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Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 97

Offensive content on "Main Page"
It seems that recently there have been a few occurrences of content on the Main Page that could be considered offensive. For example, "Encyclopedia **me And The Case Of The Vanishing Entree" was recently posted, and there have been a few others. Perhaps this has become more common, or perhaps I am just noticing more of them recently. I understand that Wikipedia is to have a full encyclopedia format, and if it's necessary to have those titles, then fine. But I think, as the Main Page is a central location that anyone could go to, before routing to the page they are interested in, it should only have content that is appropriate for all users. Is this possible to make happen? Stephanie (talk) 05:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC) the previous comment was made by  Worm  TT( talk ) 10:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you link to the page, because your bowdlerisation is completely incomprehensible. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I would guess that the OP meant Encyclopedia Fuckme And The Case Of The Vanishing Entree, a DYK entry. → ROUX   ₪  06:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Stephanie, Wikipedia is not censored, and neither is the Main Page.  What you find personally offensive doesn't matter.  What I find personally offensive does not matter.  Grow up and put your morality back into your own life instead of waving it offensively in other people's faces. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:05, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

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

Wow, thank you so much for that opinion (how about just actually read what I wrote?) I didn't ask for censoring Wikipedia, as I clearly noted; I asked about the Main Page. As far as I can see, there isn't a policy of censorship/non-censorship for the Main Page. Am I wrong about this? Please excuse my ignorance if I am. Stephanie 07:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The Main Page is somehow... separate from Wikipedia? Again, please suggest a standard of content filtration that is somehow "appropriate for all users," bearing in mind of course that our users span the entire globe. → ROUX   ₪  08:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What you're basically asking for is some sort of editorial judgement on the promotion of content on the Main Page. But because of the extreme difficulty of gaining agreement among Wikipedians on general standards for applying such judgement, there is very little exercised (sometimes there is a limited agreement enough for action on something specific). A reference to WP:NOTCENSORED is a short-hand for explaining this, but wrapping it in a bit of "it's a feature, not a bug" by applying the reasons for not removing information from the encyclopedia to the different issue of what to promote on the encyclopedia's cover. (And given that the example is a commercial product, I use the word promote deliberately.) Rd232 talk 07:30, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Censored or not, it's kind of funny to imagine that a game with this little third party coverage would pass the GNG. There's no secondary coverage of this that isn't just a routine review. There's an in-depthish pitchfork review and an in-depthish escapist review, both of which pass WP:RS I guess but are not quite what I would think of as normally encyclopedically significant (oh, and a one paragraph review in an av club article that reviews like ten other games.) A minor indie freeware browser-based game with such little coverage will have no lasting notability. If it wasn't currently on the front page, I think I would be tempted to AfD it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:ASTONISH applies just as much as WP:NOTCENSORED.
 * There is a problem with Main page in that it has been put into the main encyclopaedia but it is not an article. It does not describe what a main page is and provide citations and show why it is notable. How can one say whether censored or astonish apply to a page like that? Dmcq (talk) 08:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Aside from anything else, I can't help but feel that the OP has been leaped on here. The community is clearly galvanised on this issue (the principals have been argued over enough times), but that's not excuse for reacting against a post in a non-combative tone as if it has been a call to heresy. We have good enough reasons why we don't filter information for the main page, and the OP could have easily been directed to them without putting her under siege. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

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

Well, of course the main page is censored; any limited space must be subject to decisions on what it contains, and in that case the censorship is simply called "editorial judgement". The only difference is that you have to sometimes refrain from disclosing your real reasons: don't say "I'm offended", look for some other reason. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 13:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The issue here is not WP:CENSORED, the issue is vulgarity. WP:NOTCENSORED allows me to list all the words that rhyme with "buck" without concern that my edit will be partially overwritten by a bot.  For example, I still remember a site whose bot would overwrite part of the word "pussywillow".  But what were the people thinking that put that topic on the main page?  Unscintillating (talk) 00:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I think it's interesting that the English Wikipedia is actually quite tame compared to some other Wikipedias. Perhaps it's that puritanical current that runs through American society (not, of course, that America owns the English language), that gives us more vocal complaints. If I recall correctly, the German Wikipedia once had on its main page a human vulva in all its glory. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it your view that "complaints" about vulgarity should be WP:CENSORED? Unscintillating (talk) 03:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

This would result in a different perspective and different mindset about the expectations that they have to shoulder while at Wikipedia. If the community agrees, this could either be a period where they can still exercise non-tool-related admin functions, or simply a time where they are an 'Admin-meritorium' that they just take the time to do editor type stuff for a while. -- Avanu (talk) 00:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sympathetic to the idea that admins ought to see life an a regular editor on occasion. However, let me throw in one complication. Much of my activity in the last month has been as an OTRS agent. One doesn't have to be an admin to be an agent, but my activity would be severely hampered if I were not an admin. Many times, someone is prompted to send in a permission statement because their image was deleted. It is straightforward, if tedious, to find the image, undelete it, add the permission and add it back to the article, but I would have to track down an admin or pass on many of the requests. As it is, I'm contemplating applying to be a Commons admin because it is such a pain to track down a Commons admin every time I need to restore a deleted image from Commons. One option would be to exempt OTRS agents from the vacation, another option would be to tell me it would be good for me to take a break as well.-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  01:06, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * What happens if after the 6 month downtime they enjoyed their break so much they don't want to return to admin duty anymore? -- œ ™ 06:51, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Any admin is free to give up their adminship at any time. Silver  seren C 09:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is never going to fly. This is a volunteer project. Telling people their services are not wanted for 6 months isn't helpful. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 18:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No way. Judging from various backlogs, we need more admins doing admin tasks, not less. -- Neil N   talk to me  19:01, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Nothing stops an admin from taking time off. I have done this in the past, albeit not for 6 months.  Vegaswikian (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea is to encourage people to have a mindset that is not just administrator-focused. The length of time could be less, but hopefully not so insignificant that the person isn't able to gain a fresh perspective. And you are not telling people their services aren't wanted, you're telling them that being a part of the overall community is as important as being an admin. As far as that backlog you mention, there is a proposal under way right now to address that at Village_pump_(technical)/Proposal_by_Jc37. -- Avanu (talk) 19:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That proposal, with currently only 7 more support !votes than opposes, does not look like it will have consensus to pass. Perhaps if we solve the issue of having too few admins first, then existing admins will do more "regular editing". -- Neil N   talk to me  19:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

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

I can't see consensus for enforcing this. But maybe we could get consensus for a bot to automatically suggest to admins
 * hey, you meet these criteria X/Y/Z which the community has set as making it maybe a good idea to consider a break from adminship tasks (see WP:Adminship break for explanation). Please consider taking a 3-month break from admin tasks in the near future. If you do, use template adminship break to let people know (and if necessary, have a bureaucrat temporarily remove adminship, if you need help sticking to the break).

Rd232 talk 21:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

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

Should we create a new namespace, for essays?
The Wikipedia: namespace contains policies, guidelines -- and essays. One doesn't have to participate in many discussions before one sees contributors admonishing other contributors for "violating" an essay.

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

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

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

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

If this step was taken some contributors may wish to promote some of the most widely cited essays to guideline status. I would see that requiring a discussion as to the whether the advice in the essay is widely enough accepted, and well enough written to belong in the Wikipedia: namespace. Geo Swan (talk) 14:24, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree there is a problem (many problems; most obviously that many of them don't make sense, but have "owners" who refuse to allow them to be corrected). But I think there are already quite enough namespaces. I would say that essays should be in the User: namespace (so it could be clear who owns them), whereas anything that is consensually accepted as giving good advice and accurate documentaion of accepted practice should be in the Help: namespace (no need then to further mark it as a "policy" or a "guideline"). That would leave the Wikipedia: namespace for internal bits and pieces that people have no need to read unless they want to. Discussion pages like this should be in a Talk: namespace. But I realize that I have far too logical a mind to bother trying to reason with anyone around here. Victor Yus (talk) 16:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

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

 * Oppose: I certainly agree that there's a problem - today I stumbled upon an essay that clearly goes against policy on at least three counts. I may have been too harsh in adding a warning to that essay. :/ Such extreme examples should not be included in the project namespace at all; they can go in the user area. But many essays contain useful information that isn't covered by official policy, and before one searches for the information, there's no way to know whether it will be in an essay or in a policy. Keeping them both under the same namespace makes it easier to locate that information. ʝungle  jill  22:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * But then the (good) essays should be marked as guidelines, right? Because if you're told than a page contains just the views of an unspecified number of users, you don't know whether it is useful information or not. Victor Yus (talk) 13:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Something can be useful without being a policy. That's what the essays are for, I suppose. If something hasn't been made a policy, there's usually a reason, like lack of consensus, or a desire to treat certain issues informally. There is a way of knowing whether the information is useful - if it helps you contribute and doesn't contradict policy, then it's useful. ʝungle  jill  21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. There's already too much weight given (by some editors) to the policy-guideline-essay trichotomy; this proposal would further entrench such misguided thinking and further embolden ruleslawyers to the detriment of the project.  How many times have you seen variations on the following three themes at a noticeboard or in another discussion:
 * That's a policy, therefore there can be no exceptions...(even in your unusual circumstances which probably weren't contemplated when the policy was created).
 * That's a guideline and not a policy, therefore I am not required to follow it, and I can't be punished for continuing to violate it.
 * That's just an essay, so you can't bring it up as a justification or argument in favor of anything; it should be ignored in this discussion.
 * Essays can be particularly slipperly creatures to classify, too, because often they have much stronger elements of why, and much weaker elements of how—they may describe a particular line of reasoning or justification for a given policy or interpretation, rather than give specific directives about how to perform specific tasks.
 * Finally, I would remind the proposer of the Wikipedia policy that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

 * Thanks to everyone who weighed in here!

