functions" still exist when individual settlements are covered within larger articles. That is in fact more like a gazetteer than what single-line GIS+census data stubs provide.JoelleJay (talk) 01:23, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- It is obvious that, if this proposal achieves consensus, there will be further proposals for mass draftification and then mass deletion without WP:BEFORE, as with the Olympians and the cricketers. Such proposals would massively disrupt the entire project, as articles on villages and units of local government are absolutely vital to Wikipedia's coverage of geography, history, government and just about everything else. Mass elimination of notable villages is not like removing a few BLPs or a few company articles for contemporary small businesses, but rather rises to the level of the most extreme disruption possible. If further proposals for mass draftification without WP:BEFORE are not prohibited (and simply making such a proposal without WP:BEFORE in respect of villages and other vital topics would need to be a potentially blockable offence), we are going to need more and stronger SNG presumptions of notability on this project, not less, in order to prevent such mass draftification proposals from seriously disrupting the project. At this stage, we have reached a point where we need to have a policy to restrain the making of proposals for mass draftification without WP:BEFORE, we need to have that policy immediately, and we need to have it before we can even consider any proposal to eliminate any existing SNG notability criteria. James500 (talk) 04:26, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- User:James500, everything you've said in this comment seems predicated on the false idea that the only way to present information in Wikipedia is a standalone article. I don't disagree that it's important for the project to contain encyclopaedically relevant information on geographic subdivisions (and, to generalise, any topic type), but if we don't have enough for a third and fourth sentence on a topic, it's better all around – for the reader as well as editors – for the information to be presented in its larger context, rather than a tiny garbage substub. Folly Mox (talk) 15:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Please do not put words into my mouth that having nothing to do with what I actually said. The problem with refusing to perform WP:BEFORE has nothing to do with whether any page should have a standalone article. The problem is that someone who refuses to do WP:BEFORE is failing to do due diligence, is failing to check the factual accuracy of the claims he is making, is attempting to freeload and to make himself a burden on others, and is trying to get other people to do something that he ought to do himself. This is not an objection to articles having to satisfy GNG, but to an unfair fact finding exercise where it is impossible to prove that they satisfy GNG before the end of the RfC, due to the fact that there is not enough time (assuming that the RfC is not going last six months or more). James500 (talk) 22:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I should also point out that draftification is not merger. I appreciate that the proposal refers to including "information . . . in a more general article", but there is no realistic prospect of that instruction actually being followed in a mass draftification proposal. The recent mass draftification proposals specifically proposed that WP:ATD-M would not be followed, that the information in the articles would not be merged into the "more general articles" that already existed, and that "more general articles" would not be created as merger targets where they did not already exist. It is obvious that, if there is a mass draftification proposal for villages, nothing will be merged, and that every article not expanded will be draftified and then deleted, because that is what was proposed in the previous two RfCs. James500 (talk) 22:30, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I should also point out that this proposal is not confined to two sentence "substubs". This proposal is worded in such a way that it will in practice generally delete any article that does not contain references that prove that it satisfies GNG, regardless of the length of that article and regardless of whether the topic does in fact satisfy GNG. That is effect of the reference to WP:BURDEN and the words "extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable content for an encyclopedic article" and "cannot be developed using known sources" and "avoid creating very short articles", when read with criteria 8 of the deletion policy, and having regard to the fact WP:BEFORE is a dead letter at AfD, and the fact that instructions to merge non-notable pages are typically not followed at AfD, and those pages typically just get deleted. James500 (talk) 22:56, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thank-you! Up-merging and table articles really can be more useful than a myriad of X is Y articles. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- There are a number of affordances of enwiki where this is not the case: notably the category system, effective hypertext cross-referencing and mouseover (or google) preview functionality. Only some of these limitations can be addressed by the use of categorized redirects and/or hard work. Wikipedia is not simply a "ball of text", even if some editors tend to see it that way. Newimpartial (talk) 16:43, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Is it? I mean, that seems more like a matter of taste than anything else. If the standard practice were to have bigger articles with boilerplatish prose and tables about subdivisions, wouldn't editors just complain that those articles read too much like databases? (If the question begins "Would Wikipedia editors complain...", the answer is probably "yes".) XOR'easter (talk) 16:34, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I really think 95% of this issue is aesthetic. I like the way stubs feel – there's something very pleasing and early-days-Wikipedian about a page that says "this is a thing we don't have a proper article on, maybe you want to write it?" Others, clearly, find them so distasteful they have to keep coming up with new compounds to express their contempt (substub, microstub, ickystub). That doesn't seem like something we can easily build consensus around, but it also doesn't seem like something worth restructuring vast swathes of the encyclopaedia over, given we're already so far down the road of many stubs instead of few lists. – Joe (talk) 16:58, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- From a maintenance perspective: absolutely yes. When there is an IP-hopping vandal subtly changing numerical infobox parameters, or inserting nationalist alternate names in non-Latin scripts; or when a good-faith editor adds a bunch of entries sourced to non-English government sources that happen to be for gas stations, it is so much easier and quicker to identify the problem when it's occurring on a well-watched list article than on dozens of individual pages.
From a category browsing perspective: categories with hundreds of entries and (sub)ncategories are daunting, difficult to navigate, and devoid of context. If you're wanting to learn about major cities in some region, combing through hundreds of names to find the ones where actual info exists is a chore. A list sortable by population is so much better. JoelleJay (talk) 17:23, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- And some kind of data structure of which one could make flexible queries would be even better.... XOR'easter (talk) 17:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Heh, maybe if someone really wants prose about the place, it won't be long before they can consult the Abstract Wikipedia, powered by Wikidata and not subject to the English Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Minh Nguyễn 💬 07:41, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Apart from the maintenance burden, it is probably mostly personal choice, although I'd characterise the personal choice based more on neurotype or something similar than aesthetic taste. I don't know if I can understand anything outside its context, so for me it feels like super teeny tiny articles are basically useless. Presumably there's another kind of brain that can only understand things when removed from context and made into a topic of discussion, for whom any list of things is deeply unhelpful. I find myself agreeing most here with Vaticidalprophet, but I don't think I'll be bolding a not-vote. Folly Mox (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I noted in Discussion that I was able to substantially expand two local articles based only on census results (Clayton, Victoria#Demographics, previously a one-paragraph section in a vaguely Start-class article, and Salisbury East, South Australia, previously an uncited two-sentence stub). While neither of these articles are passing GAN any time soon, they also provide clear (to me) reference work value and a substantial amount of context about those places. I definitely think there's a level of aesthetic-disagreement here, but I'm not a fan of stubs-for-their-own-sake myself and I still land quite clearly "this is a terrible idea". WAID has made the point a few times that "database" is not a natural category -- you can write a fleshed-out article for a location based on database sources. Vaticidalprophet 20:59, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- User:James500, everything you've said in this comment seems predicated on the false idea that the only way to present information in Wikipedia is a standalone article. I don't disagree that it's important for the project to contain encyclopaedically relevant information on geographic subdivisions (and, to generalise, any topic type), but if we don't have enough for a third and fourth sentence on a topic, it's better all around – for the reader as well as editors – for the information to be presented in its larger context, rather than a tiny garbage substub. Folly Mox (talk) 15:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sometimes I wonder, if we gave users the option to automatically display short articles as part of a list, would the inclusionist–deletionist debate just disappear? – Joe (talk) 11:59, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's a really interesting idea. Some functionality where if an article is under a certain size, opening the link inserts its contents into the article you're already reading? Folly Mox (talk) 20:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe @Folly Mox: I made something like that once, as a memorial to the Encyclopædia Britannica, our timeless inspiration. [36] Minh Nguyễn 💬 23:53, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's a really interesting idea. Some functionality where if an article is under a certain size, opening the link inserts its contents into the article you're already reading? Folly Mox (talk) 20:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- It is obvious that, if this proposal achieves consensus, there will be further proposals for mass draftification and then mass deletion without WP:BEFORE, as with the Olympians and the cricketers. Such proposals would massively disrupt the entire project, as articles on villages and units of local government are absolutely vital to Wikipedia's coverage of geography, history, government and just about everything else. Mass elimination of notable villages is not like removing a few BLPs or a few company articles for contemporary small businesses, but rather rises to the level of the most extreme disruption possible. If further proposals for mass draftification without WP:BEFORE are not prohibited (and simply making such a proposal without WP:BEFORE in respect of villages and other vital topics would need to be a potentially blockable offence), we are going to need more and stronger SNG presumptions of notability on this project, not less, in order to prevent such mass draftification proposals from seriously disrupting the project. At this stage, we have reached a point where we need to have a policy to restrain the making of proposals for mass draftification without WP:BEFORE, we need to have that policy immediately, and we need to have it before we can even consider any proposal to eliminate any existing SNG notability criteria. James500 (talk) 04:26, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. Generally agree with Vaticidalprophet. We do need improved processes for merging permastubs and other lower quality articles. Tightening notability standards to force articles slowlly through AfD (or future proposals) when merging is generally the ideal outcome is not the right way to accomplish this. —siroχo 05:58, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2, because I don't see a point in having articles that are just copied from (possibly copyrighted) database entries. These articles will be peripheral and therefore unmaintained, posing accuracy and issues; there's no benefit for readers to come to us for these, when they can just check the original, properly-maintained, up-to-date, accurate database. Beyond that, we're also literally not a database, in the sense that people don't browse Wikipedia using SQL commands. This is not a WP:NOT-based argument about the encyclopedic value of content; I'm saying that turning database entries into microstubs is an inane way to present this information. Though I would remove paragraph 2 from option 2, because merging should be decided on a case-by-base basis, and there's no need to address it in the guideline. A small settlement won't always be relevant enough to mention in the article of a bigger area. DFlhb (talk) 09:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 (no change). WP:GEOLAND is a long-standing guideline with simple, easily-applied criteria. The proposed replacement is basically a restatement of the GNG except somehow both vaguer (how much "verifiable content" is enough?) and longer. It's going to produce more work for editors who write geographic articles, more work for editors who review them, more work for participants and closers at AfD, and... for what? To avoid another User:Carlossuarez46 incident? The problematic articles he created didn't meet GEOLAND as it's currently written; the problem there was an editor being sloppy with sources in a language he didn't understand, and that's not something we can address with new guidelines. Apart from these isolated incidents of editor misconduct, I've yet to hear a coherent rationale for these endless attempts to jettison our gazetteer function, other than that the proponents just don't like short articles about places. Which, guys, isn't enough... surely you realise that by now? – Joe (talk) 11:54, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 Upward merge or deletion is the natural course of action for tiny statistical entries that cannot be expanded and which would never feature in a serious encyclopedia anyway. The proposed change is of benefit to readers, editors, and just about everyone except stub enthusiasts, and puts the guideline in line with the current policies, that Wikipedia is not a database or a gazetteer. Avilich (talk) 14:22, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- How does the proposed change benefit readers? At the moment the reader entering the name of a village gets taken straight to the information (which may well be just one sentence, as most articles in most of the encyclopedias that Wikipedia put out of business were) that we have about it. If they get redirected to a list article they may have to read lots of information about other villages before getting to the one they were looking for. How is that a benefit? Of course the separate article now should have a link to the next largest unit if anyone wants to read about that. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 I find that Thryduulf pretty much said what I was going to say. I also agree with Joe Roe that the proposed replacement is like the GNG but worse. (It's hard to shake the feeling that the underlying rationale here is that we need to change the guidelines because we have too many articles that would be excluded by the guideline we would change to; it feels oddly circular.) I remain unconvinced that there is a real problem here; if there is, I think siroχo makes a good point that this is the wrong way to solve it. The word "database" seems to be thrown around like a boogeyman in these arguments. Sub-stubs about tiny villages read too much like database entries, we are told (but wouldn't a big page about all the villages in a province read like a database dump?). If particular databases turn out to be full of shoddy information about tiny villages, then we should mark them as unreliable for the purpose. The proposed replacement doesn't actually offer any useful guidance on this point, whereas the current text does:
The Geographic Names Information System and the GEOnet Names Server do not satisfy the "legal recognition" requirement and are also unreliable for "populated place" designation.
