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Enable RC patrolling (aka patrolling for edits)

This is something that has been bothering me for years now. Many other wikis have patrolling for edits in recentchanges and watchlist and it drastically improves efficiency of vandalism patrollers. Edits done by autopatrolled users automatically gets marked as patrolled, reverted and rolled back edits also automatically get marked as patrolled too (as there is no need to be reviewed again) but also when someone reviews an edit and it doesn't need to be reverted, they can mark the edit as patrolled which avoids double, triple or more reviews by others.

You can enable the filter to only look at unpatrolled edits (or combine that filter with other filters, such as ores damaging ones). The software for it already exists and this feature is enabled in Wikidata, Commons, French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia and Vietnamese Wikipedia (Wikis with above >1M articles) and many more wikis.

One concern was that it might start a massive backlog of edits needed to be reviewed (like pending changes) but the patrolled status gets purged after 90 days so no large backlog will be made (and it's better than status quo where there is no status stored). It was enabled in here in January 2005 but some people didn't like the "!" it adds next to unpatrolled edits. That was almost nineteen years ago when we didn't have ores or highlighting or filtering in RC/Watchlist. We can change that exclamation mark if people want it to or completely hide it (I can make the software changes necessary if there is consensus for anything different). That's not really an issue now.

What do you think? Ladsgroup^overleg 17:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Ladsgroup^overleg 17:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  Heh. Disclosure: We had talked about this in person and I was invited to this discussion via e-mail. To my understanding, the one huge difference to Pending Changes is that all edits are immediately visible to the public. There is no queue of edits that need to be reviewed before they're displayed to readers. However, the patrol permission required to mark edits as patrolled seems to be the same one we grant at WP:PERM/NPR (cf. Special:ListGroupRights#patroller). We can either start granting that flag liberally (not going to happen) or practically forget about the idea then... ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:25, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Ladsgroup: From your link: Patrolled edits is a feature which allows specific users to mark new pages and items in Special:RecentChanges as "patrolled" We have WP:RCP and WP:NPP which seems the same, or very similar. RudolfRed (talk) 18:28, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  @RudolfRed They are the same code and software but many wikis allow the same for edits (not just new page creations). Ladsgroup^overleg 18:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• Question: First, is this compatible with mw:Extension:PageTriage that we already have? Second, I think at the least it uses the same groups/etc - which means we'd likely end up greatly expanding those that bypass parts of new page review. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:30, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux Why would it interfere with PageTriage? This is about edits not page creations.

  They use the same rights as the NPP which can become a problem as @ToBeFree mentioned but the fix is not that hard in the software, we can split the right and define a new group. That part is fixable. Ladsgroup^overleg 18:42, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Ladsgroup I don't recall the details, but something about how the very enwiki customized pagetriage hooks the patrol system already? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:44, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  It uses patrolling for new pages but it can't interfere with the edit patrolling in any way, the only complication is that the rights are the same which can be fixed easily. Ladsgroup^overleg 18:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  The entire MediaWiki extension would be changed to make it compatible with enwiki's new page patrolling? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  nah, the code for it is not too hard to change and if we want to deploy NPP to more wikis that might have edit patrolling, we have to change it anyway. Ladsgroup^overleg 18:50, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• Seems like trouble - every non-user revision would be un-patrolled, which I expect would instantly flood queue in to a backlog that will never get cleared. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:46, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  The queue gets automatically purged after 30 days, as I said above. Ladsgroup^overleg 18:47, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  And the point of it is not to clear any queues either. You will just have a a new filter to avoid re-reviewing edits and wasting your time. Ladsgroup^overleg 18:55, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. If the right is new-page patroller, a critical feed which is nearly always backlogged, we don't want to divide the attention of the small group of people who are trusted to work in this area into something significantly less pressing. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:53, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  Actually the more I think about this, the less I like it. Frank vandalism is usually easy to spot and revert, so wastes little time. The really problematic edits are PoV pushing of one form or another, and it would be trivial for a PoV pusher/paid editor to get the permission and then reduce scrutiny on problematic edits. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:19, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I review most edits on my watchlist by hovering over (diff) (or "(3 changes)", etc.) with Popups. This is quick and easy. I'd be much less productive, and less likely to bother, if I had to click (diff) against every edit, wait for the page to load, click "mark as patrolled" and find my place in the watchlist again. Certes (talk) 22:11, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  The support for marking edits patrolled can easily be added to popups. Ladsgroup^overleg 11:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

  Or... you could just not mark things as patrolled, @Certes.

  I don't think that everyone is understanding this proposal. Think of the question this way:

  • We could have a system that allows admins and other editors we trust to optionally signal to other editors – the ones who are voluntarily choosing to use this feature – to signal to the other editors in the opted-in group that one editor personally thinks a given edit no longer needs extra eyes on it (e.g., because it was reverted already, or because the patroller knows that it's good).
  • If you choose to use this optional system, then you can filter Special:RecentChanges to show you only those edits that other editors either haven't checked or are uncertain about. You would not need to see (and re-check) edits that other editors have already marked as acceptable. You would know which ones have no been checked, instead of assuming that the entire list of recent changes needs your personal attention.
  • Nobody will be required to use this system. In fact, it would probably be good to have a mix of editors: some being more efficient (so that everything gets checked, instead of some edits being checked many times and others being overlooked), some looking at their watchlists, and others looking at everything they can (to double-check).
  • Note that not re-re-re-re-checking known-good edits is what anti-vandal tools like Wikipedia:Huggle do automatically, so this is not a new idea.

  I think the question really is: Do you want to ban other editors from voluntarily and easily sharing information about which edits they've already checked, keeping firmly in mind that if you personally don't want to use their system, then it doesn't need to affect you at all? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) If this happens, we definitely need separate "new page autopatrolled" vs. "recent change autopatrolled", as well as "new page patroller" vs. "recent change patroller" user-rights. I'm not convinced this is a good idea anyway, but I'm not an active RC patroller so I'll leave the merits to others.
  Although creating that split means that global rollbackers would lose new-page autopatrolled, instead of me having to manually unpatrol every article they create. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:13, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. This reminds me of a conversation a few months ago at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 89#Proposal: 'Verified' parameter, and is a subgenre of the mark something as "no action needed" problem. Personally I feel like the proposal here would create an immense amount of paperwork and possibly false sense of security, but I do think a general optional tickbox for "looks good to me" could be beneficial. Generally, we want to double check each other's work but not octuple check it. It's a grey area for sure.
  Folly Mox (talk) 22:29, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

  While I understand your point, I want to mention that this has been working for over a decade in many large/medium wikis including mine without a a lot of paperwork and has been quite useful. A wiki can turn it into a paperwork nightmare or something lean if they chose to. Ladsgroup^overleg 11:22, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

• I'm generally supportive. If it can be made to work technically, i.e. there's no unresolvable conflicts with other extensions, and we can get a sensible set of permissions, I think this would help prevent a lot of duplicated effort. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:42, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support individual changes for rollbackers and administrators. Old vandalistic and other disruptive edits often go unnoticed for years. Oppose new pages inside of mainspace for anyone who is not a new page reviewer or autoreviewer, as those require a solid understanding of the deletion policy beyond the criteria for speedy deletion. Awesome Aasim 17:16, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

  giving the right to rollbackers is a good idea to avoid creating yet another group of users and extra paperwork. There is a major overlap between rollbackers and patrollers too (if not the exact same). Ladsgroup^overleg 17:55, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

.Oppose If you believe something might be wrong you should check it yourself, not rely on other editors. Either this user right is limit to a small group, making it ineffective, or a larger group, opening it up to all kinds of abuse. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:36, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you're wrong. You can choose to ignore this system and still check every change (do *you* check every change now?). You'll give the patrol right to your trusted users, with the possibility of having the right removed if they're no longer trusted; patrol actions are logged, and you can easily tell who marked each change as patrolled. Can you say that *every* change has been seen by someone (trusted) now? I'm pretty sure a user with, say, 2000 clean edits is a good patroller candidate, someone I'd trust. But I'd still sometimes take a look, even if the change was marked as patrolled. Nothing to lose here, trust me! Ponor (talk) 03:25, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested, you say If you believe something might be wrong you should check it yourself, not rely on other editors, but there's nothing in this proposal that would prevent you from doing exactly that. So why the opposition? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I didn't say "I should check", maybe I should have said "should be checked". This system and many other recent discussion on similar things would mean that editors are relying on other editors for verification. That shouldn't happen, it's fundamentally wrong.

This has nothing to do with currently checking all edits, the question is trusting current edits. I don't blindly trust current edits, no editor should, but this would directly implement a system of doing exactly that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:11, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Our current system works like this:

• Alice looks at Special:RecentChanges and looks at the diffs for edits 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. She wasn't sure about edit 2, but she didn't think it was bad enough to revert. Maybe someone else will look at it.
• Bob looks at Special:RecentChanges and looks at the diffs for edits 1 and 4.
• Chris looks at Special:RecentChanges and looks at the diffs for edits 1, 2, and 4.
• David looks at Special:RecentChanges and looks at the diffs for edits 1 and 4.

Result: Nobody looks the diff for edit 6 or 7. Four people have checked edits 1 and 4. Two people have checked edit 2. One person has checked edits 3 and 5. If you wrote it out in order, editors looked at diffs 1111223445XX.

Imagine that we instead said:

• Alice looks at Special:RecentChanges and looks at the diffs for edits 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. She marks edits 1, 3, 4 and 5 as okay, but isn't sure about edit 2.
• Bob looks at Special:RecentChanges and looks at the diffs for edits 1 and 4, just like he always did.
• Chris looks at Special:RecentChanges, turns on the filter so they can see what others haven't already accepted, and looks at the diffs for edits 2, 6, and 7. Chris marks edit 7 as okay, but isn't sure about edits 2 or 6.
• David looks at Special:RecentChanges, turns on the filter so he can see what others haven't already accepted, and looks at the diffs for edit 2 and 6. David – who wouldn't have looked at either of these diffs under the previous system – is able to resolve the question about edit 2 but leaves edit 6 in the queue for another editor.

In this scenario:

1. Any editor can still look at whatever they want, like Bob did.
2. Any editor can voluntarily focus on the un-patrolled edits, like Chris and David did.
3. The result is that more people look at the uncertain diffs, and somewhat fewer editors look at the obviously good edits. If you wrote it out in order, editors looked at diffs 1122234456667.

What I'm not hearing from you is any reason to believe that requiring all editors to randomly checking RecentChanges is a better system (as measured, e.g., in the percentage of diffs that get looked at by an experienced editor) than having the old system plus allowing some editors (i.e., those who want to) to check specifically the ones that other editors haven't indicated is okay. Adding this system takes nothing away from you. Why do you want to take away the opportunity to use a different system from the editors who want to use it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I was going to say almost the same. We like to think that every change gets 'seen' by someone, but in reality I'm observing a lot of propaganda, wp:refspam, false statements, original research (...) being added and never reverted. This system will raise some red flags for those edits, especially as they get closer to the 30 day limit. Ponor (talk) 18:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Nothing you added changes my point. It isn't, and has never been, about what editors can check and again it has absolutely nothing to do with what I can check.

As you have just said the purpose is for editors to not have to check obviously good edits. But that is just a backwards way of saying editors won't check edits based on the reliablity of other editors, and is directly in opposition to how things should be done.

Nothing you have said, nor anything anyone else has said in support of the proposal, changes that this change would have a large negative effect on the project. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:29, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Or as an exaple.

1) Editor A marks a edit as approved

2) Editor B sees that editor A has marked as approved and doesn't check it.

3). FAIL -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:31, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

That could only happen if everyone is using it (I rate this as being exceedingly unlikely), and it could only make things worse if we additionally assume that Editor B does nothing (e.g., reviewing other edits and therefore finding other problems; I rate this as unlikely).

