User talk:Iridescent: Difference between revisions

Hello admin, I have created Zaeem Ahmed biography page, which has been deleted after my contest. But, I have created the page with no promotional intention or I don't have a relation with the person. I take a mission to create missing profiles of famous persons from Bangladesh. that was my first step to do. But now that page has been deleted. Please retrieve the page. I tried my best to follow the specific guideline by Wikipedia, but I don't know why you deleted the page. Please retrieve the page otherwise I will be very sad and that might be my last editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foyjul90 (talk • contribs) 08:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Foyjul90, Wikipedia doesn't publish original research; we only host neutral articles that are sourced entirely to independent reliable sources. (That is to say, the only thing we do is summarize what other people, who aren't connected with the subject, have published about that subject.) This is particularly true with biographies of living people, as there are both legal considerations regarding potentially defamatory content, and considerations about giving undue weight (positive or negative) to particular aspects of somebody's life. The article I deleted at Draft:Zaeem Ahmed was very obviously not neutral—it contained lines like From this vision he is continuously developing innovative ideas and making the work easier for every level of employment. Plus, almost all of it was entirely unsourced; although it had three references, one of them was his own company's website and thus unusable on Wikipedia, and the other two were both only used to cite the statement In, 2020, he was elected as Chairman of EC of Prime Bank Bangladesh Ltd.

If you genuinely feel you can write a neutral and sourced biography of him, I can temporarily restore your draft page so you can work on it further, but as it stands it's not an appropriate page for us to be hosting on Wikipedia, even as a draft. We take our policy on biographies of living persons very seriously, and we can't host unreferenced material on living people, even as a draft, for anything more than a very brief time while someone is working on it. ‑ Iridescent 09:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explaination. Please restore the page temporarliy, so that I can make the changes. It will be very helpful for me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foyjul90 (talk • contribs) 09:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've temporarily restored it at Draft:Zaeem Ahmed to allow you to continue to work on it. As per my previous comments, you'll need to provide citations for every claim made about him (and the citations need to be to independent sources) for Wikipedia to host it.

If you haven't already, I very strongly recommend reading Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Writing a new article from scratch is probably the single most difficult thing to do on Wikipedia if you're not already familiar with our rules, and biographies are the most difficult type of new article to write. ‑ Iridescent 09:16, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, I have seen Mr Fazle Kabir's page, which has reference link from his own organization (Bangladesh Bank) and other newspaper site links, which are like same to my page. So, how that wokred? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foyjul90 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Usually it means English Wikipedia has 62,019,776 pages and only a few hundred editors active at any given time, and thus things slip through. That said, in the case of Fazle Kabir it looks like the only citations to his own organization's website are for non-contentious statements. (Citations to newspapers—provided they're genuine independent coverage rather than reprinted press releases—are acceptable, although be wary of using them as newspapers aren't always great at fact-checking.) Basically, anything you say you need to be able to show where you got it from, and if any statement is potentially contentious you need to show that the source it came from is reliable. ‑ Iridescent 09:52, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, non-independent sources are acceptable, but only if they are used in very limited ways. Most of the article must come from independent sources. A non-independent source could be used to fill in some common detail that you can't source any other way (e.g., how old he is, or whether he is married).

@Foyjul90, if you are looking for good examples to follow, then you might want to look at the handful of articles listed at Wikipedia:Featured articles#Business, economics, and finance biographies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing I have found that my Draft page has been published here : https://en.everybodywiki.com/Zaeem_Ahmed . Is it from Wikipedia? and they are mentioning that they took the article from Wikipedia, but this page has not been published yet. And, for the page, I tried my best to find some newspaper sources but did not find them. Can you publish the page with the mentioned source and I can edit that in the future when I get any updated news source about him. Foyjul90 (talk) 03:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)Foyul90 Thanks for the clarifications. I am working on the draft page to make the page eligible to approve. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foyjul90 (talk • contribs) 09:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC) WhatamIdoing I have not get any reply from you. Please let me know. If the above mentioned website is associated with Wikipedia, then please publish my page. If not, then please publish my page in wikipedia, so that if any source I found, I can add. Please help me.Foyjul90 (talk) 10:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)Foyjul90[reply]

@Foyjul90, I'm not WhatamIdoing, but I can confirm that site is nothing to do with Wikipedia. Because the moment you press the "Publish changes" button on Wikipedia—whether it's on an article, a draft, a user page or a talk page—you consent to the By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL agreement that appears between the editing window and the "Publish changes" button. That means, once something has appeared on Wikipedia—even if it's deleted from Wikipedia almost immediately—any other website can use that material for whatever purposes they choose; there's a huge industry dedicated to copying material from Wikipedia. Unfortunately, in most cases we have absolutely no control over what other websites (or paper books) do with our material; the only time we can really do anything is if they're not complying with our licensing terms by making it possible to find out who the authors who wrote the originals on Wikipedia were.

As per my comments further up this thread, your page is already published on Wikipedia at Draft:Zaeem Ahmed. "Draft" doesn't mean it's not published; it just means it's not indexed by search engines, to reduce the risk of readers searching for information coming across a page that isn't yet compliant with our rules. (This is particularly important for articles about living people, owing to the legal implications if we get something wrong or give an incomplete picture.) We won't hold on to the draft forever—we usually delete them if nobody's worked on improving them for six months—but you're free to work on it at your own pace to bring it up to our standards regarding independent reliable sourcing ‑ Iridescent 19:52, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will keep updating this page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foyjul90 (talk • contribs) 04:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Foyjul90, I see that you haven't edited Draft:Zaeem Ahmed in the month since I restored it. Are you still planning to work on it, or do you want me to re-delete it? If you're still planning to work on it, that's fine; our usual practice is to keep draft articles for six months. However, when we know a page about a living person is potentially problematic I don't really like keeping it unless there's a reason to do so. ‑ Iridescent 06:52, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am seeking the wisdom of the collective. The context is a discussion mostly about sex/gender in one of my sandboxes. I don't think you will want to read it; at the moment, it is approximately the length of As I Lay Dying but even less intelligible.

Here is the story:

Imagine that you are reading a scholarly source, which you want to use to source for a substantial part of an article. The scholarly source gives a technical term for a group of people (e.g., "46 X,Y males"). After that, it uses a common word (e.g., "men") to describe this group of people.

• Should editors be allowed to pick which term they want to use? If so, are there any unacceptable reasons for choosing one vs the other? (For example, "Sure, you can pick any term used in the source, but not if your choice goes against the community's value of _____"). A sub-question here is whether choosing a less-common term is a violation of UNDUE.
• Should editors be allowed to use a third word (e.g., "genetic male") that isn't in the cited source, but that any person with basic familiarity with the subject matter would agree is a synonym/matches the intention of the cited source? Is it a violation of NOR to use a synonym? (Assume that this synonym wouldn't be disputed, except that an editor feels that it's on the wrong side of including/excluding trans people.)

I would particularly be interested in what you all think should happen vs what you think would happen. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll go first:

In general I'd always stick to the term general readers are most likely to understand ("men"), but include an explanatory footnote the first time it's used ("In this article the term 'men' is used to mean…"). WP:UNDUE is a distraction; the issue is that Wikipedia articles should be as comprehensible as possible. Editors should be allowed to choose which term they want to use within reason. If they insist on using a term which it's not reasonable to assume readers will understand (if you have a long memory, you may recall the editor who insisted we use 'decollation' in place of 'decapitation' or 'beheading' because it was 'technically more accurate'; as far as I'm concerned this is no different), or where there's a reasonable potential that the use of the term will lead to confusion, then no; likewise, we shouldn't be using neologysms like womyn-born womyn if we can avoid it unless it's unavoidable.

Analogy is sometimes risky but in this case I think it's valid; to take a less hot-potato topic, would you insist on our not using the word "train" to describe the image to the right because technically it only constitutes a "train" if at least two separate vehicles are coupled together and this particular model was built as a single long unit? Unless there's a very good reason not to, we should always be using the terminology readers will understand, not the terminology the subject specialists use.

I would have no issue with synonyms that aren't in the cited source provided any reader would understand what you meant by it (or you explained how you were using it if there was any potential for confusion); it's no different to the way music articles will mix up "song", "composition", "piece" and "work" to reduce the repetition. Even on a hot-button topic like trans issues, I don't think there's an issue provided you acknowledge that you're aware of the issue ("In this article the term 'men' does not include trans males because…").

All things being equal, what should happen is probably no different to what would happen. You and I have been jaundiced by long exposure to problematic areas, but in general the vast majority of Wikipedia editors understand that we're writing for readers and not for ourselves. Trans and gender identity issues on Wikipedia were poisoned for a long time by one particular crazy who would try to turn everything into a fight, but that editor (and their socks) was kicked out some time ago now and touch wood the out-kicking appears to have stuck. I suspect that as long as you're willing to explain what you've done and why you're doing it in a particular way, most people whatever their personal preferences are going to be reasonable. ‑ Iridescent 05:21, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, this partly goes to editorial judgment about whether or not the choice of language is contentious. If the choice of words is just a matter of professional technical language in the source, versus readability for our readers, it's fine to focus on what is most helpful to readers, and not sweat the OR details. But if it's something like whether to call something "terrorism" or "a riot" or some technical term used by the source, it's probably best to use the exact term used by the source, with attribution. So if it's "XY males" versus "men", it's fine to go with "men", but if the context is something specific about trans people, then editors might need to be more precise. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:01, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Plus there's our old friend ENGVAR to consider. It isn't such an issue on sex/gender as that's an area where words have pretty much the same meaning everywhere, but in some areas like ethnicity and nationality what seems like the most straightforward terminology can be very confusing. ("Less than 1% of the Chinese population is of Asian descent" and "3⁄5 of the population of Europe live in Europe" both make sense in BrEng, albeit anyone actually using either in print would likely be fired for inexcusably sloppy writing.) Even on sex/gender, I'll be willing to bet that at least some of the terminology which appears perfectly acceptable and non-contentious is considered grossly offensive by someone, somewhere. ‑ Iridescent 15:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good example. One of the complaints about the choice of sex/gender words is that there is more than one meaning for the words. We could adopt a rule that says "Strictly observe the sex and gender distinction" (I wouldn't recommend such a rule myself), but even if we adopted such a rule, that wouldn't make the sources strictly observe the distinction.

The community has a lot of experience with how to describe people who are nationals of one country but not ethnically/racially associated with that country's history. In some respects, this should be no different: just as Chinese person could indicate that the person is a "citizen of China" or a "person of Chinese descent" (and often means both), then woman could indicate that the person is a "adult female human" or an "adult human with a feminine gender identity" (and often means both).

A couple of years ago, I attempted to convince editors that Woman should say that different definitions existed (e.g., psychology, biology, sports, law, feminist scholars). The idea was rejected. I have wondered since then whether some opposing editors thought that admitting to the existence of different definitions would undermine gender identity as the One True™ Definition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing I doubt anyone would argue against the words "XY human" unless they were in the fishbowl of sausage makingWikipedia editing. Only the unreasonable would argue the fact that genetic humans were being talked about if the article is written clearly. I suspect only Wikipedia editors and a few others care about policies like WP:STICKTOSOURCE. The people reading our articles would be grateful if we were more accurate than tabloid media, and wouldn't be as detail orientated as we are. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 19:37, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@I dream of horses, I can imagine a lot of people arguing against "XY human". Can you imagine anyone saying "I went to the store yesterday, and this XY human was complaining that the lines were too long"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing I thought we were talking about scientific (or "scholarly") articles where primarily the genetic configuration matters. Did I misunderstand? I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 19:51, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually a good example of another way that context is important. An article about genetics might well be a place where the "XY" terminology would be preferable, but it would be undesirable in a page about sex differences in the prevalence of a non-genetic medical condition. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:43, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Tryptofish Exactly. In the context that WhatamIdoing was talking about, I might use they/them pronouns and "person" if I was remembering to not assume gender. But we're talking about genetics, and so it makes sense to be clinical. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 22:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly, I didn't make the same assumption. WAID's OP says it's a scholarly source that says "XY" the first time and then says "men" after that. There's obviously something genetic about the source, but I don't know how focused on genetics it might be. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Tryptofish: Perhaps it'd help to have access to the source (which, granted, may or may not be possible, a lot of medical sources are woefully paywalled). Not all XY people have, for example, penises or two testicles, and gender affirming surgery isn't the only reason why that would be. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 22:58, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(No need to ping me, I watch here.) Yes, it would depend on the source, and the context. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That particular example was inspired by 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency, about which scholarly sources refer to the affected people as:

• 46X,Y males
• 46,XY individuals
• genetic males
• karyotypic males
• males
• men
• females (usually in the context of women's sports; cf. Caster Semenya)
• women (ditto)
• girls (usually in reference to gender of rearing)
• male pseudohermaphrodites

This is an intersex condition. Affected individuals are believed to be female at birth, but most develop male external anatomy during puberty. Many of them transition their social gender during puberty as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing In that circumstance, "intersex" makes the most since. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 01:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can see problems with "intersex"; it's such a vague term that we'd need to keep a constant "on this occasion, by 'intersex' we mean…" running commentary.

As a more general point, remember that although we tend to give more leeway on highly technical topics we're writing for people with wildly different levels of background knowledge. (Although it's fair to say nobody without a fair amount of background knowledge is likely to search for "5α-Reductase 2 deficiency", it's perfectly possible that someone could land on the page via Special:Random or via an internal link.) To the hypothetical "bright 14 year old with no prior knowledge" or "girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her but only if she’s empowered with the knowledge to do so", a term like "46,XY individuals" may as well be written in Japanese. It's no good holding endless RFCs to determine the perfect terminology to use on each and every occasion in the article, if it ends up making the article so incomprehensible that we end up having to do what we did at Introduction to gauge theory / Gauge theory and write an entirely separate version of the article for the benefit of people who don't understand all the jargon. ‑ Iridescent 18:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For me, it helps to know that the example page is specifically 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency. This is a page that I would regard as both (1) highly focused on genetics, and (2) dealing with contentious issues of sexual and gender identity. I'm not bothered by the 46,XY terminology, because it's explained via a blue link at the beginning of the first (Presentation) section of the main text. I think it's necessary to use technical, genetic language for most of the page, because "men" or "women" are oversimplifications and misleading. But there is an interesting exception to that: in the Society and culture section later on the page, it talks about "four elite women athletes", and that's the correct way to say it. "Women athletes" are a thing in the same way as "college athletes" or "professional athletes".

As for gauge theory and related physics pages, that's a pet peeve of mine. I've complained repeatedly that they are written for physics grad students, and not general readers. The response I get is that mathematics is the only way to describe it precisely enough (not really true, if one has sufficient writing proficiency), but I just don't have the motivation to argue with that. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:04, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

5α-Reductase 2 deficiency is the source of my example. However, the primary reason I'm asking is because of the number of new editors who are editing traditional topics in women's health, such as Pregnancy,[1][2] Breastfeeding,[3] and Premenstrual syndrome[4][5], in ways that are usually accurate and verifiable (though not always).

If this turned into a big dispute, the main options (that I can see) are either an IDONTLIKEIT argument or an ostensibly policy-based argument. I am not sure how, exactly, we would make policy-based arguments. Would editors accept that NOR's "Rewriting source material in your own words while retaining the substance is not considered original research" includes using words that have multiple meanings (e.g., "women") when one of those meanings matches the substance? Is there a valid DUE argument against a choice of synonyms?

We don't seem to have a policy that requires editors to write brilliant prose with a minimum of technical jargon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing It's probably impractical to poll people who have 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency themselves, but has that been done by any other organization? I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 04:23, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So far as I know, the answer is generally "men". I don't see an issue with using "men" in the article.

This is generally a topic that frustrates me; much of my medical writing brushes right up against both it and the absurdly wide definitions some advocates use of 'intersex'. (I got consensus to remove the "notable people" list from Klinefelter syndrome composed of serial killers and transgender porn stars, but I have not yet successfully removed things like trisomy X or XYY syndrome from our various decentralized lists of intersex conditions, because no matter how many people agree you only need one dissenter to edit-war.) Fundamentally, it is neither an accurate description of most people in a cluster nor even particularly friendly to the cluster's exceptions to fold and spindle language here. (Diffs like that PMS one always amaze me -- someone who carries around the belief that every person with XX chromosomes menstruates clearly isn't being trans-inclusive, because one of the whole points of medical transition in that direction is it stops someone from menstruating!) The intersex disputes I sometimes get wrapped up in are genuinely confusing to me, as sex chromosome aneuploidies have no meaningful association with either physically ambiguous genitals or cross-sex gender identity, but they rage on while I just try to improve the damn articles. I dread the day I go mad enough to try fix the KS article and spend the rest of my life reverting people trying to add that it makes you gay. Vaticidalprophet 05:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IMO a key audience for the 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency article is parents of affected children, so "men" is probably the wrong age group. A majority, but with a sizeable minority, socially transition and identify as men after puberty.

I assume that the PMS editor, whom I suspect of repeating these same edits for more than five years now, is trying to include non-binary, female-bodied people who are not doing any sort of hormonal transition.

It sounds like KS needs a well-sourced statement along the lines of "There used to be a myth about KS making people gay, but it's not true". Addressing the subject directly tends to discourage people from putting falsehoods in an article. Otherwise, the article has a lacuna, and nature abhors a vacuum. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is totally outside my area so I don't know if the sources have been subsequently debunked, but here's a paper in Nature reporting Regarding sexual function, significantly more men with KS than controls reported being homosexual or bisexual, for what it's worth (albeit it looks like a relatively small sample). ‑ Iridescent 18:28, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a look, yeah, that's four gay XXY men and one gay XY man, and eight bi XXY men with three bi XY men -- not really the sort of thing people are thinking of when they try to posit Klinefelter's as some sort of Intersex Condition that makes men More Womanly. In fact, both are much lower than the current estimates of bisexual orientation amongst young adults.

This shades into OR, which is one reason that article will probably suck forever (because the sources to make it not suck don't exist), but there are two big confounders here. The first is that sex chromosome aneuploidies have basically negligible diagnosis rates compared to their prevalence -- KS is much higher than most, which is to say about a quarter of men with it are ever diagnosed in their lifetimes. Because the presentations of them are so mild, people only tend to get diagnosed if they have unusually good reasons to suspect they might be, and historically having any sort of sexual habits that diverge from sociocultural norms (including but not limited to homosexuality) has been a major driver for that.

The other is that they're all fairly strongly associated with various common forms of neurodivergence, and those absolutely do have associations with non-heterosexuality, completely independent of anything to do with chromosomes. Autistic adults are very strongly less-likely-to-be-straight as a group, for instance, and autism rates are elevated for all of the major sex chromosome aneuploidies. "KS makes you autistic, and autism makes you gay" might actually be an accurate statement, but it's definitely not the one people are picturing when they have the original thought. Vaticidalprophet 02:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing Is there a policy about "We should respect the identity of most people with a diagnosis, with a footnote that there's inevitably going to be exceptions?" Probably not, but I'm starting to realize that's my opinion in this specific situation. It seems like most people with this particular hard to spell diagnosis start out in life identifying as girls, and then identify as boys/men after puberty, so maybe the article we write should reflect that. Not startling parents would be a secondary priority.