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

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

 * Thanks to Ben Kovitz for noting that an Essay: could encourage individuals to use it for general essays that aren't related to the functioning of WMF projects. Geo Swan (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think if someone cites an essay to help explain their opinion, that's fine. It can save a lot of typing. If anyone cites an essay and claims that it's policy, it's pretty easy to tell them that it's not. The only problem I see is with essays that contradict policies and good practice. ʝungle  jill  21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Usually, in the problematic cases, there is no explicit claim that the essay is policy (or even a guideline). What I see more is people giving shortcut links to essays in the same sort of context that they would give them to policies or guidelines, allowing readers to assume that the positions have consensus support.  I am not saying that this is always deliberate and disingenuous, though sometimes I have my suspicions, but it's a problem even if it's not.  --Trovatore (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * There's a disclaimer right above every essay. I agree that someone can always come along and completely misunderstand an essay as a policy - this is the internet after all. But let's not take lowest common denominator too far. Most editors are perfectly aware that not every wp:ACRONYM is a policy.  ʝungle  jill  22:00, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not so much that anyone explicitly thinks it's a policy. It's that editors who approve of the essay subtly give their positions the air of an authority or a consensus they may not have.  Some essays are habitual offenders on this point (WP:ATA, I'm looking at you). --Trovatore (talk) 22:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I think I suggested this a while back - mainly so that essays would have an  shortcut (instead of  ) and be easily identifiable when cited. Rd232 talk 21:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the underlying problem is that this habit of "arguing" by writing things like WP:XYZ has become far too engrained. We need to rediscover our ability to think, instead of kidding ourselves that we have an infallible set of rules that will solve every problem for us, that arguments not based explicitly on any of these rules are deficient, and that simply writing the shortcut to a page of rules carries any weight as an argument. Another poor habit (not on topic, though it's illustrated by example here) is prefacing one's responses to others' suggestions with the words Support, Oppose and similar. We're supposed to be discussing matters and reaching a conclusion having weighed up all the factors, not jumping to a conclusion right away, which inevitably leads to a competitive debating-chamber atmosphere. Victor Yus (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. But in terms of what we can do towards that, which is relevant to this thread: I think having  and shortcut   would help a little, because it would prod things towards using essays as argument (substitute for writing words - this essay says want I want to say here) rather than as authority, which   tends to imply. Rd232 talk 13:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Can anyone respond to the reason for my objection? To reiterate, it's easier to search for information if it's under the same namespace. A lot of essays contain useful information about editing Wikipedia, even if they're not formal policy. Sorry, but as a new editor, this is more important to me than providing a minor fix to a perceived problem with discussion style. ʝungle  jill  14:06, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * it's easier to search for information if it's under the same namespace - not substantially. You would just need to tick both the Wikipedia and Essay namespaces at Special:Search. On the other hand, if you knew it was (or probably was) an Essay, you could restrict your search to that namespace, which would be helpful as the Wikipedia namespace contains an awful lot of content (all WikiProjects, for example). Rd232 talk 15:03, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect that you're strongly overestimating the willingness of individuals to divide their writings into separate namespace-appropriate 'what we do' versus 'why we do it' portions. Consider the existing system with its Wikipedia: and Help: namespaces.  There's a certain amount of overlap between the two namespaces' mandates (as there would be between a future Essay: space and WP:), with two consequences.  First, the Help: namespace is underused; even documents that probably should be there often end up in the more-popular and better-known WP: space; pages that sit on the edge almost universally end up falling on the WP: side.  There's no good reason to expect this not to happen with a new Essay: space.  (Where do we put the putative essay Advanced footnote formatting?)
 * Second, we have a massive number of cross-namespace redirects, shortcuts, and hatnotes so that people who go looking for something in one space can still find it if it happens to be in the other. This cross-namespace confusion grows to epic proportions if we move all the existing essays wholesale to a new namespace, as discussions would contain a deeply perplexing mix of WP:- and E:-prefixed titles and shortcuts.  (We'd have to leave all the old redirects and shortcuts in place to avoid breaking hundreds of thousands of talk page archives, and there's nothing to prevent our thousands of experienced editors from continuing to use their familiar shortcuts.)  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:42, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, this unfortunately seriously reduces the value of the proposal, and is probably the main reason I haven't supported it. There does not seem to be any feasible way to get rid of WP: shortcuts to essays, and the existence of E: shortcuts could perversely aggravate the problem of WP: shortcuts appearing to have consensus or authority (somewhat in the same way that the existence of bike lanes makes it harder on cyclists on roads where they aren't there, or are obstructed).
 * Nevertheless there is a genuine problem here, and even if I have no solution for it, I would like to see awareness raised about it. If editors were merely reminded somehow that pretty much anyone can write pretty much anything in Wikipedia space, and create a WP: shortcut to it, that would be a significant improvement.  But how to remind them? --Trovatore (talk) 03:45, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Essay shortcuts could also start using the  shortcut regardless of what space they're in, as long as there's community consensus for it. See how a lot of Manual of Style shortcuts use   (such as MOS:NUM, MOS:LAYOUT, etc.), despite them existing in the Wikipedia: namespace. The shortcuts technically exist in articlespace but redirect to Wikipedia-space.  elektrik  SHOOS  (talk) 18:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't  believe there are any  truly  urgent  reasons for changing  the status quo. many essays reside in  user space where they  are generally  protected (by  policy)  from  unwanted editing, and many  essays are moved by  their creators to  WP space (where anyone can edit them). being  in  WP  space doesn't  make then any  more important however. I  have both kinds. 'E' space for all essays might  be a good idea, but the editing  policy  of them would need more discussion. As far as citing  essays as if they  were policy, I  believe that  there are sufficient  caveats, although  some essays have acquired community consensus to  be seriously  recognised as a guideline - perhaps those should be promoted to  guideline status.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a highly problematic path to a guideline. Personally I refrain from editing essays I don't agree with; the authors are entitled to their views and to make them known.  I imagine lots of folks do likewise.  But then, if the general theme of the essay gets consensus, it means that the views of those who disagree have not been taken into account, and change to the new guideline may be resisted.
 * Instead, the essay should remain an essay, and a new guideline should be written from scratch, with all views considered. --Trovatore (talk) 22:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

 * I think you need to read WP:PGE.
 * I also think that if you think this through, you'll see the problem. Where would you file WP:BRD and WP:TE, which are "just" essays?  What about WP:Five pillars, which is (officially) just an essay, but which 99% of newbies seem to think was the first page ever written on Wikipedia and the sole basis for all the official policies?  (Its history is summarized at its FAQ if you're curious.)
 * And then there's the whole concept of what constitutes "policy" in the first place. If you hold Jimbo Wales' view, anything you write that accurately describes the community's view on an important point is automatically a Real Policy.  So if you go to your user page, and you type "It is incredibly important to cite reliable sources when writing Wikipedia articles", then that sentence is a Real Policy and your user page (or at least that part of it) is a Real Policy.  But if you write a page that says something anti-consensus, like "We've all agreed that WhatamIdoing doesn't have to cite sources because she never makes a mistake", then that is absolutely not a policy, even if you slap a Policy template on the top of the page.
 * The bottomline is that reality is mushy. Our advice pages form a continuum.  WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is subtle and murky.  I don't think we are well served by trying to make much out of it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The point is that policies and guidelines are both expected to have consensus, whereas essays need not — they are allowed to be expressions of one POV within the Wikipedia community, even a significantly minoritarian one. If a page marked as a policy or a guideline is actually against consensus, the template designating it as a policy or a guideline will normally be removed in short order.  In contrast, it would be quite improper to rewrite an essay to reflect consensus views, if done in a way that contradicts the POV of the essay — essays are an important tool for editors to explain views that may not be the current consensus, and to argue why, in their opinion, those views should become consensus.
 * WP: shortcuts, unfortunately, elide this important distinction.
 * As I say, I don't see any easy technical remedy for the problem, because we can't actually delete the shortcuts beginning with WP: without breaking all sortsa stuff. But that does not mean there is not a problem.  (I note in passing that you gave a shortcut to an essay, in support of the proposition that essays should not be considered inferior to policies and guidelines.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

 * Technically, PGE is a supplement, and it's one that was written with the advice of the regulars at WP:POLICY to explain some of the stuff that people keep asking, but we didn't want to bloat the main policy page with. It could have just as easily been put in a FAQ page.  Or we could have added it to the policy page.  We talked about it.  The fact that we took this approach doesn't mean that the page's contents are any less valid.  (I think we would have used a different writing style, but the content would be basically the same.)
 * Your problem isn't really with shortcuts. The spelled-out name doesn't tell you what the status of the page is.
 * And, again, there's that difficult question about what's "really" policy. See the bold-faced text at WP:COMMONSENSE, which addresses the question of why that page is labeled as an "essay" rather than a "policy".  Is "use common sense" a True Policy or just "one POV" or something else?  IMO the True Policy is what the community does, which does not always line up perfectly with its official policy-tagged pages.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it did line up. That's not the point.  I made my point, but let me say it all by itself so it doesn't get lost in other stuff:  Policies and guidelines are supposed to have consensus, and if they don't, they are supposed to be changed.  Essays are not expected to have consensus — they are the opinions of their authors.  --Trovatore (talk) 00:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * So is an essay therefore "owned" by the person(s) who originally created it? If I come along and add my opinion to an essay, can the author revert me purely on the grounds that (s)he disagrees with my view? Or is (s)he expected to engage in a consensus-forming process with me? If the first, then it seems the page ought to be in user space as a proprietary page of a given user; if the second, then it seems it is "supposed to have consensus" just as much as any other page would. Or are there some unwritten rules about the editing of essays that put them somewhere in the middle ground between my two scenarios? Victor Yus (talk) 11:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Essays located at the user's space are owned by that person and not expected to be edited by others. However, if you move your essay to Wikipedia space this is seen as an invitation to others to further develop the ideas in it. So you really have the two possibilities, with the final decision in the hands of the essay writer. The difference between essays at Wikipedia space with respect to guidelines is that essays don't need to be consistent with policy or other guidelines. Diego (talk) 12:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course, if you put it in Wikipedia space, you are "inviting others to further develop the ideas in it". However, to me, "further developing the ideas" is quite different from, say, writing a completely different essay, because you think the one there is flat wrong.  When I think an essay is just completely wrong, that doesn't mean I try to censor it!
 * That's the point I'm trying to get across: An essay in Wikipedia space, while it may of course be edited by others, is still permitted to be an opinion that does not have consensus, or even that goes completely against consensus.  It's unlikely that the community will completely change the thrust of an essay, just because most editors don't agree with it.  This is different from policies and guidelines — if the community doesn't agree with a policy or guideline, it is normal for them to change it, or mark it as no longer a policy or guideline. --Trovatore (talk) 15:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of labelling shortcuts to essays with E: in the same way that shortcuts to the Manual of Style are labeled with MOS:. It solves the problem and doesn't require a new namespace, only a few users creting the shortcuts and beginning to use them consistently. This has a chance to gain traction and become widely used quickly, as it's very easy to spot. What essays should be the first to get the new shortcut style? Maybe those at E:Arguments to avoid (like E:JUSTAVOTE, E:UNENCYCLOPEDIC, E:ILIKEIT, E:OTHERSTUFF...) would represent a good test for fringe cases, since it's an essay that's actually used as a guideline. Diego (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * There is indeed a variety of Pseudo-namespaces, however they are classed as x-namespace redirects which there is a lot of opposition to. I agree that it would help with the problem of mistaking essays for policies, but I hope it won't get out of hand with every creator of an WP:essay creating a x-namespace shortcut for it. -- œ ™ 16:27, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