But again: Why should you get to effectively ban other editors from using this tool? Nobody's going to force you to use it, but why shouldn't other editors be permitted to do so, if they wanted to? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Other editors shouldn't use it because using it would have a negative impact on the project, for the reasons I have outlined (a few times). This is again, for the second time, nothing to do with my using it or not. Please stop trying to twist my words in that way.

The situation in my last comments happens every time an editor doesn't check an edit because another editor they trust "approved" it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The situation in your last comment happens only if no editors check an edit because another editor they trust "approved" it. It does not happen when some editors move on to other, unscreened edits.

This is already being done by anti-vandalism tools such Huggle, and the situation you hypothesize is already not happening. Why do you think that having one more tool doing this will create your situation, when your situation has not materialized through the tools that are already doing this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Some or most makes absolutely no difference, as I have already stated about whether the right is given to a large group or a small one. Also the suggest 2000+ edits for an editor in good standing is not a small group, it would just be the new watermark to reach for POV pushers.

This is not done by current tools, or at least to my knowledge, at the moment edits are highlighted as potentially bad by an algorithm. This would mark edits as "good" in the opinion of an editor, the inverse of the current situation.

I've shown using your own example that there is a problem. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:36, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

This is done by existing tools. Some of them, including Wikipedia:Huggle, set up a feed with the idea that it's better to check all edits once than to check some of them multiple times and some of them never.

This green button is used in Huggle to mark an edit as a "Good Edit".

If the edit is cleared by one Huggle user, then it's not shown to other Huggle users. See mw:Manual:Huggle/Quick start#Controls, especially the green icon associated with the words "Clicking on the green pencil with the checkmark will flag the edit as a good edit."

You don't have the user right necessary to use Huggle, so I'm sure you've never personally seen it, but it's still happening whether you've seen it or not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't care for such things, due to the many issues such things cause. If this is already happening it's not something we should encourage, as per my previous statements. Making a bad situation worse, doesn't make it better. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:32, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

So:

• it's been happening for years, and
• you believe it causes many issues, but
• you can't point to a single example of any issue it's ever caused.

Okay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Or as an example. (1) Editor A marks a edit as approved (2) Editor B sees that editor A has marked as approved and doesn't check it. (3). FAIL

The issue with this reasoning is that patrol actions are logged, and you can easily tell who marked each change as patrolled, quoting Ponor. In other words, there's accountability. Make a few mistakes, fine (page watchers probably couldn't have caught it either), you'll get some feedback and learn. Make consistent mistakes and your RC patrol right is revoked. DFlhb (talk) 23:24, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

So great we now have to have watchers for the watchers. How about instead don't have such a system, and all editors are watchers of all edits. I made a similar point in my original statement. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

You don't need to watch the watchers. No one in other wikis do that, there are many ways to surface incorrect patrol including highlights, people who don't use the edit patrolling, etc. Ladsgroup^overleg 14:08, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

That other wikis don't do something I feel they should do is the epitome of OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:28, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

In you list of checks, 1122234456667. The problems is that 3 and 5 could be the edits with issues, but because everyone takes Alive as a reliable source they are not checked again. This change creates an environment where editors are trained to think in ways that the opposite of how they should think about the situation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:41, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have specified from the beginning, from my viewpoint as the omniscient narrator that edits 2 and 6 were the suspicious edits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

So yes, your suppositions are correct if you control all the variables. But life is not like that. In a real world situation were you are not the "omniscient narrator" edits 3 and 5 could be the edits with problems, and your system would mean they are not checked when they should be. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Edits 3 and 5 weren't checked in the existing system, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. But this system ensures they are not, because it's a system that trains editors to not check such edits. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:35, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

At most, it would "train" the ~9,000 of admins and editors who have rollbacker rights to divide the workload rationally. The rest of us – more than 100,000 editors each month – wouldn't be able to use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:53, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

It would train them to do something I have repeatedly said I feel is a negative the project. That you don't have the same opinion is obvious, that you don't seem able to take onboard that I disargree is verging of IDLT territory. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:27, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I have no idea why my opposition in particular has gained so many replies, but I've had enough of it. I won't be replying to any further comments. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:30, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per EspressoAddict and ActivelyDisinterested. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Edward-Woodrow • talk 20:41, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I'm not sure how other wikis use it, but I don't see a disadvantage to keeping track of which pages have been checked at least once, whether this is applied to all pages, a specific subset or as needed. If people want to, they can continue to check the feed of all edits, it's not like turning this on would disable to normal recent changes feed. Patrols don't have to always be good, as long as they're correct more than 50% of the time, that's potentially useful information. I don't see the merit of not collecting information for fear of people using it badly in this specific case. Maybe it would be better if instead of defaulting to everything needing to be checked, everything gets automatically patrolled but RCPers can unpatrol things they find suspicous, I know there's a "suspicous edit" button in Huggle that I don't use very much (when I actually do RCP, which isn't much these days), but I'd say the best way to see how well it'll work is to enable it as a trial. If nothing else, having a log of patrol actions would help collect data on RCP work (or some subset of it), even if the data isn't directly used on-wiki at all. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I don't understand how you work here without this bookkeeping system, but I do see how and why some false statements I discovered over the years found their way into enwiki and stayed for a long time: I myself sometimes think someone else will take care of the things, but do they? By enabling this extension, you have nothing to lose. I've patrolled thousands of edits on another wiki, even made it easier to patrol from recent changes, page history, and user contributions pages by using two scripts for "inline" patrolling (much easier than that floating window, Certes!) from this proposal (check animated pics to see how patrolling works). As for who should patrol: all advanced rights users, any additional "trusted" users... as I said, this is just another bookkeeping system, let those who want to use it - use it. Nothing will change for those who don't. Ponor (talk) 02:59, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support because it's an optional system that can be used by those that want to use it and ignored by those who don't want to be bothered with it. Ladsgroup, I suggest talking to the maintainers of the Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism/Tools. There's no reason to require two clicks. People like Remagoxer (on the RedWarn/UltraViolet team) would probably like to know about this, assuming it gets implemented. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support. This seems great; it enables optional 'coordination' when scrutinizing the watchlist. Even though it's not perfect, I think it's valuable to reframe: fighting against bad edits is best done through defense in depth. ORES, page watchers, people who check recentchanges, this new RCpatrol, anything that helps, by any amount, is good to have in the toolbox. Fully optional, too - DFlhb (talk) 00:02, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support as a great idea – easy way to improve our accuracy. As it stands an immense amount of unsourced and incorrect additions get through the system, and by spreading out who checks what more evenly the percentage of bad edits getting through will dramatically lessen. Even requiring two editors to check every good edit would IMO improve efficiency. J947 † ^edits 03:43, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as not a great idea ~ per ActivelyDisinterested and EspressoAddict. Obvious vandalism is easy to spot and is then reverted; less obvious stuff benefits from as many eyes as we give it. I fail to see the benefit. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 14:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

  @LindsayH, but what makes you think it won't get enough eyes? The only thing that's added is a little red exclamation mark in recent changes *for users with patrol rights*, which only they can remove, and they still get to see all edits on their watch list. There's no change whatsoever for nonpatrollers. Ponor (talk) 07:09, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support as opt-in. It should be a user right you can apply for, or maybe an opt-in that any rollbacker/maybe pending changes reviewer can choose to enable. Many patrollers won't go through the effort. One of (admittedly, a bunch of) the reasons I don't do much recent change patrolling is that most edits have already been checked by the time I see them and there are plenty more that I'd either mark good or leave purposefully for someone else, but there's no difference between the last two categories and sometimes nobody gets to the ones being left purposefully. Maybe a trial run would be better, to see if it seems to be beneficial or not, but given it's opt-in and many editors seem to have issues with it/won't have the right to use it, edits should get double-checked anyways even if they've been approved. However, given the concerns raised, I think the status of an edit being patrolled or not shouldn't be easily visible on Special:RecentChanges/etc. unless you specifically opt into it being shown (assuming any user would be able to see the status, just not change it), so that newer users get the current interface and aren't fed into the pool of people who rely on patrol status, as that seems like the most likely way for it to backfire (everyone starts opted-in and then we over-rely on patrols being accurate). Skarmory (talk • contribs) 21:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (Enable RC patrolling (aka patrolling for edits))

Could someone comment on the other large wikis that the proposer is referencing? Do they have a large editor base that is similar to en-wiki? The smaller wikis of my acquaintance tend to have sufficiently few highly active editors that triaging patrolling by the "have I heard of this editor" method is a rational strategy.

Also, could an admin active in permissions comment on how much scrutiny is given to rollbackers? My guess is not enough to grant this kind of right, but I don't work in this area. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:45, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

They are mentioned in the proposal Ladsgroup^overleg 10:22, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Two notes:

• The patrol logs can be used to improve ML models of vandalism highlights and revertbots. I already used the patrol logs to build the revert bot in my home wiki. I can see this could be used to improve general AI models.
• I feel there is a bit of misunderstanding on how this works, possibly a trial period to show its pros and cons and then we can decide? Ladsgroup^overleg 20:05, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup, have you talked to your colleagues in Tech, just to make sure that the servers won't fall over if this is enabled here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing yeah, specially since this is enabled in wikidata (which has a massive flood of edits) which caused issues in 2017 and I overhauled how the data is stored around that time and now it's quite healthy. Ladsgroup^overleg 12:11, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

What is the proposed workflow for a bad edit? If User:Vandal serves up spam and User:Helpful reverts the addition, is the first edit marked as patrolled because it's been assessed, or left unmarked because it wasn't approved, or marked in some other way as bad but dealt with? What if the first edit isn't marked "reverted"? (Perhaps the second edit also fixes a typo, or it keeps part of the first edit because it mixed useful information with a spammy citation.) Certes (talk) 11:14, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

@Certes If it's a rollback, it automatically gets marked as patrolled by the software itself. I think that is also the case by manual revert but not 100% sure. But conceptually a reverted edit is a patrolled one since there is no further action is needed. Ladsgroup^overleg 14:05, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Should this be mentioned in CENT or if there is a wikiproject for patrolling (I couldn't find one), notify its members? Ladsgroup^overleg 14:22, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

The most relevant one would probably be WP:CVU. Alpha3031 (t • c) 22:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

done Ladsgroup^overleg 14:44, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

the bot tried to archive this, I rather make sure it gets closed first. Ladsgroup^overleg 11:25, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Another note to avoid the bot archiving it Ladsgroup^overleg 11:28, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

You could use {{do not archive until}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

RfC on Module:Find sources - replace New York Times with Associated Press

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=subscription parameter. 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.. 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)

  I also find Conde Nast publications pretty annoying because Nast, Conde always seems to be the byline. Valereee (talk) 16:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

  Heh. I took a look at the HTML they generate:

  <head>...<meta name="author" content="Condé Nast">...</head>

  So, yeah, we're just believing what they tell us. RoySmith (talk) 16:47, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

• 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)

• 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 just wanted to comment, whether or not there is pre-existing consensus for somethings inclusion does not make an editors !vote to include it any less valid. Googleguy007 (talk) 14:44, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

  "...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'm pretty sure no one has had this discussion with the small group of editors who have been allowed to WP:OWN the recent deaths lists. For years and years, I observed an obsession with replacing sources because of paywalls and "European access blocks", while at the same time observed no regard given to malicious links and links leading to geographically distant sources who regurgitate someone else's content in order to provide an additional venue for their array of clickbait ads. Sourcing in general throughout the encyclopedia leaves a lot to be desired. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:03, 13 November 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)

  That's a much more acceptable (to me) argument. RoySmith (talk) 14:52, 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)

  did you know whether you answered why nyt is chosen over all others? no?