Why are we making the guideline worse?! XOR'easter (talk) 16:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- To amplify: If there is a problem, then the proposal at hand is a bad solution because it is more ambiguous than the current guideline. XOR'easter (talk) 20:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- More ambiguous that suddenly having to make yourself an expert on Iranian or Turkish law to work out whether a Mahalle or Abadi are "populated, legally recognized places", or working out whether inclusion in GNIS is the same as being legally recognised? And then wondering why practically-identical settlements in a neighbouring country that don't have any special legal-ish name aren't notable? FOARP (talk) 16:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, because it throws out the specific point about GNIS. For anyone who wants to get started writing or editing articles about places, it is manifestly less useful than what we have now. XOR'easter (talk) 22:00, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- More ambiguous that suddenly having to make yourself an expert on Iranian or Turkish law to work out whether a Mahalle or Abadi are "populated, legally recognized places", or working out whether inclusion in GNIS is the same as being legally recognised? And then wondering why practically-identical settlements in a neighbouring country that don't have any special legal-ish name aren't notable? FOARP (talk) 16:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- To amplify: If there is a problem, then the proposal at hand is a bad solution because it is more ambiguous than the current guideline. XOR'easter (talk) 20:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 If you want to stop people from mass-creating bad articles, create rules around the mass-creation of GEOLAND articles. The current standard is perfectly fine. I support stricter standards around notability for people, especially BLPs, but the same concerns don't apply to places. Per Joe Roe, there's no need to create a bunch more work for no real reason. Galobtter (talk) 18:01, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 Wikipedia is an almanac. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm confused here. Since when has Wikipedia ever catered for the content typical of almanacs (i.e.,
" weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables"
etc.)? An even if Wikipedia were an almanac, why would that be relevant in this case? WP:5P is an essay and the inclusion of almanacs (literal indiscriminate collections of information) in it is why it remains so. FOARP (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- Sure, we don't have weather forecasts, planting dates, or tide tables. But the lead of our article at Almanac also mentions dates of eclipses and religious festivals (which often have dates in their infoboxes, e.g. Easter and Ramadan). Later in the article it mentions many more topics that are covered in contemporary almanacs, many of which we cover too (e.g. demographics, winners of awards, and so on). Anomie⚔ 16:54, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm confused here. Since when has Wikipedia ever catered for the content typical of almanacs (i.e.,
- Option 2 GEOLAND has always been too over-broad; anything that restricts it is welcome for me. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:03, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. Does this feel to anyone else like attempt No. 10,832 by a group of users to drastically reduce the amount of content we've got here? Per Wikipedia:Five pillars:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia: Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers.
This feels like its only going to result in the mass removal of historic places and locations in other countries, as we do not have nearly as good access to their sources. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:14, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- Does this feel to anyone else like BeanieFan11 getting quite close to the casting of aspersions? XAM2175 (T) 00:43, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- @XAM2175, I do not feel that @BeanieFan11's comment is casting aspersions. It's describing the impression they get from the proposal, and while it might be an exaggeration and may or may not be accurate it is not an unreasonable interpretation of the proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Huh? I do not see at all how one could get that impression. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:59, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Does this feel to anyone else like BeanieFan11 getting quite close to the casting of aspersions? XAM2175 (T) 00:43, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 - This solves two problems: Ambiguity in the meaning of "legally recognized populated place" and the unreliability/unsuitability of sources that simply provide statistics. Time and time again we've seen the consequences of relying on databases and the like, even official government ones: They often either document things that aren't really settlements (such as census tracts that are drawn as a convenient way to count people) or are flat-out wrong as is the case with WP:GNIS. Aside from establishing notability, secondary sources are needed to confirm that the place is actually a settlement and not something else entirely.I'm baffled by the argument that these places meet GNG and yet requiring the inclusion of SIGCOV sources would prevent them from being created. If the sources exist, why not require editors to include them as we did with WP:SPORTBASIC #5? –dlthewave ☎ 20:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is not the creation of new pages. The problem is that we have a lot of legacy articles on topics that do in fact satisfy GNG, but don't actually cite the sources to prove it, because the relevant SNG, WP:ARTN, WP:ASSERTN and WP:BEFORE told editors, and still do tell editors, that if a topic in fact satisfies GNG, it is not necessary for the article to prove that it satisfies GNG. In reality, that is no longer true. These days an article usually does have to actually prove that it satisfies GNG in order to avoid being deleted or nominated for deletion.
- It would take a certain amount of time to put the relevant sources into those legacy articles. However, without the SNG, we are not likely to get the time necessary to add those sources. We will probably get a large number of high speed WP:FAIT mass nominations or mass draftification proposals in quick succession. That is the way things are on this project at the moment. James500 (talk) 01:37, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 and just to pitch in here, a few years back I had to nominate >100 articles for deletion, created by a now-blocked admin from an old gazetteer that had created whole areas, towns and cities in the United Arab Emirates that had never existed in reality or had ceased to exist decades ago. Apps and delivery services scrape Wikipedia, leading to whole communities searchable online that had no basis whatsoever in reality other than a dumb one-line article in Wikipedia based on a single source that was itself based on a 70-year-old survey of a country that has been utterly transformed over the past five decades. One-line, one-source stubs based on Wikimapia, Google or any other (often user-editable with no oversight)) database sources should not pass WP:GEOLAND. Just to be clear here - we actually have a responsibility... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- We can choose to have or not have mass creation whether this proposal passes or not. We can, and by your own evidence do, nominate articles for deletion for failing WP:V. What sources we regard as accurate or inaccurate is completely independent of this proposal. So even if those things are problems (which is not universally agreed) they can be solved without any changes to the proposed changes would not solve those problems. Additionally, notability is not temporary - just because something has ceased to exist does not mean we should not cover it (or are you proposing to delete subjects like Pangaea, Ur, Orleans, Oregon, Capel Celyn, etc, etc. We have a responsibility to our readers to provide accurate, neutral information about encyclopaedic topics. If other people are using our information for other purposes it is their responsibility to ensure it is accurate for that use, not us. Thryduulf (talk) 20:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that we have a responsibility to provide accurate information. A big problem with maps and databases is that they nearly always lack sufficient context to establish what the place actually is/was, making it impossible to write an accurate article. Similar to the UAE situation, a few of us are currently dealing with "phantom communities" in northern Canada: Someone went through the national geo database making articles for every "flag stop" railroad station (these are spots in remote areas where the train will drop you off upon request) and since these "rail points" are also categorized as "unincorporated places", they went ahead and made an "unincorporated community" article for each one as well despite none of them having any sort of human habitation. This type of thing is extremely common in articles based on databases and is also very time consuming to clean up, especially since they end up being cross-referenced to other articles (Settlement A is located 9 miles from Settlement B). Requiring some minimum amount of secondary sourcing would prevent many of these situations. –dlthewave ☎ 15:08, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 (hesitantly). So many articles on communities are simply "x place exists in Y region in Z country." I respect our gazetteer functions, and I don't really want to see a bunch of random small place crap crammed into whatever is deemed the parent article (Do readers really need to know that the unofficial neighborhood of Foo in Bar Province was recorded as having 37 residents in the 1999 census on the Bar Province article? The redirecting and merging will inevitably occur if this is adopted...), but the definition of "community" and particularly, "Populated, legally recognized places" is so broad and undefined it is practical unworkable. Such a definition works relatively well if restricted to incorporated communities in the American sense (allowed to have a local government) but breaks down due to the lack of clear analogous versions elsewhere, and thus, it seems having been mentioned in some "official" document somewhere has been deemed sufficient. At least I was able to include some local history on the Moss Neck, North Carolina article when I wrote it due to a newspaper report on local history and a book, even if the material is only a paragraph long. Should that not be our minimum expectation? Otherwise we are simply demonstrating that places WP:EXIST without saying anything beyond that. -Indy beetle (talk) 09:11, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Agree that this is basically a standard designed primarily for North America (though it does not function so well there), and which quickly makes no sense at all when applied to other countries where even very small communities - potentially single buildings - can be "legally recognised" (e.g., the Iranian Abadi and Turkish Mahalle). The objection that the proposed changes are "anglocentric" is misguided.
- The present standard basically requires us to become experts in local law in order to identify which communities are and are not "legally recognised", and creates wide variance between otherwise identical communities in different countries depending on what the local law says. FOARP (talk) 12:32, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- There's no need to clean up the "x place exists in Y region in Z country," though. Many of these are linked to articles in other local languages which may be able to give a user more information, or an editor a starting point on how to expand the article. Not only would we lose that with an up-merge, but up-merging to a list would also suggest to any one wanting to edit that article in the future that a stand-alone version would not be allowed, which is clearly incorrect. SportingFlyer T·C 12:37, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- up-merging to a list would also suggest to any one wanting to edit that article in the future that a stand-alone version would not be allowed. I am frankly not seeing that, seeing as this proposal provides the guidance for when one can create a separate article (a mere single piece of secondary SIGCOV). Meanwhile, take a look at List of townships in North Carolina, which is a comprehensive list of all townships in North Carolina with each entry being Wikilinked (most being red but some being blue). From the best I can tell, every blue link article on a township is a simple regurgitation of census data or unsourced description of the township borders most certainly thanks to our current NGEO standards. Townships in North Carolina haven't had any meaningful legal/political significance of their own since the 1870s (please read the source material I just added on their history), and their continued de jure existence is an accident of history. A good handful of rural counties use the boundaries set by the townships for dividing up information or determining other boundaries (for their voting precincts typically, in my experience) and the census does sort some data along those lines, but I have yet to read a single news article which even mentions a township in a non-historical sense or meet a single North Carolinian who identifies themselves by or even knows in what township they reside or originate. Ansonville Township, Anson County, North Carolina, for example, is all primary sources and OR. How good is that? Under current NGEO standards, all ~1,000 NC townships could have standalone articles ("Populated, legally recognized places" they are, arguably), and yet they mean next-to-nothing to most people who live there, with similarly next-to-nothing secondary RS to show for them. This is about as good as having articles for every voting precinct, policing precinct, or firefighting district, in a given place. For those that are notable of course we can have our new standards which require the bare minimum, but why just assume that all of them are important when nobody else does? -Indy beetle (talk) 04:34, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 Even if you think we're a gazetteer (we're not, he have have features of one), database-style content just giving existence of a place and its location can be provided in lists, rather than stand-alone articles that lack coverage beyond the database. Reywas92Talk 14:12, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1—as many have said there, this change would substitute some vague GNG-based guideline to solve a problem the wrong way. GNG is supposed to be a default rule for notability when a subject-specific guideline doesn't exist, or for cases that demonstrate notability another way that isn't captured by that SNG. Instead, there seems to be a drive to go around actual policy by subordinating all notability guidelines to GNG, to make them all subject-specific applications of it, which violates the spirit of the original rules. The current SNG at discussion here already works well enough on its own and does not need to be changed. If the issue is mass creation of articles, directly address that by limiting article creation. If the issue is stubs, and I will disagree that stubs are a bad thing, then address them individually through editing processes like proposed mergers and redirection. Imzadi 1979 → 14:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 I don't think that the current SNG works globally: in many cases, it's impossible to tell whether a place is legally recognized or not (per Davidstewartharvey). The proposal is not based on GNG. It's based on the long-standing notability criterion that is now at WP:GEONATURAL. That SNG has worked well for years --- I think it's applicable to places (after suitable modification achieved via discussion), and it will be better than what we have today. — hike395 (talk) 17:00, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. Seeing as the proper procedure for deletion will likely not be taken when mass-deleting articles that help keep Wikipedia a comprehensive geographic resource rather than a dulled directory of only the largest cities, it is better to maintain the status quo and have an actual discussion with people knowledgeable in the field. Frankly, the changes proposed reek of a Western worldview that runs counter to this project's goal to acknowledge and reduce systematic bias; many countries do not have such a rigid view of what is and is not a settled place. SounderBruce 20:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- However if we keep the current rule, many parts of the early do not have a formal process of what is Populated, legally recognized places. Census data is not actually legal recognition in many parts of the world, so those villages, towns, administrative regions would then have to meet GNG under the current rules, which would then be a fail without WP:SIGCOV. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:18, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 some of the reliable census provide significant data to enable a start class article. Where there is hardly any information but what there is is verified in a reliable census or other reliable source the option of creating a list instead of seperate articles is a viable alternative to deletion providing no reliably sourced information is lost. Also WP:NOTSTATS is irrelevant to this debate as what it refers to is uncontextualised statistics and confusing lists whereas census information is obviously in context for the specific place and can be put into simple prose to avoid confusion, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:58, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Policy explicitly prohibits census data from contributing to notability because it is primary data. JoelleJay (talk) 00:30, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- If this is true, I haven't seen any clear evidence for it. For example, WP:GNG states that "sources should be secondary sources", but the masthead at WP:N insists on reliable and independent sources without discounting primary ones. And WP:PRIMARY number 5 is not a comment about Notability; in fact, it is part of a list that is bounded by competing P&G considerations and does not represent a blanket prohibition whatsoever. Newimpartial (talk) 01:51, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources.
Further examples of primary sources include: archeological artifacts; census results...