 * I'm not convinced that a separate namespace is the best solution, but I am concerned that... well... essays cover a wide range. At one end of the range are essays which are respected by many editors, and at the other end you have essays which are a single editor's rant - but some at the latter end of the spectrum still have their WP:ONE_EDITOR_FEELS_REALLY_STRONGLY_ABOUT_THIS redirect - and I can think of a couple which have been cited often by the essay's author in discussions, using the WP: redirect as though it's a real and legitimate rule on enwiki. I find such editing problematic, because it gives a veneer of respectability and community support to a position which has no such thing; and in discussions which need to be formally closed, we can't always rely on the closer to follow every link and carefully weigh up the level of community support for the linked page. bobrayner (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Creative Commons licence prevents deletion of certain articles?
It seems as though a strict interpretation of the Creative Commons licence prevents the deletion of articles in some cases. Please see the discussion at WT:DEL. It seems a bit barmy to me. Thanks, Bazonka (talk) 22:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Cleaning up featured sounds
I have come many sound files that are old and need sound cleanup, and have the software(and time) to clean up the sound(Adobe Audition). Where shall I upload it? Overwrite with a new version? New File? Whom do I notify to replace the file? I'm sorry, but I'm not so experienced with Wikimedia Commons file practices.Rarkenin (talk) 17:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You should probably ask this at the help desk, either here or on Commons. David  1217  What I've done 18:26, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 * No, $10,000 is never ever overpriced.Why? Because It's worth all the efforts you make to become a successful candidate at WP:RFA, including but not limited to fighting vandalism, giving a good judgement, making high amount of contribution, spending your time from your busy day, waiting for a long period, being criticized by fellow users, giving reply to all the damn questions at WP:RFA etc.In a nutshell, if a user is a experienced on Wikipedia, than instead of WP:RFA, he should be introduced with a new method of becoming a administrator.On the second point, I must say that becoming an administrator on world's largest encyclopedia that follows an ideal system of management would be an splendid experience.You can get a power and control in your hand via just a click of mouse!So, I am telling you to rethink in your mind about this subject.Also, I am not insisting the price to be such higher.It could be decided later.Keep only two word in mind- 'experienced user' and 'high amount to charity' Regards.(P.S.-I'm the same who started this thread, just my IP address is not static.)<IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 07:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You have different ideas about what adminship than I do. Since becoming an admin, I have found it much more restricting than empowering.  I certainly have to parse my words more carefully to avoid a firestorm, I'm expected to tolerate incivility from others while not being able to crack wise back.   If I make any mistake, there are dozens of people happy to point it out in multiple venues.  Power and control are overrated and overstated, as we admins aren't the leaders of the community, we are its servants.   A great many of the best leaders, voices of reason and editors around here are not admins.  Being an admin has been a splendid experience in some way but not all, and it isn't ideal management.  It is more akin to herding cats.  Dennis Brown  -  2¢   ©  10:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hit the nail right on the head for why I wouldn't want to be an admin, it would cramp my style :) I have much more variety and scope of strategies for interacting with morons than I would otherwise. But enough of this Dr Smith Lost in space 'oh the pain, the pain, adminship is such a pain' it does have it's prestige in the eyes of newbies who arrive from other boards thinking it is like the role of a sysop. The main difference in the eyes of a newbie between God and an admin is that God doesn't walk around all day long thinking he' an admin. Sysops are held to account for destroying Bulletin boards and forums, whereas here, nobody cares, it's all good. Penyulap  ☏  07:38, 11 Jun 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea of making users admins for giving money is akin to appointing some dude for public office just because they gave a million dollars to the President. That's capitalism, and I don't like the idea of capitalism on Wikipedia - or anywhere. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Plutocracy, not Capitalism, fwiw, 113.106. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Ha! the irony, to be the US president, people have to give you the millions of dollars. Penyulap  ☏  07:11, 13 Jun 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm just glad to be an American, where how much money you have doesn't effect your chances to be elected. </sarcasm> Dennis Brown  -  2¢   ©  15:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

 * Oppose Wikipedia does not choose its policies or its admins based on revenues, and thank goodness for that. We are a volunteer organization that makes a free encyclopedia, and that is all. If money comes into it, that skews the editing and reshapes the entire purpose and direction of the project. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 18:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose spam is already a serious problem here. If we started selling admin accounts then there are heaps of PR agencies, lobbyists and other advertising organisations for whom $10,000 for an admin account would be petty cash. There are plenty of ways that they could get their moneys worth. If people want to donate time or money then we should thank them for their donation. But we need to get suspicious when they start saying that it wasn't really a donation and they are entitled to something in return.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:29, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That's nonsense.What is relationship between the donation and community based volunteer work? Max Viwe  |  Viwe The Max  14:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * - David Gerard (talk) 09:52, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Link to an image: how for a reader?
In mainspace, we use images (graphic files). Quite often, there is no link= Some article set, so when our Reader clicks that image (link) it opens the image-page. Just think of it. My question is: how is that for the reader, or: how can I make that more gracious? The File:-page looks very ugly/technical/under-the-hood. For editors this could be OK (we are our 1%), but a bad experience for readers say always. Can someone explain, or point to a guideline, about this blurring of: readers only should see articles-idea? (Along the same line, templates themselves are not to be seen by readers). My actual example: iron, its infobox links (top infobox) to File:Electron shell 026 Iron.svg. -DePiep (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * First of all, each reader is a potential writer (with exception of blocked users and the like). That's the whole idea of a "wiki". Second of all, I do not happen to see anything wrong with the image description page. It has links to the image in different resolutions and some information about the image. Why do you think that such information is of no interest to the readers? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note also that in most cases the link to the file description page fulfills the requirements to credit the author of the image and to explain the terms under which the image may be reused. For example, the CC-BY-SA license used on File:Electron shell 026 Iron.svg requires that we keep intact the notice that the image is under that version of the CC-BY-SA license and that we keep intact the credit to the author.
 * In general, the only works that don't need this link are those in the public domain and those licensed CC0; there may be a few others such cases, but it's not common. In general, images used as illustrations in an article (as opposed to "decorative" icons, images working around poor font support for a character, and the like) should link to the file description page even if it's not strictly required. Anomie⚔ 02:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

 * Bitcoin is radically different in concept and form to e-gold. It is P2P and backed by solid cryptography, rather than just dispensed by a company. Donation by Bitcoin is also very easy, since you just enter the donation address into your client/wallet and specify the amount. This facilitates cross-border donations without needing an intermediary. This is the exact opposite of a 'complex donation option'.
 * The theft of Bitcoins is only as much as a problem for Bitcoin as it is for any other form of currency. It's really nothing to do with the form of Bitcoins themselves.
 * Finally, there is no law against Bitcoins. But I am not interested enough to petition WMF. I just wanted to donate and now I won't (not intended as a "that'll show ya!", just a fact). Lukys (talk) 17:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I'm well aware of the strengths and limitations of Bitcoins. I helped to write the original draft specification for the network protocol of Bitcoin by pouring through Satoshi's source code so I can say I'm a bit of an expert on the topic.  I don't think it is all that different from e-gold BTW, at least from an outsider's perspective and the problem is more one of salesmanship to the Wikimedia Foundation in terms of if they would accept it or not.

 * As far as the legality of Bitcoins as a medium of exchange, the opinions on that topic are extremely varied. I'll agree there is no law (yet) about its use, but considering that the Wikimedia Foundation represents many official chapters in different countries whose laws vary by quite a bit as well as being governed as a Utah non-profit corporation (thus under the jurisdiction of American law more directly... Utah is just the state which issued the actual corporation charter), what law actually governs the activities of the foundation can be tricky.  Accepting Bitcoins for donation purposes will be something that will need to be cleared by the general counsel of the WMF before it can be formally accepted.

 * I just don't have the energy to put forward such an ambitious proposal to get the Wikimedia Foundation to accept Bitcoins as a donation mechanism. I know what it would take as I've dealt with the WMF in the past and I have had proposals I've made become accepted by that body and have had a hand in influencing the direction of Wikimedia projects globally.  If you don't at least send a simple e-mail to that mailing list, I'm simply saying as a matter of fact that there will never be acceptance of Bitcoins for donation purposes.  If you are a fan, perhaps your attitude will change on that.  Moaning about it here on en.wikipedia is not going to get the change you may even remotely hope for as the people who read the Village Pump for the most part aren't the people who can make a difference at that level which is needed.  --Robert Horning (talk) 00:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Please don't take what I'm saying as moaning. I simply made an inquiry into something, and my curiosity has been satisfied. I'm not invested enough to take any action. I may petition for it at some point in the future. Thanks for your response anyway Lukys (talk) 18:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

What happens when a title-disambiguated article is sub-articled?
Either A: The disambiguated part of the title is kept in, or B: it is taken out. All across Wikipedia, I've seen both of these used, and I don't think it's been formalised yet. Perhaps now is the time. An example of the latter is with the article Mercury (planet) which has been split off into many other articles, including Atmosphere of Mercury - note NOT Atmosphere of Mercury (planet). So, what's the consensus on this? :)--Coin945 (talk) 14:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

 * In article titles, the general rule is to only disambiguate where necessary. Is Atmosphere of Mercury ambiguous? If not, then no additional disambiguation is needed. Categories may be somewhat different and I haven't kept up with the guidelines there. older ≠ wiser 14:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

 * In this case, since all other types of Mercury (like the element or the God) don't have an atmosphere, the planet specification isn't needed.   Th e S te ve   04:37, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's quite formalized. The most relevant section of policy here is WP:PRECISION. Essentially, disambiguators are a necessary evil. The way to think about it is from the perspective of a person trying to find a particular topic they are searching for. A person searching for the planet is probably going to type "Mercury". The person searching for the god is probably going to type "Mercury" and the person searching for quicksilver is probably going to type in "Mercury".  How do we maximize each of these three people reaching the article they want with the littlest hassle? Because all three targets are common and likely searches, we create a disambiguation page at the main title "Mercury"; thereby, all three of our "searchers" reache their intended target in "two clicks". However, if one of the three ambiguous titles is a much more likely search target (far more people will be searching for it than any other), then we make that one the main title—just "Mercury"—and put all the others on a disambiguation page with "(disambiguation)" in the title so that the most people searching for just Mercury will reach their intended target in one click, and everyone else (but fewer) will reach their target in three clicks: first to the wrong title, then through the disambiguation hatnote and then the click through to their intended target. See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The disambiguator in the title is thus, only there because it's necessary. No one (but a Wikipedia regular like me and maybe you) would search for "Mercury (something)". So if a "subarticle" of the topic has a name that is not confusing with any other article unlike the parent page, it would never take a disambiguator. So Mercury (Planet) and Mercury (element) by necessity here, but never Atmosphere of Mercury (planet) because no one would ever search for that title and there's no other title it could be confused with.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Notability - a question
In connection with an on-going dispute I am engaged with, can someone involved with "notability" as a policy please tell me if they have any evidence to show that a man by the name of Willielmus fil' (filius) Pauli is notable? With thanks, doktorb wordsdeeds 20:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * If I have found the correct person, he was a member of Parliament in the UK around the year 1300 (see Preston (UK Parliament constituency)), which means he should pass WP:POLITICIAN. If there is sufficient material to write more than simply what years he held this post, I don't see an issue. Chris857 (talk) 20:43, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that might be a bit of a stretch considering that you're talking about the year 1300. But as you say, if there is enough material, it might be ok. By the way, are you talking about the person making a big habit out of making links to non-existent articles? Just because someone passes a notability criterion doesn't mean their name must automatically be given a link, especially when the link points to nothing. -- Avanu (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