  you merely said nyt is neutral.

  many more newspapers are neutral. many more are more neutral than nyt. RZuo (talk) 20:35, 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:

  1. you're making a claim without evidence. that's not what "assumption of good faith" means. you better stop.
  2. 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)

• 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)

  This a bit of an WP:ILIKEIT argument, and one underpinned by a healthy dose of Americo-centrism. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 05:47, 1 November 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)

• Oppose on all points. The Wikipedia Library represents WMF recognition that the highest-quality reliable sources often exist behind paywalls. Google News is linked for those who can only afford free sources, allowing for focus on the NYTimes' comprehensive reporting and archives stretching to 1851 at a cost of $4/month. As for international coverage, counting national bureaus is hardly indicative of the breadth of reporting. For example, neither news organization maintains a permanent office in Vanuatu, but only the NYTimes website offers pre-2021 coverage and has far more long-form reporting on the island nation. Lastly, Media Bias Fact Check and AllSides are not objective determinations of media bias. One can argue that the NYTimes' in-depth coverage necessitates fact-finding that exposes it to further claims of bias. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support adding AP on the basis that it's less USA-centric: on many articles where it's included, this template is useless because there's nothing useful to be found. Paywall status is relevant but I'm not sure it's dispositive here: AP will probably become paywalled like Reuters at some point, and NYT is very easy to access for free on any privacy-conscious browser or through the Internet Archive. I'm also ok with outright removing the NYT or replacing it with some of the other sources mentioned like The Guardian, for reasons given by others above. Nemo 16:03, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support removing NYT and adding AP. Though they are equivalent in quality and bias, AP is easier to access (no paywall) and more international than NYT. Levivich (talk) 16:36, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support: AP is easier to access, more international and less biased. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 07:47, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal Proposer's rationale for removal are unconvincing, including false claim about "left-leaning" factual reporting, as opposed to editorial stance. Other sources can be added to address other of OP's concerns, e.g. Reuters, NPR, BBC, AP... SPECIFICO talk 19:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support removal (from Template:Find sources, Template:Find general sources, and similar). This is not a free-floating debate about how good of a source the New York Times is. This is about what gets included in templates plastered indiscriminately across AfCs, AfDs, talk page headers, etc. There should be as little as possible; less is more. What gets included should be of exceptionally broad and global applicability, and (like a point made by Aasim above) should consist only of tools to actually "find sources" and not any particular source or publisher. Adumbrativus (talk) 10:38, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support - Never paid for paywalled stuff and never would when there's free alternatives out there, I do agree with Cullens point 99% of those alternatives won't be as good as NYT but I also don't believe it's useful to anyone linking to paywalled articles when like I say there's free alternatives out there. I would also support BBC over AP but that's just me personally. –Davey2010^Talk 11:00, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

  Nothing under discussion requires use of a paywalled site. SPECIFICO talk 19:28, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support - no point leading readers to a site that the VAST majority cant view. Our goal should be to guide readers to a place that will be accessible for the research the template is intended for.Moxy- 19:22, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The New York Times has an enviable world-level reputation for fair and accurate reporting. We should always make every effort to use the very best sources available to us, and this is surely one of them. There's no paywall, just a minor (but rather aggravating) pay-obstacle – if you can't read a particular article online, all you need to do is go to the public library and read it there. The walk will probably do you good. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:49, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

  Kind of a privileged, first-world take. Not everyone has a public library at all, or in walking distance, or can walk, and not every public library subscribes to NYT. Levivich (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

  That's a reason to provide other sources that are more universally accessible, certainly. I don't see it as a reason to remove a high-quality source that many editors can indeed access. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose False dichotomy, just add both. Curbon7 (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support People here might be surprised that Americans who are left of center consider the NYT to be part of the corporate media which sucks up to the PTB. Despite having Paul Klugman on its staff. (And by "left of center" I mean individuals who are far more moderate than members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. More accurately labeled progressive Democrats.) A chronic problem of the US mainstream press is this baffling need to "present a balanced view", which always means giving more attention to conservative POVs, & the NYT is as guilty of this as practically every other US publication. -- llywrch (talk) 23:48, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support adding AP Oppose removing NYT No need for this to be NYT vs. AP. An excellent pair. Perhaps add paywall as a parenthetical for NYT. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal of NYT, support addition of AP--Lukewarmbeer (talk) 11:41, 11 November 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)

• 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)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/pageoneplus/editors-note-gaza-hospital-coverage.html

so much for "NYT's factual reporting is neutral", "by far the best and most comprehensive US newspaper source", "enviable world-level reputation for fair and accurate reporting"... lmao.--RZuo (talk) 20:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

To create an Editor Communication Feedback noticeboard

See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 116 § Do Away with RFC/U

Communication is crucial in society in general and Wikipedia in particular as an essential part of the editing and consensus process. As such I was thinking it would be a good idea to have an Editor Communication Feedback noticeboard. Therefore, I propose creating it to promote good communication between editors. Currently there is no place to discuss communication between editors, except as a disciplinary issue. I am aware there used to be a Requests for comment/User conduct project but my proposal is diametrically different and addresses the main points of contention of that former venue.

From the discussion to discontinue said RfC/Uc,

The community is of the opinion that it no longer serves a useful purpose, that it has a tendency to prolong disputes without helping their resolution, suffers from a lack of participation, attracts biased input, and that it pales in comparison to other processes. There is no consensus for any specific replacement, nor that finding one is required before deprecating RFC/U. Other components of the dispute resolution process should be used, such as ANI and ArbCom. There are some legitimate concerns regarding those alternatives, specifically that ANI isn't well equipped to handle long term issues while at the same time the bar for ArbCom is quite high, meaning a lack of proper venue for handling certain kind of disputes, but they don't justify maintaining a system recognized as inefficient (in those cases too).

The noticeboard would be for constructive and positive feedback, neither as an instrument to impose sanctions, nor to further disputes, nor to condemn.

1. The purpose of the noticeboard would be to promote (not enforce) good communication between editors.
2. The objective of the discussions would be to provide neutral feedback to editors on how to improve communication, what could have been done better in the thread being analyzed, what could have been avoided, what strategies could be used in the future.
3. The noticeboard should not be used for negative actions against editors such as evidence in disciplinary proceedings.
4. Some rules,
   1. Provide respectful and constructive feedback, avoiding attacks or condemnation.
   2. Limit participation in the analysis discussions to extended confirmed editors.
   3. Barring from the discussion analysis participation of editors involved in the dispute wouldn't participate in the discussion. Any doubts about the motives or objectives of their communications would have to be figured out by those participating in the discussion because after all if they can't figure it out, that signals there was a communication roadblock.
   4. Barring from the discussion analysis editors who have had disputes or edit warring with the editors whose thread is being analyzed would be restricted from participating in the discussion.
   5. Restricting editors who may act as proxies of editors who have had disputes with the editors whose thread is being analyzed advising them not to participate in the discussion.
   6. Participating editors should avoid taking any given disputing editor side.

Thinker78 (talk) 19:48, 22 October 2023 (UTC) Edited 22:03, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Cenarium, Robert McClenon, and Jehochman:, main participants of the former RfC about the User Conduct forum. Thinker78 (talk) 19:51, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Rules 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5 do not parse.

If rule 4.5 is interpreted as forbidding proxying for another editor, it may do more harm than good, if it allows editor C to claim that editor B is proxying for editor A.

More generally, if rules 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5 all exclude editors, the result may be that there may be as much quarreling over whether editors are excluded as discussion of the original topic. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:50, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Rule 4.3 has littler room for misinterpretation or different interpretation. Rule 4.4 could be instead barring in the discussion editors who have had edit summary or talk page interactions with the editors in dispute, so as to reduce the risk of disputes in the interpretation. Rule 4.5 would advise proxy editors from intervening but that would be a honors system because difficult to establish who may want to proxy. Then as long as rules 1 and 6 are respected, there would be less risk of an issue even if they are secretly proxying for the interests of other editors.

Although of course, no system is perfect. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

It is true that there seems to be only one interpretation of what 4.3 is trying to say. It still doesn't parse. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:44, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

A key challenge with the former requests for comments on user conduct process was that there was no incentive for the user in question to read any of it. I'm not clear how your proposal addresses this. With your proposed rule 3, the incentive is also reduced for participation by anyone if it means that either poor behaviour on the proposed noticeboard cannot be discussed in other venues, or if specific poor behaviour discussed on the proposed noticeboard cannot be discussed in other venues. isaacl (talk) 23:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

1. "there was no incentive for the user in question to read any of it". The WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard also has the same issue. In fact, it states, "You are not required to participate". The proposal is to promote good communication. Certainly not everyone would want to read the analysis but certainly many others may. It would be one more tool for those editors in the dispute resolution process and also those interested in improving or seek feedback in their communication.
2. "poor behavior on the proposed noticeboard cannot be discussed in other venues". Rule 3 doesn't state this, it is about the threads themselves of the noticeboard not being used in disciplinary proceedings. The behavior of course can be discussed wherever.

Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 00:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Without addressing how to provide incentives for the user to engage, I do not feel you have addressed a main point of contention with the RfC/U process.

If someone lays out poor behaviour X, Y, and Z in a thread on the proposed noticeboard, then someone later raises these behaviours at the incidents' noticeboard, the subject can claim via rule 3 that since the behaviour was already discussed, no sanctions should be given. This is a disincentive for others to use the noticeboard, which will reduce its effectiveness. isaacl (talk) 04:03, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

"Poor behaviour" would be addressed by newly minted rule 7: Include about the issue a brief, neutral statement or question. Therefore, poor behavior wouldn't be accepted as a neutral statement or question about the issue.

Should rule 3 be discarded? Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 04:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussing what could have been done better in the thread being analyzed, what could have been avoided will result in discussing undesirable behaviour. isaacl (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

That's one of the objectives, with the aim to improve communication between editors. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Exactly; thus your proposed rule 7 is a non-sequitur to the concern I raised. isaacl (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

No because although the editors in the noticeboard would discuss communication issues that may include undesirable behavior, it doesn't mean that they should state it is undesirable behavior or that editors should refer to the case as undesirable behavior. Check also rules 2 and 4.1. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:57, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I quoted rule 2. Discussing what could have been done better in the thread being analyzed, what could have been avoided is equivalent to discussing behaviour that is undesirable, as it should have been avoided and could be improved. A basic tenet of providing effective feedback is to identify the concern. isaacl (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes but it is not necessary to state that it is undesirable behavior. It should be stated in neutral or positive terms for constructive criticism what could have been done better or how it could be better. After all, behavior that is undesirable for some is desirable for others. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 02:23, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposed rule 3 doesn't rely on whether or not something is called undesirable behaviour; it bars use of any of the discussion no matter how it's worded. That's why proposed rule 7 isn't relevant to my concern.