Creating an article based entirely on census data is precisely what is being prohibited here. JoelleJay (talk) 03:05, 18 September 2023 (UTC)Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them
- That third pullquote is the exact one I addressed (and contextualized) as WP:PRIMARY number 5. The first pullquote is in a paragraph that opens
Wikipedia articles should be based
and itself should, I believe, be interpreted with the same caveat for competing P&G considerations. I do not believe the community interptets this passage as independent primary sources beingprohibited
from contributing to Notability in the way you mean (although the GNG insists on a degree of secondary sourcing within its domain). Newimpartial (talk) 10:05, 18 September 2023 (UTC)- You did not "contextualize" that quote with anything that changes its meaning. It doesn't matter whether it explicitly says anything about notability (especially since elsewhere the policy does state this) because notability directly follows from it. The prohibition is on basing articles on primary sources; if primary sources could be used to establish notability then they would necessarily have to be permitted when they are the only sources. And even if we took your tortured additive interpretation of SIGCOV, an article that is based on primary sources is still violating policy regardless of whether the topic is notable. JoelleJay (talk) 20:08, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I contextualized it by pointing to the phrase preceding it which says, essentially, that policy-based exceptions apply to all the bullets including the one quoted. This would be one of those policy-based exceptions.
- And the fact is that SIGCOV applies within the scope of GNG, and is therefore not directly applicable to this discussion. I am not sure why you are bringing it up. Newimpartial (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- You did not "contextualize" that quote with anything that changes its meaning. It doesn't matter whether it explicitly says anything about notability (especially since elsewhere the policy does state this) because notability directly follows from it. The prohibition is on basing articles on primary sources; if primary sources could be used to establish notability then they would necessarily have to be permitted when they are the only sources. And even if we took your tortured additive interpretation of SIGCOV, an article that is based on primary sources is still violating policy regardless of whether the topic is notable. JoelleJay (talk) 20:08, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- That third pullquote is the exact one I addressed (and contextualized) as WP:PRIMARY number 5. The first pullquote is in a paragraph that opens
- If this is true, I haven't seen any clear evidence for it. For example, WP:GNG states that "sources should be secondary sources", but the masthead at WP:N insists on reliable and independent sources without discounting primary ones. And WP:PRIMARY number 5 is not a comment about Notability; in fact, it is part of a list that is bounded by competing P&G considerations and does not represent a blanket prohibition whatsoever. Newimpartial (talk) 01:51, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Policy explicitly prohibits census data from contributing to notability because it is primary data. JoelleJay (talk) 00:30, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I would consider making the rules of presumed notability a bit more lax but otherwise I support. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:50, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per VaticidalProphet. The existing guidance is sufficiently clear as to what we'd like to include, and our sourcing guidance should be sufficient with respect to addressing specific instances of low-quality content. If it ain't broke... — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I would say the fact we've recently had to delete thousands (tens of thousands? @FOARP?) of stubs on "villages" that were created over the last decade due to editors simply using the current guideline is evidence something is broke. And it's not just a problem of mass creation unless you consider everyone who uses government censuses as the bases of articles to be "mass creating". JoelleJay (talk) 00:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- If someone is misreading a source, en masse, and mass-creating articles a-la-Iranian "village" stubs, then yes, that's a source-text agreement issue. That isn't an issue with the guidance here; that's an issue with one's understanding of a particular country's municipality system. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:47, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- If the guidance says "populated, legally recognized places" and a government happens to classify gas stations as "populated, legally recognized places", then that's an indication "populated, legally recognized places" is too ambiguous. We had to add abadis to the guideline after the Iran fiasco; how many other such designations exist that would still qualify based on the current wording? JoelleJay (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do you have any evidence that any government does classify gas stations as "populated, legally recognised places"? Unless you do then this is just unhelpful hyperbole. Even if it is true, then it is entirely possible to merge mention of said gas stations to a larger article without needing to change any policies or guidelines, let alone make such potentially disruptive changes as are proposed here. Thryduulf (talk) 01:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
"Do you have any evidence that any government does classify gas stations as "populated, legally recognised places"?
- Are petrol stations populated? Well, yes, since apparently the Iranian census counted people living at them. Is an Abadi a legally-recognised place? Well this rather hangs on what you think a "legally-recognised place" is since it is not actually a concept that exists outside Wikipedia, but the standard preferred by many is "mentioned in government documents/legislation", which abadis are."it is entirely possible to merge mention of said gas stations"
- are you seriously proposing to merge the fact that town X has a petrol station with a population of Y?- PS - let's take a recently-created example, not something by Carlossuarez46 or the other historical mass creators - Babinac, Ivanska. Can you tell me how this is a "legally recognised populated place" if Agro-Industry Complex was not? And then consider that 56 "village" articles were created by the same creator and on the same day as Babinac, Ivanska, a day in May this year. FOARP (talk) 07:31, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is tangential, but it's not unheard of for people to maintain permanent residences in the same structure as a business they operate. I saw this all the time when I lived in China; Iran may have a similar tradition. I'm not arguing that a business domicile like a petrol station or general store deserves any mention on Wikipedia, but it is possible for them to be "populated places". I've also "lived at work" (distinct to "working from home"), but never for more than a month, and usually when I also had an actual separate home with an address. Folly Mox (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- I “lived at work” when I lived in a factory dormitory whilst living in China (Foxconn in Longhua, Shenzhen, but also the university campus when I studied Chinese whilst teaching). I think anyone can see that these are not “legally recognised, populated places” just because a census counted people living at them.
- Living in farms and shops is pretty common around the world, not just in Iran/China. FOARP (talk) 20:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
I think anyone can see that these are not “legally recognised, populated places”
. I don't think you can speak in such absolute terms. What is the line between single isolated farms and a dispersed settlement of farms? We should always follow the sources - if they describe somewhere as a populated place then we should treat it as a populated place. The proposal would make it much easier to delete encyclopaedic content about the place when (a) a stub article is not actually harming anyone or anything, and (b) nothing in the current guidelines prohibits merging when appropriate. Thryduulf (talk) 20:52, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is tangential, but it's not unheard of for people to maintain permanent residences in the same structure as a business they operate. I saw this all the time when I lived in China; Iran may have a similar tradition. I'm not arguing that a business domicile like a petrol station or general store deserves any mention on Wikipedia, but it is possible for them to be "populated places". I've also "lived at work" (distinct to "working from home"), but never for more than a month, and usually when I also had an actual separate home with an address. Folly Mox (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do you have any evidence that any government does classify gas stations as "populated, legally recognised places"? Unless you do then this is just unhelpful hyperbole. Even if it is true, then it is entirely possible to merge mention of said gas stations to a larger article without needing to change any policies or guidelines, let alone make such potentially disruptive changes as are proposed here. Thryduulf (talk) 01:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- If the guidance says "populated, legally recognized places" and a government happens to classify gas stations as "populated, legally recognized places", then that's an indication "populated, legally recognized places" is too ambiguous. We had to add abadis to the guideline after the Iran fiasco; how many other such designations exist that would still qualify based on the current wording? JoelleJay (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- If someone is misreading a source, en masse, and mass-creating articles a-la-Iranian "village" stubs, then yes, that's a source-text agreement issue. That isn't an issue with the guidance here; that's an issue with one's understanding of a particular country's municipality system. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:47, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I would say the fact we've recently had to delete thousands (tens of thousands? @FOARP?) of stubs on "villages" that were created over the last decade due to editors simply using the current guideline is evidence something is broke. And it's not just a problem of mass creation unless you consider everyone who uses government censuses as the bases of articles to be "mass creating". JoelleJay (talk) 00:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Joe, Thryduulf and VaticidalProphet. As appears above there are many subtexts to the proposal, none of which seem to be actually beneficial and some actively harmful. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with stubs, and as AfD shows, with a little effort GNG can be made to reject almost anything, in the relevant hands. Per Red-tailed hawk, as above, If it ain't broke..., except that I do think that the concept of legally recognised place is very unhelpful and should be revised / removed but that doesn't go near to justifying what is proposed here. Ingratis (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 No, we should not have an article on every 30-person village that is listed on the census. In-depth sourcing is essential to writing an actual encyclopedia article and without it a stand alone article should not exist. (t · c) buidhe 01:09, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 The single phrase provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. from the proposal is enough to make my hair stand up. If their are sources, just give them. Do not assume that there are sources. The Banner talk 01:35, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- @The Banner, how is the proposal worse than the existing guidance
Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable
, which permits an article even if it's known that no such sources exist? JoelleJay (talk) 03:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC)- Return question: would you write an article about a place when you can not prove that it exists? Every editor in wiki-world would be permitted to ask for sources and they have to be given. The new proposal does lower that standard of sourcing. The Banner talk 10:34, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- @The Banner What?? Under the current guideline, there is no requirement for sources containing anything beyond stats etc. An editor asking someone to provide such a source would be denied outright. The proposal, like the current guideline, expects that a stats/coordinates source that verifies a location's existence is already cited in the article; what the proposal asks is that for determining notability editors should additionally consider whether non-stats sources exist before creating the article. JoelleJay (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Return question: would you write an article about a place when you can not prove that it exists? Every editor in wiki-world would be permitted to ask for sources and they have to be given. The new proposal does lower that standard of sourcing. The Banner talk 10:34, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- @The Banner, how is the proposal worse than the existing guidance
- Option 1 is fine. The new proposed text is poorly written (what does it even mean for "information [to be] known to exist"?) and unclear. The current guideline provides some guidance about relevant criteria (population and legal recognition). The proposed text would replace that with a series of interpretational landmines which would only add to confusion and pointless endless debates (what is "known", "very short", "enough content"?). Moreover, by saying that "This criterion applies" etc., the new text would make all other places fall back to GNG, including places which the current guideline mentions: is that intentional? Nemo 04:49, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- No changes - I don't like the idea of being told I only have two options as it puts the person suggesting it in a position of power over me. No changes need to be made. We're also having what seems to be monthly discussions around here where hundreds to thousands of articles risk deletion if new rules are made, and that needs to stop. KatoKungLee (talk) 12:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. When it comes to locations that exist (or have existed in the past), we should have an article on it to maintain our role as a gazetteer. We should presume notability on very few things, but places people live is one of them. Census data is enough, and if the census data is wrong, we can assess it on a case-by-case basis. Anarchyte (talk) 14:13, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- But the current guidelines does actually cover that! Census data does not actually mean they are a legally recognised place. So therefore if we cannot prove they are legally recognised, we have to go to the second point of GEOLAND which means they have to meet GNG, where census data is clearly not useable to establish notability under wiki rules.
- The proposal means all Settlements and Administrative Regions can have an article if it is more than just census data, if not if can be put into the next higher area. They won't be losses, and with redirects, if more refs become available we can they reverse the situation. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. Wikipedia was, in a sense, built on geography articles citing database sources; one of the site's largest sources of content early on came from Ram-Man's articles on U.S. places based on census data. As Thryduulf said early on, these articles still provide useful info to readers, and I'm strongly opposed to a proposal to let users merge them without even trying to look for more sources (as the link to WP:BURDEN implies). TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 17:39, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per vaticidalprophet, Imzadi, SounderBruce, and TheCatalyst 31. --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 18:51, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Sohom, and SportingFlyer We already have a WP:SYSTEMIC bias problem that promotes the views of the scholarly West (particularly the Anglosphere) over everyone else. Option 2. and all these other attempts to get rid of our WP:SNGs will only exacerbate that problem. Typing an Indian town's name into Google and getting 0 results does not mean that secondary sources don't exist for it. The WP:NSPECIES proposal is problematic too. From 2007 to 2017, two editors mass-created articles on Lepidoptera. Most of them are still stubs, but a single editor has expanded most of the species endemic to New Zealand to the point where anything other than a !Keep outcome is impossible. Of course, most people from New Zealand speak English. An editor who speaks Portuguese probably could expand the stubs related to the Lepidoptera of Brazil. I am applying the same logic to settlements because I do not know of any settlement in the Anglosphere that genuinely isn't notable. Scorpions1325 (talk) 03:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 but I do see a problem with the "legally recognized populated place" criterion. Performing a Google search got few hits — it appears to be a term confined to Wikipedia. Perhaps an attempt for a clearer definition would help, however the proposed changes to the wording sought here do not. What I anticipate should option 2 gain consensus is deletions of many village articles in countries where English isn't the prime language and internet derived sources in English are not easily found. I base this on the lack of support for Indian and Nepalese schools at AfD. I'm not saying this is the intention of the proposed change, but it is a likely outcome and so restricts the encyclopedia's gazetteer function. Rupples (talk) 04:34, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 option 2 would explicitly recognise that administrative regions are presumed to be notable. The current wording doesn't explicitly say this and isn't usually interpreted that way. While the conventional high level subdivisions of a country are likely to be notable, low level subdivisions usually aren't unless they coincide with settlements. I'm sympathetic to the rest of the proposal but this part could actually open the door to more low-quality geographical articles being created. Hut 8.5 06:20, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Vaticidalprophet, Thryduulf, and Mxn below. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:03, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 - largely following Vaticidalprophet but also concerns raised about WP:5P1: Wikipedia has an important function as a gazetteer. I also find the prose in the status quo more comprehensible. Suriname0 (talk) 15:28, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3. A subject is notable if it has been extensively covered in reliable and independent sources (seems we've already got that somewhere). That is the point at which we should have a full article on it, otherwise there is nothing from which to write such an article. That does not, of course, mean that we cannot say anything at all about it absent that, but if all we know about some "populated place" are a few database factoids, include that in List of populated places in Example Administrative Region, not a separate article. That would still let us fulfill any "gazetteer" function, and indeed, that would look much more like a gazetteer than the current situation does. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:22, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 this is a solution in search of a problem. If there is no consensus to merge settlement stubs, they don't need to be merged. Eluchil404 (talk) 03:05, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 sufficiently articulated by Vaticidalprophet above that I don't need to go repeat the same thing here. RecycledPixels (talk) 17:16, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3. Suggest: Legally-recognized populated places are generally considered to be notable and can generally be written about, even if most of the text is based on map observational data, but the creation of short stubs where there is nothing but a database mentioning location online is strongly discouraged. The minimum requirement expected is a population figure and basic location details as a precondition for a stub (like Aung Myay), where the stub can be fleshed out to resemble an encyclopedia article instead of an "xxx is a village" type database substub. In cases where there is no population data and it resembles a database, consider merging into a tabled list.