Then again, perhaps there's a bias that's preventing me from being reader-centered; if most of the people reading the article are parents, perhaps we should think about their feelings more. I acquired multiple diagnoses in childhood and adolescence (not anything that would bring up a debate like this, but still). I was also a pre-teen/teen with a very narrow interest in disability and medical information. I spent a lot of time looking up medical information and about disability rights activism online. I'm imagining about how I would want my disabilities written about if a similar debate came up for anything I'm diagnosed with, but a difference audience would feel respected with a different terminology. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 19:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We have a rule that says we prefer individuals' self-identification over society's gender assumptions. If you don't contradict society's assumptions, then (due to an absence of higher priority information) we go with society's assumptions (meaning: editors don't need a tweet from Queen Elizabeth about her gender identity to refer to her as "she" in an article).

We also tend to prioritize gender over sex. We tend to write that heart disease is the leading cause of death in "women", not in "biological female adults". However, I'm not sure that the reason for this stylistic preference has anything to do with the sex/gender distinction. It could be entirely about a desire for non-technical language.

In the case of 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency, IMO the solution is simple: we refer to "genetic males"

The wording of your first sentence ("respect the identity of most people") could be read two ways. Should we:

• respect the identity of the majority ("breastfeeding women"), or
• respect the identity of as many people as possible ("nursing parents")?

I am curious what you think of these choices. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:56, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In this specific example, I'd always avoid "nursing", as it has far too much potential to be misunderstood. Particularly in a medical context, I'm certain a significant proportion of readers would interpret it as "parents caring for a child who's ill or disabled". In the more general case, I'd tend to go with "respect the identity of the majority" provided it's made clear why we're doing so—in an area with so much nuance it's never going to be possible to come up with a wording that pleases everyone, so we sometimes need to accept that whatever we say is going to annoy someone so our goal should be to cause the least offense. ‑ Iridescent 16:48, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We might not explicitly have a policy that requires editors to write brilliant prose with a minimum of technical jargon, but we do have a widely-publicised and well-followed guideline of

Some topics are intrinsically technical, but editors should try to make them understandable to as many readers as possible. Minimize jargon, or at least explain it or tag it using {{Technical}} or {{Technical-statement}} for other editors to fix. For unavoidably technical articles, a separate introductory article (like Introduction to general relativity) may be the best solution. Avoid excessive wikilinking (linking within Wikipedia) as a substitute for parenthetic explanations such as the one in this sentence. Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do. When the notions named by jargon are too complex to explain concisely in a few parenthetical words, write one level down. For example, consider adding a brief background section with {{main}} tags pointing to the full treatment article(s) of the prerequisite notions; this approach is practical only when the prerequisite concepts are central to the exposition of the article's main topic and when such prerequisites are not too numerous. Short articles, such as stubs, generally do not have such sections.

which is essentially the same thing in slightly fancier language. (We also have Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable even though that's so well-hidden nobody knows it's there or pays much attention to it.) ‑ Iridescent 05:22, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that the usual disputed words (men/males/people/individuals) are considered "technical". The biggest problem isn't people trying to repeat "46X,Y make" throughout an article; the biggest problem is people wanting to use common words that have multiple meanings. Is this men like gender identity, or men like biological sex? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They're flip sides of the same coin. Either we use a term which is understandable by readers but open to misinterpretation, or we use a term knowing that at least some readers aren't going to understand it at all. Personally I'd go with "genetically male" and "externally male", with an explanatory footnote the first time each is used to explain precisely what we mean by the term on this particular article. As long as we explain why we're using a term which may not be some people's preferred term, there shouldn't be too much of an issue. (Yes, the Faes of the world are going to argue, but to be frank they're going to argue whatever you use.) ‑ Iridescent 18:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So if we phrased it as a principle, it might sound something like this?

"Sometimes editors will have to choose between a word (e.g., men) that is understandable by readers but which might be open to misinterpretation due to multiple meanings (e.g., people with masculine gender identities vs biological adult males) and a word (e.g., non-intersexed 46X,Y adults) that is not understandable by most readers. In such cases, it may be helpful to primarily use the simpler word and to explain in the article which meaning is intended."

Does that sound about right?

In terms of practical implementation, editors might add a footnote that says "In this article, men means..." or a parenthetical note that says something like "seen in men (i.e., in non-intersexed 46X,Y adult males)" or "seen in premenopausal women (i.e., biologically mature female humans, regardless of gender identity)", probably at the first reasonable opportunity in the article.

If I gave that advice to an editor, and it resulted in the "wrong" terms being used, what would you expect the wikilawyers to say about it, other than my "practical" examples sounding remarkably extreme? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Both the wikilawyers and the identity-politics-warriors (on both sides) are going to complain whatever you do, so put them out of your mind. What to consider is which position best serves readers. My personal feeling in this particular case is that "46 X,Y" is going to confuse too many people, "intersex" is too ambiguous and "men" would need too much explanation, so the least worst solution is "physically male"/"genetically male" (with an appropriate explanation at the first available opportunity), even if they're not the preferred terms in academia. ‑ Iridescent 19:44, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be careful of WP:CREEP. But then again, I stay away from MOS. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no fan of the micromanagementy In the case of coursed instruments such as the twelve-string guitar, courses should be separated by dashes, and string notes adjacent, so the twelve-string guitar tuned to octave G tuning is eE–aA–d′d–g′g–bb–e′e′ in Helmholtz notation parts of the MOS. That said, just because it's absurdly overspecific and some people have a tendency to give it way more significance than it deserves, doesn't mean the whole thing is invalid. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Technical language may be a highfalutin' name, but the whole section could be summarized as "be comprehensible", which as far as I'm concerned is far more important than any one of the alleged "five pillars". ‑ Iridescent 22:15, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I didn't mean it very strongly, just sort of had a reaction that it was trying to spell out stuff that's just, well, come to think of it, not comprehensible. But don't mind me, if I don't like MOS, I probably don't like lichen either. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Manuals of style in the real world exist to stop arguing about stylistic choices that are often arbitrary. The problem on English Wikipedia is that its consensus-based decision-making process is a poor fit for making arbitrary choices. isaacl (talk) 22:30, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But if we can agree on something to write down, that actually addresses the problem, it does tend to reduce the size and intensity of subsequent disputes. "Hey, I can see where you're coming from, but Wikipedia decided to do it the other way" can stop problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is Wikipedia, not reality. In my experience, it just shifts the debate to a different venue, where instead of engaging in endless pointless disputes about what to do in a particular situation, the style warriors and POV-pushers just engage in endless pointless disputes about why the policy ABSOLUTELY MUST be changed, or why it shouldn't apply to a given page. You presumably don't think the 2000 pages (at the time of writing) of archives of arguments over the precise wording of the Manual of Style (and those are only the ones with a Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/ prefix, not the discussions that took place on wikiprojects, article talk pages, Village Pumps, Wikipedia noticeboards, off-wiki mailing lists, etc) represent a project working well? ‑ Iridescent 16:48, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Close reading of LABEL, which is your bog-standard WP:PGCONFLICT problem. Policy A and Guideline B say to do this; Guideline C says to do something different. But we must make Guideline C continue to say the wrong thing, because when it says the wrong thing, I can use it to force editors to do the right thing. When I want them to include in-text attribution, I tell them to follow C; when I don't, I tell them to follow A and B. Very simple, and the whole thing will fall apart if you make all the rules say the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As with so much else that's wrong with Wikipedia, it ultimately comes down to:

1. We're operating under an underlying set of rules that were drawn up for a niche hobbyist website inhabited by a small group of bros who all knew each other and all had similar values;
2. The rules that are appropriate for a small group of people with a shared background, shared social circle and shared values,—and where even the most serious mistake has almost minimal real-world impact—aren't appropriate for a major institution where mistakes can have immediate and serious real-world consequences;
3. Because "we've always done it this way" is so entrenched and because there are vocal groups who have something to lose as a consequence of any change, it's virtually impossible to fix the problem even when everyone knows it's there.

I wouldn't hold my breath. At some point we should really be having serious discussions about whether "Assume good faith" and "Ignore all rules" are still appropriate 20 years later and on whether we should start considering a formal written constitutional mechanism for how and when to impose bright-line hard limits on editorial discretion even though it will mean imposing apparently harsh sanctions for breaches of trivial rules as the only way to force people to follow them. ("If you don't agree to use unspaced en-dashes to hyphenate page ranges within citations, you will be blocked".) Unfortunately that would likely be the most heated and foul-tempered debate in Wikipedia's entire history, so few sane people would want to take part and we'd end up with a written constitution drafted by the sort of crazy people who hang round WP:ANI, Meta, WT:MOS et al, and which the broad editor base would (rightly) ignore. ‑ Iridescent 07:35, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Amusingly your rotating picture at the top is "Arbcom assuming good faith" for me at the moment... AGF is one of the most abused guidelines there is, and routinely abused by long-term established editors as they wikilawyer. Its an excuse for bad behaviour. The reality is that if your contribution and noticeboard history shows a habit of being misleading, expecting people to give you the benefit of the doubt in similar situations is just idiotic. Likewise when you have a topic ban from say, religion broadly construed, and get caught repeatedly, expecting people to AGF whatever bullshit is the latest excuse... frankly ABF would be far more productive in the process of resolving problematic behaviour. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:49, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I personally think that AGF is inappropriate for modern-day Wikipedia—the idea is nice, but what was suitable for a website with a dozen editors and a few hundred readers doesn't scale. We know that we're under constant attack from spammers, vandals and POV-pushers; when I see User:Widgetomatic adding reams of cut-and-pasted press releases to [[Widgetomatic]], I'm not going to operate on the assumption that this is all some fantastic coincidence and I should consider whether a dispute stems from different perspectives, and look for ways to reach consensus, whatever policy says.

With regards to your specific example, it's not so cut-and-dried, and I personally hate the "broadly construed" wording even more than I hate "admonished". To stick with your example of "religion, broadly construed", if either Arbcom or the community imposed such a sanction it would be because the editor in question was disruptively editing articles on theology, or changing people's religion in biographies without appropriate sourcing. Under the "broadly construed" wording, it would technically be a breach of the sanctions if the editor in question subsequently corrected a "cathlic" mis-spelling, or if a place formally changed its name, they (correctly) renamed the category to reflect the new name, and in the subsequent bulk search-and-replace of [[Category:Buildings in Bombay]] → [[Category:Buildings in Mumbai]] (or whatever) they happened in passing to make utterly non-controversial and unquestionably appropriate edits to the local church/mosque/temple. (It would even technically be a breach of "broadly construed" if they were consciously trying to avoid breaching their sanctions and went to someone else saying "I'm unable to directly edit pages on churches (or whatever), I've done everything else but can you do those particular pages", because in mentioning those pages they'd still be talking about "religion, broadly construed".) You can guarantee that in these circumstances there will be some wikilawyer type who will be scrutinizing their edits, eagerly waiting to point out "See! They edited an article on religion, broadly construed! BAN THEM NOW!!!". Sanctions on Wikipedia—be they anything from ultra-niche topic bans to full-scale global locks—should always be about preventing disruption, not about point-scoring. ‑ Iridescent 16:27, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that when you see someone adding cut-and-paste information from what's apparently their own press releases, you really should assume good faith – namely, you should assume the person genuinely believed that these self-promotion efforts would help Wikipedia, and then you should prevent them from providing any more such assistance. I don't see the point of thinking that such efforts are meant to harm Wikipedia. They did harm Wikipedia, but it's more like a clueless but friendly neighbor who "helped" mow your lawn and accidentally killed several plants in the process. He meant well, and now we have to clean up the mess. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nah. Some, certainly, but head on over to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as spam at any time when it hasn't been emptied for a while, and it's obvious that a significant proportion are outright spammers.

For over 30 years, [company] have been providing exceptional bareboat yacht charters in the tropical paradise of the Whitsundays. There is plenty of activities to be enjoyed, both offshore and onshore this includes swimming, fishing, snorkeling, bushwalking, exploring the islands, and kayaking. No license is required for a Yacht Charter in the Whitsundays. You will just need to have sailing experience and be competent in handling a sailing vessel. You can be a captain of your own adventure.

and

[Videogame includes] Over TEN types of enemies and hard-fought bosses Find your strategies to fight each of them off. Prepare yourself for the fight of your life.

and

At [company], we aim to disrupt the local market with cutting-edge technologies and solutions. Innovation is not a lavish term that can be used to describe businesses, but it’s the action or process of innovating and that’s what we do at [company]. Our approach is unique. We enable our customers to take control of their data across the broad, leveraging existing investments to increase visibility and provide actionable insights. [Company] provides an operational optimization that utilizes the previously under-utilized data. Thus, we offer a range of products and services to accelerate our partners journey from data to well informed actionable insights. Our team members are passionate about being part of a company that can solve actual tough problems and create innovative solutions to help our partners. We believe in taking the best idea regardless of the owner of the idea as we have a flat architecture, where our people can be fearless and feel empowered to always do the right thing.

are all among pages I've deleted just in the last few days (and those are just the first three I looked at, I could give you a dozen more in less than a minute), and I'm most definitely not among Wikipedia's most active admins.

I know you're wearing your Wikipedia hat rather than your WMF hat currently, but the consistent apparent inability of the WMF to appreciate just how high the volume of spam that the Wikipedia community has to deal with has become—in particular the strain the ever-rising volume of spam puts on the ever-shrinking groups of new page patrollers to do the tagging and admins to do the deleting and blocking—is to my mind an entirely valid criticism of the WMF. Regardless of what the intentions of the WMF actually are, it often gives the impression that it doesn't care how much of a problem paid editors cause, provided they keep on creating new accounts and thus keep the sacred {{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}} figure artifically inflated so the engagement figures continue to look good on the glossy reports. ‑ Iridescent 22:57, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The thing about AGF...the first word is "assume," meaning when there's evidence either for or against good faith, it no longer applies and you should be able to be able to act according to the evidence. At least, that's my approach to it. Unfortunately, I'm aware other people are more rigid. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 00:38, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"You need to assume good faith about me!"

Dunning–Kruger effect is linked on almost 600 talk pages, so apparently we are reaching good-faith explanations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be a dick (the OG wording, not the bowdlerized "don't be a jerk") is linked on 1191 talk tages. People's reserves of good faith aren't infinite. Yes, fans of a product or person can in good faith think they're being helpful by copy-pasting press releases or the subject's own website, but that doesn't extend to people writing obvious ad blurb like The company is known for its quality service and excellence in customer service. The company provides excellent services in Website Designing, Mobile App Development (Both Android and iOS), Search Engine Optimization, Branding Services, UI/UX Design, Package Design and Label design. The company reached its zenith by its dedication and superiority in services. who are clearly just trying to use Wikipedia as a SEO tool. (Seriously, don't underestimate how many spammers are out there. And those are just the freelance sock-farmers, not the in-house PR people.) ‑ Iridescent 06:02, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's (hopefully?) no Wikipedia:Template limits on this page, I just want to highlight an Iri keeper here, that pretty much sums up why and how the WMF has made editing so unpleasant for the relatively few editors who actually write content (something they don't seem to acknowledge or value):

• I know you're wearing your Wikipedia hat rather than your WMF hat currently, but the consistent apparent inability of the WMF to appreciate just how high the volume of spam that the Wikipedia community has to deal with has become—in particular the strain the ever-rising volume of spam puts on the ever-shrinking groups of new page patrollers to do the tagging and admins to do the deleting and blocking—is to my mind an entirely valid criticism of the WMF. Regardless of what the intentions of the WMF actually are, it often gives the impression that it doesn't care how much of a problem paid editors cause, provided they keep on creating new accounts and thus keep the sacred 122,379 figure artifically inflated so the engagement figures continue to look good on the glossy reports.

Where the "rest of us" stand in relation to the phenom Iri explains has become more and more clear over the decades. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF ... is a gravy-train for folks. It no longer is meaningfully in touch with the main source of its gravy either - lets face it, en-Wiki is the engine that keeps that gravy-train moving, not all the feel-good crap the WMF keeps slinging money into. When I get discouraged, though, I do something like look at the page views for ... The Holocaust, and realize that getting things right MATTERS. Since I cleaned that article up in August 2017, there have been 17.4 million views, and at least they are getting a reasonably accurate article. So, I keep plugging away here ... not because of, but in spite of the WMF. I'd be a lot less cranky about the WMF if they actually supported their editors (and I don't consider the insanity that is the UCoC to be the support that is most needed for editors). If various WMF folks who are reading this REALLY want to support the editors - here's some things they could be doing - (1) spend a bit more supporting the projects on the community wishlist (2) get some folks who actually resolve bug issues with the software (3) get competent developers to do the mobile side stuff so we don't have the issues with it (4) cough up some more money for grants to editors for sources (5) expand the wikipedia library - I'd kill for access to Routledge, Boydell, etc. More academic press access would be a gift from the gods. (6) Get wikiEd to stop being stupid. Of course, none of these things will ever happen - we'll just keep stumbling along... Ealdgyth (talk) 15:37, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to endorse this. And add Elsevier and GeoScienceWorld to the pile, too. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:51, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A me-too in the endorse department. (Not that the WMF cares in the least what I think.) There's a saying that "you treasure what you can measure", that is usually applied to dysfunctional organizations that measure something that seems good but misses the real point. Here, the WMF is measuring those sacred engagement numbers. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ealdgyth and Jo-Jo Eumerus, the "better TWL" of those is actually doable. TWL is going through an expansion driven by an actual human being you can have a genuine conversation with about the process (rather than some faceless bit of the WMF). You can tell Samwalton9 (WMF) that you want X added to TWL, get a human response and an email from a human to the relevant wing of the thing you want added, and you can ask him what the process of adding something to TWL is like (and why it's sometimes quick and sometimes drags out forever) and he'll tell you. There have been new TWL additions in the past couple days. Vaticidalprophet 01:33, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Vaticidalprophet - it's true, we're continuously trying to expand The Wikipedia Library. We just added Wiley and re-enabled Cochrane. We're also now in the process of reprioritising all our outstanding requests so that we can continue pitching the program to more publishers. We just had a new team member join who is taking the lead on this. Let me know if you have any questions :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Ealdgyth, just gonna put meta:Wikimedia Foundation salaries here. As of 2019 when the figures stop being made public, the ED of the WMF paid herself roughly twice what the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom earns (US$218,410 at todays rates), but at least had the decency to only value her own job at 97% of that of the President of the United States. (I'd also draw readers' attention to the "cost per employee" figure, and ask if these figures bear the least resemblance to any real-world employer you've ever seen.) ‑ Iridescent 16:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Um, the entire tech industry? Glassdoor announced this week that the median base salary for tech workers in the US was $145,000, not including "other compensation" or "employee benefits" (which average 30% of total compensation in the western US). If the median base salary is $145K, then total compensation would be expected to run around $207K. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you're making the point you think you're making. Since—as the WMF never tires of telling us—Wikimedia is a global movement, there's absolutely no reason for all those jobs to be in the most over-heated market in the world. Even in Central London, the second most over-heated market in the world, the equivalent figures are roughly half what they are in the US (which is why Google and Apple are both currently engaged in building London offices the size of small cities), and if the WMF were willing to move some functions to India, Africa or even Eastern Europe they could literally reduce costs by orders of magnitude. (Just to put this in perspective, in 2019—the last year before the pandemic drove salaries down—the median compensation for chief executives at the UK's hundred largest charities was £155,000, and these are billion-dollar operations like Save the Children and Oxfam, not relatively minor players like the WMF.) ‑ Iridescent 07:53, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But only US staff are "employees", and therefore only US compensation appears in that column. The non-US staff (a little less than half the total staff?) get reported on a different line.