You two have hit the very issue I have been trying to get at. Is it not the case that, say with an episode of a sitcom or maybe a substitute footballer (of either/any code), policy usually discourages individual articles? And to the main question I'm leaning to - would it be constructive to red-link a person who might not have enough material for an article in their own right, or would it not be constructive? Avanu - your sentence is one I might quote in future, because it goes to the heart of the discussion/dispute. "Just because someone passes a notability criterion doesn't mean their name must automatically be given a link, especially when the link points to nothing" doktorb wordsdeeds 21:01, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * If no separate article is going to exist, but we can demonstrate that the object is "notable", then, perhaps, a redirect is going to exist? In such case there is nothing wrong with creating links (red or blue) to this redirect (potential or actual) - just as with any other article (potential or actual). The only exception (that doesn't apply to other articles) is the article that is (is going) to be the redirect target: we wouldn't make such links in that article, because we do not create links from the article to itself. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I would say between WP:OVERLINK and WP:REDLINK, unless a link is about to be made into a real article within a very narrow time frame, the text doesn't need to be linked. -- Avanu (talk) 22:47, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Well, WP:OVERLINK has the same exception that I have mentioned - "Do not link to a page that redirects back to the page the link is on." . And concerning WP:REDLINK, which part would you consider relevant? I see a contrary statement: "In general, a red link should be allowed to remain in an article if it links to a term that could plausibly sustain an article, but for which there is no existing candidate article, or article section, under any name."... The consensus seems to be that red links are desirable in general (for example, see Village pump (proposals)/Archive 89). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * The problem is not the existence of a red link. The problem is someone going out of their way to make NEW red links. If you run across a red link here or there, where someone intended perhaps to create an article, and you leave it alone, ok.. no harm, status quo remains unchanged. BUT, if you are running around the encyclopedia generating hundreds of new links that go nowhere, that is not improving anything. -- Avanu (talk) 23:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * And..? The users are free to do as little work, as they want. If you accept that there is nothing wrong with those links, what is the objection? Also, red links are improving something: they show, which articles can be created. Furthermore, when the article gets created, the creator doesn't have to look where the links would have to go. Some advantage, no disadvantage - thus adding those links (where the blue links would be suitable etc.) is an improvement (although a small one). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:14, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Cheers guys. One more question from this - how long would you say was a reasonable time between creating a red link and starting an article? Does policy already exist which may help answer this for me? doktorb wordsdeeds 22:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I doubt there is a hard or soft timeframe on that. -- Avanu (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I am "almost sure" that no such policy exists, for the simple reason that there is nothing wrong with red links as such - or at least I (and a major part of the community) cannot think of anything. Can you..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * There is nothing wrong with a glass of water, or even eight glasses of water. Doctors like it when you tell them you drink a lot of water. But hundreds of glasses of water and now you're drowning or killing yourself. One behavior might be beneficial, one is destructive and unhelpful. If someone legitimately intends to do something with these links, the intent is clear that they're just doing work in Wikipedia. If they are just creating hundreds and hundreds of placeholder links, we don't need that. There's real work to be done, and making up a zillion false links isn't useful. -- Avanu (talk) 23:40, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Sorry, but we are not talking about glasses of water. I am not sure this metaphor is helpful. "If they are just creating hundreds and hundreds of placeholder links, we don't need that." - yes, that is your assertion. I know you think that having many red links is bad (by the way, please, keep the terms correct and neutral - those are not "false links"). I am trying to find out why do you think that it is bad. Maybe you think there is an obvious reason why having many red links is worse than having none, but I don't see it at the moment. If the case is going to be rather complex, take your time, write an essay and give me a link. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Yes, which is why I'm trying to build consensus against a certain attitude towards them. It is not right that an editor is carrying on creating hundreds upon hundreds of red links with no intention of creating articles ("I have no timeframe", to paraphrase a response to a direct question). When you couple this with the potential for non-notable people to be red-linked and subequently redirected to their 'base' article and you have a recipe for disaster. I've no problem with some red-links when there's a chance an article will be created; I have a serious concern about creating dozens of them across hundreds of articles for no greater good other than the desperate race for kudos doktorb wordsdeeds 23:22, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Sorry, but I do not really see any argument here... Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place... Could you please state your argument in the form like "X is bad. Y is X. Z is Y. Thus Z is bad." or similar..? For otherwise it would seem that you consider the edit count to be something like an "award" and object to users increasing it without "deserving" it - and I am sure it is not the argument you try to present. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Do you think it is appropriate that a single user is creating so many red links in the links below, to name just a few, with no intention to create articles?

 * 1) City_of_York_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
 * 2) Radnorshire (UK Parliament constituency)
 * 3) Preston (UK Parliament constituency)
 * 4) Portsmouth_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
 * 5) Plymouth_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
 * 6) Pembroke_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
 * 7) Kingston_upon_Hull_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

(With much more besides) doktorb wordsdeeds 23:47, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Well, I can't think of anything wrong with that (unless those articles are going to be the redirect targets - in which case the advantages and disadvantages would probably be rather well ballanced). That's why I'm asking you to write down the reason why you consider all this to be inappropriate. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I've explained it plenty of times already. It is surely inappropriate for an editor to be creating countless red links in this fashion, without creating articles, expecting others to tidy up behind them and disrupting the project by filling hundreds of articles with edits which contribute no constructive end result. doktorb wordsdeeds 00:14, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree with you, Doktor, very strongly. These are members of the Mother of Parliaments, and there is no doubt whatsoever that we need to have articles on them. The existence of these redlinks is a warning signal that these need to be created by somebody with the time and resources to do so. I have done the same thing myself with various districts of the Wisconsin State Senate, and have in some cases been able to come back later and turn some of those redlinks to blue. But my failure to find the time to fix them all is no justification for removing the redlinks from Wikipedia! -- Orange Mike |  Talk  00:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you think it is appropriate to redlink Willielmus fil' (filius) Pauli, a man from the 13th century of whom there is almost nothing known other than the obvious? Is that good, or is that bad, for the project as a whole? doktorb wordsdeeds 00:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * "I've explained it plenty of times already." - where? At the moment I can only see assertions that "It is surely inappropriate for an editor to be creating countless red links in this fashion, without creating articles" and the like (expressed in different words), but no valid argument to support them (I hope it should be clear that proof by assertion is not a valid argument). Well, I assert that there is nothing inappropriate with creating red links. Now what? Which assertion wins? Well, mine has an argument: red links are beneficial (with further arguments supporting this statement), thus adding red links is beneficial too. And if there is nothing wrong with red links, there is nothing to "to tidy up behind them". So, once again: why do you think that there is something wrong with red links - or with a group of red links, if there is a difference? Why do you think that red links are worse than nothing? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, maybe I'll try to "extrapolate" an argument from that "to tidy up behind them"... It is going to be rather speculative, but I hope you will correct me, if necessary. I guess you might be thinking that red links make Wikipedia look unfinished, and that is a bad thing. That would be an argument - it shows that conclusion follows from the premise. But, of course, I am going to deny the premise: there is nothing wrong with making Wikipedia look unfinished - well, it is unfinished. And it will be. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:53, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think this is primarily a matter of taste and style. There seems to be an obvious divide here in those that think redlinks are a prompt to editors to get more involved, and those who see redlinks as an eternal 'under construction' sign and eyesore. My personal take is that if people were inclined to create an article, they would simply do so. Experienced editors don't need to see a red link in order to know how to make an article, and new editors will probably do best getting their feet wet by simply editing existing articles. I don't see an overwhelming benefit to red links, and while I wouldn't go out of my way to remove one that already exists, I see no point in someone deliberately creating hundreds of them. Anything in moderation is more likely to be good, but being driven to excess is simply disruptive. -- Avanu (talk) 02:03, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Well, if it is "primarily a matter of taste and style", then please, try to change your taste. "[T]hose that think redlinks are a prompt to editors to get more involved" - no, they are not a "prompt", but an indication that an article does not exist and a normal link when the article gets created. "[T]hose who see redlinks as an eternal 'under construction' sign and eyesore''" - it is not "eternal" and there is nothing wrong with "under construction" signs. And if you don't like the fact that they are red, edit your personal CSS file and change their colour to, let's say, green or grey.
 * "Experienced editors don't need to see a red link in order to know how to make an article" - once again, the red link is not an indication how an article can be created, but that an article can be created. Experienced editors are not omniscient and do not have a list of potential articles in front of their eyes all the time. Also, the red links make creation of the article slightly easier: one doesn't have to type out the title, just to click on the link.
 * "I don't see an overwhelming benefit to red links" - yes, the benefit is small, but I do not see even a small real benefit of the absence of red links.
 * "Anything in moderation is more likely to be good, but being driven to excess is simply disruptive." - you still have to show when that "excess" is achieved and what real problems are caused.
 * So, in short, on one side (pro-red-link) we have arguments and personal taste and on the other side (anti-red-link) - just personal taste. Sorry, but arguments tend to win. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No, we have reasonable arguments for both sides. I'll rephrase the 'arguments' on the con side for you. Redlinks get in the way of reading text. A unnecessary link or under construction link serves no purpose in a website and should be removed. If an editor is going to go out of the way to make a link, they should be focused on creating the content to go with the link, not simply using that as a directive for others to do the work 'later'. If the red link is created and the content is never created, you have essentially focused on work that served no purpose, and without proof that redlinks spur editor involvement, the implication that they are a primary motivator in article creation is spurious. When I used the phrase "matter of taste", I was referring to the fact that both sides here have reasonable arguments and the best one can hope for is a compromise position, where it is understood that redlinks should not be created just for their own sake, but because the editor creating the link has the intent to actually create the content for it. -- Avanu (talk) 13:11, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * OK, that's better. Finally, the arguments that have actually been given "black on white".
 * "Redlinks get in the way of reading text." - do you think they "get in way" more that "blue links"? I do not find text with links that much harder to read than text without them, although, perhaps, things are different for other people... Still, we are not supposed to add red links where blue links would be inappropriate anyway.
 * "A unnecessary link or under construction link serves no purpose in a website and should be removed." - yes, but what links are "unnecessary"? Also, in this case, everything seems to apply to blue and red links alike.
 * "If an editor is going to go out of the way to make a link, they should be focused on creating the content to go with the link, not simply using that as a directive for others to do the work 'later'." - I completely disagree. The users are free to do as little work, as they want, provided that it is at least slightly beneficial (compared with doing nothing). We keep the cleanup tags for the same reason.
 * "If the red link is created and the content is never created, you have essentially focused on work that served no purpose, and without proof that redlinks spur editor involvement, the implication that they are a primary motivator in article creation is spurious." - red link still indicates that the potential article does not exist. That's what it is meant to do. I don't think I have claimed that red links "are a primary motivator in article creation" (although I am not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean).
 * "When I used the phrase "matter of taste", I was referring to the fact that both sides here have reasonable arguments and the best one can hope for is a compromise position, where it is understood that redlinks should not be created just for their own sake, but because the editor creating the link has the intent to actually create the content for it." - well, in this case I do not find this compromise a very good idea, for, well, the sides are not nearly equal... I suppose a better compromise would be like the one agreed in Russian Wikipedia concerning one of their letters: editors are free to add or avoid adding red links (that are otherwise appropriate) and are not to be criticised for that, however, removal of red links (again - that are otherwise appropriate) is, er, discouraged.
 * And in the name of conciliation, could you, please, try to calm down the other editor on your side, before he gets himself blocked for personal attacks, edit warring or refusal to follow consensus (edits like make me fear that it might end up like this)..? Oh, and it would be nice if all the other parallel discussions (like the ones initiated with edits  or ) would end up with a link here or something like that... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 14:00, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * As is stated by others above, if a subject can plausibly sustain its own article, then it's perfectly fine for someone to turn it into a red link to let others know that such an article has not been made yet. We have plenty of lists that do just such a thing. There's nothing wrong with it and there's certainly no time limit for when an red linked subject has to be turned into an article. Silver  seren C 04:00, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Almost any word or phrase can be shown to have notability. I give you your own comment above as evidence:
 * As is stated by others above, if a subject can plausibly sustain its own article, then it's perfectly fine for someone to turn it into a red link to let others know that such an article has not been made yet. We have plenty of lists that do just such a thing. There's nothing wrong with it and there's certainly no time limit for when an red linked subject has to be turned into an article.
 * The point is that while someone can easily establish notability for a lot of things, that doesn't mean we Wikilink everything. As I said above, in moderation, I see no problem with an occasional red link or two, but intentionally creating hundreds, if one has no intention of creating the associated articles in a timely fashion, is nothing more than vandalism. -- Avanu (talk) 04:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I see nothing wrong with or vandalistic about creating thousands of red links with no intention of creating the articles (and there's nothing to "clean up" about this) but, and it's a very big but, if an only if the editor is very carefully vetting each such link to determine that a viable article can and probably should exist at that red link. The difference between the two is night and day. If the person is creating hundreds of links and is not vetting them, they should be stopped cold, and ultimately blocked if they don't stop. I don't think anyone has identified very clearly the divide between those two very different types of activities.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:57, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with you there. But, in this case, it appears that the red links in question are links to Parliament members throughout history, all of which should indeed be notable and should have pages and do meet our guidelines implicitly. Therefore, I don't see the issue here. It just seems like some users don't like red links for some reason. Silver  seren C 06:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:POLITICIAN doesn't mean they get an automatic pass, and especially so if you're talking hundreds of years ago. In fact, it specifically says "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article'." It is complete BS to think that some random member of Parliament from 700 years ago is going to have an extensive history beyond "Adam de Biri paid a tax in 1332." And that simply isn't all that notable since LOTS of people have paid taxes. It is BS to just trust that someone will populate thousands of red links with legitimate notable information. If they have a common habit of making good on such behavior, then ok, it is a reasonable thing, but for the average editor, sorry, no, you are living in a dream. -- Avanu (talk) 06:26, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