Regarding constructive criticism: saying a behaviour should be avoided is equivalent to saying (in the speaker's view) that it is undesirable. Clearly describing problematic behaviour can still be constructive, with the commenter providing clear reasoning, and ideally based on common agreed-upon principles. isaacl (talk) 04:01, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Should rule 3 be discarded? Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 04:34, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• One of the problems with RFC/U was that it was "a process laden with bureaucratic nonsense" (as one commenter put it in the linked RfC). This too seems to have a lot of WP:BURO which will invite wikilawyering and need clerking/policing. I'm also confused what its purpose is meant to be: a friendly space for a chat? or somewhere to bring a specific ongoing "dispute" or "issue" as referred to later in the rules? Bon courage (talk) 05:19, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  I have noticed that oftentimes in talk pages there are storms of disputes where communication could be better. I think this noticeboard could help sort out such situations without resorting to ANI or the Committee and help provide feedback to editors seeking to improve their communication skills with fellow editors. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 18:46, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  Also, the idea is to have a forum that is a mix or could mirror somewhat RFC, Third Opinion, and the dispute resolution noticeboard or other noticeboards, but for analysis of cases of communication between editors. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 18:59, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  Sounds fanciful. Anyway to enforce your rules you'd need clerks to do things like making sure 'barred' editors were barred, and so on, and you'd need completely uninvolved editors willing to comment. God only know what sort of people would be attracted to that task! Perhaps you could point at two or three of these 'storms of disputes' where you think this proposal would help? Bon courage (talk) 19:08, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think any experienced editor who has participated in discussions knows by personal experience about what can happen in discussions and how they can become very stormy. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 20:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  But I don't know what you mean by 'stormy' exactly. If editors are telling each other to fuck off, that's one thing; but do you include robust exchanges? Many editors mis-construe robust argumentation about propositions as being personal. What do you mean by stormy? Where is the line crossed? Examples please! Bon courage (talk) 06:33, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

  Editors would be free to submit threads in which they were involved for review even if there was no dispute but the editor simply wants feedback about hisher communication. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 21:14, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

  Above you wrote "this noticeboard could help sort out such situations". What "situations"? Is this a problem that actually exists? Can you point to some (hell, even one) and sketch a "before and after" where this noticeboard does the sorting out you mention? Bon courage (talk) 01:50, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  "storms of disputes where communication could be better." Thinker78 (talk) 03:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, the question is being evaded. Can somebody close this waste of time? Bon courage (talk) 03:10, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  There is your example. Also, it illustrates the point of rule 4.4 "Barring from the discussion editors who have had disputes or edit warring with the editors whose thread is being analyzed". We had a dispute some time ago. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 04:16, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I can't picture how this would work in practice. If parties are snarking at each other, and someone steps in to criticise their communication skills, is that really going to mollify them? I have a feeling it would just open up a new frontier in the dispute, probably moving the discussion even further away from content. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:58, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

That would ring true about any other noticeboard though. Besides, the Feedback noticeboard would analyze a discussion only if editor (s) involved in the discussion brings the case (although they would not participate in the discussion). Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what benefit there is to a forum where people who were not involved in a contentious discussion then discuss that discussion; a person with poor communication skills is not going to improve by being scolded on the internet. I think a better solution is to have some sort of peer mediator program, but even that isn't a replacement for touching grass or going to a therapist instead of getting heated and nasty over an edit dispute. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

  The noticeboard wouldn't be for "scolding", but to provide impartial analysis using positive feedback. Or at least that's the idea. Although I recognize some people get nasty because of their particular life issues, in other situations editors may be nasty in a discussion but later snap out of it and sincerely want to check what went wrong. Also, there are other situations where editors might simply seek feedback even if there was no particular nastiness. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

• I suspect we have too many user-behavior noticeboards. AN, ANI, and WP:XRV come to mind. It may make sense to move in the direction of consolidating them towards ANI, rather than creating new ones. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:57, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think AN and ANI are more suitable for complaints than for general feedback. Also, they dissuade participation with boomerangs. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 05:55, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Rule that will cover anachronistic informations in the articles

Given that there is a possibility that mention of modern nations in the context of historical figures is an anachronism, as far as I know from my editorial experience this is not acceptable in articles given that time context in which a person lived must be used. I think there should be a rule that will solve this question. This same rule should determine the guidelines in which it must be proven that some information is anachronism. While the second part of the rules would determine what is done in such cases. Considering that without this rule we have uneven articles, I think that this rule is inevitable and necessary. The same rule will apply to all cases of anachronism in articles. I think that debating some things for 20 years does not make sense, it is better to adopt a new rule that will make the work of editors easier.

I am asking interested editors are you in favor of adopting a new rule which will concern the problem of anachronism in the articles? If necessary, I will write a new rule myself and put it up for discussion.

Mikola22 (talk) 08:20, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

I might be sleepy, but I don't understand what exactly is being proposed here. We shouldn't have anachronisms in articles? We have to provide a source when removing anachronisms? We should have anachronisms when they help the general reader understand a topic in a specific historical context that is not well understood by non-specialists? Folly Mox (talk) 11:08, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedians argue indefinitely about a lot of things, it's kind of our thing. I don't think we can come up with a blanket rule on how to deal with anachronisms. For example, the vast majority of articles on archaeological sites describe them as being located in a modern country, which is technically anachronistic, but it wouldn't be very helpful for readers to learn that Nibru was a city in Kengir. It needs to be decided with on a case by case basis, following the lead of reliable sources. – Joe (talk) 12:21, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Folly Mox and Joe Roe: There is no rule on Wikipedia regarding information which are out of time context. Let's say a certain historian from Rome and the Roman Empire is presented as an Italian in the article. And now for 20 years there has been a debate whether he was Italian or Roman. I think that in such case it would be good to have a rule or guideline that we can refer to, so that the article contains information in accordance with the sources and time context. Furthermore, we now have a situation where the time context is respected in some articles and not in others. The situation is anarchic in this regard. If something else needs to be clarified, feel free to ask. @Joe Roe In any case, everything depends on the sources, if 5 RS says that a person from the first century is Roman and 5 RS says that he is Italian, we won't going to debate for 20 years about who he was? If something is an anachronism and this is determined by the opinion of editor majority, then we cannot keep this information in the article. For now, such informations are legitimate because there is no guideline that would regulate this situation. Mikola22 (talk) 12:58, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Even if there was agreement on whether any particular item is an anachronism, it would be extremely difficult to write guideline or policy that encompasses all topics in a way that captured the many possible nuances out there. Suggesting that an editor majority overrules reliable sources is even more unlikely to be a solid basis for policy. Nationality is a particularly tricky topic, MOS:NATIONALITY has some existing guidelines. CMD (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Regarding 'editor majority overrules', I meant in the sense that guideline or policy which concerns anachronism exist. If that guideline or policy defines anachronism as forbidden, it would be sufficient that some RFC establish that some information is anachronism, and such information would gain legitimacy for removing from the article. Mikola22 (talk) 18:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

I think I understand the proposition now, but I'm not sure I would support it. For one thing, it shouldn't take an RFC to determine if something is anachronistic. A reliable source should suffice, although I accept there may be edge cases where published experts disagree. The other thing is that anachronism can be helpful to anchor understanding in a familiar context, as Joe Roe mentions, and as is also common in my topic area, early China, where toponyms are almost universally located with respect to present-day geography, names are written in modern Chinese characters, etc.

Whether a particular instance of anachronism is helpful enough or necessary enough to be present in an article, and whether it needs to be called out as anachronistic and where: these are questions that RfCs can answer, but usually only after normal editing and normal discussion, I feel. Folly Mox (talk) 20:19, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

I always look at the RFC in which the arguments must be consistent with the sources. And in that sense anachronism would be determined on the basis of sources in which would be written that some information is not in accordance with the time context. I know from Christopher Columbus sources where one RS states that Christopher Columbus is not Italian because Italy did not exist at that time. But in the article he is presented as Italian although there are many sources which talk about him as a Genovese. So this information are not enough by itself to remove anachronistic name Italian from the article. But if there was a rule which determines this question, the Italian fact would be replaced tomorrow. It wouldn't even need RFC in a wider sense. This rule can also regulate question of old toponyms etc in a manner that is acceptable for today's time. Some information can also be excluded, etc. Mikola22 (talk) 03:52, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Huh? What source states he was not Italian? Walrasiad (talk) 06:17, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Christopher Columbus by Ernle Bradford, first page[1] Mikola22 (talk) 06:23, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't say Columbus was not Italian. It uses some rather careless wording to emphasize that individual loyalties may be parochial. But Italy existed. Indeed, Genoa was a fief of the Kingdom of Italy. Walrasiad (talk) 06:36, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

He uses wording in the context of anachronism. However, this is not the issue we are dealing with here, so it is not really important. Mikola22 (talk) 07:31, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It illustrates that editors have different interpretations of sources, and what is or is not anachronistic, and how different terms are used in different contexts. That's what talk page discussions are for. Walrasiad (talk) 14:46, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

That's a 50-year-old book. Levivich (talk) 20:36, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

As I pointed out in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Ethnicity, one issue is that a false apparent consensus among sources can occur. Italy is a good one to look at. A hypothetical book like Most Significant Italian Inventions or Great Italian Women in History might refer to people as "Italian" because they are mentioned only in passing, even if a book about them specifically or that mentioned them in detail would describe the people as "Tuscan" or "Venetian" or "Genoese" or "Roman" or etc. I think we should roughly follow the majority of sources, but not in any given case where someone presents 20 sources for "Italian" and 10 sources for "Tuscan". If the person was born and grew up in the Duchy of Tuscany or the March of Tuscany we should prefer such a label even if most of the sources selected in any given survey use a more generic term if it is because they have a more generic treatment. To me it is more of a WP:SKYBLUE observation in that case. WP:VERIFIABILITY demands that a fact stated be verifiable, but not how we interpret generic vs. specific sources. This is all hypothetical here but we can get into individual examples if that helps. My two cents. —DIYeditor (talk) 11:16, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

For your example, that's not really an issue unless you do some serious accidental WP:SYNTH, whereby 1) you think those sources not about the history of Italy are trying to say something about the history of Italy, and 2) you don't have robust sources about said history where they belong, to which you can point to about the geopolitical situation. Remsense聊 20:31, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

• No need for a “rule”… we already have procedures for disputes like this - as with any content concern, raise the anachronism on the article talk page, discuss, examine what the sources say, try to reach consensus. If that proves difficult, call in non-involved editors and if necessary hold an RFC. Blueboar (talk) 20:28, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe I should have replied about a week ago, before other editors mostly agreed with what I was thinking of writing. In my opinion, this page is the wrong forum for what seems to be a partially baked idea, which should be discussed and possibly clarified in the Idea Lab. The OP isn't specifying what they want to do about "anachronism", and so I don't consider this to be a "proposal". Robert McClenon (talk) 02:45, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The other problem with this partially baked idea is that some editors disagree strongly with the cases that appear to be the main concerns of the OP, which are persons born on the Italian peninsula between 476 AD and 1860 AD. The Italian peninsula was a known geographic region during and after the Roman Empire, so Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus were Italian, as well as being Venetian and Genoese, respectively.

We can either leave this idea alone to be ignored, or start a discussion at the Idea Lab. The former option is fine with me. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:45, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Shorten most clean up messages to two sentences

This proposal might be a bit radical, however, I do think this is necessary for reasons to be explained. In my opinion, current clean up templates are longer than it should be and is an example of instruction creep. Most templates in Wikipedia:Template index/Cleanup should be simplified to two sentences (within the realm of the proposal's spirit):

1. stating the problem, and
2. saying "Please improve this article if you can" and link to other policy/guideline/how-to pages/resources (including the removal notice).

This is because the content after the first sentence are either a truism for Wikipedia in 2023 like:

• Please add secondary reliable sources
• Unsourced material may be challenged and removed
• This article needs to comply with the Wikipedia quality standards

or just a redundant rephrase of the first sentence:

• {{importance section}}: This section contains information of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject. Please help improve this section by clarifying or removing indiscriminate details. (it is obvious already from the first sentence that these information should be removed or fixed)
• {{context}}: This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help improve the article by providing more context for the reader. (If there is insufficient context, the obvious step is to add context to the reader)
• {{advert}}: This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. (First point is obvious, second point is somewhat obvious which can be answered by a link to Wikipedia:External_links#Advertising_and_conflicts_of_interest, third point is obvious)
• see more at Wikipedia:Template index/Cleanup.

Making the clean up template shorter will make the template less BITEy to newcomers and easier to gloss over by editors, which in turn will increase the likelihood that the issue mentioned in the template itself will be fixed. The template should not be a place to exhaustively list possible actions to deal with the issue, because we can add link to other resources that would talk about the problem in much more nuance than any template tag can do.