Because of differences in tax and healthcare systems, it's really difficult to compare employee compensation across countries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I got a t-shirt (which I gave away), while acknowledgement of the value of the few contributors who keep highly viewed articles accurate and representative of "Wikipedia's best work" remains abundantly absent, to the point of mockery of our efforts. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia, the few contributors who keep highly viewed articles accurate and representative of "Wikipedia's best work" is something to which the WMF is never going to admit. People like you keep Wikipedia accurate. Readers verify the facts. is official Wikimedia Foundation dogma, to the extent that it's almost the first statement on the WMF's public-facing website. There are some honorable exceptions at the WMF who have actual experience on the wikis, I think that in general most of the people there collectively genuinely believe that it's The Wisdom Of Crowds that writes and maintains everything as opposed to individual people, and that consequently losing ten experienced subject-matter experts is more than mitigated by recruiting eleven new editors, even if those new editors are vandals, spammers, or just good-faith new editors who don't do anything more than make three edits before they get bored. ‑ Iridescent 07:53, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And we know that all too well. Why we leave is not a mystery; why we stay is. I have largely reduced my editing to two areas: those that make a difference in the real world (faulty medical information and POV warriors), and those that are fun (right now, that is FAR saves). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:24, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The example I always use when talking about the sock policy is that if there's one user that creates 10 serial accounts within the span of 90 days, makes a few hundred edits a piece, and then abandons them to "clean start" or whatever you call it, its inherently disruptive and more likely than not is an LTA who changed ISPs or moved. At some point, the creation of a new account every 10 days becomes disruptive in itself if you get involved in the social aspects of either the community or content creation, and I also don't have enough good faith left in me to believe that someone with a legion of serial accounts isn't under an indefinite block on 1 or more stale accounts. (Also, I'm sure you know this but noting it for the record so no one digs this diff up out of context, the policy specifically says the list at ILLEGIT is non-exhaustive and I'm not advocating anyone be blocked outside of policy.) TonyBallioni (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with you, although there are exceptions to I also don't have enough good faith left in me to believe that someone with a legion of serial accounts isn't under an indefinite block on 1 or more stale accounts. I know of at least one very high profile editor who would deliberately switch between accounts every few days "because it's technically not sockpuppetry if I'm only using one account at a time", and who appeared to genuinely believe he wasn't violating even the spirit of policy let alone the better and seemed genuinely hurt and confused when he was called out for it. That particular case dragged on for literally years. ‑ Iridescent 06:40, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding you should prevent them from providing any more such assistance, the problem is it can be hard to get to that point, as some editors invariably turn up saying they did similar things at first, and now they're super klewful editors, so you should spend a lot of your effort to help the editors in question. There are many who seem to expect conciliatory editors to invest significant time to work with unaccommodating editors. After a while, it gets wearisome and demotivating. isaacl (talk) 08:15, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Isaacl: After a while, it gets wearisome and demotivating.

That above quote is probably how every retired editor, whether or not they leave a paragraphs-long retirement essay, feels when they finally decide to leave for good. Concerning. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 08:31, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I very much disagree. In most cases, the reason is just "it got boring". The big divaquits are more noticeable, but the overwhelming majority of former editors are people who just gradually drifted away, and most of the rest are people who left owing to lifestyle changes (ranging from "I got a new job which doesn't give me time", to "I got a new hobby", to "I have medical issues which leave me unable to concentrate", to "I've moved to China", to "I'm dead"). Because none of these people leave big notifications on their userpages or rambling manifestoes on the admin noticeboards as they leave, one doesn't notice their disappearance until one goes to ask them a question and notices they haven't edited for six months, or (if they're admins) the bot flags them for inactivity and desysops them. ‑ Iridescent 14:58, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Life changes seem to make a big difference. High-volume editing requires lots of time, and when you go from "bored student" to spending 50+ hours a week at work, married, with a baby, that really cuts into time for editing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not so sure on that, Iri. Every time I have quit editing, it has been because I found something better to do because of my disgust at onsite issues, and those almost always point to the WMF or site administration. That's similar to what I most often hear from people.

One thing I am really curious about is the group-think that resides in WMF circles. I don't know if it's worse than in other similar endeavours, but it seems so, and it seems to matter not where an editor started-- everyone who comes under the WMF umbrella seems to succumb. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you or I are particularly typical. For most editors, even fairly active ones, both the WMF and the on-site administration are largely a vague presence in the background of which one is vaguely aware, rather than something that has a significant impact on day-to-day activity. Because you and I regularly run up against areas of active dispute, it's easy to forget that most editors are just working away largely undisturbed on whatever their preferred topic happens to be and don't keep getting dragged into arguments. When people in that position leave, it's generally either suddenly leaving as the result of a change in circumstances, or gradually drifting away either because they're getting bored, they feel they've said all they have to say about their preferred topic, they're beginning to feel unappreciated, or some combination of the three. (To put it a bit more bitchily, the first hundred or so entries at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#1–1000 reads like Who's Who of Wikipedia's Ongoing Disputes, but then you get into a long tail of people you probably never heard of because they never get into arguments.)

On the group think at the WMF, I don't know, but I would have thought it's fairly self-reinforcing. The WMF has two fundamentally incompatiable roles: their official job to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally", and their self-appointed job as a political lobby group. I'd assume that anyone applying for any kind of job there who didn't agree with the political advocacy side would be unlikely to make it onto the shortlist (and even if they got the job, wouldn't last long); when you rinse-and-repeat the same cycle of reinforcement over 20 years, you end up with a group all of whom share that particular niche world view, even though it's completely unrepresentative of either the participants on the wikis or the world in general. ‑ Iridescent 06:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding one aspect of the above discussion, I once tried to change the wording to "interpreted broadly but reasonably." I was voted down because "reasonably" was "too vague." Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:31, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You of all people should know that Wikipedia institutionally doesn't do "reasonably". Unless a rule is spelled out in minute detail, people will find "technically this doesn't apply in these circumstances" loopholes and brandish them triumphantly. (See also "technically that's a guideline not a policy", "it's not explicitly mentioned" and "I've seen someone else do it and not be sanctioned so applying the rules in my case would be unfair".) If Wikipedia does have a collective consciousness, it's the consciousness of a tax avoidance accountant. ‑ Iridescent 14:50, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Newyorkbrad: the problem with "broadly construed" is that there is no limit to "broadly". I could find a link between polar opposites for no other reason that they are polar opposites. I applaud your efforts and bemoan that your common sense has fallen on deaf ears. Iridescent is absolutely correct: "institutionally" doesn't do "reasonably" and WMF is clueless on that front. Buffs (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, it cuts both ways. Without the 'broadly' it provides too much scope for "technically that isn't covered by the ban" wriggling. To stick with the original example of a ban from "religion, broadly construed" it could potentially lead to endless "technically Buddhism isn't a religion because it doesn't require the belief in a particular god or set of gods" style arguments. By the time someone gets to the stage where we're enacting topic bans, AGF no longer applies and it's reasonable for us to assume that they're at least potentially going to try to push the envelope. ‑ Iridescent 08:07, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then "reasonably construed" should be the standard. If in doubt, they should ask for clarification. From the religion example, "broadly construed" could be used to attempt to ban a user who edits Vince Lombardi's page just because he went to a parochial school before coaching. I was personally blocked via discretionary sanctions based on "broadly construed" when neither the edits in question nor the subject even pertained to the ArbCom-approved discretionary sanction allowances (later overturned for that very reason). Buffs (talk) 22:33, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Buffs Alas, as iridescent says above:

[...]Wikipedia institutionally doesn't do "reasonably". Also, I have a rant inside me that our entire society doesn't do reasonable, but that might derail the conversation. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 22:50, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My Wikipedia institutionally doesn't do "reasonably" isn't just (or at least, isn't entirely) my being bitchy. On a site with a userbase as diverse as Wikipedia's, there will always be disagreement over what constitutes "reasonable". Treating Vince Lombardi as 'religion, broadly construed' because he went to a parochial school sounds ridiculous, yes—but if an editor who's banned from 'religion' is making huge numbers of minor edits to the members of Category:Alumni of religious educational institutions, does that fall under "reasonably" if the edits in question don't themselves pertain to religion and are undoubtedly legitimate and non-disruptive, but it's obvious that the editor has only chosen to target this particular topic as a way to push at the limits of their topic ban? I won't name names—there's no point dredging up past unpleasantness—but I can think of quite a few cases of editors deliberately nibbling at the edges of topic bans when the wording of the ban is ambiguous (it's why we have the "broadly construed" wording in the first place).

(One could even argue that since we know Wikipedia has a significant number of editors on the autistic spectrum some of whom may genuinely need rules spelled out explicitly, that wording like "reasonably" breaches California's discrimination laws. Such a case would IMO go precisely nowhere—the concept of Reasonable person is well-established in US law—but I can easily imagine the WMF getting tied up in knots over the potential bad publicity.) ‑ Iridescent 06:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given the attitude prevalent among US football fans, Vince Lombardi may, in fact, be a religion. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Tryptofish: isn't wrong, but they keep saying "cult" like it's a bad thing... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Buffs (talk • contribs) 18:16, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We in the Cabal have determined that cults are indeed bad. Respect my authority. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There Is No Cabal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoingThat's what "they" want you to think. ^[Joke] I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 06:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's a recognizable cycle of "problematic editor who happens to be autistic kicks at the edge of a sanction constantly; sanction is extended to a point that makes this impossible; editor declares that because they're autistic they didn't understand this was unacceptable; the very large population of autistic editors who are not kicking at the edge of sanctions death-glare through the computer screen". Looping back to where we started, it's a real messy situation for AGF. (The really tricky part is that because high-functioning autism diagnosis more or less did not exist before the past twenty years or so, most people the term could be applied to don't apply it to themselves, so sorting by who actively discloses gets all of demographic biases/"people pulling out all the stops before a sanction" biases/"people willing to disclose stigmatized personal details to a community that smells weakness like blood" biases.) Vaticidalprophet 06:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be cynical, a self-diagnosis of "high-functioning autism" is rapidly becoming the new ANI flu. I've lost count of the number of times someone who's never previously either mentioned autism or displayed the slightest sign of it, suddenly announces "I'm autistic!" when facing sanctions like it's Wikipedia's equivalent of a Get Out Of Jail card. As you say, it doesn't fool the admins and all it does is antagonize the genuinely autistic editors who manage to get on perfectly well without playing the "how far can I push the envelope?" game. ‑ Iridescent 06:51, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The thing I find weird about it isn't spuriousness; to put it one way, in no case where I've been familiar with an editor's pre-existing behaviour has it come as a surprise. (I'd expect most non-problematic autistic editors not to display the slightest sign of it onwiki. An environment where "intense interest in and knowledge of niche subjects, preference for written communication and information-gathering rather than face-to-face, video, or spoken/auditory, and the willingness to go catch up on a lot of background on your new favourite topic" are basic survival minimums is going to have a lot of built-in accommodations for things that correlate with those even if it was never consciously intended to have them.)

It's the very weird auras that surround everything. More-than-occasionally people running cover for a problematic editor have tried to use it as a mitigating factor without that editor necessarily wanting it; in one case, I remember someone diffing an incredibly backwater discussion months before to ANI and horrifying the editor who hadn't intended his disclosure of it there to end up elsewhere, eventually trainwrecking the thread.

The eventual consequence is most discussions of neurodivergence on Wikipedia end up in the context of sanction discussions, which to me seems to be of a kind with how most discussions of women or ethnic minorities et al on Wikipedia are in "the community is broken because Demography" discussions; the intersection of "this is an environment where other people only know what you tell them, and not only do you not have to tell them anything, but it's near-impossible for them to find out things that are integral parts of your IRL daily life if you don't tell them because the structure hides it" with "it's very important to create detailed demographic profiles so we understand our systemic biases" fundamentally doesn't work, with this issue as with any other, and people have very good reasons to want to preserve the "I don't have to tell you I'm X" part and damn the latter. I need to use fewer semicolons. That's a 153-word sentence. Vaticidalprophet 12:55, 10 February 2022 (UTC) Addendum a few hours later, because I assumed it was assumed here of all places but a reread is ambiguous: this is a criticism of the demography obsession, not a support of it. Vaticidalprophet 15:57, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"[Whichever group I'm a member of] deserves special treatment!" discussions have been a part of Wikipedia since the very beginning. It's a probably-inevitable result of the combination of a culture of anonymity in which people can claim to be whatever they want, and a well-intentioned managerial class who collectively feel diversity can excuse even obvious obnoxiousness or incompetence. (Most of our regular sockmasters and spammers have long-since noticed this and play to it.) ‑ Iridescent 18:35, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a thought: Maybe the "self-diagnosis" isn't a genuine self-diagnosis. Maybe it's from someone who can pass as the majority (that is, pass as a white, cis-heterosexual, abled man), or at most, passes as the majority-except-autistic. They also tend to be professionally diagnosed as children. It would seem that the form of discrimination these men face come in the form of low expectations from literally everyone, including their parents and the school system, causing them to be irritating at best and harassers (often sexual harassers) at worst when they grow up to be adults. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 03:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe in the case of younger editors, but—despite the "group of children" stereotypes—the active hardcore of the Wikipedia editor base splits disproportionately towards the over-40s. (In my experience, the image to the right is fairly representative.) As Vaticidalprophet says a little way further up, the concept of "high-functioning autism" is a relatively new concept (it was popularized circa 2001) and is also not recognized as a legitimate diagnosis by either the World Health Organization nor the American Psychological Association. A typical active Wikipedia editor couldn't have been diagnosed as a child, since when they were children the diagnosis just didn't happen. Yes, there will be some cases in which a medical professional has used HFA as verbal shorthand to explain things to a patient (or parents), but in most cases—both on Wikipedia and IRL—when someone describes themselves as HFA it's because they've self-diagnosed on the basis either of a self-adminstered AQ test, or because they've read a list of symptoms and thought "hey, that sounds like me". ‑ Iridescent 08:10, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps my use of Discord has skewed my perception of the demographics somewhat. However:

1. Professionals using HFA as shorthand is common enough that I personally don't see it as a 'red flag' for self-diagnosis, though perhaps I might think that the diagnosis pre-current edition DSM.
2. Some people with autism like myself would be disinclined to attend Wikipedia meetups. I feel the need to overemphasize that this, of course, doesn't apply to everyone with autism, but perhaps I don't have to in this particular conversation.
3. Can you imagine, as a kid or teen, trying to convince your hypothetical parents, who hypothetically don't edit Wikipedia, to a Wikipedia meetup? Some parents would probably do it, especially if their kid has trouble socializing but my parents would've, at most, done it once, looked around the over-40 men-dominated crowd, and never done it again; more likely, they wouldn't have done it to begin with, not understanding why I'd be interested.
4. I was once informed by a couple of oversighters that children sometimes edit in a surprisingly grown-up fashion; they'd know better than us, since they have to oversight disclosures of childrens' ages.
5. I was using a broad defination of "adult". There are 20 year olds who would've been diagnosed as having ASD level 1 during childhood who might describe themselves "high-functioning", then there are 80 year old who are forced to self-diagnosis due to autism clinics not accepting new patients over 21, and then there are people around my age who might've been diagnosed as having "HFA" at the age of ten-or-so.

Believe or not, though, I do partially agree with you, that's there's at least a possibility that there's an over-enerepresentation of a crowd older than I in the "active Wikipedian" scene. I just think there' more age diversity than what I think you think there is. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 08:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That picture above is from a London meetup in 2016, I don't think I look particularly old in it compared to some of the others, and I'm sure I'm not one of the two eldest in the shot. My first meetup was in the same pub eight years earlier, I was clearly one of the two eldest attendees on that occasion. I.E. my experience is that the average age of the London Meetup attendees has been rising by much more than a year per year.. No comment as to how many autistic Wikipedians who I've met at a London meetup, but I concede the probability that as we've accumulated a regular cadre of greybeards so we've have become a less attractive option for those under forty. Question is, is it the whole community that is greying, or just the part of it that likes to meet in pubs? ϢereSpielChequers 10:29, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not all Wikipedians are too old for an ASD diagnosis, just for the record. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus In fact, if there's evidence that symptoms started before the age of two, there's no age limit to diagnosis. This evidence might simply be a parent or older sibling corroborating the fact that the symptoms are, for all intents and purposes, lifelong.

Of course, school or medical records from childhood are more ideal, but they're both are likely to be thrown out at some point. Sometimes, memories are all you have.se, good luck getting that evidence gathered when you've outlived your family, or if your family has a poor memory for things that have happened decades ago. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 11:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC) (typo fixed on 11:29, 11 February 2022 (UTC))[reply]

Just ignoring the "autistic people who fit X demographic characteristics grow up to be either annoying or rapists"... HFA in and of itself certainly didn't pop into existence in the 2000s -- the "undiagnosed autistic dad" is an entire meme, and certainly many middle-aged people without autistic children of their own to spot the characteristics have them too -- but diagnosis is biased; becoming significantly less so, but adult diagnosis itself tends to depend on having children or grandchildren who are identified as such. WRT meetups, I've seen prior discussions of that here that lean towards the "older people and men are more comfortable at them for time/money/context/etc reasons, which in turn creates a cycle where younger people and women don't attend because they're the odd ones out" that sounds plausible enough to me. What stands out to me in the editor base as a whole, when I know ages, isn't that it represents particular age groups unduly but that it doesn't -- that it's an unusually flat curve. There are heuristics for individual subsets of editors, but they don't necessarily work either; I can think of at least one case where I assumed based on all the demographic correlations that a given editor was probably old enough to be my (23) parent or grandparent and found out they were younger than me. Vaticidalprophet 12:38, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It didn't pop into existence in the 2000s, but the cultural change in thinking around it very much did. That particular change, in which it suddenly became something which people would boast of with pride, we can date precisely—it comes from an article Wired published in 2001 called The Geek Syndrome which made a garbled argument that there was a genetic link between autism and ability (as opposed to the far more likely "people who have difficulty in social sitations are statistically more likely to have time to spend studying"), and tied in almost perfectly with the Randroid "some people are just born better" crankery of the clique who were building what would become Big Tech. ‑ Iridescent 06:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Vaticidalprophet Maybe I wasn't communicating the nuance clearly enough, perhaps I'm a bit hypersensitive after a particularly weird and rude interaction with a new editor who was pulling WP:OSE about a bizarre fringe theory, but I wasn't attempting to do a #YesAllWhiteAutisticMen, but was talking about a subset of them. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 13:14, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some people are autistic; some people are jerks; some people are both; some people are neither.

I think if someone said "I'm bipolar, and it makes me screw up on wiki", we'd point to Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not therapy and send them on their way. We should probably be a little more willing to do the same for people who say "I'm autistic, and it makes me screw up on wiki". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've come to hate NOTTHERAPY, not so much for what it actually says, but for how it's typically invoked, which is as a facile thought-terminating cliché in response to anyone acknowledging that their mental health affects their editing. Which, if nothing else, is just a great recipe to punish people who are honest, since I think we could all armchair-diagnose certain users who choose not to disclose anything about their health. I wrote User:Tamzin/Guidance for editors with mental illnesses a while ago in an attempt to present a healthier way to look at mental health, focusing more on what the exact circumstances are in which an editor's mental illness becomes a liability to the project. If someone's misbehavior is the result of mental illness, in many cases that's better than the alternative, because it means they have a realistic chance of working through it... whereas if someone has reached adulthood and is just a complete jerk, and there's no condition influencing that, then most of the time they're gonna stay a complete jerk for life. Personally, I did make mistakes as a newer user that had to do with being bipolar and otherwise neurodivergent. Then I got on meds and worked through some stuff, and while I'm far from perfect, I can't think of any mistakes I've made since my return to editing that have been because of mental illness.