This is incredibly frustrating. I will try, again, to outline my position. Let us look at the City of York article, above. There are red-links for every member of Parliament going back to the 13th century onwards to 1510 and then on again to the the 1620s. To borrow a phrase from above, this looks like a massive "under construction" sign. To make is worse, this user has shown no intention of creating articles. I have asked the editor what timeframe they have to create them. Their answer, on their user page for all to see, is "I have no timeframe". My conclusion - this editor is simply creating redlinks in some kind of rush to look useful or busy with no intention to help the project as a whole, or the specific politics/constituency projects. The City of York article has been "under construction" in this way since January this year. Further to all *this* - 13th century members of parliament were essentially noble men straight and true picked for reasons we'll never know and came and went almost at their whim. There is almost no record of who they were or why they were chosen. To red-link a noble man from the 13th century as part of some "pure Wikipedia" mindset is grossly idealistic. I ask again - as it was not answered above - "Do you think it is appropriate to redlink Willielmus fil' (filius) Pauli, a man from the 13th century of whom there is almost nothing known other than the obvious? Is that good, or is that bad, for the project as a whole?"

As Avanu says, "WP:POLITICIAN" is not a free pass, and should not be the basis of an argument for retaining red links I can't believe that other editors are happy with an editor creating hundreds, if not thousands, of red links in a manner bordering on vandalism, leaving them sitting there for the best part of 6 months if not longer, on the off chance that the existence of a redlink will act as some form of 'Batsignal' across the Internet to an expert in the field. It looks like disruptive behaviour from the editor, it resembles vandalism from afar and unprofessional close-up, and shows no sign of being a scheme that's actually generated user content at all. If there is no clear evidence put to me here that this editor has done much good in the work they've created, I have no hesitation in reverting each and every example I can find, because this discussion and others has been all the proof I need that nobody can justify such behaviour. doktorb wordsdeeds 06:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Doktorbuk, I see nothing in this discussion or others as proof that redlinks should be removed from MPs! You have also stated here that I have no intention of creating these articles, but you know I've already created thousands of them, and contniue to create many every day. If it makes you feel better about redlinks in general, I will concentrate primarily on articles for these newly linked MPs, those pre-16th century, as I've already done at Lincoln, Kent, Devizes etc., so you can see the information is out there for them to be created (although reliable sources are already clear in the constituency articles). This seems to me an example of someone not liking redlinks, but I'm loath to see a long-term editor wasting his time worrying about redlinks to MPs, so am quite happy to concentrate on creating articles. Boleyn (talk) 07:07, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I know it's early and I, for one, have only had one cup of tea so far, but could I ask a direct question. Would you accept my removing all the red links from MPs prior to an agreed cut off point (say, pre-18th century)? doktorb wordsdeeds 07:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Just realised you also posed this question here, so for the sake of anyone following the discussion, my answer was no, I don't agree with removing redlinks to MPs from any year. Boleyn (talk) 08:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Not sure how many more times I need to say it: WP:REDLINK suggests it's ok to link once from an article to another article that can reasonably be created. As MP's are notable by definition, it's reasonable to suggest the article could be created.  As such, redlinks are valid.  Didn't the software once use that to determine "most wanted articles"?? (✉→BWilkins←✎) 18:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with those redlinks and there is no need to stipulate a timeframe for article creation. Agathoclea (talk) 18:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I should weigh in here, as I've created a fair number of (relatively) early MP articles; I'm not doing so very actively now, but I'll probably come back around to them again. We're fortunate in that we have exceedingly good documentation for Westminster MPs in the form of the History of Parliament publications, which are in the process of being digitized and placed online. (Some periods are still being researched and written.) Each biography of a member in there is written on the basis of several primary and secondary sources. MPs have generally been held to be notable under WP:Politician as "members of a national...legislature". That said, I think doktorb's implicit point, that members in, say, 1300, can't really be said to be notable members of a national legislature in the spirit of that guideline is valid. I would tend to follow the rule that anyone for whom a biography is written in the History of Parliament is notable (although this doesn't help us for the volumes still being written); I don't see why our coverage here should be inferior to that work. As a corollary, however, an MP within the period covered (1386-1868, when they finish) who does not have a biography is presumptively non-notable; if the History of Parliament writers can't find enough material, we're not going to be able to. For individuals pre-1386, I would tend to assume they're not notable unless demonstrated by other sources.

All that said, I would prefer to take a lenient attitude towards redlinks. The approach of "painting them blue" in response to challenge by creating large numbers of sub-stubs seems to me more harmful to the reader (by discouraging them from clicking on bluelinks) than simply leaving them as redlinks. Choess (talk) 05:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I think the non-notable aspect is not an appropriate use of the term other than in the Wikipedia sense of notability that has some strange connotations. 14th Century members of parliament still are notable even if they aren't published in some book, but I'd agree that finding documentation about them or from earlier eras would be problematic at best.  It would be like trying to find documentation about a 1st century Roman Senator... some will have enough documentation to write up an article but many wouldn't.  Regardless, I'd say that anybody who became a Roman Senator in the ancient Roman Empire was very much notable.  The likelihood of finding any sort of documentation about many of those Senators, on the other hand, seems to be quite unlikely.

 * Mostly, I agree with you that it will be unlikely that many of these members of parliament or other early historical figures that names may exist on some list but that anything approaching a short biography of these people much less writing an article on Wikipedia about them seems to be remote. Still, I fail to see what the point of prohibiting red links is all about, particularly because there may be some documentation that is buried or otherwise not currently in circulation which may contain information useful for such a biography in the future.  The people themselves may be notable, but the documentation might be very weak.  Heck, I'd dare say that even documentation on kings or even pharaohs from ancient times (clearly "notable" people) may have weak documentation or even non-existent documentation.  That the article about those people couldn't be written because of the scarcity of the documentation is true, I still fail to see why a redlink shouldn't be made for those people.  --Robert Horning (talk) 15:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I was using notability strictly in the Wikipedia-technical sense. Obviously, someone returned to Parliament in 1331 was of more moment than some villein swinking in the same year, even if all we know of the MP is his name. I think, however, that you err in trying to read redlinks as a marker of importance in the historical sense, rather than having meaning strictly in terms of Wikipedia. A redlink is simply an assertion that the material exists to create a policy-compliant standalone article about the subject of the redlink, whenever someone gets around to it. It's possible for some subject to be worthy of note in the greater historical sense, but not be suitable for an encyclopedia article here through lack of material. In that case, it shouldn't have a redlink, because the lack of material means that we can *never* fulfill the implicit promise made by the redlink that an article will someday be created. "What Song the Syrens sang" may not be "beyond all conjecture," but there's no reason to redlink it unless we at least know a little of the lyrics. Obviously, the state of knowledge can change, and a subject that was once considered inappropriate to link might be redlinked as new material comes to light. But we shouldn't redlink simply on the conjecture that such material might someday emerge. By presenting the subject in the appropriate context (say, a dated entry in a list of pharaohs), we've conveyed all we can of the subject and thereby fulfilled our duty to it. Choess (talk) 00:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * If a topic would be notable but is not currently sourceable then there is almost always going to be a suitable parent topic that would be suitable for a redirect. So if you've tried to create an article for that redlink and given up for lack of sources then the logical thing to do is usually going to be the creation of a redirect. That way in the long run most redlinks will wind up as either articles or redirects. On a broader note we have something of a chicken and egg situation on Wikipedia, at newpage patrol there are some who consider that it is a problem if articles start as orphans and yet there are people who don't appove of redlinks..... My response is that both orphans and redlinks are perfectly acceptable as ways to build the pedia.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  01:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

 * My problem with a standard of suggesting something doesn't deserve a redlink because there is insufficient information to ever create an article is that it demonstrates a level of omnipotence that is something I can only find in a diety. I am being completely serious here too.  How can you possibly possess the sum of all human knowledge to such a degree, even in a specialized topic, where you can possibly know every single bit of trivia and source of knowledge about that topic?  I find that to be arrogant to an extreme.  It is also setting up a standard for redlinks that they were never intended to carry and is something that I think is not only wrong but foolish and contrary to the very spirit of Wikipedia.  They should be welcomed so far as it is in the very logo of the project, where the missing puzzle piece in the Wikipedia ball is the redlink.  Wikipedia will never be complete and to think that Wikipedia ever could be complete without any redlink at all is totally absurd beyond anything I can imagine.