However, I think it might be controversial to remove the "Please improve this article if you can" phrase. This is because even now many readers have no idea that you can edit Wikipedia and they can help fixing the problem itself (but see below for a counterpoint).

There is precedence that shorter clean up messages does not reduce the context of the cleanup problem:

• In 2010, cleanup templates have look more or less like our current templates, but the messages usually has only two sentences. To my knowledge, nobody has complained about it back then.
• {{multiple issues}} and small or section-sized templates has trimmed down the cleanup messages to just plainly stating the problem in one sentence, yet nobody has given any complaint about this.
• Inline cleanup template only has a few word and a link to the issue. Again, the community has decided that this is enough context to explain the problem at hand without needing to list solutions to solve the problem or saying "Please improve this article if you can".

CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I think it might be controversial to remove the "Please improve this article if you can" phrase. This is because even now many readers have no idea that you can edit Wikipedia and they can help fixing the problem itself (but see below for a counterpoint). What did you intend as the counterpoint? That Template:Multiple issues hides each template's call to action in favor of its own call? Or that inline templates are just a word or two but link to a page that hopefully has a call to action? Anomie⚔ 16:36, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Multiple issues. Sorry if I haven't clarify it in the proposal. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:11, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Some of these cleanup templates are overly-long and repetitive. Please help improve these templates by removing any overly-long or repetitive content. Levivich (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, strongly support. The simpler the better. DFlhb (talk) 08:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, if the proposal is so obvious, should I just... do it? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:36, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

• I think I  Disagree with this, not necessarily because passers-by wouldn't know you can edit Wikipedia, but because the fairly frequent, dispersed reiteration of such is important to demonstrating the culture. If I can project back, I think seeing the relatively common beckonings for contribution made it much more likely that I would eventually end up contributing.
• I don't think additional terseness makes articles less BITEy, quite the contrary, actually.

— Remsense聊 19:28, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

• I'm largely in favor of removing these in general unless there are specific, actionable, things that need doing. The notability tags are worthless the vast majority of the time--there just aren't sources that anyone has been able to find. It's a badge of shame, not for actual improvement. The needs more citation tags are in theory useful, but somehow are mostly in articles that have a dozen plus citations rather than those with zero. On the whole, I'd prefer to remove the banners. If they do have a useful part, it's telling people *they* can fix it. I'd rather not remove that. Also, see my user page for my thoughts on the issue... Hobit (talk) 15:39, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

  Huh, what on earth? It's not a 'badge of shame' to point out when things stated in an article require verification. It's a cherished part of the process (for me), not a shameful state to be in. Everything on the wiki is constantly changing. Remsense聊 16:09, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

  Oh a "citation needed" is fine. A "This may not meet notability requirements" isn't helpful in any way IMO. YMMV. Hobit (talk) 22:34, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think it is, when one considers that the message isn't just for the person who initially wrote the article. — Remsense聊 22:35, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

  I find "This may not meet notability requirements" helpful often. I place it myself when it's a subject I know little about and am not interested in spending the time assessing, hoping a future editor who arrives there with some combination of knowledge and interest will address it. I often fix such tags when it's an article I do have knowledge of and/or am interested in improving, and I occasionally arrive at such an article about a topic I'm quite suspicious is not notable, do a BEFORE, and AfD. Valereee (talk) 12:01, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  As a note, I just encountered a group of non-Wikipedia people who discounted an article as having useful information because it had a tag on the top of it. Yes, they are ignorant, but yes, we are encouraging that behavior by placing such tags in such a prominent location. Hobit (talk) 15:50, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  @CactiStaccingCrane, it's interesting that you picked 2010 as your baseline, because there was some WMF-supported work on making messages clearer, shorter, and more friendly right around that time. I agree with you that a sentence basically repeating the same content isn't a good idea, but if we are still hoping that these messages convert readers into editors, I think it's helpful to have a Call to action (marketing). Perhaps just stop as "Please improve this article", or change it to "You can edit this page, even if you don't have a free account"?

  I have long been doubtful about the utility of most messages, and I find some irritating. (Do we really think that readers are so stupid that they can't see that a two-sentence stub has no/very few little blue clicky numbers?) Their value is unproven, and when we hid them on the mobile site for years and years and years, there was no reason to believe that anyone missed them, especially for the more boring "Bringing this article up to my personal standards is somebody else's problem" maintenance templates. I have wondered occasionally what would happen if we ran an A/B test in which half of the instances for templates like {{more footnotes}} were hidden (e.g., via CSS based on the month/year stated in the template) for a year. Would the articles get fewer edits? Would they get more, e.g., because an editor thought it was really important to have the tags showing? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, it's obvious that that such banner tags don't work and so should be removed as dysfunctional clutter. The latest grotesque example I saw was at Bertrand Russell. The tag was {{ref-cleanup}} and read

  This article has an unclear citation style. The reason given is: Citation styles are inconsistent, a mix of CS1, plain text, and minimally-formatted links, sometimes with webarchive templates. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting.

  This article has a huge bibliography and over 200 citations so it's not surprising that there's some inconsistency in such a mass of detail. But, of course, there's no detailed discussion to explain exactly what's required. As it has been a GA and FA candidate, such vague nagging should be left to the next round of promotion rather than distracting the thousands of daily readers.

  Note that every page has much more important reminders for our readers such as the copyright licence, the general disclaimers and the toggle for desktop/mobile view. Those all go at the foot of the page which is quite inconvenient as I often want to use the toggle. It's absurd that a minor cleanup matter should get more prominence.

  Andrew🐉(talk) 15:53, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  It's unfair to cherrypick examples, that's survivorship bias at best. Plenty of editors specifically use banners and other maintenance tags as a roadmap to go through articles and fix specific types of issues. I agree that it's better form to be more specific to aid a potential remedy, but in a ton of cases, a nonspecific tag is better than no tag, while there is certainly a class where this is not so. Remsense聊 16:01, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  It might be better if such banner tags expired automatically so that the ones which are not effective then disappear rather than remaining for years to mystify every reader. The {{orphan}} tag does something like this now after there were numerous complaints about it. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:23, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  I would support that for some category of maintenance tags, certainly. Remsense聊 16:41, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is not so much the tag as the huge banner. I usually put some standard tags at the start of each article such as {{short description}}, {{use British English}}, {{coord}}. These are either silent or display in a more restrained way.

  As cleanup tags are usually only actioned by specialist gnomes, the giant banners are not helpful. All that projects like WP:GOCE need are the cleanup categories. Banners should not be displayed unless they are actually useful to readers.

  Andrew🐉(talk) 12:43, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

  I would also support there being some flexibility based on scope/action-ability of the problem and who is likely to solve it. Remsense聊 12:44, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

  Many banners could be transformed into topicons DFlhb (talk) 16:28, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Remsense, you said Plenty of editors specifically use banners and other maintenance tags as a roadmap, and I ask: Are they, really? Specifically, are they using the visible message at the top of the page, or are they doing what I do, which is using the category the banner adds? I clean up tagged articles; however, I do not clean up tagged articles by loading a bunch of pages and seeing what banners are at the top. I use category-based tools such as https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Medicine2.html#Cites%20no%20sources

  We could have those cats even if we took away the huge banners. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

  WhatamIdoing, I think it's possible the footprint of many banners could be reduced, but on articles I feel like I can help with, I think the presence of banners genuinely does help direct my work, in tandem with the navigation-by-categories mode I mentioned above. Remsense聊 17:38, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

  So for you, personally, your process for finding articles to improve, is just to click on random links to see whether there is a banner at the top of the page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:58, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

  No, it's when I'm reading and clicking through articles on topics I care about, which I imagine is not a process unique to me. Regardless, to be clear I'm not against some downsizing like you propose. Remsense聊 19:16, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, the proposal has stalled. I've made a small edit proposal about this in {{Advert}} to start making things moving again. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:15, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

3D models in infoboxes

Hi, folks. Any thoughts on adding 3D models to infoboxes where available, such as Statue of Liberty, The Thinker, and so on? I feel that this would be a good action, as most typically plain images are used as the main image in infoboxes, but models can also contribute greatly to one's understanding of such a subject as a specific building, sculpture, or otherwise three-dimensional object. However, it has been argued by User:Randy Kryn (who I must apologise to for mentioning a second time now) that this is intrudes upon the rest of the page, particularly on articles with large infoboxes. I can also see the reasoning for this, and I do agree that readability is a matter of utmost importance.

Given the number of articles across various topics which would involve such a thing, but the fact that this isn't quite at a RfC level nor a WP:DR type of dispute, I originally placed this at the Teahouse, before being recommended to move it here in order to get further input from editors. Thanks in advance for your inputs!

Mupper-san (talk) 05:46, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Assuming you mean this 3D model for the Statue of Liberty, then I would be strongly opposed to using it as the main image in the infobox, since it is a model, not a real representation of what one sees when looking at the statue, which a good photograph will convey. There may be a case for inclusion elsewhere in the article but that's a topic to be decided by consensus on the article's Talk Page. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:37, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I echo Mike Turnbull's thoughts. Most of the time an image is going to be a better choice than a 3D model in an infobox. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 12:03, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

If one wanted to put those in an infobox, I think it'd be better to create a parameter that just generates a link to it (e.g. |model=[[:File:Statue of Liberty.stl]] producing "3D Model [2] "). Even then, though, it might be better just to display it in a gallery later on in an article, since that way readers won't have to navigate to a completely separate page to see it. 2600:1012:B16F:B937:ADEF:7254:405D:8DF2 (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2023 (UTC) (Send talk messages here instead)

Oh, that's really cool, Mupper-san. If you click on the "3D" button, you can spin it around to see it at different angles.

I think this should be included, but I'm happy to have it in the gallery at the end, rather than in the infobox at the top. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't in principle oppose adding 3-D models to infoboxes (that might actually be very helpful for things like proteins), but I think it should be case-by-case and decided on an article's talk page. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:45, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

At the Statue of Liberty page, which has an already large infobox, the 3-D addition did not benefit the page. There, and probably almost everywhere else, the 3-D presentation may or may not be a good addition to the body of the article or in a gallery, but changing infobox protocol to allow inclusion of these images to any infobox seems unneeded and too open-ended. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Any inclusion of 3D images in infoboxes should be a replacement to the 2D images (or hidden with a switcher as seems to be spreading), not in addition. The longer an infobox gets the more it disrupts formatting elsewhere in the article on desktops, and the longer mobile viewers have to scroll to get to most of the lead. CMD (talk) 05:52, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Automatic talk page banners

Is there a way we can make talk pages automatically display certain banners at the top? For instance, {{Talk header}} for basically all pages, {{American English}} for articles with a {{Use American English}} tag, {{Talk page of redirect}} for redirects, and {{WikiProject Disambiguation}} for DAB pages. Systematic edits like this one often make me wonder: why are editors needlessly triggering others' watchlists through unnecessary but harmless mass edits, and why are these editors only bothering to add the banners to a few pages when many other pages do not have these templates? If we're going to add these templates to a few pages, might as well do it to all of them and without disruption. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I believe that automatically including comments and templates in new talk pages is a good idea, but that automatically adding them to existing talk pages is a bad idea. As as compromise, perhaps facilitate adding them during the next edit, if any, subject to confirmation . -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

We don't need to clutter up talk pages with e.g. {{American English}} which isn't really needed on most talk pages. Talk pages already have too many banners usually (which causes banner blindness) Galobtter (talk) 23:07, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree in principle, and I have never added that template to talk pages myself. But the template exists, and time and again I see editors add it to random talk page. I have no grounds to revert them, since there's no harm per se, but it's an unnecessary edit. Same goes with the other templates I listed — there is no positive or negative from adding them, but people do it anyway, and it just triggers people's watchlists for no reason. I am doubtful that editors will agree to mass-delete those templates, hence this proposal (if it is at all feasible). InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

There's an extension in testing, not yet enabled here, that'll let us do this. —Cryptic 23:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Bot to empty out Category:Talk pages with comments before the first section?