The main problem with people trying to blame their mistakes on autism, bipolar disorder, or anything else, is that if your condition really is that serious, the rest of us have certainly noticed, and so if there was any extra AGF to give you, it's already been spent. It's one thing if someone's explaining a miscommunication by saying "Oh, I'm sorry I misunderstood. I'm autistic and sometimes don't catch subtleties." But when it's "I'm sorry for blowing through every second, third, and n-plus-oneth chance I was given and never listening to a word of advice. I'm autistic"... well, it may be the case that autism is to blame, or it may not be, but either way competence is required, and I don't think one needs to bring out the specter of NOTTHERAPY to say that. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 21:03, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's cruel and inappropriate to cite NOTTHERAPY in that context. On the other hand, it can be useful when someone (for reasons unrelated to personal diagnosis) acts out in a way that is disruptive. It's sort of like, just as one should not disrupt Wikipedia to make a WP:POINT, one should not disrupt Wikipedia to get something out of one's system. In other words, don't make your off-site problems become other editors' problems. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it can be appropriate to cite NOTTHERAPY in the very specific situation of someone saying "Please let me keep doing this disruptive thing. It's like therapy for me!" Which does happen from time to time. That's why I made my third guiding principle in that essay "Don't let your mental illness hurt Wikipedia", which I feel is a more constructive way to frame things than "Wikipedia is not therapy". Because, like, do we actually care if people are editing for their own therapeutic benefit, if they're doing a good job? Or do we really mean "Don't editing Wikipedia badly for your own therapeutic benefit"? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 21:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that NOTTHERAPY was created specifically because of people editing Wikipedia, doing a poor job, and begging for extra chances to continue doing a poor job (although hopefully a slightly less-bad job).

I have wondered occasionally whether it ought to be renamed "Wikipedia is not occupational therapy". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, occupational therapy isn't therapy about workplace mental health or how one occupies oneself. It's about dealing with daily tasks after a disability. For example, how to put on one's socks when one is no longer able to bend over far enough to reach one's feet. (No reference to WP:SOCK intended.) It differs from physical therapy in that it focuses on how to master new ways of doing things, as opposed to regaining the physical ability to do so. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:23, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also: practice using a computer, practice following directions, practice interacting with people, practice setting schedules and goals, practice coping with anxiety, etc. OT services aren't just about the obvious ADLs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Tryptofish, having gone through occupational therapy myself in childhood plus a short stent when I was 19, WhatamIdoing is correct. A lot of the occupational therapy I did as a kid dealt with typing, handwriting, and sensory intregration. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 23:04, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Both of you are, of course, correct. My use of the phrase "daily tasks" was poorly chosen, although daily tasks are certainly part of it. What I intended to convey is that it is not about how one occupies one's mind, and that it differs from (while being closely related to) physical therapy. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing Right, I don't disagree. How you experience systemic discrimination can affect how you're a jerk. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 01:49, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tamzin for the link to thought-terminating cliché. I had been looking for a name for that sort of thing. Can I reword your opening sentence more generally to "I've come to hate WP:UPPERCASE, not so much for what it actually says, but for how it's typically invoked". A line in that article -- "Person 1 makes claim Y. Claim Y sounds catchy. Therefore, claim Y is true." -- also seems relevant. These shortcuts get used to make some point, which may deviate somewhat or entirely from the what the guideline text actually says, but they are catchy and have authority merely for being WP:UPPERCASE, so end-of. There's an awful lot of pressure on the shortcut label or guideline/essay title. -- Colin°^Talk 13:12, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:UPPERCASE shortcuts have legitimate uses, the trouble is when they're used wrongly. For internal communication between people who already know what they mean they're perfectly sensible—it's a waste of my time and yours if I type out "this has been referred to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment" rather than "WP:ARCA". The problems come when we use them to people who aren't familiar with the system—to new or newer editors, it just looks like we're talking a weird private language as a means of confusing them. ‑ Iridescent 06:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or if the shortcut's name doesn't communicate the contents. Wikipedia:What editors mean when they say you have to follow BRD is almost never that they actually want you to follow WP:BRD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We're all on the spectrum, that's why they call it a spectrum. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:09, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MZMcBride We're all socially awkward sometimes, but that doesn't mean everyone is on the spectrum. It's kind of like how we'll all experience back pain, but that doesn't mean everyone with a little back pain is "a little pregnant." I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 01:40, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that depends on how you define "the spectrum". If you're talking about the whole spectrum of human experience, then we're all on it. When you're talking about only the spectrum of autistic people, then we're not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing I mean, you're technically correct, but I've encountered that saying enough times to understand what was being said by @MZMcBride; they most likely meant the autism spectrum, not the human one. It's often feel-good puffery along the lines of "God won't put you through what you can't handle,"; well-meaning but ultimately useless. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 19:48, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cubiculosporum koronicarpis Kraft 1973 has been recreated. I can't see if it is different from the copyvio version you just deleted. In any case, it should be deleted or draftified. Abductive (reasoning) 03:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is slightly different, but not substantially so. I personally think it's a copyright violation, but it's borderline enough that I'd like to get a second opinion rather than re-delete it—these "material from multiple sources" pages are never entirely straightforward. This talkpage has hundreds of watchers; can someone not previously involved take a look at this and see what you think? (Previously deleted version here, admin-only obviously.) ‑ Iridescent 18:20, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not a watcher, but someone who skims and reads the archives once and a while- Abductive, I've deleted the page again, looking at the deleted version and the current version the changes are very minimal. Some passages were directly copied from the source, while others were closely phrased. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 23:02, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iri, you and I have discussions about how the citation templates are managed going back about a decade. Now this has impacted MEDRS, and if the recommendations on a backwater page of the project are enacted, we'll be citing medical content to the laypress. I am wondering if your thinking on how things happen at those pages has changed.

Following on the latest update to the citation journals, WP:MEDRS is being re-interpreted by a number of editors on the talk page of a help page of a citation template. Background and discussion starts at:

• User talk:SandyGeorgia#Apparently someone's been dicking around with the citation templates again

I recommend reading that long discussion on my talk, as the RFC that led to this was problematic, although there was sensible input from User:Thryduulf, User:Nikkimaria, User:Fram, and others.

Now, more concerning problems are unfolding at:

• Help talk:Citation Style 1#Lay-url

where the discussion is heading towards a re-interpretation of MEDRS to provide for citing medical content to the lay press-- a discussion that belongs at WT:MEDRS. The "RFC" did not endorse this change that affects MEDRS.

On my talk page, disgruntled editors are suggesting we need a noticeboard where others can be made aware of citation template issues before they are rolled out and generate thousands of error messages. I don't think a noticeboard will be effective, because one of the problems in interacting with the citation template editors is getting through the technical lingo to understand what they're saying or proposing. I think we need instead some restriction placed on their ability to make broad changes without a WP:CENT or talk-page notified discussion, where the proposals are hopefully written in plain speak before they go up. But we need some way to address these problems, as they've been happening for as long as I can remember. I was about to help a friend start converting their FA to sfns, and after they saw the latest mess created by the citation template editors, they said, "thanks but no thanks, I'm sticking with manual citations". I had manual citations at Tourette syndrome for over a decade, to avoid precisely these problems. I converted last year, and now here I am. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You know my thoughts. As far as I'm concerned we should have a unified citation format to which we can add specialst fields to deal with edge cases like MEDRS and legal citations, rather than the upwards of 3000 different citation templates we actually have coupled with countless personal-preference hand-formatted citation formats. Unless and until we rationalize the system, discussions like this about individual cases are just a deckchairs-on-the-Titanic exercise. Even the infobox people are making serious steps to clean up the zillion different variants of {{infobox person}}, and if even they can appreciate that template proliferation is a genuine problem rather than an academic exercise to discuss, surely on something as fundamental as "how do we make sure readers know where our information comes from?" the rest of us should be able to come up with something. ‑ Iridescent 16:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iri, I raised this more about the interpersonal dynamics that affect that area of editing-- something you and I used to discuss eons ago. Things like this. My stance on the interpersonal issues has softened, yet the issues continue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:26, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This obviously comes with the usual "just my personal opinion, not policy" qualifiers. It looks to me like the dispute here is a reflection of the ongoing split between "content editors" and "technical editors". Because you have two competing viewpoints, both of whom can legitimately say they have policy on their side, there is no right answer here. I may be wrong but I've had the feeling recently that the line between "reader-facing editors" focusing on readability and accuracy and "editor-facing editors" focusing on internal functionality has got a lot sharper in recent years than it ever used to be. There used to be a lot of people like RexxS, Anomie and Gimmetrow—even Merridew—about, who had their feet in both camps and could act as intermediaries between two groups of people acting in good faith who had completely different visions, but most of them have left or drastically reduced their participation—the only person in this position who still comes to mind is Enterprisey, and because he's currently on Arbcom it's not reasonable to ask him to take an active position on a dispute that has such high potential to turn into a wheel-war should people get fed up with discussion and start unilaterally locking or deleting the templates.

Let me take the opportunity to once more bang the drum I've been banging for more than a decade. Although nobody likes "add another layer of bureaucracy" as a solution, Wikipedia needs and always has needed an elected committee, separate from Arbcom, with the authority to issue binding and enforceable closures to Requests for Comment. In situations like this—where there are two possible solutions, both of which have reasonable arguments to be made in their favor, both of which have a degree of support, and where compromise isn't possible because we genuinely need to go one-way-or-the-other—the consensus model doesn't work. As it stands, the only ways this kind of situation get resolved are "whoever shouts the loudest wins", "the WMF imposes something" or "it degenerates into a full-scale conflict and eventually enough people either get blocked or resign in disgust that the 'winner' is whoever's left standing", and none of those are exactly ideal. ‑ Iridescent 06:52, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Wikipedia that ends like Reservoir Dogs? Cool. "You block me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize"... and the last guy standing can pump out 100 stubs on English cricketers a day in peace :) SN54129 08:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly the way this kind of thing usually plays out. If you ever want a really dispiriting experience, dig through the history of infoboxes, the chain of events leading to and following Raul654's resignation at Featured Articles, or if you really want to go back in time the Userbox Wars. ‑ Iridescent 17:23, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iri, it's unclear to me why you mention "Raul654's resignation at Featured Articles"; Raul654 did not resign (although I did)--he was forced out.

Here is the 2012 RFC that ratified Raul as director (one of many), and here is the RFC launched a little over a year later by Tony1, without prior discussion, that removed Mark/Raul (apparently because of a period of absence, when he had delegated authority to others).

Along with the other fallings out of this decision (namely that FAC has never regained the stature it had when it the overall process had a leader and the pages worked together and were recognized as the best functioning process on Wikipedia), there are multiple ironies in the situation:

1. Tony1 later became the victim of a leaderless FAC, in ways that Raul never would have countenanced or tolerated, and so today, FAC does not have the benefit of Tony1's prose reviews. I long warned what would happen if mob rule was allowed at FAC, and the irony was Tony1 himself becoming a victim of that (valid reviewers can be chased off by those who don't want their work critiqued, and we've seen that in both prose and sourcing reviews). In fact, what I warned Tony1 about for years came to pass ... to him.
2. For all the times Raul was accused of being a "dictator", there was no back-channel direction while he was director, and his apparent "crime" was being a strong delegator. He turned over the reins and never told a delegate how to do their job. He was a strong believer in the Wikipedia way.
3. And for all the "dictatorial" charges, FAC has now a Coord who has served longer than Raul did.
4. The arb who undermined Raul and me as we tried to expose the socking at FAC later left not under the best of circumstances (while history showed us right about the socks); how unfortunate that her trends were not exposed soon enough to help the socking situation that affected FAC.

Since you aren't prone to mistakes with choice of words, why do you say Raul resigned?

Related to our other discussions, I would never presume that Merridew isn't still affecting the citation templates; it would be folly to think they would walk away from that cash cow (perhaps you know something I don't know), having done away with Gimmetrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Raul made precisely one edit between Feb 2013 and Jan 2015. They had either retired or quit as far as anyone knew, not least in part to increasingly more common issues escalating to the drama boards like their blatant abuse of page protection to enforce their own arbitrary view on pages they were in conflict on with other editors. The characterization of looking to resolve the issue of an absent editor in a (perceived) position of absolute power because of someone who doesnt edit for 5 months as 'forcing them out' is as misleading as your use of 'a little over a year later'. No it was 17 months. A similar misleading statement made by Hawkeye at the second RFC btw where they described the interval as 'a few months'. Raul's position was abolished because people like you were holding the position and Raul's 'rules' as not subject to community consensus. In short, you got exactly what every editor gets when they think a single person is above the rest. Had you and some of the other hardliners not been so draconian in propping Raul up as a dictatorial figurehead, you would likely have had a different response when he disappeared. Also its 2022. Get over it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:06, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, look, a(nother) Merridew ANI. The RFC that "fired" Raul was July 2013; no wonder he stopped editing. Re "hardliners propping up Raul", see the 2012 RFC for all those "hardliners". The issue in 2022 is whether the process is working; if competing with DYK is the goal, then the answer is yes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:21, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Raul stopped editing in February 2013. The director position was abolished in July 2013, 5 months later. The RFC was a result of him stopping editing. He didnt stop editing as a result of the RFC. So again, you are being deliberately misleading when you make comments like 'no wonder he stopped editing'. Whatever his reasons for stopping editing, the RFC to remove/reform the position he held took place after a significant period of inactivity by his choice. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:31, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"He didnt stop editing as a result of the RFC" ... and, you know this, how? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are right of course, the RFC echoed backwards in time and caused them to stop editing 5 months before the RFC started. Or he was on an extended months long break with no indication when he would return. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:51, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It goes back much further than that. This TLDR discussion on FAC talk began on 12 November 2012 with "Surprisingly, the Wikipediocracy people have raised a good point. Raul hasn't edited Wikipedia since August 25th. Isn't it about time to consider the position of FA Director to have been left derelict and a new one should be appointed? ...." It isn't true that the Tony1 Rfc was launched without prior discussion - there'd been lots, and the natives were revolting. Johnbod (talk) 17:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're talking about opposite sides of the same coin here (re my remark about the "ironies"). On the one hand, Raul was/is frequently referred to as a "dictator", but when he delegated and went away for a few months, he is then brought up as derelict. Apparently, no way to win? Have a look at that full discussion, remembering that Raul was an arb and had enemies, who were happy to take pot shots when/if the opportunity presented itself. Also notice on point responses from Truthkeeper at 03:54, 13 November 2012 and Coordinator Ian Rose at 10:04, 13 November 2012, along with Raul654's own response at 22:30, 13 November 2012. With the exception of a few editors with a bone to pick, there was no problem identified. That is, (non-dictatorial) delegation was working as intended. The troops were not restless; one or two agitators raised an issue, and it was answered.

And, yes, the 2013 RFC was launched unannounced. By the time of the 2012 RFC, FAC had well learned its lesson about how to craft a useful RFC, based on considerable prior discussion, so that the outcome would yield useful results. (Something it seems to have forgotten since.) The 2012 RFC was well discussed and wording planned; the 2013 RFC was launched unilaterally, unplanned a little over a year later.^a No surprise that the result of six proposals at once was a disputed RFC and GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). We all know what you get on Wikipedia when you launch an RFC of that type: pitchforks. So, because the RFC wasn't well thought out, the result was that the things that made the FA process work were dismantled, and yet, nothing to replace them was envisioned or enacted. And that is the status quo today. OID has referred to me as one of the "hardliners"; whatever that means, if it means I think that FAC worked then and doesn't now, guilty as charged. And by "worked then", I mean that Raul's position as director was constantly, multiple times, ratified by community-wide consensus and enjoyed consensus beyond the FA process.

I'm still curious to know, though, why Iri mentions Raul "resigning", as he may recall something I don't. I was hoping OID had a reason for their statements or some inside knowledge about events in Raul's life between February and July, but it appears they have no first-hand information to offer.

How did we get from citation template issues and MEDRS to Raul and FAC? Through the common denominator of losing good technical editors like Gimmetrow through the efforts of socks. We allowed the same to happen to FAC. Perhaps my timing on resigning was unwise, as it left Raul to fend for FAC alone, because it's easy to see how fickle Wikipedia is when it comes to turning on its own: dictator one day, derelict the next because you delegated, but no one helped him deal with the socks, as far as I can tell. I wouldn't expect anyone not to be discouraged under those circumstances. If FAC had first discussed whether an FA director was needed, and then launched an RFC only on that topic, rather than rolling six proposals into one, would FAC have been taken apart with no plan for how to put it back together? We'll never know.

^a Yes, 17 months in the 20-year span of FAC history is a little more than a year; context, and a sense of history, pls. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:19, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll reply to all this properly when I have time, but regarding my use of the term 'resignation', a reminder that on this particular issue I'm not someone who's just fallen off the turnip truck but am literally the person who set the original precedent for Wikipedia's collectively considering 'inactivity without prior explanation' as constituting resignation. It's not something I've just plucked out of the air. ‑ Iridescent 07:28, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I imagined you had a reason, as you don't use words casually. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iridecent: Just so I'm clear...when you say "technical editors," you mean/are including WikiGnomes, not (or at least, not exclusively) people who code templates, maintain bots and stuff, right? If so, it's the first time I've heard of "technical editors" used in that context, so I just wanted to double-check what you meant. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 08:51, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean by "technical editors" what is normally understood (on Wikipedia) by the term: the people who primarily work on bot design, template markup, Lua modules etc. To oversimplify slightly, the dispute SandyGeorgia is talking about is an argument between a "people who focus on Wikipedia technically functioning smoothly and consistently" who want a particular set of templates always to behave in a consistent manner, and "people who focus on Wikipedia articles being as informative as possible" who want to ensure the output of the templates is as accurate as possible, even if it means them being formatted idiosyncratically on some articles.

As I say, both groups are in the right; the problem is that years ago when standardizing Wikipedia's citation formats wouldn't have meant manually re-formatting c. 5 million articles (at a conservative estimate), we couldn't agree on a standard and collectively kicked the can down the road, so we now have around 3000 different citation templates—all of which are equally 'correct' as far as policy is concerned. Changing the design of any one of these templates cascades down to affect the output of thousands and in some cases millions of articles, but because there are so many of them it's impossible for anyone to monitor them all. ‑ Iridescent 17:23, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One would hope that we'd be as reader-centric as possible; alas, the difficulty of change along with the difficulties you've already mentioned could very well result in no change happening. I hope I'm proven wrong. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 22:37, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but there's no clear definition of what "reader-centric" means in the context of the display of information, and we've spent the past 20 years fudging and dodging the issue of whether Wikipedia is ultimately a giant dataset formatted as 6,453,617 pages, or a collection of 6,453,617 individual articles from which information is extracted individually either by humans or by scripts. Is it better for the reader:

1. to have information formatted as consistently as possible so they know exactly where to look for it, even though it means that potentially readers will see misleading statements without their accompanying explanations, and that having a totally standardized approach to what is included/excluded potentially gives undue weight on individual articles, since "what's normally important" and "what's important in this specific case" don't always overlap; or
2. to have information written as accurately as possible so readers aren't misled, even though it means that potentially readers will be confused as a piece of information isn't in the place they normally expect to see it so they assume it isn't included, and readers who are just looking for a particular piece of information will have to spend more time looking for it since there isn't a single standard way in which the information is formatted (and the side issue that not being consistently formatted makes it harder for algorithms to extract information from Wikipedia pages, meaning such things as Google Knowledge panels and Wikidata are more likely to show incorrect data)?