- @Dr. Blofeld Your bolded !vote indicates you support option 2, but your comment indicates you support option 1. Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't believe in "inherent notability", but you'll find that you can write a fleshed out stub for most places. Aung Myay is an example which has barely anything online but clearly worth keeping. I think we should strive to have a minimum like that for all populated places, but if editors can't find anything to write about it then we should redirect to a tabled list. I see it as more an organizational rather than notability issues. I believe most populated places are notable and potentially will have content written about them eventually, but it's eradicating the empty xxx is a village stubs in cases where they can't be fleshed out. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:39, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- A requirement for a population figure and basic location details might be a good idea as a precondition for a stub like that Aung Myay article... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:41, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't believe in "inherent notability", but you'll find that you can write a fleshed out stub for most places. Aung Myay is an example which has barely anything online but clearly worth keeping. I think we should strive to have a minimum like that for all populated places, but if editors can't find anything to write about it then we should redirect to a tabled list. I see it as more an organizational rather than notability issues. I believe most populated places are notable and potentially will have content written about them eventually, but it's eradicating the empty xxx is a village stubs in cases where they can't be fleshed out. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:39, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Dr. Blofeld Your bolded !vote indicates you support option 2, but your comment indicates you support option 1. Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thryduulf I've switched to my proposed Option 3 then, which I think is stronger than the others..♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:00, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
Discussion (Changes to GEOLAND)
Extended discussion and responses here please... FOARP (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
So it looks like FOARP brings this up every year because they clearly don't like the idea that Wikipedia exists in part to detail places where people live. A couple years ago there was a unilateral change which was then brought to the larger community and thoroughly rejected. This would have the same effect - by making NGEO slightly more difficult to apply at AfD, we would tighten our notability guidelines and lose one of our purposes as an encyclopedia.
The The idea wikipedia is a gazetteer was boldly added by Unitedstatesian in 2008 and reflected how NGEO worked at AfD (this was later made a guideline.) Even though it was boldly added, its place was further confirmed in discussion in 2009. In reality, right now, the NGEO test is very easy: if we can prove people live or lived in a place, it's eligible for a stand-alone article, similar to how gazetteers work. This would require us to be able to say something about the place, which would instantly put a number of places at risk of deletion, especially in non-English countries or in places where you can't just web search for a village.
The reason is clear: even though we may not be able to say anything about a verified populated place now does not mean we'll never be able to: the fact people live in a locale means there's something notable about that locale, even if there's just an oral history and it's not on the internet yet. A lot of the deletion discussions I've been a part of have been about verifiability, for instance the American GNIS stubs, and I can see a change leading to a lot of negative outcomes where we would delete verifiable places without easily accessible online information. SportingFlyer T·C 21:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- SportingFlyer - You said you were going to find a source to support your assertion that Wikipedia is a gazetteer. None of these links do so. Even WP:5P (an essay) only states that it includes elements of gazetteers. FOARP (talk) 14:49, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's in there. It was boldly added to reflect geography policy at early AfDs and then was further accepted by the community through discussion. SportingFlyer T·C 21:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's in where? A simple quote will do. FOARP (talk) 12:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Again it goes all the way back to the first edit of NGEO, and the concept was endorsed as much a little under two years ago: [37] SportingFlyer T·C 09:45, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- ... which only ever said that Wikipedia includes
"combines many features of ... gazetteers"
, not that it is a gazetteer. FOARP (talk) 10:27, 18 September 2023 (UTC)- However given how many people in this and related discussions base their argument on Wikipedia being/including a gazetteer I'm not convinced that the distinction you are making is one that is supported by community consensus. When it comes to the inclusion of information about populated and formerly populated places, I don't think the distinction is either meaningful or useful. Thryduulf (talk) 14:20, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think people should recognise this “Wikipedia is a gazetteer” argument for what it would logically require: that Wikipedia give the same level of coverage to geographical features that gazetteers do. This means extending our coverage to every single named feature, regardless of notability or whether there is anything verifiable to write about it beyond statistics. FOARP (talk) 03:25, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- We should have coverage of every populated place we can verify. That doesn't necessarily mean a standalone article, but nothing in current policy or guidelines requires that so it's not a problem. Whether we have a similar coverage of every named feature, if that's what the community wants then I see no issue with that. Thryduulf (talk) 08:25, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think people should recognise this “Wikipedia is a gazetteer” argument for what it would logically require: that Wikipedia give the same level of coverage to geographical features that gazetteers do. This means extending our coverage to every single named feature, regardless of notability or whether there is anything verifiable to write about it beyond statistics. FOARP (talk) 03:25, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- However given how many people in this and related discussions base their argument on Wikipedia being/including a gazetteer I'm not convinced that the distinction you are making is one that is supported by community consensus. When it comes to the inclusion of information about populated and formerly populated places, I don't think the distinction is either meaningful or useful. Thryduulf (talk) 14:20, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- ... which only ever said that Wikipedia includes
- Again it goes all the way back to the first edit of NGEO, and the concept was endorsed as much a little under two years ago: [37] SportingFlyer T·C 09:45, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's in where? A simple quote will do. FOARP (talk) 12:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's in there. It was boldly added to reflect geography policy at early AfDs and then was further accepted by the community through discussion. SportingFlyer T·C 21:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- SportingFlyer - You said you were going to find a source to support your assertion that Wikipedia is a gazetteer. None of these links do so. Even WP:5P (an essay) only states that it includes elements of gazetteers. FOARP (talk) 14:49, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think the primary result of this would be "more uncertainty" rather than "better project". "Statistics-only" for a populated place is extremely broad; it's possible to write a significant amount about a place based solely on its census stats. I could pull out any neighbourhood in my city and assemble its census stats into a legitimate-reference-work-addition. In fact, just to test my point, I've done that and massively expanded Clayton, Victoria#Demographics. There's a lot more to the article than this section -- but if you replaced the whole article with that section and a lead saying
Clayton is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 19 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District. It is the home of Monash University
, you would have a substantially more explanatory article than the one that currently exists. I could write more there, but I very consciously restricted myself only to census results and to one article based off census results (because its secondary analysis drew a comparison the results themselves don't). The problem we have right now is that there are mass-created articles for which it's unrealistic to assume mass expansion, which is a different problem to what you can write based on something. Vaticidalprophet 22:36, 15 September 2023 (UTC)- Purer example: I remembered Salisbury East, South Australia being a stub. Excitingly, it was even an uncited stub! It's not now. I think this tells you a fair bit about the place. Vaticidalprophet 23:03, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- The process was not started by FOARP, but my me. If you had looked at the actual discussion instead of just reading the blarb at the top, the discussion was started on the basis of the actual wording of the current GEOLAND. Legal recognised place is virtually impossible to actually evidence in large parts of the world. This is why the phrase has been changed to Settlements and Administrative Regions. From that discussion the issue of permastubs came up. Now I don't have a problem with stubs if they are accurate, but census data being the only evidence to create an article is not really good enough for an encyclopedia. Glasgow University History of the British Census says "It is essential to bear in mind when examining census data that the census it is not a completely accurate record." And that is in a western country where census data is seemed to be accurate, as pointed out in the original discussions how many census in parts of the world give a name to a nomad village (such as Abadi) which has disappeared by the next census and a new one appears? As pointed out by Vaticidalprophet, he took an article which was just statistics and expanded hugely, so it is possible in a large number of cases. However sometimes you can't. Hare Green, a hamlet in Essex is a perfect example. It was just evidence by a map and census data. I have filled out with all that I can find to expand it - some historical houses and some info about the roads. None of it would meet GNG. To be honest I live in Essex and had not heard of it, and if it was redirected to Great Bromley and added there we would not lose the information.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Hare Green doesn't seem a great example to me. There are two 17th-century listed buildings, suggesting a long history which will be covered in (offline) local history books. The population is over 700, which is a small village, not really a hamlet. The settlement will appear in local newspapers, probably for hundreds of years, and certainly in multiple historical directories, which will probably turn out to include material on local public houses and businesses. 'I've never heard of it' is never a reason for deletion.
- When academic sources state that the historical UK census is not completely accurate, what's generally meant is that old handwritten records can be difficult to decipher and people gave their names in different forms, so tracing individuals can be tricky, not that a whole village was incorrectly entered! Espresso Addict (talk) 07:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I am not saying something shouldn't exist cos i have no heard of it! I have done more than internet searches - as I said I am local and found very little beyond architecture. Because something has existed doesn't mean anything interesting exists and needs an article about it based on that it just exists. If the information was added to the Great Bentley page and the page redirected there, we are not losing anything as there is not much to lose.
- The Glasgow University comment is on the British Census, but it counts for census' around the world. How many people put down Jedi as their religion? And although you maybe bound by law to complete the census in parts of the world, they are actually not considered legal documents to confirm settlements actually legally exist in many parts of the world either.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 09:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @ Davidstewartharvey: Hare Green satisfies GNG and, on account of the listed buildings, GEOFEAT. Your expansion is far from exhaustive. You have said virtually nothing about the two listed buildings, despite the fact that there is more coverage. You have not even mentioned the ancient earthworks: [38]. No apparent use of the coverage in GBooks, GScholar and the Internet Archive. You have made little use of the newspaper articles in GNews, which contain more information than you have added. You have not added any of the newspaper articles in the British Newspaper Archive [39] [40] [41], or in Newspapers.com [42] [43]. I don't see any use (beyond what is included in GNews) of the websites of the essex newspapers like this one: [44]. (GNews only contains articles from the last few years, whereas newspaper websites often go back to the 1990s). More importantly, Great Bromley itself certainly does satisfy GNG by a wide margin, but would be in real danger of an AfD or draftification under this proposal, because the sources are not in the article yet. I can put up with a place like Hare Green being merged, but I can't put up with a place like Great Bromley being mistakenly deleted or draftified, which would be the probable outcome of this proposal.
