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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
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Proposal: Remove the right to vanish

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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A thread over at AN/I has brought to our attention the possibility that the now vanished Rlevse is back, using a sockpuppet. If this is true, this marks the fourth case that I know of where RTV has been abused. Adam Cuerden vanished, then came back with a new account that had the same name as the old one, but none of the contributions (since those were under the VanishedUser account). A second I'm highly confused about, but appears to just be one of many shenanigans pulled by Jack Merriedew. A third user, TCO, vanished, then came back and for a few days was editing under the VanishedUser name, before being renamed back to the original name. This was less of an abuse than the others, however it still caused unnecessary confusion.

Now I'm not sure exactly how many users have vanished, but I can count about a dozen, which would mean that at least a quarter of the vanished users have abused the system. Even if it were two dozen, that would still be 1 in 6.

In short, my proposal is as follows:

1. Effective with the closing of this RfC, the process at Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing is discontinued. No further requests will be offered, and no further users will be renamed to names like "Retired User" or "Vanished User".
2. Effective with the closing of this RfC, a bureaucrat will undo the vanishing of any user who has been caught coming back under a new account. If this creates a naming conflict, they will rename the vanished account <OldUsername> (Vanished) - i.e. User:Example (Vanished), and link the two accounts using a sockpuppet banner.
3. Accounts that were vanished before this RfC that have not been caught abusing the system will not be renamed, they are allowed to remain vanished.
4. Accounts that are are globally vanished (i.e. vanished on all Wikis) after this takes effect may be vanished on Wikipedia, as long as Wikipedia is not their primary project (the one with the most edits), and as long as they were not under a cloud on English Wikipedia at the time of their vanishing. If they abuse the global RTV on any project, they will be unvarnished on English Wikipedia.
5. This proposal does not effect WP:CLEANSTART in any way.
6. Accounts can still be locally vanished if it is a WMF staff or WMF counsel action.

I think this is long overdue. It's sad that it has to come to this, but the system is constantly abused. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

EDIT I've added in the names. I suppose it was unavoidable. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

1. Support as nom. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose- I know of several users who have needed to use this final option for excellent RL privacy reasons and have done so without abusing the privilege later. I don't think it should be discontinued but, rather, rigidly enforced. If you use it you can't come back, no matter what, and if you do you get a permablock. That would have stopped disruptive editors like A Nobody (who I presume is your second example) from using RTV to dodge an inevitable RFCU and then somehow weasel his way back to continue his trolling; I agree entirely that that kind of thing needs to be nipped in the bud. But if people abuse the process that is not the fault of the process but of the people. Reyk _YO! 22:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   That actually wasn't who I was thinking of. (I didn't list the names because the third case user is still active and the first case still watches the project, and I didn't want to start fights.) That brings the list up to at least 5. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   Did you forget about User:ChrisO, whose many ArbCom sanctions are not attached to the account with which are currently editing? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

3. Comment - I think that this should probably be modified to at least take into account those who edit under their own name, as well as editors who are "under the age", and other such issues. RTV exists for reasons beyond just the concerns of potential gaming of this rfc. - jc37 22:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   One of the users I mentioned above did edit under his real name. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

4. Oppose for now. If we can resolve privacy issues, then I may support this.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   How then, do you propose we handle users like Adam that abuse the system while editing using their real names? Sven Manguard Wha? 22:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   That would be covered by WP:GAME.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   I agree that Adam's use of RTV was screwy at best, Sven. Jasper, Game only goes so far--Guerillero | My Talk 05:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