As I was alluding to in my reply to SN54129 above, this argument is a very very very well-plowed furrow on Wikipedia. As you may know, the Infobox Wars began with a thread on this talkpage so although I wasn't involved with them myself I was very aware of all their twists and turns. As far as I can see, this is exactly the same "is it more important to be consistent or to be accurate?" question, just transposed from the top of the article to the bottom. ‑ Iridescent 05:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How are the non-technical editors supposed to deal with a small group pf technical editors being able to effect such broad changes, and not have to un-do them when consensus is against them? Where do I go to revert the removal of a useful parameter from a citation template where it was in use for over a decade and where there is no consensus for its removal? How does one restore that in the "encyclopedia anyone can edit"? Some of the dynamic there has improved over the years (there is at least some communication now), but the overall dynamic hasn't changed, which is that once the fait accompli is installed, it can't be removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:46, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's no right answer—as per my previous comments, both the "technical" and "non-technical" editors can reasonably claim to have policy on their side. I know it's an unsatisfactory answer, but sometimes "a well-publicised RFC" (with the emphasis on "well-publicised") is the only practical way to go, even though it invariably leads to people ranting at each other. Cases like this are where RFCs as a process are A Good Thing; you actually want the opinions of people who aren't involved and don't particularly care, as they're the people who are best-placed to dispassionately judge who is making the better case and whether any middle road is possible. ‑ Iridescent 05:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This obviously comes with the usual "just my personal opinion, not policy" qualifiers. It looks to me like the dispute here is a reflection of the ongoing split between "content editors" and "technical editors". Because you have two competing viewpoints, both of whom can legitimately say they have policy on their side, there is no right answer here. Thanks for spelling out the reasons why I have conflicted feelings on this particular issue. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is something that I think gets overlooked by a lot of Wikipedia editors: consensus decision-making is only effective when the participants have strong alignment in goals, but as a group grows in size, its members rapidly have diverging aims. One is not more right than the other; they just prioritize different things and thus weigh choices differently. That's why organizations generally use either straight voting or some kind of hierarchical structure to make decisions. isaacl (talk) 15:24, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, exactly. Since there are a lot of legitimate reasons not to use straight voting—it would both cement Wikipedia's reputation as Californiapedia into immutable reality, and lead to open season for sockpuppetry, for starters—some kind of Govcom is the only way to cope over the long term, even though everyone instinctively grates at a hierarchical structure. The thinking behind WP:ACPD was in some ways both valid and ahead of its time; the issue there wasn't that such a committee wasn't needed, but that the existing Arbcom so blatantly tried to stack it with their friends that it ended up tainting the entire concept of "governance committee" for a decade. ‑ Iridescent 17:23, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I admit I've never quite understood the "3000 citation templates" argument—my impression is that the vast majority of them are wrappers that fill in a few parameters on some other template, usually from the CS1 family. There are a few other established styles (Category:Citation templates not conforming to an established style suggests about 5), of which I think I've seen CS2 and Vancouver in the wild, and of course hand-formatted by citations of no particularly consistent style. So the changes being debated here to the CS1 Lua module in practice bubble up to most of those 3000 templates. Choess (talk) 21:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of them are but a lot of them aren't. There are plenty of frequently-used templates like {{cite court}} which are either completely independent of Citation/core, or have so many addenda tacked on that they may as well be. Even with the ones that purely are wrappers, a well-intentioned change to one of them can still have very confusing effects on the reader experience; since it's unlikely any given article is only going to use a single citation template throughout, changing the way one of the wrapper templates outputs will have the knock-on effect of making the reference formatting inconsistent on every article on which that template is used. ‑ Iridescent 06:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have time to Mentor on an FA? Buffs (talk) 03:40, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My editing is probably too intermittent at the moment to do 'true' step-by-step mentoring—at the moment, due to real life I tend to operate in bursts of frenetic activity lasting a few days, punctuated by disappearances with little or no warning. If you let me know the article in question (I'm assuming Texas A&M University), I'm more than happy to engage in an informal (or formal, if you prefer) peer review, and I assume assorted talkpage watchers would be happy to do likewise. Assuming the page in question is Texas A&M, you really want to prod User:Karanacs to see if you can coax her out of semi-retirement if you've not done so already. Someone like the Rambling Man might be a good bet as well, as you really want at least one person involved to be someone with a lot of experience writing FAs but with absolutely no interest in or knowledge of the topic, to see it it actually makes sense to people without prior knowledge.

(Higher education is a subject area where Wikipedia has something of a problem, as there's not only an endless flow of well-intentioned current and former students and faculty members trying to 'improve' the pages, there's also usually a steady drip of Wikipedians In Residence encouraging all kinds of inappropriate conduct. Of the six people I'd really trust to write—or help in writing—a high-quality neutral article two are indefblocked, two are retired, and two are dead.) ‑ Iridescent 16:47, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A nod to Lord Palmerston there perhaps...? "Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business – the Prince Consort, who is dead – a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it."  ;) SN54129 17:40, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoDKh1EAZjI Buffs (talk) 05:36, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Buffs: Fantastic stuff :D SN54129 08:06, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happy with a formal peer review as-able. I'm well-aware of the problems with Higher education articles, but the A&M page is in way better shape than most. It was an FA until VERY recently and I've been maintaining the page for over a decade. While I'm irked at the ill-defined process and lack of actionable feedback, failing to at least attempt the process as requested would simply be unnecessarily obstinate.

I've worked with Karanacs before (we're both A&M grads) and, until just a few days ago, she'd been offline since 2020. I'd prefer not to bug her at this point, but I may ping her later. Let me know when you want to begin. Buffs (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Easier if you just let me know when you're ready, and I'll go through it top to bottom. Given the circumstances, my inclination would be to review it with nitpicking turned up to max—essentially as if it were already at FAC. ‑ Iridescent 07:11, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm ready whenever you are. On a scale of 1-10, if you could turn up the nitpicking to a 17 it would be appreciated. Feel free to make said notes in whatever forum you deem fit and just let me know. Buffs (talk) 22:26, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of maximum nitpicking, can I ask for one of TRAPPIST-1 too? <puppy eyes> Among other things, I am looking to write something that is at least understandable to laypeople. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 17:52, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do it as soon as I get the chance. Because I'd prefer to review it in one sitting—it makes it easier to spot inconsistencies that have crept in if one reads it top-to-bottom in a single sitting—it may not be for a few days. ‑ Iridescent 23:00, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure it's probably not high on your priorities...any ETA? Buffs (talk) 17:22, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Real world permitting, hopefully Friday, otherwise next week. Will try to do it by the 25th (i.e. next Friday) at the latest. ‑ Iridescent 18:07, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Buffs (talk) 05:34, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll put the reviews here to avoid cluttering up article talk pages/peer reviews/FACs etcetera (collapsed for the benefit of the scrolling finger of all other talk page watchers). Feel free to copy-paste my comments anywhere else if you think they'd be useful elsewhere. Per the above, I'm intentionally being as obnoxiously nitpicky as possible so some of this may not be actual "issues", and I'm trying to approach as best I can from an "absolutely no prior knowledge of the topic" position.

@Buffs, I did warn you it would be nitpicky! @JoJo Eumerus, I'll do yours when I get the chance but may not be for a few days; this kind of sentence-by-sentence nitpick needs a solid block of time as it works best to do it in a single sitting. ‑ Iridescent 11:39, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely LOVE it. If anything, you could have been more nitpicky! (I love humble, actionable criticism! Gives the best chance for improvement) Lol! Thanks for the feedback! I'll be addressing those points as soon as I can dedicate some time to it (hopefully this evening) or tomorrow. Buffs (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Iridescent: I think this addresses everything. Your replies would be helpful. Buffs (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) @Buffs: It is good to show eagerness  :) but there is no need to ping someone on their own page! (Although, incidentally, they won't get the ping as it has to be added at the same time as your signature, not subsequently as happened here. A right old PITA I know!) SN54129 18:18, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was mostly just specifying whom I was addressing since there were multiple people in this thread and wanted to be clear. Clarification appreciated though! Buffs (talk) 05:08, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iri, you noticed early on in this thread the absence of Karanacs, whose steady and knowledgeable hand contributed to the FA status of the Aggie suite of articles, and it would be wonderful to preserve the status of these articles in her honor, but it doesn't seem like she's coming back, and Buffs does need a mentor (they expressed early on not knowing how to establish reliability of a source).

What you supplied was a prose review, although both the FAC and the FAR ran into trouble over sourcing: specifically, source-to-text integrity, old sources trying to cite current text, and failure to use reliable sources. I haven't looked to see if those considerable issues were corrected (and don't plan to), but I'm concerned that it Buffs only smoothes out the prose per your suggestions, without taking on board the more significant sourcing issues, they will be sorely disappointed at FAC. FAC reviewers are slowly rebounding from the years of absence of Karanacs, Laser brain, and Ealdgyth (where the trend was for endless nitpicking of prose without consideration of sources), and realizing again that sourcing has to be considered. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:31, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, your input is neither welcome nor desired. I take extreme exception in your mischaracterization of me and request that you strike your disparaging remarks. I never expressed early on not knowing how to establish reliability of a source. Likewise, I addressed each and every point your brought up and/or asked for clarification. You never replied and instead applied your own standards of a "reliable source" without demonstrating that anything in the cited sources was incorrect...you assumed unreliability without any evidence to back it up. Moreover, literally every sourcing issue you brought up was addressed over a month ago. Rehashing that criticism here seems pointless to me unless you are doing so to disparage me personally.

You asked for me to seek out reviews. After 2 months, this is the only person who's said "yes". Telling the sole respondent "not what I want" is not helpful. If you aren't willing to do such a review yourself or help me find someone else willing to do so, kindly step aside. Buffs (talk) 21:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I'm only reviewing for sense, and have done no checking either of sourcing nor of MOS compliance.; that is, this is explicitly a prose review. Obviously if I were to notice something cited to a supermarket tabloid or to an obvious personal blog I'd raise a concern, but the nearest copy of A Pictorial History of Texas A&M University, 1876–1976 (is the 1975 publication date for that correct?) to me is probably a six-hour flight away.

While we obviously want to be accurate, speaking in terms on personal opinion rather than in terms of WP:WIAFA compliance I don't consider absolute source-to-text integrity, ensuring every source is the most current, et al to be essential provided there's a high degree of confidence that all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that nothing untrue has been included and that anthing potentially contentious has a source. This isn't a biography of a living person, a medical guide, a sensitive political topic, or anything else where it's important ethically and in terms of legal liability to prove that all possible steps have been made to reflect current thinking—it doesn't matter that there's a statement cited to a press release.

Still in Personal Opinion Mode, this is something I've always thought was a problem with the FAC process. Because it (rightly) has a collective "nobody and nothing deserves special treatment" mentality, it means there's little scope for "this is technically against usual practice but it's not causing any issues" application of common sense. That in turn means the process self-selects for policy-and-process obsessives who think a Manual of Style so bloated it has to be split into 150 separate subpages is perfectly normal, since regular editors see the walls of text at WP:FAC* and quite reasonably think "no, this isn't a sensible use of my time".
*At the time of writing WP:FAC clocks in at 101,870 words, or to put it another way the first page people taking a tentative step into the FA process see is slightly longer than To Kill a Mockingbird.

(This is not some revelation to which I've belatedly come; this is the same argument I was making 15 years ago. Re-reading that discussion, I think The FAC process – like all our other allegedly broken processes—was designed by and for people with an expectation that they'd have an in-depth knowledge of the policies involved. However, there are some people at FAC who couple a strict "rules are there to be enforced" mentality with a lack of understanding of exactly what those rules say and what the legitimate reasons for disregarding them are … at FA level, so many people are involved that it's very likely that at least one "despite having a 25-1 aspect ratio there's no justification for forcing this image width" or "this book is not in my local library, therefore it is not a reliable source" opposer will latch onto any given candidate … it's an unpleasant experience for anyone having their work ripped to shreds for no good reason, and to a newcomer who's not familiar with the personalities involved they have no way of knowing which of the opposes are valid concerns and which are petty nitpicking is just as true now as it was then. All Wikipedia's assessment processes have spent so many years accruing pre-emptive measures against potential failure points, that they're losing sight of their original purpose. This isn't unique to article assessment processes—the same "we need to look out for any potential problem even if there's no indication that in this case it's actually a problem" issue affects our processes for assessing other editors such as RFA, and our processes for assessing other processes such as RFC, in just the same way.) ‑ Iridescent 05:32, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia: Last request to strike your misquote/disparaging remark. Buffs (talk) 18:15, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which remark is that ? If you are referring to "they expressed early on not knowing how to establish reliability of a source", here are some diffs. But this does not belong on Iri's talk, so if you want to further pursue it, please do so at my talk. (It might be a good strategy to avail yourself of the help of those who offer it to you.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• 22:17 24 July equates reliability with accuracy while not addressing reliability (eg, "brazosgenealogy.org Do you consider this unreliable? All the facts I see are accurate.")
• 09:22 4 Jan, equates reliability with accuracy, and states that the source "is not listed as an unreliable website anywhere in Wikipedia". Neither of these are final determining factors in establishing reliability.
• 01:55 5 Jan Still equating accuracy of text with reliability, not demonstrating knowledge of how to establish reliability beyond that separate fact ("The reliability of largest.org wasn't challenged in any way until November and only then it only vaguely said there were 'issues with reliability'...I can't possibly address that sort of vague 'issue'; the information seems to be accurate as well.")
• 04:24 9 Jan After multiple requests over many months to establish reliability of largest.org, someone who has previously written FAs brings the article to FAC with ... still ... largest.org as a source, still not evidencing knowledge of how reliable sources are determined, how to establish a source as reliable, and still equating reliability with accuracy. Same for "GenomeWeb appears to be a viable independent news agency with no specific reason to distrust it (though I may indeed be wrong). What's wrong with this source? How is it used inappropriately in this article?" And, wants to use a dubious source in an FA: "biography.com is listed as a source of frequent debate, but there is nothing concrete that states it is not a reliable source. What facts does it cite in this article that even the least bit contentious or inaccurate?"
• 01:28 11 Jan In response to all of the above, "It would be helpful if you point out what makes a source a "high-quality reliable source" in your eyes. I see no such definition."
• 00:40 13 Jan Still asking same questions.
• 20:34 13 Jan Six months after reliability concerns were first raised, asks at WT:FAC how to determine reliability, and still failing to establish reliability of sources used: "How would it be best to demonstrate that a source has such a reputation for accuracy?" "How can I possibly prove it's an accurate and a reliable source."

Summary: not knowing how to establish reliability of sources, in spite of having several FAs, and which continues for months at both FAC and FAR, and FAC and FAR talk, and in response to at least four different reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"this does not belong on Iri's talk...[here's 6 examples encompassing half a page, but don't respond]"

Asking you for clarification as to what you personally deem to be a reliable/unreliable source is not synonymous with "Duuuuuuhhh, I dunno what a ree-lie-uble sorce is". Usually, if something is unreliable, you can usually point to what makes it unreliable, nominally, what is inaccurate about their statements/claims or that they have a history of unverifiable claims. If a source's claims are accurate, they are at least reliable for those claims (by definition). Example: Facebook/Twitter are not generally reliable, but they are reliable for statements made by individuals/entities "On [date], XYZ stated on Twitter/Facebook '[quote]'". I contend that largest.org (a publication with an editorial board and published journalistic standards that are followed), GenomeWeb (another publication with an editorial board and published journalistic standards that are followed), and brazosgenealogy.org (a recommended resource by the National Genealogical Society, Family History Daily, The Frugal Genealogist's Guide, Ancestral Findings, Education World and other genealogical channels) are certainly reliable enough for the facts stated in the article. Biography.com is on the list of perennial sources (sources that are routinely debated for reliability) as "there isn't consensus". Arguing that it shouldn't be used as a matter of fact is simply substituting your personal preferences of what sources are reliable with what the WP community as a whole has discussed (in effect, you're saying that your opinion trumps everyone else's); as such, it's inappropriate. Reasonable people can disagree with what sources are reliable. That doesn't mean I've stated "I'm incapable of figuring out what a reliable source is"

It might be a good strategy to avail yourself of the help of those who offer it to you. I've literally begged you for help and you've adamantly refused. I've asked at least a dozen people for help. Iridescent was the only one kind enough to reply...and your response was effectively "that's not enough". Why the hell would anyone help if FAC are just going to poo-poo every attempt? Why would anyone bother to seek help or give help if you are only going to hound them with every request for assistance.

[we get] very little readership in return. Perhaps it's because you're being way too bureaucratic and unreasonable in your standards to the point that people don't believe the effort for FA is warranted. One reviewer of the Texas A&M article stated FA was synonymous with perfection and anything short of that shouldn't be FA. You want pages that are more-viewed? A&M was at nearly a million views last year...but you junked it rather than review it.

BUT EVEN AFTER ALL OF THAT you've decided to come back and disparage me personally over your issues with multiple sources that are no longer in the article! Of course, you wouldn't know that because you've stated I haven't looked to see if those...issues were corrected (and don't plan to). If you aren't going to bother to look at the article and you won't review it and you're going to refrain from further reviews, I see little to conclude other than that your entire intent is to inject disparaging remarks about me personally and/or discourage reviews. Again, I ask you to retract/strike your baseless remarks; I never made such a claim (specifically 1d and 2e). Buffs (talk) 02:16, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iri, shall I respond to this here, or would you prefer that I copy it to my own talk to continue? Not wanting to abuse of your hospitality here ... pls let me know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It probably makes more sense to keep it here unless there's a reason not to. If it's on your own talkpage Buffs (or any potential TPW who wants to disagree with you) may feel uncomfortable doing so on your own talkpage, and if it's on some Wikipedia:space noticeboard it will potentially attract the attention of some of the more self-important Defender Of The Wiki types who can't distinguish between disagreement and genuine incivility. ‑ Iridescent 11:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

With your permission then, will do (when not iPad typing). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Abusing of Iri's talk page (with his permission), there are three aspects of your (Buffs') response to be addressed: 1) your claim that I refuse to review the article; 2) your interpretation of what I wrote about establishing reliability of sources; and 3) why I posted in response to Iri on this page to begin with.

FAR reviews of TAMU

Buffs wrote: I've literally begged you for help and you've adamantly refused ... That's not how I see it. There are a lot of people in the FA process who hold Karanacs in high regard and are willing to go the extra mile to make sure articles that she valued are kept as FAs, and I'm one of those. But there is a limit to how many times one can revisit an article when the nominator becomes combative, REPEATEDLY HOLLERS AT REVIEWERS, and when issues that are raised are not being addressed. One of the points at which the TAMU FAR became difficult was when you entered two sections that included declarations for another editor copying in their signature. Those were removed by FAR Coord Nikkimaria with a followup reminder from FAR Coord DrKay. There are other examples where your behavior was difficult, but I'm not going to further that on Iri's talk.

I (again) acknowledge that the FAR close was very upsetting to you, which you seem to attribute at least partly to me, as you claim that I "adamantly refuse" to review. The history of reviewers revisiting the TAMU FAR is:

• Sdkb reviewed and revisited in July, August, November and December.
• Z1720 reviewed and revisited in August, September, October, November and December.
• Hog Farm reviewed and revisited in November and December.
• Other than bookkeeping edits, I reviewed and revisited on November 1, November 4, November 10, November 14, December 3, and December 20. On December 23 I stated that I would revisit after Christmas guests left. (Aside: relatives all got COVID, cancelled at last minute, so I was left with no Christmas on 25 Dec, and was able to review sooner than expected.) On 25 December, Hog Farm did a lengthy review on FAR talk followed by a declaration to Delist. When I revisited for the seventh time, I resumed from the sections where Hog Farm left off. It is true that I did not re-review what Hog Farm had already reviewed; I instead reviewed several other sections, and found more of same.
  On a seventh revisit, five months in to the FAR, it's time to call it. I don't find that your statement about literally begging me to review reflects the reality of the amount of review this article got at FAR.