- As for the census: There is no reason to assume that any reliable source is completely accurate. It would not surprising if every reliable source in the world contains errors. If we rejected every source that contained at least one error, it would not be surprising if we end up with no sources at all. I happen to be aware that sources say that even the New York Times contains some errors (such as in its coverage of the Russian Revolution) and is therefore not completely accurate. James500 (talk) 10:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- How does the current article meet GNG? Firstly maps can't be used to define notability, the census data is not from ONS but a database site based in Germany - very questionable. The road references - one a local newspaper and the other's primary source as it is the official legislation. The references on BNA - sales of properties and livestock, a barn fire with a death, are these really enough to establish GNG? And as to GEOFEAT, I remember that there was a discussion a few years back that agreed a concensus that Grade II properties are were not accepted as notable based just on a listing. This was based on the fact there is 343,004 Grade II listed along in England. In addition the Henge is not in Hare's Green but in Little Bentley.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I read that discussion about GEOFEAT. IIRC, it was not an RfC, established no consensus, either to change the wording of the guideline or otherwise, and it was based on a pseudohistory argument that because the population of the UK is smaller than that of the USA today, the UK should have fewer listed buildings than the USA. In fact, buildings are not normally listed in the UK unless they were built before 1840, and are not automatically listed unless they were built before 1700. The UK had a much larger population than the USA before 1840, and a vastly larger population before 1700. The UK has a much larger number of pre-1840 buildings, and a vastly larger number pre-1700 buildings, than the USA. Therefore the UK should have a much larger number of listed buildings than the USA, because the UK has more historic buildings than the USA, and the UK's historic buildings are generally more important than those of the USA. The reality is that the NRHP largely consists of late 19th and 20th century buildings that would never get listed in the UK in a million years, because their historical importance is very low. The number of grade II listed buildings in the UK is reasonable for a country that has a massive concentration of medieval and early modern buildings of immense historical importance, something that does not exist in the USA, which has no medieval buildings and almost no early modern buildings. James500 (talk) 00:11, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- BAR British Series 175 says that the penannular ditch is in "Hare Green, Great Bromley". Unless you have another source, it is in Hare Green. James500 (talk) 00:51, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- there are two henges one in Great Bromley map ref 51.860498N Longitude: 1.054156E [1] and one in Little Bentley map ref Latitude: 51.884112 Longitude: 1.062716 [2] Other henges in the Tendring area is at Great Wigborough Latitude: 51.7942 / 51°47'38"N
- Longitude: 0.8369 / 0°50'12"E, Tye Henge in Lawford Latitude: 51.936516N Longitude: 1.036039E, though the closest to Hare Green is Little Bromley Latitude: 51.905055N Longitude: 1.035369E. The book is the only reference to a Henge in Hare Green. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:56, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- And further more upon checking the website https://www.citypopulation.de/en/uk/eastofengland/ which is the source of the population data, it quotes states Source: UK Office for National Statistics (web).
- Explanation: All population figures and depicted boundaries are based on output areas officially assigned to the 2022 built-up areas. Output areas often include some unbuilt parts. However, tabulated area figures refer to (typically smaller) actual built-up areas in order to present a more realistic population density. Some of the older population figures are approximate values. Well when you check the data that is currently on the site (supposedly 2021 data) it states Hare Green has a population of 678. However Great Bromley is not in there list, and when you check the data on the ONS [3] it says the parish of Great Bromley has 1100 people, with no further breakdown available. So the reference is actually duff!Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC) Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Trivial mentions do not count towards GNG. This is very explicitly stated. Hare Green being mentioned once as a location in local news stories (failing NOTNEWS) is not detailed, direct coverage of Hare Green. It is indirect and incidental. List entries for individual historic structures that happen to be in Hare Green are also not direct significant coverage of Hare Green. And literally no one would be trying to get Great Bromley deleted with this proposal, what a ridiculous leap. JoelleJay (talk) 21:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Your argument is that a village cannot be notable for significant coverage of its history or its buildings. In other words, you are arguing that a village can never be notable, since there is no other coverage that a village could receive (unless you want coverage of the quality of its subsoil). I do not think that your argument is within the letter, let alone the spirit, of GNG or NGEO. And all that your argument could achieve, at most, is a page move to something like History and buildings of Hare Green, which will put you in violation of WP:COMMONNAME. James500 (talk) 02:01, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- If a building that happens to be in Hare Green receives SIGCOV that doesn't actually discuss Hare Green itself it is not coverage of Hare Green. This should be exceptionally clear from our P&Gs. And the buildings in question don't even have SIGCOV themselves, they just have a context-less, nearly-prose-less description of the building and items inside.
If you seriously think that is direct significant coverage of Hare Green then I seriously question your understanding of our policies. JoelleJay (talk) 03:18, 17 September 2023 (UTC)TM 02 SE GREAT BROMLEY HARWICH ROAD HARE GREEN (north side)
House. C17 with later rear extension. Timber framed and rough rendered. Red plain tiled roof. Central red brick chimney stack. 2 storeys. 2 window range of small paned vertically sliding sashes. Central 2 panel 2 light door, simple surround. Interior features include vertically boarded and panelled doors, some with HL hinges. Inglenook fireplace with cast iron fireback reading "1640", "Fairfax" and depicting a man on horseback. Iron meathooks to rear kitchen ceiling beams.- (1) You have not answered what I said to you at all. You have instead twisted my words and put words into my mouth.
- (2) WP:SIGCOV does not contain a definition of the word "directly" (other than "so that no original research is needed to extract the content") and it is not acceptable for you to claim that your personal opinion about how that word should be interpretated is community consensus unless you can produce evidence of that alleged consenus. Could you, for example, provide me with a link to an RfC on the meaning of the word "directly" in WP:SIGCOV which confirms that your interpretation of that word actually is supported by community consensus?
- (3) At this point, I really suspect the fact that you are still making comments like "nearly-prose-less" tells me everything I need to know about the level of community support for your opinions. I happen to remember that your theory (and it is still only a theory) that significant coverage must consist of what you refer to as "prose" was discussed during WP:ACAS. The community pointed out to you that GNG contains no such requirement, and your personal interpretation that GNG requires what you refer to as "prose" was totally rejected by community consensus. Your proposal in Q14 was simply rejected out of hand by the community.
- (4) If you don't stop making unevidenced claims about alleged community consensus about the interpretation of particular words in guidelines, I could put a stop to that by starting an RfC myself on the meaning of "directly", to find out what the community really thinks. James500 (talk) 05:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- 1. I'm the one twisting and putting words in your mouth!? You literally said
Your argument is that a village cannot be notable for significant coverage of its history or its buildings. In other words, you are arguing that a village can never be notable, since there is no other coverage that a village could receive (unless you want coverage of the quality of its subsoil).
That is either an intentionally outrageous mischaracterization of what I said or your reading comprehension is unsuitable for this project. I didn't make a single statement that claimed to restate your arguments whatsoever; the closest would be sayingIf you seriously think...
which is very clearly not saying "You seriously think".
2. What do you believe "directly" in"Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail
means if it doesn't mean the topic must be discussed directly! Do you believe that a source's SIGCOV is distributed to all topics that are named within it?? A source on a movie that trivially names who its director was before going into detail that has nothing to do with the director's role is not SIGCOV of the director, obviously.
3. I don't know how you are reading that the community "totally rejected" the interpretation that secondary coverage should be in prose from a proposal in the very specific context of limitations on acceptable sources for mass creation that the closers said had no discernible consensus. Most of the opposes were against "disallowing mass creation of articles that are based on any database" or were somehow misinterpreting the proposal as asserting that a database isn't RS, rather than making any statement on the prose-non-prose database distinction.
4. You are more than welcome to ask the community whether "directly and in detail" includes all coverage adjacent to a trivial mention of a topic regardless of whether any coverage is actually specifically about the topic. JoelleJay (talk) 02:50, 18 September 2023 (UTC)- It does not matter whether you expressly claimed to restate my words or not (and the words "If you seriously think" and "This should be exceptionally clear" were close enough), if you answered my comment in a way that clearly implied that I had said that the coverage was "direct significant coverage of Hare Green" or clearly implied that I had said that coverage of "a building that happens to be in Hare Green" discusses "Hare Green itself" and "is . . . coverage of Hare Green". If I ask what kind of coverage a village can receive other than coverage of its history and buildings, I should not get a response that implies that I have argued that such coverage satisfies GNG, when I did not comment on whether that coverage satisfies GNG at all in that particular post. I am prepared to accept that you did not realise what you were implying, because I am also starting to have doubts about your literacy and, in particular, whether you understand that you can imply something by means of juxtaposition. (If you put your comment beneath my comment, the juxtaposition can, in of itself, imply that your comment is talking about my comment). That said, I really think it would be better if we both stop questioning each others' literacy and just walk away from this conversation, because it is clear that neither of us wants to talk to the other. Goodbye. James500 (talk) 03:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- You asserted
Your argument is that a village cannot be notable for significant coverage of its history or its buildings. In other words, you are arguing that a village can never be notable, since there is no other coverage that a village could receive
. 1. I did not say anything close to that. I said passing mentions in primary news do not count and existence of listed buildings with zero coverage of the location do not count. 2.there is no other coverage that a village could receive
is a claim you are making about what kind of coverage exists for villages. Since my statement only applied to the latter of your two options of "coverage of its history" and "coverage of its buildings" (I never said coverage of a town's history doesn't count, unless you are suggesting that primary trivial newspaper mentions qualify?!), your comment was read as claiming the coverage of the buildings in this particular case is sufficient for notability. So I responded with a rebuttal of this claim. JoelleJay (talk) 20:47, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- You asserted
- It does not matter whether you expressly claimed to restate my words or not (and the words "If you seriously think" and "This should be exceptionally clear" were close enough), if you answered my comment in a way that clearly implied that I had said that the coverage was "direct significant coverage of Hare Green" or clearly implied that I had said that coverage of "a building that happens to be in Hare Green" discusses "Hare Green itself" and "is . . . coverage of Hare Green". If I ask what kind of coverage a village can receive other than coverage of its history and buildings, I should not get a response that implies that I have argued that such coverage satisfies GNG, when I did not comment on whether that coverage satisfies GNG at all in that particular post. I am prepared to accept that you did not realise what you were implying, because I am also starting to have doubts about your literacy and, in particular, whether you understand that you can imply something by means of juxtaposition. (If you put your comment beneath my comment, the juxtaposition can, in of itself, imply that your comment is talking about my comment). That said, I really think it would be better if we both stop questioning each others' literacy and just walk away from this conversation, because it is clear that neither of us wants to talk to the other. Goodbye. James500 (talk) 03:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- 1. I'm the one twisting and putting words in your mouth!? You literally said
- When I looked at the talk pages of the notability guidelines, I saw the discussion on WT:N that you are obviously referring to. I should point out that a discussion between three people (yourself, Masem and Whatamidoing) does not create, and is not evidence of, any kind of community consensus. Especially when at least three people (myself, Expresso Addict and Whatamidoing) now object to your interpretation. In short, there is no consensus for your interpretation of GNG. James500 (talk) 23:51, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- If a building that happens to be in Hare Green receives SIGCOV that doesn't actually discuss Hare Green itself it is not coverage of Hare Green. This should be exceptionally clear from our P&Gs. And the buildings in question don't even have SIGCOV themselves, they just have a context-less, nearly-prose-less description of the building and items inside.
- Your argument is that a village cannot be notable for significant coverage of its history or its buildings. In other words, you are arguing that a village can never be notable, since there is no other coverage that a village could receive (unless you want coverage of the quality of its subsoil). I do not think that your argument is within the letter, let alone the spirit, of GNG or NGEO. And all that your argument could achieve, at most, is a page move to something like History and buildings of Hare Green, which will put you in violation of WP:COMMONNAME. James500 (talk) 02:01, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- How does the current article meet GNG? Firstly maps can't be used to define notability, the census data is not from ONS but a database site based in Germany - very questionable. The road references - one a local newspaper and the other's primary source as it is the official legislation. The references on BNA - sales of properties and livestock, a barn fire with a death, are these really enough to establish GNG? And as to GEOFEAT, I remember that there was a discussion a few years back that agreed a concensus that Grade II properties are were not accepted as notable based just on a listing. This was based on the fact there is 343,004 Grade II listed along in England. In addition the Henge is not in Hare's Green but in Little Bentley.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- How is the mere existence of old buildings enough to assume a location has had SIGCOV? If these sorts of things are essentially conferring notability then that is a serious source of systemic bias since obviously that's only going to work for the places where society has been stable enough that random buildings have survived and there have been modern efforts to document and preserve them and there is a presumption of a written historical record providing significant primary coverage that has itself received secondary analysis (because we certainly cannot be using 17th century sources as the bases for any articles ever). JoelleJay (talk) 03:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
[E]ven though we may not be able to say anything about a verified populated place now does not mean we'll never be able to
, and even though we will eventually be able to say more about these populated places when interested editors decide to add content, that does not mean we can't upmerge everything shorter than (say) four sentences into a list article now, leaving behind redirects for future expansion. Folly Mox (talk) 15:39, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- @SportingFlyer: comment on content, not contributers. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 18:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I haven't personally attacked anyone. Thank you. SportingFlyer T·C 21:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I didn't say that. I reminded you not to comment on contributors. Saying that
it looks like FOARP brings this up every year because they clearly don't like the idea that Wikipedia exists in part to detail places where people live. A couple years ago there was a unilateral change which was then brought to the larger community and thoroughly rejected.
This is not a personal attack, but it is unnecessary commentary on a fellow editor. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- They have consistently tried to make this change over the past few years, without gaining any consensus for it. It's getting tiring. Not sure why that's not allowed to be said. SportingFlyer T·C 12:38, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer - You're basically stating that this is my proposal: it was not, very little of the proposed amendment was from me. I linked the discussion where the proposed amendment was developed, and named the editors who contributed to that discussion.