 * I'll even go so far as to suggest that redirect done to remove redlinks are improperly done and indeed ought to be deleted. It is an important part of the project to have those links, to let people know they are on the frontier of the project, that their contributions to those areas if they may have some knowledge about those people and topics is not only useful but extremely helpful.  There are many sources of information that can be used to fill out some of these articles if the time comes, and you may be surprised out of what obscure corner of humanity may have a book that nobody else has seen for several centuries or some random floating bit of data that can be tied in to make a difference to get an article written.  You should not ever have to put a link to the standard of an AfD, and that is exactly what it seems like is being done.  A redlink simply implies that the topic or person may be notable and significantly that a reader of the article may otherwise want to find some information about that topic in some manner in context to the article that the link is included.  The redlink itself is what identifies simply that Wikipedia hasn't gone there yet.  Period.  It doesn't imply there isn't anything to write about the topic, it only indicates that there hasn't been anything written about the topic.  --Robert Horning (talk) 03:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Notability Policies and Guidelines

 * Notice - There are ongoing AfDs at Articles for deletion/List of Czech Americans and Articles for deletion/List of Irish Americans where the issue of WP:NOTDIR and possible application to other Guidelines is under discussion. Additional community discussion is requested. Disclaimer: I am the editor who submitted these AfDs. --Tgeairn (talk) 17:48, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

User pages redirecting into article space RfC
there is sufficient confusion over the issue to warrant a RfC here. Penyulap  ☏  19:46, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

"WP:DICTIONARY" should be banned
Can we please get everyone to stop using it as a solve-all policy?? In the wiki article on stubs, it explains that in its simplest form, a good stub simply defines the topic - giving the most vital information in a concise form: "Begin by defining or describing your topic. Avoid fallacies of definition. Write clearly and informatively. State, for example, what a person is famous for, where a place is located and what it is known for, or the basic details of an event and when it happened". This lowest common denominator the article speaks of, my friends, is the so-called "dicdef" that gets up some Wikipedians' noses to no end..... and it really annoys me. All over Wikipedia, I see good stubs being deleted on the grounds of being "merely" a dicdef... even though that's exactly how stubs are supposed to start out... (A recent example is here - obviously its not a good article by any means, but speedy deletion....??? .... seriously?!?!?). I say we spread the word that it is no longer a rationale for deleting those types of articles)

Oh, and while I'm here, I may as well inquire about something else: Many-a-time has a poor little editor (me :D) battled in vain against the cruel wiki-tyrants who have tried to rid the world of wiki-stubs on the basis that their current status was not perfect, even though they were on encyclopedic topics. While the Wiki-verse is still undecided over this controversial issue of current state vs. potential, I'd just like to point out a certain clause in the Stub article (and this is just 1 example): "A stub is an article containing only one or a few sentences of text that, although providing some useful information, is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, and that is capable of expansion".

I would greatly like to see these 2 topics discussed below. Yours sincerely, a disillusioned wikipedia editor.--Coin945 (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

 * On Reveal, it's just a PROD so you can go ahead and remove if it you disagree with the statement; if the PROD nominator still feels it is wrong, they can take it to AFD.
 * But the question is, is that necessarily wrong? I think it's not so much that NOTDICTIONARY failed, but that people forget that we have no DEADLINE.  NOTDICTIONARY should only be applied when we have an article that looks like it can't be expanded further but otherwise appears to be a dictionary entry (likely backed by word entomology).  It is still proper advice, because Wikitionary is set up to handle content that is like that, but not here.  But applying it to starting articles is not appropriate. --M ASEM  (t) 16:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Checking what NOTDICT says presently as well: "Articles should begin with a good definition or description, but articles that contain nothing more than a definition should be expanded with additional encyclopedic content. If they can not, Wikipedia is not the place for them: look to Wiktionary instead." I believe this is actually capturing the essence of your issues on what we actually should be doing. It contains the key aspects of expanding and only deleting if there's no further expansion possible, which is obviously not the case of Reveal. --M ASEM (t) 16:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * As Masem says Wikipedia is not a dictionary addresses and discusses these points at length in several places. You should read the actual policy.  The policy is not the problem, and (as our oldest content policy) is far from "silly".  Uncle G (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * As it stands the linked article is just an unreferenced dictionary definition, in fact it could just be original research WP:OR: I'm not even sure 'The Reveal' is a thing. A stub should at least indicate or establish why the topic is notable even if that just consists of one or two referenced sentences. It provides no reasoning for why it's a notable topic and no indication that it can be expanded, it just looks like an OR dictionary definition with no indication of how it could be expanded (I don't see a similar definition in wikitionary either). So I am not surprised it has been prodded. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * And that's why WP:AGF is a policy. I'm not an arts person, but I am aware of enough about the medium that the term "Reveal" as listed on that page seems to be an applicable concept to the medium.  Oh sure, I want to see refs, I want to see works created for demonstrating this, or which authors are known for this, at some point. There's clear ways it can be expanded, if that material does exist (and thus AGF that it actually does exist).  But enough to discredit that as a bad stub that should be deleted at this stage of the game? Heck no. --M ASEM  (t) 16:46, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary has had this sense for "reveal" . It went to RFV and came back with quotations. Uncle G (talk) 16:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I saw that reveal, it's not the same thing as the usage the article above describes. They are speaking of the event of the grand reveal at the end of a magic trick. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No. When it was proposed for deletion, the article also said "book, play, or film plot". Uncle G (talk) 22:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, first of all, don't let this discussion be based around "The Reveal" article. That was just 1 article I came across while hopping through the Special:newpages page. Whether it should be kept or not is irrelevant to my point, and was merely a recent example that crossed my mind while writing the previous comment. Second of all, it actually is a real thing, and a very important part of magic, cinema etc. Well... hmmm... perhaps if "The Prestige (film)" has anything to say about it, the correct title of the article should be Prestige (magic). I dunno.. anyways I do personally think that the article is notable.. but again, that's irrelevant. Thirdly, I was not ridiculing the policy on deletion. I do understand that it is vitally important, and I have read it before.. and I guess in the spur of the moment of writing the comment I just thought why not get rid of it altogether.. even though in retrospect that is just a ridiculous notion and totally disruptive. An added passage explaining when the policy should not be used is in order though.--Coin945 (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * What I think we're saying is that the language you want is there, just not flat-out "don't try to delete stubs that look like dict defs". We mention possible expansion, and only deletion when expansion is exhausted and still looks like a dictionary definition.  Stubs, by definition, are articles waiting for expansion. So the language you want is there; if there's a repeated problem of one or a few editors nominating such for deletion, that's a behavior problem to be remedies and I don't think we need to change policy for that. --M ASEM  (t) 17:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * And that's exactly my point. Is there wiki-consensus that you should not delete an article so long as there is room for expansion? Is this considered by the majority to be the "correct" stance? If so, how is the best way to officially proclaim this the correct view, and end the ambiguity and uncertainty regarding this area of deletion?? (trust me... no matter how clear the policies are, this is still an extremely contentious issue on the AFD stage). Fine, let's not change policy, but if it about editors' attitudes, then what's the next step?--Coin945 (talk) 17:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, first, if they are being tagged as PROD, you can remove the prod, possibly explaining the reasoning via the talk page if you feel necessary. If the editor that added the PROD insists, they will take it to AFD where the article will be judged by consensus. Most likely if we are talking cases similar to Reveal above, this AFD will close rather easily in terms of "keep".  Likely, this will show the editor how stubs should work (that they should be given time to expand, etc.), but outside of that, or discussing it more with the editor, there's little else we can do from this "first time" incident.
 * Now, if the editor keeps doing this, with every time the PROD being removed and AFD being closed as "keep", and yet they continue to persist, that's when you start taking about user behavior modifications via either something like RFC for users. Particularly if they have been approached before and told that these PRODs/AFDs are a problem because they're targeting developing articles.  The repeated PROD/AFD can become disruptive, and thus we use RFC/U to try to help them adapt their behavior, and barring that, go to the next step of dispute resolution, WP:AN.
 * But given that our policies and guidelines are clear that stub articles should be treated as developing articles, there's not much else we can do. --M ASEM (t) 18:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I really don't think a Wiki-policy war is the best way to go at this. It will only antagonise people... Making decisions without informing anyone, and then rudely shoving policy shortcuts in poeple's faces when they try to defy you is the sort of attitude that led to my comment in the first place..... sending poeple to issue-resolving places due to their (supposed) "insubordination" can't possible help the situation either.... :/--Coin945 (talk) 13:32, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * When an editor continues going against established consensus after being told it was a problem, that's the only option left short of block/banning, which we really don't want to do. The point of an RFC/U is to get the editor to recognize such cases; yes, there will be shoving of various policies in their faces at this, but this is the point if they've been ignoring them or interpreting them different. Mind you, this practice outside of a structured discussion can be harmful and why we'd want to see other routes to resolve taken first. --M ASEM  (t) 15:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * But, the thing is, many of the people who work at AFD on a regular basis seem to think whole heartedly that the thing we've been discussing is wrong. Totally wrong. The question is, are we right? It's hard to take the de-facto morally high ground when this is still a rather contentious issue. For every policy/guideline that supports our argument, there another one that argues the opposite. It's wrong to say we're right "just... cos", and have an attitude that's like "you're wrong, so deal with it". An intelligent discussion must take place first in order to reach agreement on what the "correct" stance is. Otherwise we'll just end up annoying each other and turning arguments heated, in a cacophony of misunderstanding, vagueness and confusion.--Coin945 (talk) 17:33, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

If WP:DICTIONARY should be banned, then perhaps we should then merge Wiktionary into Wikipedia? --MuZemike 18:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I removed the PROD. I expanded the text and found some explanatory references (which I placed on the talk page). If anyone else would like to help contribute, they would be welcome. - jc37 21:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Amazing Article re: use of Wikipedia Information on ESPN.com (content theft)
http://deadspin.com/5924851/espn-entertainment-writer-has-a-wikipedia-habit — Preceding unsigned comment added by <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Propose 'Toast' Block
No, I am not advocating that we eliminate slightly browned bread.

I am proposing that we create a new type of block mechanism that allows for a block to be enacted on a timer. Some blocks today are implemented on a primarily administrative basis against newcomers that have no ill will toward Wikipedia, they are just ignorant of the rules and end up making mistakes. A specific type of block that comes to mind is the block that happens when Acme Guillotine & Cake Suppliers, Inc discovers Wikipedia. They get ambitious and make a new article about their company under their new username AcmeSlicersandSlices and start editing promotionally. Before long, an admin notices this and smacks them with a block. Poor Acme, all they wanted was a chance for the world to know how great they are at making world renowned execution devices and popular pastries for peckish party people.

So, now they're blocked. They're confused. And the boss has finished his cake and is eying the poor sap who volunteered for the PR department, and wondering about how to best use the promo-model guillotine XT-1000 on his desk.