Establishing reliability of sources

Please take a look at this section of Ealdgyth's suggestions about how to respond (and how not to respond) to the "what makes this reliable" query. Being asked "what makes this source reliable" is a commonplace query at FAC, FAR and content review processes; the question invites the nominator to establish the reliability of a source. If you want to use a questionable source in a Featured article, it's up to you to put forward your best argument about why the source is reliable. You never did that; you instead stated repeatedly that sources were "accurate", and gave little else to establish reliability. From your subsequent responses here, I am sensing for the fist time that there is a disconnect between what I am writing and what you are interpreting, I wrote: they expressed early on not knowing how to establish reliability of a source. You respond with" ... not synonymous with "Duuuuuuhhh, I dunno what a ree-lie-uble sorce is" and doesn't mean I've stated "I'm incapable of figuring out what a reliable source is" I never said you don't know what a reliable source is; what I am saying is that you failed to answer the queries on FAC or FAR in a way that established that the sources were reliable. Oddly ... for the first time since October ... you have done some of that (only partial, but a start at least) here on Iri's talk, in the second paragraph of your post of 02:16, 10 March 2022. That's the first time I have seen you address the question of how to go about establishing the reliability of a source. I stand by what I wrote; I feel badly that you interpreted it differently, and I hope that reading Ealdgyth's essay will help you understand what one assumes that repeat FA nominators already know, and how you should address such queries in the future.

Why I responded to Iri

Now speaking of disparaging remarks (along with a busted AGF-ometer), you wrote above: ... I see little to conclude other than that your entire intent is to inject disparaging remarks about me personally .... I responded to Iri here not only because we have illuminating discussions on his page, but more to point out that since his intent was to help you, if he was not aware of the broader problems, and if you did only what he said but had not corrected the other issues, then you would have another rough go at a new FAC. That was an attempt to help Iri help you. And to discuss with Iri that a growing problem at FAC is its failure to examine source-to-text integrity, as reviewers increasingly look only at prose.

Since you now have two of the four FAC Coords recused from the nomination, it might be wise to start seeing some good faith in attempts to help you achieve a Featured article. A little less combativeness would not be remiss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, it very much does not feel like you are trying to help. It feels like you are re-hashing old arguments with your own personal spin to make your actions look better while taking jabs at me personally. AGF has long since passed with you (not everyone else, just you). None of these remarks pertain to Iri's review but are disparaging comments implying I'm not intelligent enough to understand:

• One of the points at which the TAMU FAR became difficult was when you... This has nothing to do with Iri's review whatsoever, but you sure as hell seem to want to rehash it for no good reason. How exactly am I supposed to AGF in conversations with you when you keep bringing up past disagreements slanting them to make me look bad? Read the link. I clearly marked where such notes came from and noted they were a summary of what was above. There was no attempt at deception.
• I hope that reading Ealdgyth's essay will help you understand what one assumes that repeat FA nominators already know... reads as "You should already know this" while looking down your nose at me.
• I never said you don't know what a reliable source is You're splitting hairs. You stated "Buffs does need a mentor (they expressed early on not knowing how to establish reliability of a source)....
• There are other examples where your behavior was difficult, but I'm not going to further that on Iri's talk. Hasn't stopped you thus far. To state that there are "lots of other problems" (paraphrasing) without citing them is a baseless claim and a purely disparaging remark designed to denigrate me/my credibility.
• I don't find that your statement about literally begging me to review reflects the reality of the amount of review this article got at FAR. When I claim you didn't review, I'm referring to you specifically, not everyone else. When I say "you didn't do the work you said you would" and get a reply of "lots of people did lots of work", it demonstrates clear obfuscation on your part.
• That was an attempt to help Iri help you. I don't want/need your help. Iri is perfectly capable of handling himself. I have repeatedly asked you to stop butting in and you've said you'd leave me alone. Yet here you are...again...

To claim that you reviewed it several times is more than a little misleading. Your own cited examples show no actual full review (as promised multiple times)...

• 1 Nov: Some bits of OldAg's concerns will be an "FA hangup" for me when I do my read-through (which I won't start until others like Z1720 indicate they are ready)...Let me know when some of OldAg's commentary has been completed, along with Z1720's work, and I will read through.
• 4 Nov: I will revisit the article thoroughly once all issues raised have been addressed (Note that the issues he refers to here that were allegedly unaddressed from 24 July were addressed less than 4 hours later). If she'd stated what issues she had with them or perhaps clarified that they weren't addressed to her satisfaction, perhaps we could have avoided weeks of back & forth...
• 10 Nov: Still not a review just complaining that I haven't done anything for a week (I was out of town from 6-12 Nov on a business trip).
• 14 Nov: not a review
• 3 Dec: a limited review of a few things
• 20 Dec you finally clarified that you had no intention of doing your review until everything was done so I addressed the sourcing.

When you allegedly got around to a review after 5 months, you reviewed two things, exaggerated issues ("By the way, some numbers have commas, others don’t, eg 1000 compared to 1,000"...there was ONE comma missing, not "commas". You made it sound like it was a widespread issue), stopped immediately, and swiftly declared it unfit (hardly the promised "thorough" review/read-through). Then you fast-tracked it to delist when you knew a lot of people wouldn't be around. Like a fool, I believed you when you reassured me at each step of the way that this was procedural and you wouldn't nominate it for deletion while changes were still being made. You blew any good faith remaining right there.

Continuing to claim "issues that are raised are not being addressed" is absurd and grossly misleading. I addressed them rapidly, in most cases within 24 hours. You keep using that word as if it isn't ambiguous. "Addressed" can mean "gave a response" and/or "changed/fixed". In most cases, it was both, but I adjusted or gave my rationale for keeping them as-is for every instance. You did not reply to those remarks or explain how I was in error until December. If you're going to be hyper nitpicky about sources & text (to the point of absurdity), you need to be far more precise in your language. You are expecting a level of perfection/precision even you can't obtain.

From this point on, reply to your heart's content. I have no intention of listening to any more of your condescending "advice". Iri, I apologize for taking up your talk page. If you have any further input or could spare time to review the aforementioned alleged sourcing concerns that somehow still exist even though they've been removed, it would be appreciated. Buffs (talk) 00:06, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No interest in continuing to reply; you asked me to strike a "disparaging" remark, and this is what it took to sort out what you meant, what you wanted struck, or what/why you interpret as "disparaging". I responded here at your insistence that I had made a "disparaging" remark. And when I offer an explanation (that I may have missed an opportunity earlier to explain what was expected in terms of establishing the reliability of a source, as I didn't think you needed for someone to explain what Ealdgyth's essay says, as I assumed you were already familiar), then I'm "looking down my nose". And so it goes. Good luck with your FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:40, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you SO much for your feedback and you're SO right.

Indeed, it was published in 1975...probably an issue with Aggie math... Buffs (talk) 16:27, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like the FAC process has room for yet another layer of bureaucracy: a policy obsessive whose role is to correct the reviewers' incorrect or exaggerated claims of policy/guideline violations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, yes. I've increasingly taken on that role (as have others), but I'm not nearly obsessive enough. Johnbod (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Back in the old days, the FA delegates used to perform the task of slapping down inappropriate opposition. This is another "no right answer" area—one could certainly make the case that the present-day practice of the delegates trying to stay out of the reviews is the lesser of two evils. (To someone not intimately familiar with the background to a given case, it can easily be mistaken for favoritism when one sees an article by an established editor waved through despite apparently ignoring the MOS, while an article by a new editor gets nitpicked to shreds.) ‑ Iridescent 20:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Iri, glad you're back. There's a rather big flaw in your logic. The bloat at FAC (which has been going on since about 2017) is not at all related to MOS or policy-obsessiveness. (In fact, MOS is rarely even reviewed for these days.) It is almost all prose nitpicking (at a level that should not be present at FAC), and the page size is almost all a direct consequence of four things: a) the absence of Opposes, as making friends seems to be a priority, b) the absence of User:Tony1 and other strict prose reviewers, who quickly shut down deficient prose, combined with c) the absence of User:Ealdgyth's strict source reviewing, and d) the decline of WP:PR, and the acceptance of FAC as a replacement for peer review. It is the nitpicking of prose only that has bloated the page, while reviewers fail to look at sources and fail to oppose early on the truly deficient. Take a look at the amount of work it took to bring Socrates Nelson to standard when all it got at FAC was prose nitpicks, and in fact it contained numerous false statements, along with marginal prose when it was promoted. Now, you may argue that Nelson is long dead and the numerous and blatant inaccuracies weren't harming anyone, but what happens when the same blatant inaccuracies slip through in an article where it matters, eg a BLP? If no one is checking sourcing, that's where we end up, and big red flags at Nelson were not even checked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The bloat goes back to the earliest days (have a look at FAC circa 2005!)—it's more that there was a relatively brief hiatus between 2009-2013 when the delegates were more willing to quickfail so the list got culled faster. The lack of people able and willing to do in depth source reviews is probably inevitable—the articles are longer and better sourced than they used to be, so what used to be a case of checking 20-ish sources most of which were online is now a case of checking 100+ sources most of which are paywalled or in obscure books (the articles sourced to easy-to-find books have already been written).

As I've said previously, I think FA/GA (and the stub–start–C–B–GA–A–FA scale more generally) are no longer fit for purpose in Wikipedia, and we should seriously consider replacing GA and FA with a more general "well-written and tells you everything a reasonable reader would want to know" and "no obvious way this could be improved". The days when we were selecting material worthy of being included in the eventual Print Wikipedia are well and truly behind us; as long as we're taking all reasonable efforts (as opposed to every conceivable effort) not to be misleading and to make it verifiable where information has come from, I don't think perfection is something for which we should still be aiming when it comes to either prose or sourcing. We have 6,464,308 articles; we should start accepting that on even the best-researched article problems are going to occasionally sneak in, and the focus should be on correcting them rather than trying to prevent them. ‑ Iridescent 20:22, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's no secret I've cut back my time at FAC - partly it was moving but partly it's that I think my time is better spent at GA... at least trying to get things to a "decent enough" level rather than the increasingly nit-picky-prose-but-no-worries-about-sourcing attitude at FAC. GA doesn't eat my time to the extent that a contentious FAC on a pop culture figure/band/etc will. I just don't review GANs on things I don't want to deal with, but there is plenty to look at and help newcomers improve ... Ealdgyth (talk) 21:19, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't exactly disagree with either of you that FAs and GAs seem to be converging to the same place. Which is not a high place. But I can still regret that happening. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying I particularly like the way things are going, but equally I don't think the existing FA and GA processes have scaled very well, so the sensible thing to do is to look at how best to decide what we mean by 'quality' and how we assess it. There's no point having a process that enforces the highest standards if it becomes so cumbersome nobody bothers participating in it and/or nominating to it any more, and present-day FAC is a hot mess of bureaucracy and jargon.

The article assessment processes haven't really changed in the past ten years, and it's the fact that they haven't changed that's unusual; to re-bang a drum I've banged before, our standards were never intended to be set in stone. At one point this was a Featured Article, while back in 2006 the FAC process looked like this and was an RFA-style mess of "support, looks OK to me" mutual back-scratching. Since Wikipedia 2022 has a much broader scope and wider reach than Wikipedia 2012 let alone Wikipedia 2002, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether FAC and GAN are still serving their intended purpose.

As an obvious example that springs to mind, at all levels of the stub–start–C–B–GA–A–FA scale we review articles against the same set of standards (with the partial exception of the extra safeguards for medical articles and BLPs) even though as Wikipedia grows the notion of what's appropriate for a standalone article has hugely widened (and as more sources become digitized, it becomes easier to write longer articles on ultra-niche topics). At the lower levels that's not such an issue—a one-line stub is a one-line stub whatever the subject matter—but it means that at FA level we're treating pages like Paper Mario: Color Splash and 1994–95 Gillingham F.C. season as if we were reviewing submissions to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. I couldn't really blame any potential reviewer for thinking "checking the sources, prose, consistency of internal formatting, and compliance with whatever the arbitrary style guidelines happen to say this week, for an article that gets 500 readers per year, isn't a sensible use of my time". (I'm not singling that article out, it was just chosen at random from the current FAC page to show that my comments about low pageviews aren't hyperbole. I've certainly written my share of low-traffic pages as well.) ‑ Iridescent 14:14, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Each time you bring up this issue, I scratch my head over how to craft a new proposal or scheme that would address this. I have long defended short and niche articles at FAC, and maybe that is part of the problem. Perhaps they shouldn't be FAs at all, and I've been making the wrong arguments all these years. We are increasingly seeing 1,500-word FACs, by nominators in the pursuit of Wikicup points, and each one of those is taking a disproportionate share of reviewer resources, and for very little readership in return.

This data about readership at FAC v FAR may interest you (a response to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-01-30/WikiProject report).

Just as Ealdgyth has found her reviewing time is not best used at FAC, I am finding I can work on more higher-impact articles at FAR than those that appear at FAC, which is a better use of my time than correcting factual inaccuracies that cleared FAC at Socrates Nelson or reviewing tiny articles at FAC with prose and sourcing problems, that should be escorted quickly to Peer Review. I try to review FACs for those editors who have selflessly helped save old stars at FAR, or for articles requiring Spanish or that are within my topic area, but other than that, I have well and given up, as there seem to be no limit to how long and hopeless a FAC will get before it is shut down. Without Ealdgyth's enforcement of sourcing standards at FAC, the star has lost meaning (FAR at least is restoring some, and the FAR Coords don't let one through until it's done). And it now appears that the quality of the star was dependent on a limited number of key editors, so today, what is the difference between an FA and GA?

But absent Mally and Gguy, I don't see how a GA-type process is the solution either. Remember their sweeps? What does GA mean? Unless it has a top-notch reviewer like Ealdgyth, it's just reward culture points. I have always recognized your concern, but have never seen a clear path for addressing it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of a few ways it could be done if there were a will. An obvious one that springs to mind is using a beefed-up version of the WP:Cite Unseen script, possibly in conjunction with some variant of {{ref supports2}}, to highlight potentially problematically-sourced statements in the article itself so readers are immediately aware of which parts of an article to treat with caution. (We've used {{citation needed}} for years; readers and editors are already familiar with the concept of flagging unsourced material, this would just roll it out to cover poorly-sourced material as well and partially automate the process.) It would need some kind of manual override—even the most dubious sources are sometimes legitimately used, and even normally-watertight sources can be problematic when used to cite some things—but it wouldn't be insurmountable.

It would be a monumental effort to retroactively apply this, or any other process that involves changing the wikicode, to Wikipedia's existing articles, but if someone were to write the script we could test it on a limited subset (new FA candidates on medical topics flagged as high-importance, say) and see if it works. If it does work we could then gradually work backwards, and make it a condition for new nominations at GA and FA, in the same way we gradually replaced inline parenthetical referencing with the separate reference section. The normal (and entirely valid) argument against code based on the {{ref supports}} structure is that it makes the Wikitext a mess, but as we approach the point where VisualEditor is actually usable that will become less of an issue.

(I'm at least in part serious here: if you want ideas on how to improve assessment processes you could do worse than ask for suggestions at Wikipediocracy et al. Given the number of people who dedicate hours of their time year-after-year to bitching about how unreliable Wikipedia's existing processes for maintaining accuracy and prose quality are—and given that even the most vitriolic hater presumably concedes that we've passed the point where "just close it down and start again" is a viable option—one would like to think that they've had at least some thoughts on how those processes could be improved.) ‑ Iridescent 07:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting discussion here!

At the time of writing WP:FAC clocks in at 101,870 words, or to put it another way the first page people taking a tentative step into the FA process see is slightly longer than To Kill a Mockingbird. This made me lol. An obvious step it points to is to not list out every single FAC on the main page. We would never do that for e.g. AfD, so we need to recognize the scale at FAC, too.

On arduousness of process/use of time, I think that FA is necessarily an arduous process—there's no easy shortcut to affirming that a page comprehensively covers a topic at a professional level. That said, I absolutely agree it's a poor use of our time to be focusing on niche topics. A possible remedy could be to incentivize bigger FAs by listing them first at FAC or making it easier to get them to the Main Page.

I think you make a great point about the notion of what's appropriate for a standalone article has hugely widened. This is a less-discussed manifestation of the ever-present deletionism/inclusionism debate: even as our sourcing standards get tighter, if there are more easily accessible sources online, our topic standards may be lowering. When I look at the average length of an Encyclopedia Britannica article vs. one of ours, it's clear just how much more detail we expect. For some major topics, that's a good thing, but when the topic is The Bus Uncle or Amastra subsoror, I think an ideal encyclopedia would have an entry a paragraph long. SandyGeorgia mentions above 1500-word FACs, but that only goes so far: there's no way to get a paragraph-long entry past FAC, so what do we do for topics like that? FA sets the standard for what Wikipedia should be, so it's a problem when there's a giant group of articles that could never pass FA (because sourcing is too weak) or could only pass by going into excessive detail.

On {{ref supports2}}, that's one of those things where, if we'd thought of it in 2001 and built it into the software early, we'd be so much better off. I agree it'd be a huge lift to implement it now, but also that the advancement of VisualEditor is gradually opening up possibilities for it. Do we have any FAs that use it throughout to showcase as a test? That'd be very worthwhile, since we can't discover the kinks with that system until we experiment with it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:45, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere in ancient history I seem to remember a proposal that would create a separate process for short FAs; I could be misremembering. At this point, anyway, such a thing would never gain consensus as there are too many FA Frequent Flyers who are in it for WP:WIKICUP, and demand their niche short FAs so they can earn as many imaginary internet points for a 1,500-word article as if they had written the History of the British Empire.

If problems aren't correctly diagnosed, effective solutions are not likely. Iri mentions somewhere above that people aren't nominating. No, the nominations keep coming; it's the reviewers that, for various reasons, stopped coming or were chased off. And when those reviewers are as varied as from Ealdgyth, to Fowler&fowler, to SlimVirgin and SandyGeorgia, to Tony1, that says something. As good prose and sourcing reviews dropped, and reviewers became scarce, more and more FAs were promoted on a slim three Supports, so both prose and quality are affected. The volume at FAC is not (as is often portrayed) MOS-obsessive nit-picking; it's ridiculous line-by-line looking at prose that belongs at peer review because ill-prepared FACs are allowed to languish. Everybody wants everybody to like them, so they will support each other FACs, as the FA process goes into the dustbin with increasingly lower pageviews at TFA. When FAC was processing triple the number of FACs it now pushes, the page was not stalled because ill-prepared FACs were shut down right away, or once a FAC became a peer review, it was shut down. (You can also see in that data the peak at 2017, when the Oppose button was lost and anything that came to FAC got a few prose nitpicks and up the line it went, often buddies supporting buddies.) And FAC delegates considered it "their job" to know what an independent review was so we didn't end up with buddies pushing their buddies FACs up the line in a quid-pro-quo. These days, a Support is a support, even if it is not an independent, third-party review. FAC is not stalled today by volume; it's stalled by apathy and affected by quid-pro-quo.

If I am understanding the ref supports proposal, it won't solve most problems. First, we've got just this month two FACs that I know of that were sailing (or did sail) through with blatant false statements that had refs attached to them, but the refs said no such thing. How will ref supports stop that from happening? That is, if reviewers aren't checking source-to-text integrity, how will ref supports address that? And the main problem one sees at FAR is that article simply become inaccurate over time if they aren't constantly maintained; how will ref supports address that? I don't think it solves either of these problems, which are substantial.