5. Oppose largely per Reyk. I think this is an important rule. I believe I have come across quite a few editors who have used this right without abusing it (and I have always assumed that it was significantly more common that just a couple of dozen editors in over ten years - just that most do it without drama). For what it's worth, I see no problem in principle with vanished users changing their mind and returning, either openly or under WP:CLEANSTART, so long as there's no violation of any active block or sanction. Pfainuk talk 22:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
6. Oppose RIght to vanish is a rule that is useful for users who are being harassed whether online or IRL through their account. Not to mention other scenarios that involve compromised privacy. It is this right that enables them to have protection again from such things. I see absolutely no reason to remove this rule just because a few users abuse it. You could argue the same for most of the policies and guidelines on Wikipedia, since they've all been abused at one time or another, but we wouldn't think of removing them because of that. Silverseren^C 01:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
7. Oppose per privacy concerns. I've now endured two or three "outing" attempts, if there is another, I am going to be real tempted to talk to the powers that be to dump this user name and get a new one -- is that not RTV? I also choose not to edit by my real name, but I did have a user name that was real for about my first five days of editing; I was glad to be able to get rid of it for privacy reasons. Not to say the system might not need some fixes, but not this one. Montanabw^(talk) 22:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

   No, that's actually not RTV. RTV means that you leave and never come back. What you're thinking about is Wikipedia:Clean start. Jafeluv (talk) 12:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

8. Oppose in it's present form. Privacy concerns, etc. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 00:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• 'Oppose all Per preceding arguments and also per uselessness of draconian solutions in the best of times. Also please not "effect" v. "affect." Collect (talk) 00:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose If you want to improve things make a change that would alter what happens to problematic RTV returners but not affect good faith users who will try to follow the rules. ϢereSpielChequers 19:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alternate proposal: RTV users are to be treated as banned users

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Under this proposal, users may still elect to RTV, with the following changes:

1. Users who invoke RTV are treated as banned users: Their accounts are immediately indefinitely blocked, and new accounts created by the person who invoked RTV (i.e. sockpuppets) are immediately blocked with contributions nuked, with no further discussion. These users are not, however, added to the banned user list.
2. If a user abuses RTV by socking, a bureaucrat will undo the vanishing, publicly link the socks to the old account, and then the user will be considered formally banned, with their name added to the banned user list.
3. Users are only allowed to edit again if they email ArbCom or the 'crats to have themselves unvanished.
4. ArbCom cannot overrule the above steps, only WMF staff or WMF counsel can.

This proposal will address the privacy concerns that killed the original proposal, while still taking a hard line against abuse. It also prevents ArbCom from inadvertently creating another RTV abuse situation, which they have done in the past at least once. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

1. Support as nom, second choice. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support 1-3, Oppose 4 - I'm a little concerned about #4, because Arbcom has the ability to hand out bans, which could override steps 1-3 anyway.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Struck 4. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

1. Oppose Per the comment by User:Pfainuk above. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 23:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   What does this proposal have to do with that comment? This dosen't prevent people from RTVing, it just locks down their accounts and puts in safeguards when they do RTV. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

   Under the suggested process, invoking a RTV would essentially be banning themselves, making it difficult for them to ever return. They would more than likely have to gain consensus to come back, creating unnecessary bureaucracy. While this may be helpful in some circumstances, if the editor originally initiated RTV for non-controversial reasons, then this would be unnecessary as well as a potential deterrent. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 00:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

   invoking a RTV would essentially be banning themselves, making it difficult for them to ever return. - yes, that's the whole point of RTV. It doesn't mean you go away and then come back later. It means you're gone for good. Raul654 (talk) 01:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

   The RTV was never meant to be a permanent ban that no one could lift. If an editor RTVed due to real life harassment, and then 10 years later they wanted to come back, they should be permitted to do so. There shouldn't be bureaucratic nonsense preventing them from returning. Putting something like that in place would only encourage sockpuppetry. The editor would figure since they can't come back through policy based methods, they might as well try policy breaking methods. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 02:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

2. Oppose - too many things go along with banning, like the automatic reversion of a banned user's edits regardless of value. That said, I don't think I would oppose a guideline that any user invoking the RTV should be blocked as part of the RTV process. Blocking could be treated neutrally and thus (hopefully) uncontroversially. And further should they decide to return, it would involve at least one other person (someone to unblock). This might help against at least a tiny part of the gaming the nominator seems concerned with. - jc37 23:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