"it's getting tiring"
- two vaguely-related discussions on the subject in three years tires you?"without gaining any consensus for it."
- the proposed edit is the result of a consensus. - We can see from other discussions (NSPORTS, SCHOOLOUTCOMES, NASTRO) that previously over-broad notability standards can be reined in. Proposing the same be done in other areas is just part of the healthy give-and-take of policy on Wikipedia. FOARP (talk) 07:22, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- @SportingFlyer - You're basically stating that this is my proposal: it was not, very little of the proposed amendment was from me. I linked the discussion where the proposed amendment was developed, and named the editors who contributed to that discussion.
- They have consistently tried to make this change over the past few years, without gaining any consensus for it. It's getting tiring. Not sure why that's not allowed to be said. SportingFlyer T·C 12:38, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I didn't say that. I reminded you not to comment on contributors. Saying that
- I haven't personally attacked anyone. Thank you. SportingFlyer T·C 21:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm intrigued by the proposed ten-per-day rate limit on AfD. If I understand correctly, some here fear mass creation of geographical microstubs. So why not put a rate limit on that instead? That could dampen the motivation for someone to run up their new article count by harnessing a poorly understood database. You don't want the waitstaff to take orders faster than the kitchen can fill them, but you also don't want the waitstaff to clear the tables faster than the diners can finish their meals! :^D – Minh Nguyễn 💬 01:56, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- There was a discussion on the subject that got derailed by disagreement over the borderlands of what constitutes mass creation. IMO the obvious thing to ban is automated mass creation -- there are some arguments about certain other forms of high-volume article creation, but there's no number that a human can reach that people agree is problematic (and really shouldn't be). Discussion didn't establish scope, though, so it got bogged down in those, and until then we retain all these everything-not-mandatory-is-forbidden arguments. Vaticidalprophet 02:15, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comment please split these mass deletion/merge RFCs out of VPR in the future. See User Talk:BilledMammal#Page size Mach61 (talk) 04:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think some kind of forced limitation (maybe using an edit filter) of five articles per day, and no more than 100 articles per month, would slow down any mass-creations like this. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 18:52, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's certainly possible to legitimately create articles past that rate, though the day one moreso than the month. The problematic sort of mass creation is well beyond what can be done by an actual person; there are people who take an unusually wide view of what mass creation is problematic, but the actual motte of "mass creation produces data integrity and sometimes sensitive-topic-maintenance problems" is implausible for anything human-doable. Vaticidalprophet 20:53, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I concur with Vaticidalprophet: "two sources = must have an article"-type thinking is a major problem. Mass creation can only be addressed directly, not through changes to notability guidelines. It merits a trip to ANI for WP:NOTHERE. I've thought a good bit about mass creation, and I don't think there's a realistic way to address it except requiring that notability be demonstrated inline rather than "presumed". I don't think automated creation is the real problem. And it'll mean that we don't have microstubs that are useless verbatim reprints of external sources, whether database entries or non-SIGCOV passing mentions. DFlhb (talk) 10:07, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Please explain it to me like I'm an idiot: why is people writing lots of encyclopaedia articles a problem that we need to address at all? I thought that was kind of the point of this place? – Joe (talk) 14:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Writing lots of articles isn't a problem; writing lots of low quality articles is. I have been considering proposing expanding WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 to all topics; it would effectively prevent mass creation, as the work required to identify at least one source makes it non-viable, and creates a (very low, but extant) minimum quality requirement. BilledMammal (talk) 14:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- So the kind of stub discouraged in the proposed guideline (
Village X is in County Y, Province Z of Country A, at coordinates C, with a population of P.
) is low quality? Why? – Joe (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- Because it replicates database-style content, like taxon sub-stubs. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- And because it is likely erroneous. We saw that with the US "village" articles based solely on GNIS. We saw that in the Iranian "village" case. We saw that with Dr Blofeld's Indian "villages". We saw that with Lugnuts Turkish "villages". These database sources just aren't made for the purpose that some editors on Wikipedia think they are made for. FOARP (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's a reason to designate those sources as unreliable or at least unsuitable for certain purposes. I don't see how it's a reason to rule out that whole type of article. XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Edward-Woodrow: WP:NOTDATABASE is a shortcut to our policy
Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
, which in brief states thatdata should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources
. I can't see how stubs like this contradict that policy? If anything, a stub is rather the opposite of an "indiscriminate collection of information". – Joe (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2023 (UTC)- Government censuses are not independent secondary sources. JoelleJay (talk) 21:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Independent secondary sources are only a requirement of GNG. Verification is the requirement of NGEO, and government censuses do verify the existence of a populated place (yes, with spot exceptions based on the country). SportingFlyer T·C 09:12, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Government censuses are not independent secondary sources. JoelleJay (talk) 21:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @FOARP: "Likely"? Really? Do you have any data to back that up? AFAIK the errors made by the editors you cite were a small fraction of even their own output, never mind the hundreds of thousands of similar articles created by editors who have never made any waves. – Joe (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- The errors in GNIS and GEONet Names Server are par for the course - and discussed at length in the links in the background section. FOARP (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, and those two databases are specifically excluded by WP:GEOLAND (but not your proposed new version). – Joe (talk) 13:01, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Those sources are already addressed at WP:RSP; while it's probably a good idea to keep the restriction in NGEO as editors creating articles based on it sometimes forget that other policies exist and apply, removing it won't permit editors to create articles based on them. BilledMammal (talk) 13:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, and those two databases are specifically excluded by WP:GEOLAND (but not your proposed new version). – Joe (talk) 13:01, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- The errors in GNIS and GEONet Names Server are par for the course - and discussed at length in the links in the background section. FOARP (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- And because it is likely erroneous. We saw that with the US "village" articles based solely on GNIS. We saw that in the Iranian "village" case. We saw that with Dr Blofeld's Indian "villages". We saw that with Lugnuts Turkish "villages". These database sources just aren't made for the purpose that some editors on Wikipedia think they are made for. FOARP (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Because it is absent of context. What other villages exist in County Y, Province Z? How are they distributed spatially? Is P around the average population of this set, or an outlier? If I have to navigate to a different article to understand basic questions like these, I'd feel comfortable characterising such a stub as low quality. How is it high quality? Folly Mox (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- We're discussing notability, not quality, and one of the important reasons why you might have a stand-alone article for town X in county Y in province Z even though there's nothing else written in the article is because you may be able to link it to other articles in other Wikipedias where you may be able to find more information. I just looked up a place in a foreign language Wikipedia that doesn't have an English language article - there should be nothing wrong with a little stub in English on that particular place. SportingFlyer T·C 08:39, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Our notability guidelines shouldn't be encouraging the creation of low quality articles; they particularly shouldn't be encouraging the creation of articles that are so low quality that they violate policies like WP:NOT and WP:OR.
- Our purpose isn't to be a directory to foreign language articles. BilledMammal (talk) 09:03, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- What in that policy actually rules out being a directory of foreign-language articles? It says that
Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed
; the set of things that have Wikipedia articles in other languages is obviously more restricted than that. None of the specific no-no's (genealogy for the sake of genealogy, product pricing, etc.) either apply directly or are analogous enough to be applicable. I know that Wikipedias in different languages have different inclusion standards, and just because the Ruritanian WP includes an article doesn't mean we have to have an exact counterpart, but geographic locations are a case where parallel pages do make a considerable amount of sense. At the very least, WP:NOTDIRECTORY isn't a knock-down argument against it. XOR'easter (talk) 22:20, 17 September 2023 (UTC)Wikipedia articles are not simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit
. If the only justification for an article like this to exist is to link to external resources, then its existence violates WP:NOTDIRECTORY as it is nothing more than a simple listing without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. BilledMammal (talk) 22:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- With NGEO though we've decided through long standing editing practices that the entire set of populated places is notable. The NOTDIRECTORY part you quote links to LISTCRIT which says selection criteria should be unambiguous and supported by reliable sources. While this isn't a list, Giddawa qualifies for both of those things. Unlike a cricketer of questionable notability, it's easily verifiable, and we're not improving the encyclopaedia by deleting it. SportingFlyer T·C 09:22, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think you misunderstand the point I'm making; I'm merely saying that links to foreign language articles isn't a justification to keep articles like the one I linked, per WP:NOTDIRECTORY, not that there aren't other reasons to keep it. BilledMammal (talk) 09:26, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- With NGEO though we've decided through long standing editing practices that the entire set of populated places is notable. The NOTDIRECTORY part you quote links to LISTCRIT which says selection criteria should be unambiguous and supported by reliable sources. While this isn't a list, Giddawa qualifies for both of those things. Unlike a cricketer of questionable notability, it's easily verifiable, and we're not improving the encyclopaedia by deleting it. SportingFlyer T·C 09:22, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- What in that policy actually rules out being a directory of foreign-language articles? It says that
- We're discussing notability, not quality, and one of the important reasons why you might have a stand-alone article for town X in county Y in province Z even though there's nothing else written in the article is because you may be able to link it to other articles in other Wikipedias where you may be able to find more information. I just looked up a place in a foreign language Wikipedia that doesn't have an English language article - there should be nothing wrong with a little stub in English on that particular place. SportingFlyer T·C 08:39, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Because it replicates database-style content, like taxon sub-stubs. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- So the kind of stub discouraged in the proposed guideline (
- Joe, I've seen you around, you're no idiot. Anyway: my motivation is that obscure articles lack scrutiny, so the risk of inaccuracies is too high. Contributions aren't vetted, a-la Britannica. Given our natural lack of formal review, and our dearth of contributors, I think maintainability is a prime concern. We're the 7th most visited website, and false info entails real-world harm, including citogenesis, which makes inaccuracies very hard to fix.
- According to WP:STUB, stubs should be "
capable of expansion
". I'm not trying to make an appeal-to-authority ("appeal-to-guideline"?), but it raises interesting questions: when people mass-create articles, do they take into account expansion potential? If not, are non-expandable stubs desirable? And given that non-notable articles need to be deleted eventually, can't we avoid their creation in the first place, saving the time of both the creator and the AfD-nominator? - Months ago BilledMammal showed that stubs are rarely improved by anyone other than their creator. So our long-held assumption, that stubs are a way to incubate articles until someone improves them, and that "stubiness" is temporary, is no longer true for many stubs. Wikipedia's changed, and the low-hanging fruits are gone; why shouldn't our practices adapt? DFlhb (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for explaining. I asked you to treat me like an idiot because reading statements like yours (you're far from the only one), I genuinely feel like I am missing some fundamental piece of the puzzle. It simply does not make sense to me that creating stubs can be a problem in and of itself, and yet many people seem to state this as if it is self-evident. Rather than assuming that you're stupid (or I am), I assume there's a more basic misalignment of views underlying this disagreement.
- Reading your response, it definitely seems like a big factor here is whether or not you feel like Wikipedia is in a consolidation phase, struggles with maintainability, and/or cannot tolerate more 'potential articles'. I've been around here a while, created a few dozen articles, and have a list of ones I'd like to create long enough that I'll never realistically finish it, so I'm a bit more optimistic on that score. Unfortunately it does sound more like a difference of perspective than something we'll come to an agreement on. – Joe (talk) 16:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- There's way more low-hanging fruit than you think. (My current drafts and protodrafts include a Pulitzer winner, multiple recent popular works of media, and a major active political figure in an enwiki market -- and that's just what's redlinked, not what's in bad shape.) The trouble we have is not that we're in a maintenance phase -- quite the opposite -- but that we don't have the manpower for the expansion we need. The myth of the maintenance phase makes this worse, because people who've been exposed to it in the first place are people who are already part of the project so should be expanding articles. This is one reason I keep banging the drum of no seriously Wikipedia is not paper, in that how something is covered can change on a regular basis and that's a sign of the project functioning well. Increasing notability thresholds specifically is the worst of all worlds, because it decreases rather than increases the opportunity for editorial judgement on how to cover things that may or may not have article potential. Vaticidalprophet 21:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
@Joe Roe: I also find the idea of rate-limiting article creation to be unfortunate: it runs counter to what the readership imagines to be the ethos of Wikipedia. But I can also see how mass creation of stubs, if not well-planned, can have the same effects as mass vandalism, namely, a loss of trust on the part of the reader and a loss of morale among editors. On some other wikis, Lsjbot is the logical conclusion to this form of vandalism.
What I struggle with when evaluating this proposal is that we're treating the subject's notability as a proxy for the article's quality as a proxy for the editor's behavior. How am I supposed to explain to a prospective Wikipedian that they should not write a stub about a real place until they've called around about offline sources to prove that an article "can be developed using known sources", and that this hurdle exists because some people once misused databases to run rampant over the site? This is why we can't have nice things?