I started a proposal a few years ago to convert FAC to a two-stage process like FAR (which works quite well), with the idea that you didn't get to the second stage without a source review. That, of course, failed because there are only so many Ealdgyths and Nikkimarias, and no one wants to do the real work.

And in another absurdity clogging the page, have a look at this. For some reason, the current crop of FAC regulars, don't seem to understand what talk pages are or how to use them; that's why FAC is clogged. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:50, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: Giving some kind of priority to "bigger topics" wouldn't be workable in any way that I can think of. What makes an article "important" is whether it contains the information you were looking for in that particular case, not whether it gets a particular average number of daily pageviews, is of a minimum length, and especially not is someone has arbitrarily decided that it's "high importance" and slapped a tag on it to indicate as such. As I've said many times, I think the whole concept of "core topic" is fundamentally misguided when it comes to Wikipedia—to me, our most important task is to provide information that readers can't easily find elsewhere. As such the purported "vital articles"—almost all of which are topics which readers would have no trouble finding quality coverage of if Wikipedia disappeared tomorrow—are to me our lowest priority.

Likewise, I don't feel any special treatment should be given to longer articles. I've argued in the past that we should have a ruthlessly-enforced minimum length requirement for a stand-alone article and if a topic fails the "is it possible to write 500 or 1000 words specifically about this topic, not including background and fluff?" test it should only be covered as an entry in a longer list, and I stand by that. What I don't believe is that such a process should be attached to quality assessment; if an article is a valid topic to be covered then it's a valid topic.

I also disagree with you that there's a particularly strong relationship between "article length" and "nicheness of topic". The summary style model means that articles on big topics are quite often shorter than the corresponding articles on niche topics, since when it comes to big-sweep articles we actively encourage authors to split off material into separate subpages. 2018 World Snooker Championship, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and Ceilings of the Natural History Museum, London—all topics about as niche as one can get—are all longer than Monarchy of the United Kingdom, History of biology or Association football, and that isn't a problem.

There have been a couple of experiments with the {{ref supports}} template, but not on anything substantive; to the best of my knowledge the only article that uses it throughout is the very short Psychical school. As the template stands, it wouldn't be a sensible use of anyone's time adding it in to existing articles. It works by "hover your mouse pointer over the reference to see what it supports"; not only does no reader know to do this on the handful of articles on which it's in use, but the recent uptick in mobile readership means that more than half our readers can't see the output even if they knew it was there. What I'm talking about is actively highlighting "this particular statement is sourced to a potentially unreliable source" in the article text to allow readers to approach it with caution. (It's not an alien concept—the {{cspan}} template for actively highlighting unsourced statements is in use on around 3000 pages.)

@SandyGeorgia, I'm not convinced that more and more FAs were promoted on a slim three Supports or articles being waved through without source reviews are necessarily an indication of a problem. In a lot of these cases, the articles in question form part of a series of articles on related topics, all by the same author or group of authors and all using the same set of sources. When you see (e.g.) an article by Casliber on a banksia species, or an article by Wehwalt on a coin, being apparently waved through without a full source review, it's not shoddy standards or an old-boys club in action; it's simply recognition that it's not a sensible use of time re-checking sources that have already been repeatedly checked.

Increasingly lower pageviews at TFA is an artefact of the changing nature of the internet, not of declining standards at FAC. As more and more readers navigate direct to articles from search results or from direct links on other websites or in social media posts, fewer people see the main page so fewer people see the TFA. (Think about it; article quality can't have any significant impact on the TFA's readership, since by the time readers see the article's poor quality they've already clicked on it and thus counted as a pageview.) What's more of an issue is that the art of writing an engaging blurb is dying out so readers don't consider it a good use of their time to click the link—if you write an interesting blurb that makes the reader want to know more, you still see a spike in pageviews as large as any we saw in the 'golden age' on even the most niche of topics.

I'm also singularly unconvinced that there's any significant negative correlation between "niche topic" and "number of views it gets at TFA". If one looks at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Most viewed and disregard the 'current events' and 'major anniversaries' ones that would have had a viewspike whether they'd been TFA or not, there are some impressively niche topics there. (I hold the all-time record for "author of the most articles to appear on the WP:TFAMOSTVIEWED list"; I'm not some rando offering opinions on a topic about which I know nothing.)

I don't see the refsupports proposal as a universal panacea, and I agree it wouldn't address those instances when a legitimate reference is used but it doesn't say what it's claimed to say. I see it as a stepping stone on the route to our recognizing that at our current size we're not maintainable, and that absent a major reduction in the number of articles (my prefered option but one for which there's no will), Wikipedia is eventually going to need to move to the Facebook model of reactively patrolling problems as they're flagged rather than actively trying to search for all the problems, and on increasingly relying on scripts and algorithms to flag potential issues even though that will mean some false positives and some issues slipping through un-noticed. At the time of writing English Wikipedia has:

• 55,396,306 pages in total
• 6,466,815 mainspace articles
• 39,854 active editors by the loosest "five edits in the past month" definition
• 5262 active editors by the "100 edits in the past month" definition
• 3818 active editors by the probably most relevant "non-bots with 100 edits in the past month to content-related pages" definition
• 458 active administrators (by the very loose "30 edits in the past 60 days" definition; the number who are genuinely active is even lower).

These numbers aren't sustainable as the total size of the wiki continues to grow, particularly since we're likely to see a small but measurable drop in the number of active editors and a larger drop in the number of admins once UCoC is imposed. If we don't start addressing the fact that the processes of the 2000s aren't viable in the 2020s, we're just going to head into a spiral of a limited number of people being expected to do ever more work, burning out and resigning, thus leaving even fewer people to do even more work. ‑ Iridescent 06:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re the Facebook model, that would effectively be the death of Wikipedia as we know it—by the time a reader puts in the effort to flag a problem and wait for it to be addressed, it's already been seen by enough others to do damage to our reputation. That would be an unfortunate outcome. I'm curious, if you didn't have to worry about consensus, how would you have us go about trying to implement a major reduction in the number of articles? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:57, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I alluded to it already; a minimum length and a mass merging of articles that don't meet that length requirement into long list-type articles (so 18th century English cricketers instead of Gilbert East, William Palmer, Jack Small et al). Nothing of value would be lost since the information would all still be there, but it would drastically reduce the number of obscure unmaintained articles and would arguably be of more value to readers than separate pages since it would put the subjects into a broader context. There's a proof-of-concept page of mine at Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway if you want a concrete example of the kind of thing I have in mind. ‑ Iridescent 07:06, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that approach could work in many situations, e.g. upmerge Amastra subsoror to Amastra. But how would you upmerge The Bus Uncle? Or something like Mikko (restaurant)? Readers of those articles aren't particularly likely to be interested in other parts of Hong Kong internet culture or other D.C. restaurants, and not having a dedicated page would likely be quite bad for Google rankings. Another question: Would it actually meaningfully reduce the maintenance burden to have fewer longer articles rather than more shorter articles? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:24, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't upmerge The Bus Uncle, as that's long enough to justify a stand-alone article, but hypothetically I'd probably have Notable 2006 YouTube videos as the parent article with a very brief synopsis of TBU and a {{main}} link, but fully merging in (e.g.) Kiwi!, Little Superstar, Lo que tú Quieras Oír etc unless and until standalone viable articles are written on them. Mikko (restaurant) I'm singularly unconvinced is actually a legitimate topic given that as far as I can see it's 'sourced' solely to five press releases, but if forced to keep it I'd probably merge—along with a bunch of others—to a single Restaurants in Washington, D.C. article. (I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if the only restaurant in DC which actually warrants its own stand-alone article is Comet Ping Pong, and that genuinely is a sui generis topic.)

Sticking with Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway just because it's one I know, compare the differing treatment given to Quainton Road, which is a genuinely complicated topic in its own right and thus gets a brief synopsis and a link to a full-length article; Church Siding which was literally just a heap of mud at which trains would stop and about which it's impossible to say more than a hundred words, and as such doesn't get a stand-alone article as it would serve no useful purpose; and Westcott which currently has a standalone article owing to the "these all need their own page!" hardliners but where there's nothing of any great interest to say and as such the reader would actually be better served by being redirected to the appropriate part of this list, where they can read about it in context and thus see how it fits in to a broader picture.

I frankly couldn't give a damn about Google rankings; our job is to cover these things, not to help marketing departments wih their SEO techniques. Google probably monitor what we do more closely than the WMF do themselves, and their business model relies on users consistently finding what they want since it costs nothing more than a couple of mouse clicks to change default search engine. If any change we made were actually adversely affecting their user experience, PageRank would be amended to take account of that change in about twelve minutes.

Yes, it would definitely meaningfully reduce the maintenance burden. If twenty people each write about a DC restaurant, that's twenty articles each on one person's watchlist, and if that person happens to leave, to lose interest in that particular topic, or just not check their watchlist on a particular day, then vandalism or spam doesn't get reverted and the page gradually gets more and more out-of-date. Under my proposed model, the same twenty people each writing about a DC restaurant will result in one page which is on twenty watchlists; mistakes, vandalism and spam are much more likely to be spotted and reverted, entries going out-of-date likewise, and readers are more likely to find related topics about which they might be interested. (Unrelated to maintenance, but one long article rather than 20 short ones also means the potential for Featured Article, Featured List or DYK, meaning hyperniche topics that would never ordinarily make it to the main page get their moment in the sun.) ‑ Iridescent 14:57, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the "twenty articles on one person's watchlist -> one article on twenty people's watchlist" effect is quite that dramatic, actually. When creating an article, you automatically get the article on your watchlist unless you explicitly choose not to, whereas when adding a section to an existing article you have to explicitly opt in. And if you are only interested in a small section of a much longer article, you very well might decide not to bother. (Additionally, IPs can add sections to existing articles but do not have watchlists). On the other hand, if you are interested enough in a particular topic to create an article on one aspect of it, and are an active enough wikipedian that you actually use your watchlist, you probably add a bunch of relevant articles which you didn't create, and aren't even necessarily a substantial editor of.
On the other hand, there's an additional maintenance benefit from not having to include all of the background and explanatory material multiple times – if we have (to take an example from my own pet topic) a stub on every single fragment of a poem by Sappho included in the standard edition, for instance, we have to explain what a Sapphic stanza is fifty times over, and there are fifty opportunities to get that definition wrong, or for someone to come by later and introduce errors either deliberately or through well-meaning incompetence. If we just have Poetry of Sappho plus articles on the few unquestionably notable poems which have been the subject of multiple scholarly papers and can have 1,000 word articles written on them without significant difficulty, we only have to write that same explanation half a dozen times. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:39, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto, for your Sapphic stanza example, one possible solution is {{Excerpt}}s, which I think should be a lot more widely used than they are. Their biggest benefit is that allow reused information to be stored centrally, reducing the maintenance burden. The main drawback is that it's currently fairly difficult to make slight tweaks to them between articles (e.g. when excerpting a lead, include references in the destination but not the original), and because editors aren't familiar with them yet they often destroy things like inclusion control. I'm curious what you, Iri, or others here think about their viability. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:18, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I hate {{Excerpt}} and think it should be made to not work in mainspace. I think anyone who uses it deserves that their articles get messed up when someone improves the article they are excerpting from (and then it is difficult to figure out what went wrong). In article space, you should be able to edit a page without having to worry about messing up others. (Anything difficult to edit or with the option to mess up other pages should be in template space; there are some recent trends to use {{excerpt}} to re-use tables between articles instead of just using templates). —Kusma (talk) 18:10, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of the existence of {{Excerpt}}, but I've never used it. I suspect the requirement to excerpt whole sections significantly limits its utility; the bits which are duplicated between articles in my experience often do not neatly fit into a single easily excerptable section. I'd also worry about having to remember to make sure that when changing an excerpted section, it still makes sense everywhere the relevant {{excerpt}} can be found. And it's another extra complication in the wikitext, which as someone from the write-all-the-markup-by-hand school doesn't feel super appealing. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably in the same camp as the two above me; {{excerpt}} is nice in theory, but in practice it causes more issues than it solves. Even for something like an untranslated quotation where the text itself has no potential to change, there's still the possibility that someone will change the font, highlight a key phrase etc in the 'original' which will subsequently have a knock-on effect on anything that excerpts that text. Even if every editor were aware of {{excerpt}} and the fact that when editing an article using it they need to check the knock-on effect on every other article excerpting it, we have to work on the assumption that it won't always happen. Wikipedia has three major editing interfaces (Wikitext, VisualEditor, AWB) plus numerous more specialist scripts, and it's nigh-on impossible to create "this section needs special treatment!!!" flags that will be visible to editors using all of them. (Just look at how many good-faith editors try to 'improve' wording that's the result of painstaking negotiation, or 'fix typos' where it's actually the correct spelling.) ‑ Iridescent 05:26, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see where the handy-dandy "reply tool" parks this comment. Iri, on your paragraph above directed at me, I don't disagree with you on those cases (eg Casliber). They aren't examples of what I'm talking about. (And no, I'm not going to give specific examples of where the waving through has been problematic, but one thing those examples have in common is a long series of prose nitpicks by a prose-nitpicking group of reviewers who reviewed nothing else, that resulted in FAs with still deficient prose, combined with other problems beyond prose. When I returned to FAC in about 2018 ... I think ... from a long hiatus, I saw some shocking FAs on TFA, and when I went to WP:WBFAN, I found that the same editors had accumulated up to a dozen FAs with similar deficiences! Best I could tell it was more or less a 2016 to 2019 thing going on. What is going on now is different; what gets reviewed and how it is reviewed is tied to quid-pro-quo ... something we fought to keep out of FAC for many years.) On the rest of the issues about length et al, we've been around on all of that so many times, and I still don't see how to solve it. I do know that the strength of an FA, just like the strength of GA, is dependent on the quality of the review, and it is the lack of reviewers at FAC that is the bigger problem these days, and that is impacting quality, whether of short, medium, long, niche, core or broad articles. One can waste crazy amounts of time on tiny articles, while long articles on significant topics sit there without review. Relatively easier work is rewarded, while much harder work is neglected. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:20, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're on the same page talking past each other, rather than disagreeing. I agree that the issue at FAC—as with so much on Wikipedia—is the unsustainable article/editor ratio leading to corners being cut. (I disagree that the problems started in 2016, or that a particularly problematic group is responsible, though. The most notorious shoddy review of them all took place in 2013 and was largely conducted by reviewers whom I assume you'd agree are correctly highly regarded; everybody can have a bad day and sometimes the bad days of multiple people unfortunately align and things slip through.)

Where I think we disagree is how to address the issue. My feeling is that as long as the number of articles keeps rising and the number of editors doesn't, no Wikipedia process is ever going to be able to go back to the days when participants had the luxury of time. Since there's no indication that we're going to see a sudden boom in recruitment and retention, if we want to maintain and improve quality we need to think about how to either drastically streamline processes to make them less time-consuming for participants, how to prioritize processes so editors don't waste their time on processes that have minimal impact, or how to bring the article-to-editor ratio (which is currently 1200-to-1 and steadily rising) down to a manageable level. ‑ Iridescent 05:26, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Starting another section to pick out part of a comment above: "I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether FAC and GAN are still serving their intended purpose". I don't think you could get consensus at WT:FAC on what the intended purpose of FAC is, or even whether it matters. There are regulars who have no interest in supplying the main page with high-quality articles, which was perhaps the clearest original "intended purpose"; and I doubt many regulars believe that any form of FAC, or of any quality process, could ever raise more than a small fraction of Wikipedia's articles to a high standard. I think the different visions of what FAC is for stem from different beliefs about how FAC can work. I believe the effort available from editors interested in quality articles is the primary fact about FAC. If that's right, we ought to figure out how to get the best results with the existing pool of editors, and their existing motivations.

That doesn't mean turning a blind eye to problems, but to pick another quote from the discussion above: "I don't think perfection is something for which we should still be aiming when it comes to either prose or sourcing. We have 6,464,308 articles; we should start accepting that on even the best-researched article problems are going to occasionally sneak in, and the focus should be on correcting them rather than trying to prevent them." I largely agree with this. Sandy and I agree on a lot re FAC, but this is where I think we differ: Sandy was most active at FAC when there was more editor effort available to do reviews, and the standards were (initially) lower. With fewer reviewers, and higher standards, the old process is impossible to replicate. Something has to give -- length of time at FAC, quality of reviews, number of supports needed to pass. I think FAC is coping pretty well with the lower resources. No doubt it can be improved, but any realistic suggestion can't rely on reviewers putting in much more work than they are now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:16, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, I can find little in Mike's writing with which to disagree; except one little thing, where I suspect I disagree with both Iri and Mike. I believe the reviewers would come back if a number of the conditions were different (that is, returned to what they once were). And I believe that would solve a lot of what ails FAC today. FAC has never been without problems; no Wikipedia process is, and bad FAs will always get through and always have, because FAs are only as good as their reviews. I think the things that have to give to get better reviewers are a) quicker archiving of the ill-prepared, b) no more peer review at FAC, c) call out the faulty reviews as we did in the past, d) empower the Coords to again disregard supports from reviewers with a proven poor track record, and e) encourage them to stop promoting FACs with those kinds of issues at three supports. (There is nothing that says a Coord has to promote an article at the magical three.) I believe if we did those things, FAC would begin to thrive because editors who did/do take FAs seriously would come back. But when the process is chasing off the best prose reviewers, the best source reviewers, the best all-round reviewers, why would anyone want to go there. Why would anyone work so hard on a quality article to have to sit there and watch it languish because there are no reviewers (or maybe just none that will review an article that is longer than 2,000 words)? What's the value for the writer? Clear message there when you scan down the page and see what's getting reviews and what's not, and there's no reason for that one to be sitting there, getting ignored, when it's not a specialist or technical or difficult topic. People who have limited time are not going to spend it at FAC, if that means being drawn into endless back-and-forth with nominators of ill-prepared articles, so the standards go lower and lower. This is not just a few mistakes slipping through; it is very poor prose, and rife with plainly false unverified statements. And it's not alone in that regard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As you suspect, speaking as one of those former regulars who's no longer active I disagree with I believe the reviewers would come back if a number of the conditions were different (that is, returned to what they once were). "What they once were" wasn't a golden age, and I don't think recreating it would be particularly desirable even if we could—you may remember FAC as it was in 2008 as better times, but I remember it as being dominated by a small clique of schoolyard bully types who would randomly descend on nominations by people who weren't members of their gang and try to bludgeon the nominator not just out of FAC but off Wikipedia altogether. Don't forget that for every Geometry Guy or Moni3 back then, there was a Mattisse or a Tony1.

I know I've said it about four times in this thread but I'll keep repeating it as it's the fundamental issue—Wikipedia has fewer editors than it did in 2007 and that number is going to drop even lower as the artificial lockdown-induced bounce of the last two years wanes. Unless there's a commensurate drop in the number of nominations, Wikipedia can't go back to the processes of 2007 even if we wanted to. ‑ Iridescent 05:50, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Sandy, of your list of five points I'd say (d) and (e) are already in place -- I'm quite sure the coords know they can disregard supports, and they often wait to promote until there are more than three supports. Of the oldest ten FACs still open right now, seven have four or more supports. Your (c), calling out faulty reviews, was always a rare event, and I think had little effect. For what it's worth it does still happen; a regular recently told a reviewer on the FAC page that they were going to ignore the review as it was faulty. And (a) and (b) are largely the same thing, and that's where the point that Iridescent and I are making applies -- we have less reviewer time available to go through PR and FAC, which leads to longer FAC durations, which makes it less productive to kick out a FAC which can be resolved and promoted in a single pass. I think prose nitpicks are a red herring -- "move this comma from here to there" is not that common and in any case doesn't indicate a fundamental problem with the article. I don't want to digress into a discussion of types of prose review, but it's possible to have a long list of detailed comments that are not nitpicks without implying the article is a mess. More to the point, that long list isn't going to be generated anywhere but FAC, for most articles.