So, let's cut, if we will, to the chase. I think it would be nice to give some editors a good faith window to ask questions, get their affairs in order, and transition without hard feelings to a new account. After all, we do want to retain promising young editors who have everything to prove, don't we? Immediate unexpected blocks, especially when you're new, come off hard and abrasive. And when you're just doing your best, why do we need to put their head on the chopping block for that? Let's look for ways to get more cake, and even maybe eat it too. A block that takes effect 1 week later, 2 days later, whatever, would be a nicer way to say... we're giving you notice... now its up to you to avoid the inevitable. And so we end up with a much happier editor, which is clearly, icing on the cake. -- Avanu (talk) 21:32, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

PS - I call it toast block because it pops up after a time. -- Avanu

 * I am not sure I understand... How is it different from simply warning first and then blocking after the warnings do not work? And, well, why do you think that a notice "You will be blocked after x days!" is going to be perceived as nice, friendly and non-confusing? I would expect it to be perceived as more confusing than a simple block (or warning)... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

 * In some cases, our policy does not allow for a warning. It is clear that a block is the only appropriate action. It is friendlier to say, "You will be unable to edit after 7 days. Please take measures to create a new account. If you have questions, please ask at the appropriate forum or on this Talk page." -- Avanu (talk) 02:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds absolutely bonkers. The blocks you are talking about, the ones without warning are generally performed when the account is spamming and has a promotional username ("BricksRUsPR"), which is as desired, because we want them to stop promoting and to have a different username. A time-delayed block would result in one of two things happening, either they just carry-on believing what they are doing is correct, keep editing and end up blocked, or they disappear and never come back, which is basically what happens now, PR accounts are blocked and they either just leave, or they make a few unblock requests where they attempt to justify their edits and why they should be allowed to continue but rarely actually read our policies or try to comprehend why they were blocked in the first place. It is an extremely extremely rare situation for a promotional account to be unblocked, purely because most of them just never get what we're trying to do-- Jac 16888 Talk 16:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * We have wp:SOFTBLOCKs for people editing with promotionally named accounts. If I thought that a worthwhile proportion of spammers could be turned into useful editors I'd support a compulsory rename system, (Hi your username was overly promotional so we've changed it from User:Buy cheap rockets from Acme rockets to User:Pyrotechnology fan).  But I don't see any benefit in the "toast" proposal to give spammers a 7 day free pass.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  01:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah we generally just softblock those ones and politely inform them of our policies. Only their promotional username is blocked, they can still create a new account and hopefully the next time not be ignorant of our policies. -- œ ™ 05:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

 * It's not a bad idea. If the new editor is doing good work, and the only problem is the account's username, then you're not supposed to block the account.  You're just supposed to point them at WP:CHU and hope they'll use the process to change usernames (which they cannot do if you block them, even with softerblock, because you have to be able to edit the separate request page to get your username changed).
 * Currently, the "enforcement" is "hope some admin remembers a week later to double-check that account". So something (a bot?) that let you say "one week to figure out CHU, or your account will be blocked" might be useful.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone needs to start enforcing policy on article ownership
Until recently I didn't pay much attention to it but I think we need to get a handle on WikiProjects and individuals setting limits on what can be added to articles. This problem seems to be getting worse as time goes on and projects and individuals are getting more defiant and brazen in the innapropriate ownership they appear to be showing to articles in their scope. In particluar and as one example some projects and individuals have demanded that articles in their scope cannot contain Infoboxes. For example, the Featured articles Emily Dickenson even goes so far as to have an invisible comment stating that it isn't required or necessary. This article is just one example and I'm not picking on it, just using it as one example of what I see as a growing problem.

I have several problems with this:
 * 1) Infoboxes are a standard fixture in Biographical articles, not an exception to them
 * 2) Infoboxes allow a quick reference summary of key information about the article without having to read the whole thing
 * 3) WikiProjects and individuals should not be demanding that infoboxes not be on an article
 * 4) IMO an article that does not have an infobox fails FA standards (and anything above B for that matter) because it fails B5 of the B-Class checklist for supporting materials.

Any comments on this would be appreciated. Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC) In the case of the Dickinson article, which was only used as an example, the only discussion I could find was on Archive 3 and was minimal. In regards to the arguments that infoboxes are not required I would agree that generally that is true, as an article progresses up the scale and approaches FA I would argue that it becomes less of an if and more of a requirement. If Infoboxes were not a necessity we wouldn't need templates like Needs infobox, parameters in WikiProject templates like Infobox needed or categories like Category:Articles without infoboxes which currently contains several thousand articles. We also wouldn't specifically call it out in B-Class checklists as "supporting materials". As another example what happens if one project argues that an infobox should be used and another argues against it? Who is right and who is wrong? Allowing WikiProjects or individuals to state that an infobox cannot be used on their articles causes unnecessary tension where none needs to be. If the author or WikiProject that is developing the article doesn't want it when its being developed then thats ok but they 1) shouldn't be telling someone else that they cannot add it and 2)the article shouldn't be promoted beyond B-Class because it fails the supporting materials criteria. Kumioko (talk) 20:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Basically, the consensus is that infoboxes are not required. There's no way of convincing some people otherwise -- many of them would say your point #2 is a reason NOT to have an infobox. It DOES create a silly inconsistency that, say, Alexander Borodin has one but most classical composers don't. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * … and a pressure to write daft content simply to satisfy the needs of the infobox. See User:Geogre/Templates for a more thorough discussion. Uncle G (talk) 16:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Theres really no pressure to write draft content, if there isn't enough content to populate a few basic parameters of an infobox, the 5 W's so to speak, then there probably isn't much for an article either. The articles you identify, to me, seem like ultra stubs so perhaps the infobox could help those tiny little things look a little better developed. Kumioko (talk) 17:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * While I will agree that we shouldn't be forcing infoboxes on articles where the editors have decided they don't want it, we need to be aware that some infoboxes have been designed to create meta-data for search engines or the like that are important to have. For example, we have most of our templates for persons incorporating details of the hCard format.  Now, such information is very trivial or even laughably unnecessary for someone like Dickenson that's long passed away, but perhaps we had the case where the birth/death dates and other simple facts were used by meta-searching tools?  I'm not saying they need the infobox, but the editors need to be aware that not providing one makes this data absent to meta-tools, and they should find a way to recreated it - within prose, within hidden text, I dunno, but of some means - if they are forgoing the usual method of providing that. --M ASEM  (t) 17:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't that what the persondata template is for? Choess (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I wrote "daft", and the pressure to write daft content most certainly does exist. It's not where there isn't enough content.  That's a straw man of your making.  It's when the infobox pressures writers into filling in infobox fields with things that are either misleading or wrong; like specifying a modern publisher and an ISBN for a book that was published in the 18th century because infobox book has an isbn= parameter.  Uncle G (talk) 18:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * So, the article is very short, therefore we should make it "look a little better developed" by adding some horizontal and vertical lines and repeating the content again? That's like saying: "This speech is rather terse, could you try stuttering through it to make it seem longer?" See also DISINFOBOX to see how silly this approach is in practice. Choess (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * @Melodia: "Basically, the consensus is that infoboxes are not required." Are you saying that's a general consensus, or specific to this article? I didn't see much in the talk page archives that resembled a consensus on this article. Without a discussion that produced consensus in the instant case, I'm inclined to agree with Kumioko that an invisible comment directing editors not to add an infobox smacks of WP:OWN. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 17:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * In general. I don't remember where it was, but there was a large RFC on the topic, mostly relating the the classical composer issue. The basic outcome was "they are not required, however no WikiProject can make a general ruling overriding local consensus either". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Appealing to OWN is not applicable in the general case described above. Some editors are regular contributors in certain areas, and it is unreasonable to label them as having ownership problems just because they happen to agree with past practice in their area, and resist attempts by someone-who-knows-better who wants to add an infobox. Like one of the above comments, I cannot recall where I saw it but I have participated in general discussions where a wide discussion concluded that "no infobox" was a reasonable conclusion for a particular article (a classical composer?). There is no policy that all articles must have an infobox. A template or category suggesting otherwise is either misguided or is for articles in which an infobox is generally considered appropriate (but which don't have one yet). Johnuniq (talk) 07:46, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Kumioko, I'm concerned that you fail to see the asymmetry of your position. Your raison d'etre here seems to be going to very large numbers of articles and adding templates to the articles or their talk pages. I don't see why your right to add these templates to articles, because you think the articles are better with them, somehow mysteriously trumps the right of other people to remove them, because they think they make the article worse, or are redundant or unnecessary. If anything, WP:BRD puts the onus on you to justify your additions when someone reverts them. Furthermore, in your excited attempt to prove that infoboxes are "supporting materials" necessary to achieve higher quality rankings, you're managed to overlook the phrase "should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content." If the people who have actually put work into composing the article feel that an infobox is *not* relevant or *not* useful, we should do them the courtesy of discussing the matter with them at the article talk page, rather than trying to slap then down with some misinterpretation of WP:OWN. In articles where the subject matter can most easily be harmonized with the standard parameters of an infobox (say, the taxoboxes in articles about species), article editors welcome them. In articles where creating an infobox requires one to simplify to the point of misrepresentation, article editors generally discourage them. We should respect this. Choess (talk) 15:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Choess can you clarify? I'm not sure what your talking about. The only templates I have been adding en masse is WikiProject templates but I opened this discussion due to seeing an increasing number of articles without infoboxes. There seems to be this interpretation that Infoboxes are bad, ugly or unprofessional and they are not. At least not any more than having a category, sections or images. It is a supporting material and it is a template/supporting material that has for the most part been adopted across the site. My problem is that I have seen some projects (or members of them) over the last few months tell others that they cannot add an infobox to an article thats in that X WikiProjects scope because WikiProject Y doesn't allow infoboxes. This is not something that should be happeneing. Additionally, we should not be putting comments on articles telling users not to add infboxes, we shouldn't be promoting one article to GA with an infobox and another without it that is similar (both biographies for instance). This is both confusing to us and our readers but it makes the site in general (article appearance aside) look unprofessional when we can pick and choose what policies we want to use. We shouldn't be letting editors choose not to use an infobox on say a Biographical article anymore than they can choose not to have categories, images or references. I would also argue that I and others have the same right to add a template as another has the right to not add it. If the template is valid and applicable to the article it should be allowed. Kumioko (talk) 15:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Infoboxes are not, as a whole, all good or all bad. Sometimes they are good and useful. Sometimes they are unnecessary and misinform the reader. This has been true for a long time. WP:DISINFOBOX, which is a nice capsule summary of cases where infoboxes are not useful, is about three and a half years old; Geogre's essay about templates and infoboxes is six years old. Please read over those two essays; they have a number of cogent arguments, and I think you would benefit from knowing what people have already said about the subject. Nor do I see what has changed between now and then that the use of infoboxes should suddenly become mandatory. Consistency is good, but a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, as Emerson said, and the idea that we must be uniform in our use of infoboxes to look "professional" is one I utterly reject.
 * I also disagree with the idea that because a template is "valid and applicable" it *must* be alllowed. This gets debated fairly regularly on reference formatting. There may be five or six ways of linking out from a journal article in a bibliography–to the journal's website, via DOI, to NCBI, to JSTOR, to archive.org, etc. Trying to cram all of them into the references section just because you can is not necessarily helpful, and has been repeatedly rejected in the past.
 * I may sympathize a bit with the way in which WikiProjects conduct themselves. They shouldn't be able to impose rules, but I do think it's reasonable for someone to say: "Look, we already had this argument about whether these templates should be applied to our subjects, here's a link; do you have a substantial reason to contest it?" Must go now, but happy to discuss things further later today. Choess (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * So long as your "someone" really means "anyone at all" rather than "only those someones who have decided to call themselves a WikiProject", and the link is at the particular article's talk page rather than at some project page, then I'll go along with that.
 * The problem that we keep encountering, however, is that User X works hard for weeks to develop a good article, and then a couple of other users waltz in and, without lifting a finger to improve the article, demand the immediate addition (or removal) of an infobox because "we're the wikiproject, and we say so". And good luck if you're working on one of the many areas in which more than one wikiproject is interested, because they give conflicting advice on both whether to add an infobox and also on which infobox to use.
 * The rule is that it's up to the people who are working on the article, not to a couple of self-appointed users. Users calling themselves a WikiProject may write WP:Advice pages and try to persuade users to voluntarily agree with them, but they may not demand that anyone follow their advice.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