(relatively) Recently, a category, autopopulated by MediaWiki, has been created that lists talk pages with comments before the first section. I propose a bot which, using AWB's WP:GENFIXES, will add a == Untitled == header above the comment(s). There are, however, three potential issues with this, those being intentional header exclusions, vandalism which should be removed, and multiple unheadered comments. For the first one, the bot will be exclusion compliant, the second one is an "oh well" which would be no different with or without this, and the third one is another "oh well" where a partial fix is better than no fix. The bot will run one-time until the category is empty, after which it will run occasionally to keep it empty. Note that BattyBot already does this when doing unrelated talk page issues. Thank you. — Clyde _{[trout needed]} 05:51, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I am going to actively disagree; error reports are actually one of the best ways of catching certain types of vandalism from users (e.g. Special:Diff/1183662455 which was caught by CheckWiki's "Heading should end with "="" filter), which corresponds to issues #2 and #3 that you listed. So instead of being automatically incorporated into an article, errors like those (like talk page comments preceding other sections) should be logged, but otherwise left alone so another editor can visit them and figure out whether to incorporate, revert, or do something else to the offending edit--a decision no bot can intelligently make. 2603:8001:4542:28FB:498F:967B:D9D7:D85B (talk) 17:03, 7 November 2023 (UTC) (Please send talk messages here instead)

It's seems the majority of these are were the first comment doesn't have any section header. Maybe a one time bot run could clear up all comments not made in the last 18 months or so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:54, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I once spent awhile doing some gnoming on vital article banners that led to finding and fixing a number of instances of different types of vandalism that had been helpfully 'fixed' by a bot. From memory, examples included random deletions that deleted parts of banners and parts of text below, which if it removed headers created the of comments before the first section. The bot action here adding a header will not only make it harder to catch and fix those, but also might lead to the archiving of the remaining text sequesting the vandalism into the archives. While I expect most instances are simply old unheaded comments, I don't see the category as a problem requiring an active bot fix. CMD (talk) 01:54, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

On the third potential issue mentioned, I just had a look at Talk:4×4=12 (oldid:[3]). This was three completely unrelated comments in reverse chronological order, and adding a header might to more to hide that then to solve it. CMD (talk) 06:37, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Determining the future of B-class checklists

There is an ongoing discussion about the future of B-class checklists and the possibility of dropping them. Please comment there if you have any input — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Increasing the maximum size for uploaded files

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 maximum size for uploaded files be increased from the previous technical limit of 4GB to the current technical limit of 5GB? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Background (increasing the maximum size for uploaded files)

This would be achieved by requesting a configuration change to increase $wgMaxUploadSize for English Wikipedia. Previously this couldn't be set any higher than the current 4GB (the file size used to be stored as a 32 bit unsigned integer), but that technical limit was recently lifted: phab:T191805. The new technical limit of 5GB is a limit of OpenStack#Swift.

There is no actual downside to doing this.

Use cases on English Wikipedia are somewhat limited (Commons has more use cases, but they'll need to run their own RfC) but over the coming years various feature films will become {{PD-USonly}} and those can't be uploaded to Commons. Uploading them with the best available quality may require more than 4GB in some cases. While it's only a minor improvement, 5GB is 1GB better than 4GB.

Survey (increasing the maximum size for uploaded files)

• Support as proposer. No downside, could be useful in some cases. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (increasing the maximum size for uploaded files)

Is there a way to see some examples of where large files like this are used on Wikipedia? I must admit I would have imagined the existing limit to be set much lower. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Barnards.tar.gz, I think that would be [4]. Over the years there have been various unrelated issues that limited the maximum file size and various files have been moved to Commons so it would seem the largest file is currently just shy of 300MB: File:Nosferatu (English version).webm. That is a PD-USonly feature film though. It happens to be a standard definition capture, but analog film has no fixed resolution. For example, here's a 1080p version of Faust (1926 film): https://archive.org/details/faust-1926-1080p. There's a higher bitrate version out there, but this one is already 1.7GB. It would probably end up being bigger here as it's most probably using the HEVC codec. (I can tell you in about half an hour once my download finishes..) MediaWiki streams/transcodes files with a less efficient codec (VP9) for compatibility and patent reasons, so expect that movie to be bigger if/when uploaded here.
Edit: here's Die Nibelungen, only 40GB: https://archive.org/details/silent-die-nibelungen-siegfried. That would have to be transcoded anyway, but a 5GB transcode will be better than a 4GB transcode. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 23:10, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

This does make me wonder whether Wikipedia is the right place to host these kind of files and whether we should be enabling/encouraging it by having the maximum upload size set as high as 4GB. Archive.org, Wikisource, and Wikimedia Commons all seem like better options. If File:Nosferatu (English version).webm is PD-USonly, does that mean it's non-free, and if so, how does hosting the full movie comply with items 2 and 3 of the non-free content policy? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:27, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

PD-USonly is free content for the purposes of Wikipedia policy. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:54, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Does Commons allow the upload of files this large? Because if so, we can simply send people there for most files (I can't imagine how a 4GB non-free file could meet the "minimal use" provision of the non-free policy). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:55, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: While we are happy people are excited about the possibility of larger media files, I would suggest you pause any discussion yet on that. This option is NOT available for English Wikipedia yet- what you saw is that it will be available for MediaWiki software on next release (that is the software changelog), but it is not yet ready for Wikimedia sites, and it will take some time to be ready (as you can imagine, preparing the storage at our scale for such a change takes time, and we have yet to discuss the implications of it among infrastructure maintainers. It will be announced properly when it is ready. Technical details at: phabricator:T191804#9321802 --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 09:56, 10 November 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.

Scoring for Wikipedia type Articles Generated by LLM

Our research team of students are building a LLM-based system which can generate a full-length Wikipedia page for a given topic without the need for supplemental information (e.g., human written outlines, curated references, etc.). Besides automatic evaluation, we would like to have frequent wikipedia editors collaborate with scoring the articles and providing feedback. Due to GDPR rules we will be limiting participation to those in the USA. Our goal is only for educational research, and we are not intending to try to publish these LLM generated articles on Wikipedia. Our LLM will ideally generate Wikipedia style articles with citations, and different sub-points. We will be scoring the essay based on 1. Well Written, 2. Verifiable with no original research, 3. Broad in its coverage, and 4. Qualitative comments (The first three metrics for a Good Article + Qualitative comments). We would take a subset of our articles produced and score them by actual Wikipedia editors as a way to verify our scoring is within reason.

Please fill out this form if interested and we will send you a consent form in compliance with IRB standards. Link[5]

Below is our ethical statement.

In this work, we study the automatic Wikipedia generation problem as a way to push the frontier of automatic expository writing and automatic knowledge curation. All the studies and the evaluation in this work are designed to prevent the dissemination of misinformation by not publishing generated content online and implementing strict accuracy checks. We avoid any disruption to Wikipedia or related communities, as our system does not interact with live pages. Also, although we try to generate grounded articles, we believe there is no privacy issue related to this work as we only use information publicly available on the Internet.

The primary risk of our work is that the Wikipedia articles written by our system are grounded on information on the Internet which may contain some biased or discriminative contents. Currently, our system relies on the search engine to retrieve high-quality information but does not include any post-processing module. We believe improving the retrieval module to have good coverage of different viewpoints and adding a content sifting module to the current system will be a critical next step to achieve better neutrality and balance in the generated articles. In our experiment, we manually go through all the topics in the test set to ensure the topics themselves are not biased or discriminative.

Another limitation we see from an ethical point of view is that we only consider writing English Wikipedia articles in this work. Extending the current system to a multilingual setup is a meaningful direction for future work as there are more interesting topics that do not have their Wikipedia pages in non-English languages. Terribilis11 (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Who is we? What will you be doing with participants’ personal data that would not be allowed by GDPR? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:02, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Based off of the google link above, "we" appears to be some team at Stanford. Some Stanford people have done work on LLMs and Wikipedia before (see: Wikichat). Should OP not respond, it may be worth reaching out to the WikiChat folks to figure out what the team is behind this/what the IRB approval looks like for this. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

To be frank we aren't doing anything with participants' personal data. However, we just aren't familiar with the standards of GDPR and are choosing to avoid the issue as a whole. If there are many Wikipedia collaborates interested in participating in the EU we can evaluate the GDPR more closely to determine if we are in compliance. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@Barnards.tar.gz @Red-tailed hawk Given feedback I have received, the large percentage of European editors, I believe we will be confirming compliance with GDPR shortly. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello we are students at Stanford working on a research project. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Oppose

If there is no current English Wikipedia policy that prevents such exploitation of this project, there should be. There is no consensus for use of LLM on this project for any purpose that changes content here. Your statement is a very poor introduction to Wikipedia. I oppose any such endeavor. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 18:09, 10 November 2023 (UTC) —

@Neonorange, could you expand on your objection a bit? The proposal states that none of the generated pseudo-articles will be published and "does not interact with live pages". Schazjmd (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I oppose any use of LLM that might make it easier for any LLM generated material to appear in this project. This is a consensus project where all content is generated by volunteers. And where all error and vandalism are remedied by volunteers. I consider your project as injurious to Wikipedia and exploitative of our volunteers. Ethical and empathetic AI is still twenty years off. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 18:31, 10 November 2023 (UTC) —

They are free to create this large language model because there is a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license for content here. You may think of it however you like but they are allowed to do that.

Whether we use it depends on how well they do it. For now ChatGPT sucks to write Wikipedia, particularly if you are less experienced, but this may change later. Training LLMs on Wikipedia only is bound to fail because we've got so much crap here that sieving through it would probably take about as much time as fixing it.

I wonder what is the GDPR data they are talking of? Are you only going to deploy this tool for non-EU editors? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:25, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@Neonorange, what's your overall view? "Nobody should do research on LLMs, because that 'might make it easier for any LLM generated material to appear in this project'"?