One thing that actually does help throughput at FAC is when pre-FAC reviews have been done by experienced reviewers -- e.g. Dudley has reviewed a couple of articles on Neolithic sites that I've worked on, and so at FAC he has supported fairly quickly, after an additional read-through. The problem with that is if it becomes too frequent it will look like quid pro quo -- regulars showing up at FAC and getting four quick supports would look clubby, even with links to the article talk page reviews. The coords would want to leave the FAC up for a while anyway, to get more input from a wider group. And it wouldn't actually generate more BTUs of effort from the reviewers, it would just move that effort pre-FAC, in a way that is not very accessible to newcomers. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:14, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've very occasionally made "move this comma from here to there" type comments, but it's invariably in the specific case of "it's not totally clear to me where this should go so I'm not going to fix it myself". In my experience, if a minor fix is obvious the reviewer will invariably fix it themselves unless it's in the context of "this article contains too many formatting errors, oppose until you fix them". ‑ Iridescent 05:49, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Iridescent. Re Draft:Process-based therapy, I haven't properly looked at the draft author's rewrite after I tagged for CSD because of copyvio, but I'll trust your decision. However, I wonder if you noticed that it was changed after the CSD tagging, and whether CRD#1 revdel on the pre-rewrite versions is appropriate. — Bilorv (talk) 16:33, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, agreed, and thanks for pointing it out. I think it very unlikely that draft will ever be salvageable—even if there's a legitimate article to be written, it would almost certainly be easier to write it from scratch—so in six months I imagine the draft will be auto-deleted regardless. ‑ Iridescent 07:18, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think? Johnbod (talk) 05:01, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My personal opinion is that it's massively undue weight. Holl is about as forgotten as it gets (and was a generic Victorian hack, not someone like Walter Scott or Frederic Leighton who's out of fashion now but is still a major topic of study because of their influence). I'm reluctant to start reverting myself as I consciously try to avoid giving the impression that I'm the owner of the topic, but I have a feeling someone's going to need to quietly undo the whole thing. For Art of the United Kingdom, Victorian painting or Social realism to have dedicated sections on Frank Holl is roughly equivalent to Culture of the United States having a dedicated section on Mork & Mindy. ‑ Iridescent 06:40, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts too - I'll reduce rather than remove.. Presumably he's big in Canada, or something... Johnbod (talk) 17:40, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At a guess, someone's been to the Van Gogh Museum, seen that VVG collected him (which is true), and drawn the mistaken conclusion that Holl was a much bigger deal than he actually was. (Because of his day job in a saleroom, VVG accumulated all kinds of prints and etchings which happened to evoke a passing interest. He also had fairly dubious taste—if "being admired by Van Gogh" was some kind of mark of greatness, the works of Adolphe Monticelli wouldn't all be hidden away in storerooms.) ‑ Iridescent 18:04, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt - I've warmed to him somewhat after seeing this one! Johnbod (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As you presumably know, I do have a soft spot for that kind of late 19th century sentimentalist tosh. Yes, they're irredeemably kitsch and usually hideous to modern eyes, but there's a genuinely interesting story in how artists (both visual and written) made that sudden leap, over such a short period, from "our job is either to document the world as it is, or to show examples for audiences to aspire to", to "the world is a horrible place, here's something completely contrived and unrealistic to take your mind off it". There's a direct line of succession between "The more materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall I paint. Their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul" and Mamma Mia!.

Personally, I'd say this one approaches Peak Victoriana. I imagine even Lady Lever would have dismissed it as overblown tat. ‑ Iridescent 06:20, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to give me a three month ban fine, I feel really bad about all this. I honestly thought that I was valuable to Wikipedia as people have of often commended me for my work. Davidgoodheart (talk) 17:08, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the second time, read the proposal in which nobody except you is talking about banning you. As I said there, the fact that you're either too lazy or too incompetent to even read the proposal when you're the topic of discussion, makes me think that maybe we should be talking about banning you. ‑ Iridescent 17:14, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

...they talk of little else  :) ^{w/ acknowledgments, Marshall Hall}  :) SN54129 17:08, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure this is what the WMF had in mind when they imposed extended-length edit summaries on en-wiki. (Yes, before a (WMF) account delivers me a lecture, I'm aware there was a genuine technical reason to do with non-Latin characters being double-counted.) ‑ Iridescent 17:44, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It was the blast of culture—even if only of kitschy Victoriana—into the desert of ANI that caught my attention :) SN54129 11:43, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who thinks in run-on sentences, I appreciate this accessibility feature feature imposed by technological limitations. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 22:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I remember having re-written the few opening sentences of the article, so at least those should be free of copyvio issues and work as a possible starting point for a stub. Could you please check for salvageable content, trim down to that, and restore what's left? Thanks. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:08, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell looking at the history, your only contribution (other than a couple of technical edits regarding categorization, naming, and standardizing curly/straight quotes) was A high-profile case involving the [[poaching]] of a [[black panther]] and other protected wildlife took place in [[Thailand]] in 2018. It involved a group led by '''Premchai Karnasuta''', a Thai business tycoon, in the [[Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary]] in February 2018. There isn't really much to build on there; it would probably be easier to start from scratch. (It's not possible to selectively restore the history; the very first edit was a cut-and-paste copyright violation, so the copyvio is present in every version of the history.) The four sources used, if you want to use them for rewriting the article, were [6], [7], [8] and [9]. ‑ Iridescent 17:29, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That's pretty much what I needed. --Paul_012 (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New article up. Could you please check for categories I missed and restore the talk page? Thanks. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:12, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Done ‑ Iridescent 17:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day! Hi Iridescent! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of the day you made your first edit and became a Wikipedian! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:35, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! ‑ Iridescent 08:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC) (Side note, but once you get back before 2007 "first edit day" isn't much of a metric. That spike of account registrations in 2006 wasn't (or at least wasn't wholly) owing to Wikipedia becoming more popular, but that a wave of reforms post-Siegenthaler made it harder to perform some routine functions like page creation without creating an account. Many of the people who registered accounts in 2006–07 had already been editing for some time; prior to that, there wasn't much benefit either to creating an account or to logging in to it if you had one unless you were engaged in behind-the-scenes discussions where it was necessary to keep track of who was saying what. ‑ Iridescent 08:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC))[reply]

I was more enthusiastic about first day milestones when I was younger, tbh.

(Also, for some reason, the "reply" link didn't work for this particular comment.) I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 20:37, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we were all more excited about birthdays when we were young. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing I think that's what happened. We've all become old. ^[Joke] I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 05:29, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It beats the alternative. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

frozen

celebrating the magic of the word iridescence --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I took a pic in 2009 that was on the German MP yesterday, with the song from 1885, in English Prayer for Ukraine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:18, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to view the page for Southeast Toyota Distributors and found it had been deleted. I looked up Gulf States Toyota Distributors and it is still active. These two entites are the only private Toyota Distributors in the United States and are extremely similar. Why is SET deleted? Mgrē@sŏn (Talk) 22:43, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mgreason, the log entry says "Unambiguous advertising or promotion". Presumably it was filled with stuff closer to "Buy from us now!" instead of the expected encyclopedic content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mgreason, It had "Backed by high-quality dealer services from Southeast Toyota and other JM Family companies, Southeast Toyota dealers continue to establish new sales records for Toyota. Southeast Toyota dealers are No. 1 in total dealer profits and represent the No. 1 region in the country in Toyota Certified used vehicle sales." in the lead, and then continued for over 1000 words that had clearly been cut-and-pasted, or at best paraphrased, from the corporate website, to give a glowing summary of each part of the company's operations ("The Southeast Toyota Accessory Center reproduces the expertise and quality of the existing Southeast Toyota Port facilities, on a smaller scale, to offer nearly 30 area dealers greater flexibility in satisfying customer personalization requests closer to the point of sale"). I've no doubt the topic meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines, but Wikipedia articles also need to be both written from a neutral point of view and fully cited to reliable sources, and that was as true in 2016 when I deleted it as it is now.

If you want, I can undelete the page and submit it to AfD for a full consensus "do we collectively think this is salvageable?" discussion. (I'd recommend against that, as if if the page does get a consensus to delete at AfD it becomes more difficuly to recreate it subsequently; New Page Patrollers reflexively assume there's something questionable when they see the "A page of this title was previously deleted at AfD" warning.) Or, I can restore it as a {{noindex}}ed draft article if you think you can turn it into something sourced and neutral over a reasonable timescale. Let me know if you want me to do either, or if I'm not active post a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion including a link to this discussion to confirm that I'm happy for any other admin to restore this without consulting me. ‑ Iridescent 08:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Iridescent, thanks for looking into this issue. I originally created the article many years ago when I was active. I wasn't aware that it was turned into a promo piece. I recently retired and have time for interests like Wikipedia again. I would appreciate it if you could restore it as a draft; I'm certain I could clean it up in a couple of days. Thanks again. Mgrē@sŏn (Talk) 22:19, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• A good start to said cleanup would be to revert back to the version before Sheba.munn (talk · contribs) rewrote several parts of it in 2013. Still not the most rigorously verifiable article, but it was that account that introduced the text that is quoted above. Uncle G (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Mgreason, I've reverted it to the last version before it was tagged for deletion, and restored the full history to allow you to go through in your own time to see which elements are worth keeping and what if anything should be deleted. As I say, the company itself is unquestionably notable in Wikipedia terms so you don't need to worry about notability issues, but the version I deleted was the very embodiment of "unsourced advertorial". ‑ Iridescent 05:44, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  (Adding) If the link stops working, that's because someone else—not me—has moved it out of the article space to Draft:Southeast Toyota Distributors. At the moment they've left a redirect from Southeast Toyota Distributors → Draft:Southeast Toyota Distributors, but that's technically a cross-namespace redirect and as such will be procedurally deleted under WP:R2 when the systems notice it. ‑ Iridescent 13:27, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Morning Iri and page watchers

I'm being asked to cast a vote on the Universal Code of Conduct, but I have to say I'm not entirely sure what it entails. I'm very late to this party and haven't been following the drafting or earlier phases of this at all, and to be honest in general I don't pay that much attention to what's going on at the WMF - my focus is on what I can do to make the encyclopedia better for readers. But since I've been asked to vote, I suppose I should give it some consideration. Is there any sort of big en-wiki meta thread or forum where people are debating the pros and cons? Outside of a slight sense of exasperation that the WMF are focusing so heavily on this and not on improving resources for editors or expanding the Wikipedia Library (as some have suggested), the high-level language at m:Universal Code of Conduct looks superficially harmless, but I fear the devil might be in the detail and that this could have a practical negative effect on the way we conduct ourselves. Any thoughts? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:56, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly speaking, the vote is about the enforcement guidelines of UCoC and not the UCoC itself. The enforcement guidelines are being discussed at meta:Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines and meta:Universal Code of Conduct/2021 consultations/Roundtable discussions/Questions and meta:Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement draft guidelines review, their actual text is at meta:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:14, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh right, yes. Enforcement. Thanks... still looks a bit too much to read, so I might just move on for now!  — Amakuru (talk) 16:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My rather rambling thoughts on UCoC are at User talk:Iridescent/Archive 45#UCoC—it was a few months ago, but my opinion hasn't particularly shifted. The TL;DR summary would be "I understand why they're doing it, to allow the WMF to impose control on smaller wikis in the event that they get hijacked by cranks. However I don't think they appreciate how much blowback they're going to get when they inevitably try to use it to impose their own extremely US-centric value system on any of the big wikis, nor do I think the proposed mechanisms contain adequate safeguards against people using it as a score-settling mechanism. (Compare how often "civility" is used as a pretext to silence opponents in arguments as opposed to genuine behavioral issues.) I also have extreme issues with some of the wording; in particular I think forcing Wikipedia participants to endorse The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people is offensive, in some jurisdictions probably illegal, and would have unintended consequences such as making participation in something like Wikipedia:Black WikiHistory Month a blockable offense. As such I'd encourage everyone to oppose it as things stands, even though this vote is largely meaningless since the eligibility criteria allows the WMF payroll to block-vote so it's almost certain to pass even if there's overwhelming opposition from the actual editor communities." ‑ Iridescent 16:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Amakuru I'm doing the same. To be fair to us, I think most people aren't voting. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 16:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I voted no, and if it passes, will be resigning my admin bit. I tend to agree with Iri on this, and find the meddling into encyclopedia affairs by the WMF to be them yet again forgetting what they are supposed to be about. Talk about scope creep! Ealdgyth (talk) 16:27, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Ealdgyth, the cynic in me says that's part of the thinking behind it; they know this paragraph is going to force mass resignation of admins and functionaries across the entire ecosystem, thus giving the opportunity on the bigger wikis to force a 'temporary' lowering of requirements and the packing of RFA, Arbcom etc with True Believers, and on the smaller wikis to declare an emergency and impose direct rule by the stewards. I'm not conspiracy-minded enough to think this was the reason this is being forced through—the WMF has a long track record of coming up with stupid ideas through the best of intentions—but if the thought has occurred to me, I'm sure it's occurred to them. ‑ Iridescent 18:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem for them, of course, is that if they mass-force an admin resignation on en-wiki, I'm not sure they could get any new ones elected. You'd think they'd have figured out from the Fram-mess that much of en-wiki is very ... jaundiced .. towards WMF "initiatives". They may think that because Fram didn't succeed at a second RFA that the majority of people on en-wiki were on the "WMF side" in the dispute, which is the wrong message to have taken from that mess. Heh. It'll be "interesting times" that's for sure. Ealdgyth (talk) 02:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They don't even need to force a mass resignation; if you read the wording of the paragraph I linked, it gives them authority to conduct a purge of heretics a year after ratification (i.e. March 2023).

Remember that, aside from a handful of people like WAID who are still active on the wikis, WMF-ers are either outsiders who never had an idea what goes on, or former editors whose experiences are out of date. Their knowledge of how we actually operate is going to be second-hand (and to be clear, this isn't necessarily a criticism; for at least some positions at the WMF it's completely reasonable that the person doing the job doesn't have any strong on-wiki relationships). Since the people passing on that knowledge are going to be either (a) the type of people who attend WMF events, (b) the type of people who submit reports to Trust & Safety, (c) the type of people who hang around on Meta or (d) those editors they know in real life, I don't see how they couldn't get a skewed view of what we actually do, particularly when you multiply it by the fact that they're having to perform the same "what impact is this going to have?" assessment across around 600+ different projects.

The regular people who just get on with things aren't by-and-large the people who ever come to their attention. The people who come into extended contact with the WMF are a mix of diehard true believers telling them what a great job they're doing; people trying to get WMF funds and/or technical support for a pet project (or latest scam); and problem users so problematic that their cases have been escalated to the highest level. It would be more of a surprise if the WMF didn't have the collective impression both that the wikis were full of argumentative obsessives who need to be kept in line, and that there exists a substantial caucus of people who think the WMF is doing a fantastic job. ‑ Iridescent 05:19, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

re. the WMF skewed perspective part: weren't the UCoC, and its enforcement guidelines, written by volunteer editors though? I know the enforcement guidelines drafting committee included Barkeep49, Vermont and MJL, for example, and I think all three are folks with a good understanding of how Wikipedia, or at least English-language Wikipedias, work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:12, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

These are the people who wrote UCoC. By my count there were five paid WMF apparatchiks (one of whom was using their personal rather than their WMF account so is listed under 'volunteers' rather than 'staff'), three hyper-insiders from the WMF's byzantine world of makework committees, and one actual non-greasy-pole-climbing Wikipedia editor. Trying to pass it off as "written by volunteer editors" is stretching the truth at best. ‑ Iridescent 18:27, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I am currently looking at the vote log and it says 903 votes cast. That's a small portion of all Wikimedia users, I think, but I am not sure how many of the "active" participants. Looks like I am #160 and there are a lot of regulars on enwiki there. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We have until March 21 to vote, right? The WMF has so lost their way (if they had ever found it); the level of group think and impenetrable writing is still mind-boggling (and for as long as their writing has been pure gibberish, one would think they would have done something about it by now). Easy to see why a sensible admin like Ealdgyth would turn in the bits of this sort of thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This type of bug on a secure voting site really inspires confidence: phabricator:T303735. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In case anyone wants to validate Iridescent's theory that the WMF payroll [will] block-vote so it's almost certain to pass even if there's overwhelming opposition from the actual editor communities, there have been a total of 28 votes by (WMF) accounts so far, including several by people I've never heard of before even though I'm very into obscure WMF geekery. And only two of them (SOyeyele (WMF)/Jamie Tubers, Zuz (WMF)/Celestinesucess) meet the first set of voting requirements considering only their volunteer account. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:28, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Universal Code of Conduct is a bit of a Curate's egg. It certainly does have some good parts, and some of the sillier features were fixed during its long gestation. But at heart it reads like a blurb from a company HR department for how you treat colleagues after the recruitment process has filtered some people out. Take two examples where I have tried and failed to influence the process, age and linguistic ability. In the past I have supported RFAs of teenagers who I thought were ready for adminship, my tests for such candidate's include questions such as "Do your parents or guardians trust you with an internet account that you can't tell them the password of". But I'm aware that there are others who don't think that anyone should be an admin until they are legally adult. I suspect that the WMF and all the chapters will quickly exempt themselves from this one, leaving us with the practical issues that come up when children of surprisingly young ages start editing. No age discrimination is a very different thing when your HR department is only recruiting university graduates. Language fluency is another area, these days I spend as much time on commons as here, and of course Commons is one of our multilingual projects. Wikipedia however has 300 or so seperate wikis based on different languages, it makes absolute sense that we require some fluency in English for most roles here and in Scots for people who write the Scots Wikipedia. As a monolingual Brit who has worked for a chapter and might apply for some WMF jobs, it would be in my interest if the WMF weren't able to prefer multilingual candidates when recruiting. But as a Wikipedian I absolutely see that it would be an advantage for those WMF staff who interact with the community to have at least a working proficiency in more than one language. A rule against discrimination on language fluency in our multilingual projects would make sense, as would a ban on age discrimination among community members who are legally adult. But the code still contains "This applies to all contributors and participants in their interaction with all contributors and participants, without expectations based on age, mental or physical disabilities, physical appearance, national, religious, ethnic and cultural background, caste, social class, language fluency, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex or career field." As usual with the WMF one comes away from any interactions thinking that for a twenty year old organisation with only a few hundred employees, it has somehow acquired the inflexibility and ossification of an organisation several orders of magnitude larger and older. ϢereSpielChequers 11:05, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I learn something every day. I had never heard the phrase "curate's egg." I have no interest in Wikipolitics but I would like to do my bit for the survival of Wikipedia. So, O Wise Curator of Eggs and Others of Esteemed Opinion, should I vote yes or no on the enforcement guidelines of the UCoC? I will likely take your advice.Smallchief (talk)
  • I have voted No, but then used the comments box to give two or three examples of where I disagree with the current proposal. My hope is that this leads to the proposal being further improved. I would suggest that you only vote if you have the time to read the code, if you then vote "No" please give some pointers as to where you think the code needs improvement. Feel free to echo mine if having read the code you agree that each language version of Wikipedia would benefit by continuing to be allowed to require some fluency in that wikipedia's language for at least some roles in the pedia. ϢereSpielChequers 15:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]