CSD A7 & A9: kill "indication of importance" in favor of "documentation of coverage"
So here's a thought. On the one hand, CSD A7 and A9 are completely stupid, distorting the content of articles with their weird, archaic pre-GNG requirement that the article claim in some way that its topic is a big fucking deal, and creating special categories of content that have article-existence requirements orthogonal to notability as it is normally understood. On the other hand, lots of people would like it if a higher burden were placed on new article creators to document some form of notability-establishing sourcing for their articles. How about we chocolate-and-peanut-butter these factors and change "indication of importance" in CSD A7 and A9 to "documentation of coverage in independent reliable sources"? Then the incentive is not to make the article less encyclopedic with gee-whiz language, but to do the basic legwork involved in beginning to demonstrate notability. Since that's, y'know, actually useful, and tends toward keeping all our article-existence tests working from the same basis. Who's with me? —chaos5023 (talk) 15:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, many newbies have no idea on how to cite a reliable source, and I fear that overbearing NPPers (not to offend them—there are some great ones) will take it as a license to CSD any article that doesn't have citations to reliable sources (i.e. almost any article new editors write). David  1217  What I've done 15:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the idea would be that the content categories of A7 and A9 wouldn't change, so only individuals, animals, organizations, web content, and musical recordings would be affected. So "almost any new article" shouldn't happen.  The bulk of A7 and A9 nominations should stay the same, but the idea is we wouldn't get any more nominations of sourced articles that lack only gee-whiz language (which does happen, and is a ridiculous state of affairs), nor would adding gee-whiz language be an affirmative defense against A7 and A9 nomination. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

 * So it's easier to Speedy delete things? Doesn't appeal to me. If it's basic legwork, anyone can do it, no need to say 'well, they didn't, so why bother trying?' Darryl from Mars (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Possibly a bit easier, but at least it'd be based on sensible criteria. I'd also argue that it would make more sense for NPP to add citations instead of nominating for deletion under these circumstances; if there are readily searchable citations for the topic available, it kinda makes more sense to throw them in and call it a day than it does to edit an article so that it starts asserting importance for its topic. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * From what I've heard, most of the NPPers are too swamped with work to add talk page tags and, let alone researching and sourcing articles.  David  1217  What I've done 16:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Well, after about 5 minutes in NPP you have feelings of hostility toward new content; that's just how it works.  Psychologically, it feels a lot easier to me under those circumstances to hit up Google Books and Scholar and News Archive real quick and throw in a minimal citation if you find one than it is to, basically, argue for the importance of a topic you didn't care about five minutes ago and now hate a little.  Citation finding is relating a statement of fact; asserting importance brings in opinion, which is a way higher bar in that context. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Oppose. That's contrary to WP:V, which requires that article content be verifiable, not verified: "It must be possible to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question. However, in practice it is only necessary to provide inline citations for quotations and for any information that has been challenged or that is likely to be challenged." (emphasis in original) And even WP:BLPPROD, involving a far more serious interest than simple notability, uses a WP:PROD process, not speedy deletion, and only requires one reliably sourced statement to avoid deletion. And then there's WP:BEFORE, which expects an AFD nominator to take the time to check whether there are sources available, not to just nominate an article because it currently lacks sources. So a whole lot of WP practice and principles are against such a change, and for a good reason. If the claimed "big fucking deal" in the new article is a blatant hoax, we can already speedy delete it on that ground via WP:CSD. Otherwise, there's no rush and we lose out on both new content and (relatively) new editors if we don't give these things time to grow. postdlf (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, okay, but how does any of that make it make sense for an article that clearly passes the GNG with citations actually present to get speedily deleted because it didn't blather about how important its topic is? —chaos5023 (talk) 16:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * When has that happened? Can you give an example? postdlf (talk) 16:05, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I don't personally know of any successful deletions of that kind, but I have gotten such a nomination on an article I created, Dune II (MUSH).  It wasn't a valid speedy because MUDs aren't web content, but probably could've been carried out anyway, and the article had unambiguously notability-demonstrating citations when it was nominated.  Nuclear War MUD got a PROD under similar circumstances that, though I can't prove it, I would claim is reflective of the content-category biases that A7 encourages. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I personally would consider the presence of reliable sources in an article as possible indications of the subject's importance (depending on what was sourced, beyond the subject's mere existence) and probably would not speedy it (AFD might still be valid though). I'd support an express addition to CSD#A7 to that regard. postdlf (talk) 16:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I remember the A7 and A9 language being "assertion of importance", and it seems to be "indication of importance" now, so perhaps strides have been made in that direction. Cited sourcing arguably satisfies "indication of importance" where it didn't satisfy "assertion of importance". —chaos5023 (talk) 16:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I can see that the letter of your argument has concerned the odd language, true it could be changed to mention notability and sourcing, just that the change you proposed also changes the -spirit- of the policy. I too doubt that anyone is actually deleting anything because of the ambiguity you're questioning, but it's not like I know that for a fact. Darryl from Mars (talk) 16:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It does change the spirit of it, yeah. I would say that's a good thing; isn't the assertion-of-importance thing just a weird holdover from the days before the GNG when articles' "notability" was partly about them claiming their topic was notable? —chaos5023 (talk) 16:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It still is. You'd get booed from the gallery if I posted a new, unsourced article about a now-deceased member of a national parliament, thus satisfying WP:POLITICIAN (and avoiding WP:BLPPROD) and you listed it at AFD just because it presently lacked sources without regard to whether it could be sourced. Claimed importance implies that there are sources out there, but there are certain topics that we have decided belong in the encyclopedia regardless of whether GNG is technically satisfied so long as they are verifiable (the aforementioned parliamentarian, named populated places, animal species). postdlf (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * But the article content on the politician doesn't have to get distorted to make claims about his importance. You can just say, oh, hey, he was a politician and he's dead, and the positive bias about the content category takes care of the rest.  The negative bias against content categories, on the other hand, explicitly calls for unencyclopedic hoops to be jumped through in the article content, like we did in 2003.  That seems a lot more silly to me. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:44, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, y'know, never mind. The language change from "assertion" to "indication" is a different call to action that doesn't necessarily imply what the criteria once did.  It's probably fine. :) —chaos5023 (talk) 16:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

We've changed the wording to "indication of importance" in the hope that it will produce what we want.
 * "Foo is terribly important and notable" is an "assertion of notability", but it's worthless.
 * "Foo is an organization in Ruritania" does not contain any information about why anyone should care about the subject.
 * ✅ "Foo is the largest manufacturer of widgets in Ruritania" is what we're looking for: an indication of why this subject is worth writing about.  Even if that sentence is the only thing on the entire page, it is not and should not be speedy-able.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Blurry intersection between notability guidelines and verifiability policies?
I wonder if perfection on any policy or guideline is needed. I was a starter on WP:articles for deletion/Olivia Hack before I was blocked and then unblocked with mentorship. Anyway, that AFD concluded as no consensus because guidelines do not reflect actual significance made by the obscure person, according to policy. Even one or two roles can help her become notable, although she might (not) meet WP:NACTORS. --George Ho (talk) 23:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing the WP:V intersection issue. This is a matter of understanding the relationship between the GNG and the subject-specific guidelines like NACTORS, and which has been a long-discussed matter on notability pages. Generally, for a topic to be presumed notable and thus have a topic it has to meet either the GNG or pass a specific criteria listed out in a subject-specific guideline.  The presumption of notability is important to remember here is because other factors (such as other policies) or consensus may disagree with the evidence provided and disallow the article on that topic, so for example, you were completely in your right to challenge that her notability give by NACTORS was a problem; consensus may not see it that way, but the approach your argument took seemed fine.
 * The only place where WP:V comes into this is that to show that one meets the subject-specific guidelines, we need a source. It doesn't have to be a secondary source, but something that affirms the criteria was met. A person wins a Nobel Prize, we can like to the Nobel's website for that, for example. With the Olympics, I'm sure the various competitors will be listed out by national media of each country, making them presumed notable for participation. Yes, the GNG is not met, but that's not a requirement for presuming notability as noted.  (That said, we do hope that such articles can be improved over time to meet the GNG, and thus if they can never be improved beyond that single facet of notability, consensus may opt to delete, hence the presumption of notability). --M ASEM  (t) 23:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Why must I follow WP:SIZE?
Why do we have to condense length of every article for the sake of mobile phone and smartphones and different browsers? If I follow it, then must I change the way I write? Should sun or cat be condensed because they have loading issues and irritating readability? As of now, its "Rule of thumb" is still disputed, and even user dmcq has compelling arguments about size. --George Ho (talk) 06:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Must you? It's a guideline; you've already found some obvious exceptions yourself. Of course, if you're wondering why some particular article you're writing isn't being given the same leeway that, you know, the Sun is...? Darryl from Mars (talk) 06:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Besides helping for browsers on limited/reduced bandwith, keeping size in mind does help to keep to our goal that we're an encyclopedia that summarizes information, not duplicates it all. No, per NOTPAPER we don't limit what can be covered for a topic, but it should help to guide how to organize information when it gets too large.  It shouldn't affect how you write content but only how you section it up and place it across different articles (as needed).  --M ASEM  (t) 06:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * According to WP:guidelines, "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." What kind of common sense, and what are exceptions applied? --George Ho (talk) 06:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I guess I found some obvious exceptions without knowing it, but what are less obvious exceptions? Also, I would hope more servers mean less loading times, but the loading issues may be up to companies, like Apple and Microsoft. Wiki-technicians can take care of loading issues without our help, right? Or must we donate