If you're concerned about them posting it, they already said we are not intending to try to publish these LLM generated articles on Wikipedia. I'm assuming you missed that, because otherwise your comments sound like you telling other people what they're allowed to do on their own computers and with their own time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

To reiterate we will not be posting this articles on wikipedia or any other website as a news soruce. Rather we are simply pursuing a model that produces models of similar quality to Wikipedia. We will be using our own scoring mechanism, but feel that to best determine the accuracy of our scoring we would like ot compare it with scoring by actual wikipedia editors. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:35, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• @Terribilis11: If I am reading your statement correctly, this is not a proposal to make any changes to Wikipedia, whether by modifying policies and guidelines or by adding new content; you are simply calling for volunteers. If that is the case, then this belongs on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) instead. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:48, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  It was crossposted there, too, and removed by GhostInTheMachine in favor of this one (I assume because it hadn't been replied to there, and had been here). —Cryptic 18:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Yep, this post had a response and I did not feel OK with moving it. We could probably swap the post and cross-link if this looks to grow — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 19:08, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Hi, I cross posted in both. Thank you for leaving this one. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:33, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

You should probably read WP:LLM before going any further. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:48, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:49, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, that page is an WP:ESSAY and does not reflect community consensus - in fact, a proposal to elevate it to policy status was explicitly rejected by the community just recently. That said, it is probably prudent to stick with your plan of not posting these LLM-generated articles on Wikipedia (at least not in the mainspace, i.e. as actual articles). Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:14, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• The fundamental problem here is that it is usually easier and quicker (and certainly more enjoyable) to write an article from scratch than to carefully review one created by anyone whose competence is questioned, such as an AI. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

  Yup. @Terribilis11, it can take hours to review a single article under the Wikipedia:Good article criteria. For some articles, it can take 30 minutes just to read it – and that's without doing things like figuring out whether the sources exist, are reliable, and WP:Directly support the content they've been associated with. You should probably be budgeting for one or two hours per article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, this is valuable feedback! I will take this back to the team. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:42, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  This is my main concern, too. I'm happy to review an article written from the three best sources, but if one of the metrics is 'broad in its coverage' does that mean the project will attempt to exhaust the sources and could end up with twenty or eighty or more, some of which may include multiple pages in books? Valereee (talk) 14:05, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you very much for this input! This is great feedback. We will take this into account. In general most citations will be web-based. Regardless, I will take this input back to our team. Terribilis11 (talk) 00:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Reduce WP:ADVOCACY in Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources

First we need a new draft of the RfC and consensus on the RfC statement and structure

Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources currently contains WP:ADVOCACY for Google/Alphabet Inc, one of the world's most powerful and monopolistic, highly criticised corporations that pays 10s of billions of dollars to try to maintain a monopoly with its criticised search engine. This advocacy is contrary to our mission. Moreover, this advocacy violates the spirit of the Universal Code of Conduct in the sense that it encourages Wikipedians to disclose their personal data, and in some cases puts us at risk of harm. What editorial changes should we make in the module to reduce the level of advocacy, without favouring one particular attempted monopoly and without harming Wikipedians' privacy rights, while helping readers find reliable, independent sources using notable search engines? Boud (talk) 16:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Proposed discussion structure: Please add Support or Oppose and arguments for or against the following specific proposals in the sections below, or add additional proposals, so that someone uninvolved can summarise the consensus after a reasonable period of debate. tech step 1: Add missing engines to the list of available search engines at Module:Find_sources/links, for engines that catalogue high numbers of pages, according to Comparison of web search engines, or are notable scholarly search engines: Add Qwant Add Mojeek Add Semantic Scholar tech step 2: Add some metasearch engines that respect privacy to the list of available search engines at Module:Find_sources/links Add Startpage.com Add one or 3-4 Searx instances such as https://searx.thegpm.org policy step 1: modify Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources that defines the list of search engines at Template:Find general sources Replace Find sources: by Use a [[List of search engines|search engine]] ([[Comparison of web search engines|comparison]]) to find sources: (which renders as: Use a search engine (comparison) to find sources:) remove the general link to Google and replace it by Startpage, Qwant and/or Mojeek and/or [add a proposal] keep Google Books unless someone can propose a similar equivalent replace Google News by a link to the Startpage or Searx.thegpm.org news link (needs tech solution for direct URL) and/or [add a proposal] replace Google Scholar by Internet Archive Scholar and/or Semantic Scholar and/or [add a proposal] (Other modifications) (Other) Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) tech step 1: Add missing engines Add missing engines that catalogue high numbers of pages, according to Comparison of web search engines, or are notable scholarly search engines. The following should be added to the list of available search engines at Module:Find_sources/links (support/oppose NAME(s) or NUMBER(s) + evidence + reasons): 1.1 Qwant 1.2 Mojeek 1.3 Semantic Scholar 1.4 (other) Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Support Mojeek + Semantic Scholar (proposer) - Both are Wikipedia-notable, reasonably well-established over several years, and no known privacy concerns are listed in their Wikipdia articles. Qwant is more controversial, and despite claiming to protect privacy, there are RSed concerns about privacy. On the other hand, this point is only about adding these search engines to the list available for templates to use, so maybe it should be added anyway. I may update on Qwant after seeing other evidence for/against. Boud (talk) 16:53, 10 November 2023 (UTC) tech step 2: Add some metasearch engines that respect privacy The following should be added to the list of available search engines at Module:Find_sources/links (support/oppose NAME(s) or NUMBER(s) + evidence + reasons): 2.1 Add Startpage.com to the list of available search engines at Module:Find_sources/links 2.2 Add a Searx instance such as https://searx.thegpm.org to the list of available search engines at Module:Find_sources/links 2.3 (other metasearch engines ) Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Support Startpage + a Searx instance. (proposer) Per the sources in Startpage.com, Startpage has been around for many years, it claims to protect privacy, and there don't appear to be any sources contesting the privacy claims. Startpage does do contextual advertising, so it's not ad-free, but it does not do targeted advertising, so that makes it a lot closer to the spirit of UCOC than Google. Searx: the Searx software package is mature, stable software (available in Debian in the old-old-stable, old-stable, stable and unstable distributions). The practical tech question is whether (i) to list one or a few specific Searx instances (such as https://searx.thegpm.org), or (ii) a list of instances, or (iii) whether Wikimedia community techies should install our own Searx instance. I would tend to go for (i) or (ii), at least in the short term, since (iii) would require waiting for the techie work/server resources to be done. Boud (talk) 17:04, 10 November 2023 (UTC) policy step: Modifications to Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources Modify Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources that defines the list of search engines that is used in Template:Find general sources in the following ways (support/oppose + evidence + reasons). Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 3.1: Replace 'Find sources' Replace Find sources: by Use a [[List of search engines|search engine]] ([[Comparison of web search engines|comparison]]) to find sources: (which renders as: Use a search engine (comparison) to find sources:) Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Support (proposer). This would avoid advocacy for any particular search engine and would allow 3.2 to remove all specific search engines. Boud (talk) 17:07, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 3.2: Replace the generic Google link Remove the general link to Google and replace it by Startpage, Qwant and/or Mojeek and/or [add a search engine]. Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Support removal of Google, with no replacement (proposer). Along with point 3.1, which would link to our NPOV, non-advocating list of search engines, removing Google, with no replacement, would satisfy our desire to help the reader find sources while also avoiding advocacy. Boud (talk) 17:10, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 3.3: Keep Google Books or propose alternative Keep Google Books unless someone can propose a similar equivalent. Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 3.4: Replace Google News Replace Google News by a link to the Startpage or Searx.thegpm.org news link and/or [add a news search engine]. Startpage and Searx may need extra tech work since they don't display direct URLs to their news sections. Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Support Startpage and/or Searx (proposer) The influence of any single organisation in the selection of news stories is a particularly sensitive question in terms of biasing Wikipedia content. Startpage and Searx are both meta-search engines, so they will still be affected by Google's selection biases, but they each have their own mixes of sources. Since they protect users' privacy, either (or both) would be better than Google for news. Boud (talk) 17:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 3.5: Replace Google Scholar Replace Google Scholar by Internet Archive Scholar and/or Semantic Scholar and/or [add a scholarly search engine]. Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Comment (proposer) I personally use the Science tab in a Searx instance, but I've proposed several links to Searx above, and having too many links to a Searx instance would be as risky in terms of biasing our source selection as having too many links to Google. Boud (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 3.6: Other modifications Other changes to the current content of Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources and its template form at Template:Find general sources could be proposed. However, for NYT vs AP, please go to the orthogonal RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC on Module:Find sources - replace New York Times with Associated Press. Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) 4 Other related changes As an open-ended component of this RfC, feel free to add other (preferably concrete) proposals or 'see also' links. See also: There is a recently opened, orthogonal discussion for advice on how to or whether to fix the AfD guideline page on the issue of WP:ADVOCACY. Boud (talk) 16:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC) This is an invalid RfC. From Wikipedia:Requests for comment: Keep the RfC statement (and heading) neutrally worded and short. The opening statement isn't even remotely neutral, and the remainder of the proposal is hopelessly complex. I suggest that it be closed, and instead a simple, brief and neutral RfC be started in its place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Not bad for an RFCbefore though. Could ditch the tag for now and reopen later. Selfstudier (talk) 19:05, 10 November 2023 (UTC) What is non-neutral in the RfC statement? The Wikipedia mission is clear: we are opposed to advocacy. This is not an RfC about whether advocating for a monopoly is advocacy or not. Advertising and advocacy are almost universally considered to be in opposition to Wikipedia's mission. We don't have to have an RfC about whether the sky is blue. The remainder of the proposal gives concrete subquestions on which to work, in order to avoid abstract blabla. There is a minimum of structure in order to have a chance of emergence of consensus on the current text. Wikipedia modules and templates cannot avoid a minimum of structure. That is not hopeless complexity, it is structure. The choices are dictated by the current content of the module. Without structure, we wouldn't have Wikipedia. Boud (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Sure, but look at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Discussion (Find sources: NYT vs AP) above, dead simple but still going. Selfstudier (talk) 19:39, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Boud, I'm not going to argue with you - if you aren't going to close this malformed dogs-breakfast of an RfC yourself, I will find an admin to do it instead. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:42, 10 November 2023 (UTC) This doesn't look anything like an RFC. And it's actually advocacy of an anti-GOGGLE position. (Although the ADVOCACY essay likely isn't relevant outside of mainspace.) Just remove the RFC tag, although too complex even for a discussion. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC) I have removed the RfC tags -- please read through WP:RFC thoroughly (especially its sections WP:RFCBEFORE and WP:RFCBRIEF) before attempting anything like this again. --JBL (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2023 (UTC) Shit, you've beaten me to it. I removed "RfC" from title so that nobody thinks there is an RfC. Boud, I second the advice directly above, but I also think you can discuss this but not as an RfC but more as a preparation to it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:08, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump, JayBeeEll, Objective3000, Selfstudier, Szmenderowiecki, and Hobit: The best way that those of you who have suggested that the RfC could be worded in a different way while still being concrete, actionable would be to edit the draft or discuss changes to be made to it. Thanks in advance. :) Boud (talk) 22:34, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we can discuss it here once we started it and, once we are ready, we can start an RfC in a subsection. It would be better for you because a lot more people will visit this page than your draft. But I will post in your draft anyway because I'm not sure everyone agrees.

And btw, good you've listened. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

(ec)On the contrary. Given that the draft entirely failed to even approximate to a proper RfC proposal, the best way would be to start discussion again from scratch, working on the premise that there seems to be something of a consensus at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion that the present wording needs revision, and that this is best accomplished without engaging in soapboxing about monopolies etc. It seems likely that we can get a general agreement that we should avoid implying that Google is the only option amongst search engines, and that we need to make clear that other options are available in most cases. Given the complexities involved when considering the appropriateness of specific engines in specific circumstances, attempting to find wording for RfC at this stage would seem premature. Start a discussion on the general subject, in a thread that doesn't scream 'advocacy' in the title but instead presents the topic neutrally, and see what people have to say. Few have commented so far, and I suspect that more would do so if they weren't being told in advance how to think... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:10, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

A good place to start would be noting that WP:ADVOCACY defines its subject as "promot[ing] a person's or organization's beliefs or agendas at the expense of Wikipedia's goals and core content policies, including verifiability and neutral point of view". I do not see how the recommendation of Google in modules or at AfD is harming Wikipedia's verifiability or NPOV. Could you explain, Boud? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:48, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Don't mean to interrupt a response from Boud. Just thought I would mention that ADVOCACY is an essay, not a PAG. Also, I'm not certain that it applies out of mainspace -- which should perhaps be cleared up in the essay. In any case, good question. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:12, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I personally feel that there is absolutely no reason it should apply out of article/article talk spaces, but perhaps Boud feels differently. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:19, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Google/Alphabet is an organisation that has beliefs and agendas. Its legal aim is to maximise revenue from advertisements. Our verifiability and NPOV depends on where we choose our sources. By promoting Google over other search engines, we are promoting POVs selected by Google as opposed to POVs that other search engines select. The fact that Google/Alphabet paid 10s of billions of dollars to Apple and Samsung in order to convince them to make it difficult for smartphone users to use a search engine other than Google only makes sense if Apple and Samsung consider other search engines to be at least equally good at providing sources that would make their customers happy. Neither Google/Alphabet nor Apple nor Samsung are academic institutions that run transparently, with collegial decision-making university-style or public git repository style about how their algorithms run or how their preferred search engines run, so they are inconsistent with the usual criteria for the search for knowledge. Criticism of Google goes into quite a fair amount of detail of why Google does not neutrally select its sources. Given Google's current power, we are unlikely to completely avoid advocating for Google. But we can reduce our advocacy for either Google or whichever search engines Apple and Samsung presumably would prefer if they weren't paid 10s of billions of dollars. (Even Mozilla is also is paid by Google/Alphabet to make Google its default search engine.)