To me, the turmoil over databases like GNIS (the U.S. federal government's official gazetteer) actually shows that an individual basic error can persist for a long time in a prominent, somewhat mission-critical reference work without causing the sky to fall. We want Wikipedia to be better than that, but not at the cost of cutting off the motivation for people to transform themselves from readers to editors.
My other big hobby is contributing to OpenStreetMap, which has somehow managed to institute an automated edits code of conduct that requires getting buy-in from the community. This policy is the lodestar of mappers who identify as "craft mappers" and view automated edits with varying levels of suspicion, while the people who fill in the map at scale often chafe at the red tape. The policy is as robust as Swiss cheese, but it does send a message to people in a hurry that community health comes first.
Nowhere in this calculus is the idea that a contributor cannot micromap some kind of map feature in detail just because someone once botched a bulk import of it (which does happen, to be sure). Contributor behavior doesn't fundamentally change the nature of the real world that we document. A wiki map is very different than a wiki encyclopedia, but regardless a wiki is truly defined by what it can be, more than what it cannot be.
– Minh Nguyễn 💬 00:55, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Writing lots of articles isn't a problem; writing lots of low quality articles is. I have been considering proposing expanding WP:SPORTSCRIT #5 to all topics; it would effectively prevent mass creation, as the work required to identify at least one source makes it non-viable, and creates a (very low, but extant) minimum quality requirement. BilledMammal (talk) 14:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comment please split these mass deletion/merge RFCs out of VPR in the future. See User Talk:BilledMammal#Page size Mach61 (talk) 04:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- You've already said that; see also the reply on my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 19:39, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Proposal There are really two problems being discussed here:– The argument "Populated, legally recognized places" is vague– People will mass-create entries from a database.We're ignoring the fact these will introduce further problems:– "Settlements and administrative regions" is not actually less vague than what we currently have: how is a settlement actually defined differently than a populated, legally recognized place? This won't actually change anything at AfD but could lead to notable places being deleted. For instance, Hillat Abdul Saleh might fall afoul of the new rule and might get listified, but this would sever the link between the article and the Arabic-language article, which is better developed.– Nowhere on the project do we delete notable under-sourced entries, which is what this proposal would actually do, which I could see leading escalating deletion drama.I think we can all agree that there are a finite number of notable places that fall under WP:NGEO, and that there are still a lot of places eligible for articles which haven't been written yet. Back in the WP:NSPORT days used to have a master list of fully professional leagues where the rules for each country were continuously vetted. Instead of enforcing a new rule that's not based on our long-standing notability guidelines, why not attempt to define what would make a place notable per NGEO for each country? Most countries should have some sort of legal definition of a settlement, we just need to be able follow it consistently (like @Alexandermcnabb:'s odd UAE census problem.) SportingFlyer T·C 20:18, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Back in the WP:NSPORT days used to have a master list of fully professional leagues where the rules for each country were continuously vetted. Instead of enforcing a new rule that's not based on our long-standing notability guidelines, why not attempt to define what would make a place notable per NGEO for each country?
That didn't work for NSPORT; why would it work here? BilledMammal (talk) 20:34, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- This is an entirely different situation. Not only is there a limit to the number of maximum number of articles under NGEO, but NFOOTY wasn't the NSPORT problem. SportingFlyer T·C 23:16, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Not only is there a limit to the number of maximum number of articles under NGEO
Can you clarify what this maximum is?NFOOTY wasn't the NSPORT problem
NFOOTY was the largest problem with NSPORT, with the community widely considering it far too inclusive. BilledMammal (talk) 23:28, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- Sure. Every week there are new young football players playing games who fall under GNG/would have fallen under NFOOTY. NGEO doesn't have this problem. Even though new towns and cities can and are being built, the set of topics that pass NGEO are more or less fixed - for instance, unless something exceptional happens, we will never need a new NGEO article for the country of Liechtenstein.
- Two asides. First, the football project worked hard to maintain standards and to cull players which didn't meet GNG. It wasn't entirely perfect, but it mostly worked well - but there are a lot of footballers in this world. Second, the article of Mäls - the Liechtensteiner hamlet I pulled up - would be eligible for deletion under this new guideline, but what good would that do? It's also easy to find the town's complete history online, and deleting it on content grounds would mean we no longer had a full set of Liechtensteiner populated place articles, which is just one of the reasons why I don't understand this proposal. SportingFlyer T·C 23:42, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think comparing football players to countries is the most equivalent comparison; no one is saying we shouldn't have an article on every country - obviously, we should - but people are saying we shouldn't have an article on every football player, or every listed building - and obviously we shouldn't.
- A better comparison to football players would be listed buildings; in the UK, one in every 50 buildings is a Grade II listed building. Every week, new buildings are being listed, and most of them don't warrant an article.
It wasn't entirely perfect, but it mostly worked well - but there are a lot of footballers in this world
Let me remind you of John Charlton; it worked so poorly that it took three AfD's to delete an article on a footballer who was clearly not notable. BilledMammal (talk) 00:02, 18 September 2023 (UTC)- No, there's no real comparison to footballers or buildings or otherwise - we've decided as a community that this set of articles is notable if they are verifiable, which is different than almost everything else on the website. There's still absolutely no problem with that approach. The problem here is that some external databases are too loose for our article set, and mass creators were not bothering to actually verify the places they were creating articles for, not that the notability guideline is incorrect. And changing the guideline doesn't solve either of those problems. SportingFlyer T·C 09:25, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is an entirely different situation. Not only is there a limit to the number of maximum number of articles under NGEO, but NFOOTY wasn't the NSPORT problem. SportingFlyer T·C 23:16, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Nowhere on the project do we delete notable under-sourced entries
this is not for lack of trying, especially with regards Olympians, cricketers, etc. where draftifcation without review for notability is being persued (because straight deletion was rejected by the community). I have no doubts that if this proposal passes the same will be true for populated places. Thryduulf (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- because we have already looked at that as part of the initial discussion. Take the UK. Towns incorporated under charter in medieval times can be found to be legally recognised, cities are granted charter by the monarch so are legally recognised. Administrative Regions are also legally recognised by government legislation setting them up, but then every town and village not covered under these would, under the current GEOLAND sng, have to meet GNG. Multiply that by how many countries in the world, many of which don't actually have legal recognition. Or they have complex system for Administrative Regions (ie. Development zones) which would probably full under the same rules irrigation districts. Trying to simplify the wording was what I started the whole process off to do. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:11, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- So, if the question of when to write a stand-alone article is intrinsically complicated, why is simplifying the wording the right move? That just further separates the guideline from the material it's supposed to be giving guidance about. XOR'easter (talk) 22:05, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think anyone believes an irrigation district is covered by NGEO? Plus, how many populated named places in the UK still lack a stand-alone article, and how many places of any size in say England wouldn't have legal recognition somewhere? I also looked up a couple very small English places, which are clearly named places. A couple of them are sourced and manicured stubs with photos, but the sources don't necessarily pass GNG. Why would we possibly want to delete those? SportingFlyer T·C 23:30, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- If you can find evidence that there is legally recogised status for villages in the UK, then please share as several editors have tried and failed. Based upon the current rule, we could delete these articles, something which I think is wrong as they do exist, but we have a consensus on wikipedia that is not enough. So I see the new proposal a lot softer than what could happen if we actually followed our current policy.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:29, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
(I moved a couple comments here up to the survey section, as they appeared to be intended as votes rather than comments. If I am mistaken, please feel free to move them back.) – Minh Nguyễn 💬 17:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- You'll find that you can write a fleshier stub on most legally recognized populated places. Even if it's map observation. The problem is the sub stubs where all there is is "xxx is a village" and you do a google search and no population data for it, nothing but databases. In those cases, I absolutely support the proposal to encourage merger into tabled lists. What about an Option 3. Legally-recognized populated places are generally considered to be notable, but the creation of short stubs where there is nothing but a database mentioning location online is strongly discouraged. The minimum requirement expected is a population figure and basic location details as a precondition for a stub (like Aung Myay), where the stub can be fleshed out to resemble an encyclopedia article instead of an xxx is a village type database substub. In cases where there is no population data and it resembles a database, consider merging into a tabled list.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
A tale of two countries
Reading the votes so far, I observe that there's a commonly held fear that the proposed changes would insert extra scrutiny of cited sources into the process of assessing notability. Whereas currently, there is of course an expectation of reliable sources, but that's orthogonal to the subject's inherent notability to the extent that we can ascertain it. I'm also surprised that relatively few concrete examples have been explicitly named.
On the bright side, the United States will probably be OK, though many civil townships, census-designated places, and unincorporated places will need to be expanded, probably using information from (non-census) databases, to rescue them from deletion. Since the guideline will no longer explicitly discourage GNIS, it will be quite handy for this purpose. I bet most who like to conjure up the GNIS boogeyman don't know that the database very often includes historical details cited to reliable sources, if you can resolve the source codes. For example, our entry on Rudd, Iowa, omits the most interesting thing about it, the story of how it got its name. [45] Meanwhile, our encyclopedia is completely oblivious to Howard, Idaho [46], and Green Castle, Johnson County, Iowa. [47] But under the existing guideline, these places would have a decent shot at GNG anyways; the sources listed in GNIS are just the tip of the iceberg.
Not every country is so lucky. Turning to the other country that I write about, Vietnam, I certainly wonder if readily available online sources will be adequate for a place like Tân Hà commune (equivalent in stature to a township in the U.S. or a parish in England). The article already has a good start; it just needs a Vietnamese Wikipedian to translate to English. One need not worry that GeoNames has hallucinated this place. Otherwise, how would the infobox include a photo of the Tân Hà Commune People's Committee headquarters (equivalent to a town hall)? But it contains very little text "beyond statistics, region, and coordinates" and relies almost entirely on a government gazetteer and official website. The one addition is its administrative history, citing the relevant government edict (a primary source). Digging around online for a hot second, all I could find are content mills punctuated by the occasional news article that, if included, would surely provoke howls of WP:RECENT and WP:TOPIC and WP:COATRACK regarding this 40-year-old commune. [48]
Since this is a region that has been settled for millennia, there's likely a wealth of information about this commune's administrative predecessors and the local human geography in general. Much of it will be offline, perhaps in rare books collections in Vietnam, France, and the Vatican. Some of it will be written in chữ Nôm and thus difficult to search for. All of this information can be added in due time. Unfortunately, it will be even more difficult to find sources that technically pass muster as independent secondary sources. This is a country that, by law, lacks an independent press or publishing industry, so the kinds of sources we often take for granted may not exist, through no fault of the community in question. Honestly, under a strict reading of our guidelines, the best chance this place has is that a tourist from the West decided to write about it (most likely misspelling its name).
Other than the photo, this is quite typical of a Vietnamese commune article, at least to start out with. The Vietnamese Wikipedia originally banned articles on communes and everything below them, in order to encourage editors to write about districts and provinces first. But in 2007, the community decided that the ban was counterproductive and voted to allow communes under a guideline very similar to the existing one here. I'd imagine that Vietnam is not nearly the only country that would experience difficulty meeting the standard proposed here, even as the particulars may differ. I'm not entirely sure how I'll vote. Either way, I think the guideline will still be an unfinished one, subject to the usual inconsistent interpretations.
– Minh Nguyễn 💬 00:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
If y'all could decide soon, I getting ready to start on 1.6 million new permastubs on villages in China and India which qualify under the current N:Geo that don't have an article yet. After that I'll move on to the electoral discticts. :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sounds like we need to agree on a rate limit on permastub creation by @North8000.