As for article space vs non-article space, {{Find general sources}} is used on about 868,000 pages; while these are not directly in article space, they affect the content of articles by advising people about where to seek sources. Boud (talk) 01:34, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Kinda hate to disillusion you, but Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, so sometimes an editor will toss out a few WP:UPPERCASE claims without knowing what they're linking to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

It's true that the essay WP:ADVOCACY suggests that it's mainly about WP:MAINSPACE advocacy, without saying specifically that it's restricted to article content alone. I've edited the draft to clarify that the advocacy is non-mainspace advocacy. It would be hypocritical to advocate for a particular organisation, especially in a way that biases our selection of sources - which affects our core values of verifiability and NPOV - while claiming that we should not advocate for particular organisations in our articles. Google has an agenda that affects our content. Currently we advocate for Google. Boud (talk) 12:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Here's a prediction. You carry on with your 'advocacy' soapboxing. People look at your arguments, recognise them as the great-wrong-righting grandstanding they are, and decide not to get involved in pointless diversions when a simple discussion over wording and links without all the waffle would solve things quicker. Nothing gets decided. The issue remains... AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:28, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

When some people are trying to say that the sky is not blue, it's important not to let a reader of the conversation think that there is consensus that the sky is not blue, but is instead the colour of higher frequency optical light that is inevitably scattered down during the daytime on a cloudless day. But I agree that we need to cut through the distractions. Boud (talk) 18:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Starting at AfD and continuing here, you have made the following statements:

• (using Google) puts us at risk of harm
• one of the world's most powerful and monopolistic, highly criticised corporations that pays 10s of billions of dollars to try to maintain a monopoly with its criticised search engine.
• it encourages Wikipedians to disclose their personal data
• would-be totalitarian (though fortunately only authoritarian) organisation
• Trying to impose that as a unique choice - a totalitarian choice - on the world
• Text presents a totalitarian point of view - "Thou shalt worship no other search engine than Google!".
• Google's would-be totalitarian nature
• "Authoritarian" and "would-be totalitarian" are accurate adjectives in this case.

You have used the words totalitarian and authoritarian seven times each. It sounds like it is you who have an agenda – an anti-Google agenda. Look, if it makes sense to add to the Find Sources template, why not? But, it should be based upon our evaluations of their usefulness, not on some personal dislikes about the source's corporate activities (which I also despise). As I said at AfD when this began, throwing contentious political terms in likely makes editors' eyes glaze over. Which is to say that I totally agree with what AndyTheGrump said above. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:19, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

We cannot know the usefulness of Google sources, because the agenda is done by secret algorithms and secret committee and board meetings at Google. Meta-reviews, which in some sense are what we do for articles, depend on the quality of the selection of sources. Cochrane meta-reviews are obliged to detail exactly how the sources were selected. In Wikipedia, we do not (and cannot) require editors to say how they searched for sources, but we can reduce our advocacy for particular organisations that have opaque ways of selecting sources, or at least diversify our advocacy. Repeating arguments that appear to have been missed or misunderstood is me being patient, not "having an agenda". As stated on the talk page of the draft, I quite deliberately did the best to avoid my own biases by including search engines that are objectively useful and independent of Google, but that I personally do not find useful. I also strongly recommend that you look at the Wikipedia article political science: the adjectives that I have used are not my invention ("would-be" is not a standard term, but the equivalent type of nuance is common), and they are used in numerous peer-reviewed publications. They are objective terms that can be supported or refuted by evidence. The links to Wikipedia pages are to NPOV-ed articles that have survived the usual Wikipedia public peer-review procedures; the titles and section titles are not mine. Boud (talk) 18:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

On the contrary: We can know the usefulness of Google Search, because editors can tell us whether they find it useful. Useful is not a synonym for transparent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) We are not talking about the content of the encyclopedia, but a tool that may help editors to find sources. I personally find Google Books and Scholar very good for this purpose, with News less good and a general web search (anyone's general web search) hardly at all. It should stick to what is actually used by most people. In the English-speaking world Google seems to be the most used search engine, whether one likes it or not, just as Windows is the most used operating system. There is no advocacy involved in saying this. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Your personal perception of usefulness does not change the fact that Google has an agenda and that we advocate for Google; and it does not make Google's selection unbiased. (As for operating systems, as far as I know, Google uses Debian GNU/Linux, Facebook uses Fedora GNU/Linux, and most servers use one or another GNU/Linux distribution; smartphones mostly use Android with a Linux kernel or Darwin/XNU (which is UNIX certified); and Wikipedia runs on Debian. MS only dominates the PC market.) Saying that Google is popular is not advocacy: I agree. Saying on nearly a million pages that people should primarily use Google is advocacy. Boud (talk) 18:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

In going for brevity I omitted the all-important qualification that Windows is the most used operating system on home PCs in the English-speaking world. I apologise. The rest of my post stands as written. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:36, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

New proposal for the initial statement:

In the Find sources module and in the {{Find general sources}} template, should we balance the non-mainspace advocacy recommendations for any particular search engine(s) or meta-search engine(s), with the aim of diversifying the selection biases in finding sources and for encouraging Wikipedians to protect their privacy? If yes, then what changes should be made?

Boud (talk) 18:40, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

• v2: version 2: s/non-mainspace advocacy/recommendations/ Boud (talk) 19:31, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Done. There is no advocacy in the Find Sources template. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:01, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Considering that most of the people in this discussion have disagreed with the salient points of that, how about Should we consider that the use of Google in the Find sources module and in the {{Find general sources}} template violates WP:NOTADVOCACY or WP:NPOV? I mean, that's if you want to form a consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:02, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the point - that version would be unlikely to lead to concrete, actionable changes and the conclusion would be more or less foregone. WP:ADVOCACY tends to focus on the mainspace content rather than the common-sense meaning of how we actually select the sources used for mainspace content, so debating that would get into WP:WIKILAWYERING about how to interpret the essay. As for Google selection violating NPOV, we don't have good data about the details of its selection, so we can only make the reasonsable expectation that the selection biases NPOV, which is not quite as strong as violating it. In any case, it would be unclear what the result of a hypothetical "yes" consensus would be: I fail to see any chance of a consensus to completely remove Google from the module + template.

Regarding consensus, the consensus to be sought is among the people in the future who may participate, not just those most active right now. Several people have already said that they are interested in diversifying the current list.

How about if we replace non-mainspace advocacy by recommendations, since people are uncomfortable stating that advocacy is advocacy? Boud (talk) 19:28, 12 November 2023 (UTC) (I made this v2.) Boud (talk) 19:31, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Do try and click on links, instead of assuming you know where each one goes (see WhatamIdoing's relevant comment above). I would also suggest being less condescending, as that may put off "the people in the future who may participate", along with, well, myself. Best wishes with your proposal, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:01, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't like the wording that runs "with the aim of diversifying the selection biases in finding sources and for encouraging Wikipedians to protect their privacy". In particular, this meant to prioritize these over everything else, but it does not say what any of those other things are. It's rather like saying "You support motherhood, apple pie, and the flag, right"? and then finding out that the guy's emptied your bank account, burned your house to the ground, and stolen your dog, because, hey, you said you support motherhood, apple pie, and the flag, but not money, housing, and pets.

I think in this case, the request is: Could we please link to search engines with transparent algorithms and decent privacy practices instead of search engines that are more likely to find relevant results?

I say this as a person who primarily uses the privacy-oriented DuckDuckGo, and who also fairly often gets inadequate or incorrect search results from it, and switches to Google to find the thing that I need. DuckDuckGo is usually sufficient, but not always. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

DuckDuckGo as a default with Google as a backup is what I used to do, not so long ago. Now I generally use Startpage + Searx (roughly equally) with DuckDuckGo as a rare alternative. In any case, my own preferences are not the issue here. Back to the question of the RfC statement/question.

I don't understand why diversifying ... encouraging would be interpreted as instead of. "Diversify" says nothing about what sort of compromise to choose: it does not exclude any search engine completely; "encourage" does not necessarily mean excluding any particular privacy-violating search engine either. To continue with your analogy, once someone says "Yes" to "motherhood, apple pie, and the flag", that same someone gets to answer the If yes, then what changes should be made?" question, to give his/her proposal of how to balance motherhood, apple pie, the flag, money, housing and pets. Boud (talk) 20:04, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikidata connected sections

I think we should have wikidata connected sections. For such situations the section header will have a language dropdown indicator. This could go to articles or other sections in foreign language wikipedias and potentially solve the bonnie and clyde problem. Depending on how it's implemented it could help with translation between wikipedias too by letting people track which subtopics are covered in articles in which languages, someone could use an expand-language template and specify a section from that language's page.

I imagine such wikidata linked sections as being kind of like anchors, with links being more persistent. Renaming the sections could automatically update section link redirects.

Ideally we would somehow change links on wikipedia to more properly respect links to wikidata connected sections. interlanguagelinks could be corrected by User:Cewbot to section links, and we could have some kind of process for spinning off a section into its own article or merging an article into a section of another one. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 20:33, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I want to bring this to next year's proposals too https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey/How_to_create_a_good_proposal Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 23:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

• Not gonna happen. How to integrate WD into WP has been discussed many times before, and (except in very limited ways) the idea has been continually rejected (I would say it is becoming a perennial proposal). The primary problem is that Wikidata continues to have issues with reliability. It’s a great resource for locating potential sources, but we still need vet those sources manually. Blueboar (talk) 23:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Blueboar The main reason I want such an implementation is just so that foreign language wikipedias can be connected more than they currently are. I think that is different than some other proposals. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 01:44, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy links: d:Wikidata:Sitelinks to redirects (the "Bonnie and Clyde" problem); meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Wikidata/Solution to the ‟Bonnie and Clyde” problem. Folly Mox (talk) 03:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Folly Mox thank you. My proposal is more specific (miht be too specific though idk) but do you agree with the other person that this proposal is dead in the water from the beginning? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 18:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that the proposal is necessarily a non-starter. It seems like it's just increasing the kind of connectedness Wikidata already has with the rest of the ecosystem, and doesn't have a direct impact on content, so the reliability concerns come into play to a lesser degree than many other Wikidata integration proposals.

I do think that this thread as formulated should probably have gone to the Idea Lab first, but I understand this was the venue recommended to you.

As to the merits of the proposal, I don't understand Wikidata well enough to assess whether or not this is likely to be able to solve the "Bpnnie and Clyde" problem as you suggest— I linked those pages above because I had never heard of the problem and didn't know what it meant.

The chief difficulty I see in implementation, at first glance, is how article sections are so much more mutable than article topics. Any major reorg, and some minor reorgs, have the potential to result in broken anchors. It might also be difficult to assign with any degree of certainty that topic of a section. I'm sure multiple topics (or Wikidata items; as I said, I'm unfamiliar with the system) could be assigned, but for anything other than navigation between different language projects – like extraction of structured data – I could see it being fraught, due to loose associations compounding to produce misleading results. I'm no expert though, so I could be wrong about any and all of this. Folly Mox (talk) 18:56, 13 November 2023 (UTC)