;^)Minh Nguyễn 💬 17:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)- And spoil my fun? :-) At two per minute going 24/7 it will still take 1 1/2 years to make them but they would live forever because it would millions of person-hours at AFD to get rid of them. :-) North8000 (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Ah, but we could set up a bot to delete any articles created by you. Sure, there might be some collateral damage (like this B-class article with ~300 pageviews this month) but it be worth it. Probably. Edward-Woodrow • talk 21:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Not so fast - I picked 12 at random and was able to expand all of them to Start Class by adding postal code, area code, distance to the nearest airport and a brief history of the province in which they're located! –dlthewave ☎ 22:03, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- If there's anyone notable from the village, one can just
copyI mean, "summarize" their article, probably doubling the length! You're right, there is potential for growth. We could also transliterate the village name into various languages. Edward-Woodrow • talk 22:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC) - My dog chewed that patch up after I took the picture for Wiki, so Wiki got me to create my only memory. I was also riding high when SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the article of the day but a making zillion permastubs is is appealing enough to make me give up collecting string. :-) North8000 (talk) 11:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- If there's anyone notable from the village, one can just
- Not so fast - I picked 12 at random and was able to expand all of them to Start Class by adding postal code, area code, distance to the nearest airport and a brief history of the province in which they're located! –dlthewave ☎ 22:03, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Ah, but we could set up a bot to delete any articles created by you. Sure, there might be some collateral damage (like this B-class article with ~300 pageviews this month) but it be worth it. Probably. Edward-Woodrow • talk 21:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- And spoil my fun? :-) At two per minute going 24/7 it will still take 1 1/2 years to make them but they would live forever because it would millions of person-hours at AFD to get rid of them. :-) North8000 (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Hey, at least WP:N8KSTUBS will give China and India something to agree on. Levivich (talk) 22:39, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
References
- ^ https://www.archiuk.com/cgi-bin/archi_new_search_engine.pl?search_location=TM114213&TownName=Great%20Bentley&county=Essex&search_range=10000%EF%BF%BD10000&placename=Great%20Bentley&info2search4=archi_town_search
- ^ https://www.archimaps.co.uk/victorian-old-map-ordnance-survey.html?map_location=&ngr=&search_location=Little%20Bentley,%20Essex,%20TM1125,%20TM%2011%2025&os_series=0&is_sub=&pwd=freesearch@freesearch.com&latitude=51.884112&longitude=1.062716&placename=Little%20Bentley&TownName=Little%20Bentley&county=Essex&postcode=
- ^ https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/customprofiles/build/
Notifications
- Notified to the WP:NGEO talk page here. FOARP (talk) 16:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Notified to WP:CENT in this edit. FOARP (talk) 16:38, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Davidstewartharvey, Bookku, Certes, North8000, Horse Eye's Back, Selfstudier, Crouch, Swale, Visviva, BilledMammal, Hut 8.5, Bkonrad, Newimpartial, Hike395, Donald Albury, Viridiscalculus, Mxn, Avilich, Dlthewave, Choess, Joe Roe, Ezhiki, Rschen7754, Atlantic306, XOR'easter, and Imzadi1979: Ping here, since I don't believe the above ping went through (I didn't receive it). BilledMammal (talk) 04:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Rosguill Notified: WT:NPP. ~~~~
Proposal: extend ACPERM to IP editors overwriting redirects
Over at ANI there's a discussion about a long term vandal who has been using sockpuppets to hijack redirects by moving them to a new title, then logging out and overwriting the redirect with an unrelated new article, and then resetting the pagemove redirect at the former title to hide the move. This has the effect of evading new pages patrol, and removing attribution from the original redirect's creator which makes this an issue for content licensing. It also requires a lot of steps toi properly unwind, and the vandal did this to about 50 pages just yesterday.
I'm pretty sure that an edit filter can be made to detect when a logged-out editor removes the redirect code from a page, and since this behaviour goes against WP:ACPERM, I'm proposing that we implement such a filter to disallow those edits. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think this sounds reasonable. Overwriting a redirect with a content page is essentially identical to new article creation, which is not open to unregistered editors. So if there's a way to enforce this technically, it seems like a natural extension of existing consensus. Folly Mox (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support this idea. I think an appropriate abuse filter would be something like
! "autoconfirmed" in user_groups && page_namespace == 0 && old_text irlike "#redirect" && ! new_text irlike "#redirect"or something similar. The action taken could be "disallow" and the error message could be something like this:I am opposed to any big stop hands as that can turn out to be harsh. But an information message would be helpful while stopping this WP:GAME behavior. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 23:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC){{mbox |text='''Alert''': You cannot change this redirect to an article with your current user rights. An automated filter has detected that you have attempted to convert this page to an article. * If you want to create the article {{FULLPAGENAME}}, you need to be [[WP:AC|autoconfirmed]]. Alternatively, you can start the draft page using [[WP:AFC|Articles for Creation]]. * If you believe this message is being displayed in error please report this to [[Wikipedia:Edit_filter/False_positives]]. Thank you. }} - Support It's time we have consistent standards, not technology dodges. Expanding a redirect into an article, however, AFAIK doesn't evade new page patrol. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support as easy to implement.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support. The logic of ACPERM applies with identical force in this context, and it seems this shouldn't be too difficult to implement from a technical perspective. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support The proposal is sound and relatively easy to implement. – robertsky (talk) 04:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Strongsupport. As someone who once came across one of these that went unnoticed for 8 years and had to go to RFHM, I think this is necessary. CLYDE TALK TO ME/STUFF DONE 04:20, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- I've noticed the uptick in opposes, and would like to double down, albeit not strongly anymore. Restoring a long standing redirect can be done via edit requests and creating articles can be done via AfC. I understand the concerns about being lulled into being able to do the edit, but think that's an unfortunate side effect that outweighs the positives. And if, at the end of the day, the opposers are right, and this does end up being a pain in the... erm... buttocks, there can always be another discussion to revert it. CLYDE TALK TO ME/STUFF DONE 04:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- With my WP:EFM hat on, can someone provide examples of log actions the edit filter is supposed to catch? 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 04:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- You could try this, or indeed most IP edits to Bears, Ducks, Lions, etc. (though we'd have to find a new canary for detecting that particular LTA). Certes (talk) 11:17, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is pretty close. We'd also want to prevent registered-but-not-autoconfirmed users, not just unregistered ones. —Cryptic 11:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- @0xDeadbeef: I've listed a sample of 100 recent IP creations in User:Certes/Reports/IP replacing redirect. Certes (talk) 18:39, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Try Special:BlankPage/FilterDebug/mode/recentchanges/limit/100/namespace/0/tag/mw-removed-redirect/show/anon. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- ...if you have User:Suffusion of Yellow/FilterDebugger.js installed Certes (talk) 08:33, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Support as a natural extension to ACPERM. Non-autoconfirmed users should not be able to create articles by using technical loopholes. Although patrols (NPP and AV) can find these hijacks in some cases, this would remove the root problem. All the best, Schminnte (talk • contribs) 10:46, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Not convinced . This won't do much to stop vandals who have autoconfirmed socks, so we would still need a way to detect this type of vandalism. —Kusma (talk) 10:55, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can someone post some example diffs please? Normally NPP will catch a redirect being converted to an article thanks to how PageTriage is programmed, so maybe I am missing something. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:22, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose due to lack of diffs. I suspect that mw:Extension:PageTriage already flips these pages to unreviewed, and without diffs, I will assume this is what is happening. Just because NPP doesn't come in and fix these instantly, doesn't mean they are slipping through our review system. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Concerns: (1) This will also prevent non-autoconfirmed users from restoring a long-standing page that has been turned into a redirect. There's no way for an edit filter to "see" the old revisions of a page, apart from the timestamp of creation, a list of recent contributors, and the name of the first contributor. Best we could do exclude summaries containing "undo", etc., but that could be trivially exploited by bad-faith users, and won't help people who try to manually revert. (2) Edit filters (as opposed to page protection, the title blacklist, or the hard-coded ACPERM restriction) lead the user down the garden path of thinking their edit will save, until they actually click "publish". I am thinking about the user who discovers some notable subject is a redirect, spends hours composing a carefully referenced page, then clicks "publish", only to be told "nope". Yes, their edit is saved in the filter log, and we can recover it for them at WP:EFFP, but they may be so dispirited at that point that they just give up. Most filters either deal with actual abuse, in which case this is a feature, or are warn-only, so they can still click "publish" and fix the problem later. This problem could partly mitigated, I guess, by putting a big shouty message wrapped in
<div class="unconfirmed-show">{{#invoke:Page|isRedirect| ... }}</div>in Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main, but editnotices are easy to miss, and I'm not sure if that hack will even work in every editor. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC)- Yeah. I don't think this is a good idea per your concerns. I was a bit confused by what this was proposing when I asked for examples above. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 02:48, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Actually, what about a bot that reverts these kinds of edits? We can ask the bot to look at the tags/history of the page of the edit to check for #1, while resolving #2. The bot would be subject to the usual bot requirements (no warring i.e. reverting someone twice) and leave a message to someone's talk page. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 08:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- A bot is just plain worse than an edit filter, and, as you acknowledge, adds even more tech dodges. And I'm not convinced by any of the opposition. * Pppery * it has begun... 04:13, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose I don't think this is a significant problem, as others have noted these don't bypass NPP anymore. The main reason from what I saw with ACPERM was to prevent users creating articles that ended up being deleted, restoring a redirect and reverting redirection is a lot easier/less offensive to the author that deletion. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:54, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I also would be concerned about longstanding articles getting redirected or even having #REDIRECT [[Target page name]] added and then other users not being able to revert it. If a new user or IP redirected an article and then realize they have made a mistake they should be able to revert it. If disruptive users are creating inappropriate articles on redirects this should be dealt with through normal measures such as blocking. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:15, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per Crouch, Swale and Suffusion of Yellow's concerns. I'm not at all convinced that the benefits of this will come close to outweighing the side effects. Thryduulf (talk) 00:31, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comment Can we log and tag instead of disallow ? Interested editors can then watch and filter for these edits, and revert the bad ones and let the good ones slide ? -- Sohom (talk) 20:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Its already tagged, see Special:Tags which can be searched in the recent changes or user contributions, it used to be at Special:AbuseFilter/342 which was deleted. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:30, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Adding economic base analysis to articles on U.S. metropolitan areas
Our articles on administrative subdivisions of the United States, and particularly on cities and metropolitan areas, lack useful descriptions of their economic structure. With a few exceptions, they offer little information on regional economies beyond anecdotal mentions of companies headquartered there. I would like to write brief sketches of the economic structures of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas (starting with the largest by population and working down the list in order of population size as my time permits). To do so, I would use publicly available data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to perform the arithmetic calculations described in our article on economic base analysis. I would not draw any conclusions beyond those directly indicated by the data (for example, that the manufacturing sector of a given metropolitan area is larger than the U.S. average). I checked the detailed description of the policy of No Original Research because I was concerned that others might object to this information on those grounds. But the policy seems to allow arithmetic calculations using clearly sourced data. I want to see if others agree that this would be an acceptable way to strengthen our coverage of regional economies. So my proposal is to provide simple economic base analyses of U.S. metropolitan areas. Forgive me if my presentation departs from the norms here. I've been an infrequent editor for years and am not familiar with these norms. I appreciate your contribution to the consensus on my proposal. Marco polo (talk) 17:43, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Simple calculations are fine, but I'd be careful with things like statistical analysis. The best approach would be to find sources that have already done this analysis and then summarize them. There should be plenty of journal articles or books that cover the economies of major American cities. And if there's certain information you can't find, that probably means it's not important enough to be included. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:33, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- My thought was that it might be helpful to have a uniform set of information for each metropolitan area to facilitate comparisons among them, but maybe that sort of thing isn't wanted in Wikipedia. Marco polo (talk) 19:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Fix the link UI in Visual Editor
Please fix the problem described at WP:VPT#Strange linkages, piping through miscapitalized redirects. If clicking the link button would more prominently show a link through the selected text, editors would be less likely to select an inferior piping through a poor redirect. Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- That is not something that can be fixed by anyone on this page, it needs a software change. Per the instructions at Wikipedia:Visual Editor problems should be reported on Phabricator. Thryduulf (talk) 08:28, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Intertranswiki reference bot
I was wondering if it would be possible when transwikiing articles from other Wikipedias that a bot could be programmed to convert the sources which use citation templates into English. If the sources could be copied directly from other wikis in their language, and a bot picks up on the foreign reference text and is able to reformat it in English this would save an enormous amount of time in drawing up sources. Obviously it is the duty of all editors translating content to check the sources and verify it, but this is one of the issues which puts off editors such as myself and others who transwiki content but don't do as much work as they want to because it is so time consuming having to draw up the sources from scratch in English. If we could have something to swiftly facilitate the transwikiing of good, sourced content this would be a great help. I think something which is able to put Spanish, German, French, Italian sources, and perhaps Portuguese and Dutch into English would be a good start. The bot would need to be coded to recognize the basic parameters of the citation templates on other wikis and what parameter corresponds to what in English. Obviously it wouldn't work for sources which don't use citation templates though.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:27, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- AnomieBOT will substitute cites in other languages, see this edit for instance. You still need to check the output, as with any bot, as not all fields are used the same way across different language wikis but it does most of the work. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:17, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- Note AnomieBOT doesn't do anything very special there, people have created {{Lien web}} that substs to a proper invocation of {{cite web}} and flagged it for bot auto-substing. Only a few languages seem to have these templates at the moment, but I'd think the people over at WT:CS1 would help in creating more if there's a need. Anomie⚔ 20:50, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
Notifying indef-blocked editors of deletion discussions
I realize that this is built into the automated nominations process, but it seems distasteful to me when I see a notice pop up on an indef-blocked editor's user talk page that an article or category they created has been nominated for deletion. Can this practice be changed? BD2412 T 03:06, 23 September 2023 (UTC)