   Re: "like the automatic reversion of a banned user's edits regardless of value" - that was intentional. Gone means gone, if they want to edit, they need to unvanish, period. That's what the polocy says already, it just dosen't have any teeth. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

   I think what Sven Manguard means by "treating them as banned" is that then WP:RB can be used without objection, and 3RR can be ignored.Jasper Deng (talk) 00:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

3. Support 1 and 2 only - RTV should not be a revolving door. Raul654 (talk) 01:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
4. Oppose This proposal is completely vindictive. A significant number of users who invoke right to vanish do so under necessary and right circumstances and banning any new account they make when they haven't done anything wrong is ludicrous. Silverseren^C 01:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

   It's not vindictive. I just want to find a way that the "Vanished users have no right to return under a new identity or as an IP. The courtesy vanishing applies only to cases of permanent departure" part of the document gets enforced. If the 'crats aren't willing to combat the abuse, a policy solution forcing them to do so is needed. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Arbcom can't be counted on, they've been part of the problem here, so No. 3 doesn't work ... propose something solid that ends the revolving door, and I'll support. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Proposal reeks of vindictiveness. I am unbothered by any examples given of vanished users coming back to contribute to Wikipedia. If you want to formally ban someone for doing this, then start a ban discussion, but I see no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater here; if an individual is abusing the system, remove the individual from the system. Don't punish everyone else just to stop that one person. --Jayron32 02:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm going to withdraw this if it dosen't get a sudden swelling of support, but I wanted to go on the record and say that I don't consider it vindictive. I never had any interactions with Rlevese that I can remember, and while I'm not exactly sure about this (translation: I'm not going to look it up), I'm pretty sure that Rlevse was leaving right as I was coming in. I'm using the fact that RTV is back on the radar to push the issue, so yes, I'm exploiting the timing, but this is an issue that has bugged me for a while. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. If a productive editor in good standing requests right to vanish, and then later decides to return to productive editing - either openly or under WP:CLEANSTART - I simply don't see any good reason to stop them. Any more than I see any good reason to ban those who simply decide to stop editing one day. If someone's evading a block or sanction, then of course that's different - but it would be different even if RTV hadn't been invoked. And they're rare enough that we can deal with them case-by-case. Pfainuk talk 19:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support 1, 2 per Raul654 Bulwersator (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't get the "revolving door" argument. Do we really have that many editors repeatedly invoking RTV and then coming back? I'd like to see some evidence of that.

If we've got people abusing RTV to evade scrutiny, then that's clearly a problem - but it's not like it's common, and it's not like we can't deal with it under the existing framework. Dealing with these relatively rare situations does not need to mean penalising productive editors who want to come back (possibly under new identities) a few years after having decided to vanish for legitimate personal reasons. I would note in passing that I know of at least one admin that falls into that camp. Pfainuk talk 20:47, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: People have legitimate reasons to want to get a fresh start on wiki without any past baggage. I think there is a user who used to harass me horribly who is back under a different user name and seems to have learned not to be as much of a problem as they used to be. They got blocked twice, once as an IP, and they may not have completely reformed, but I have seen growth. Montanabw^(talk) 22:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose With same concerns. Collect (talk) 00:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Please don't introduce unenforceable rules, especially ones that discriminate against the rule abiding. ϢereSpielChequers 19:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alternate alternate proposal: RTV users are blocked

Not sure how I feel about this concept as a whole, but it's worth it to float something a bit less complicated than Sven's proposals. So, another possibility:

1. Editors who RTV are granted the privilege and renamed. Username is blocked.
2. Returning RTV users are expected to reclaim their old account through standard channels, including re-adopting their old username and/or very clearly linking the old account with the new one.
3. Returning RTV users who return without identifying themselves, either to the community (standard) or to arbcom (privacy/safety-related) are considered to be evading a block, and dealt with in the standard manner the community uses for block evasion. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support as easy and obvious rules, but I prefer "User is blocked." rather than "Username is blocked." Bulwersator (talk) 18:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for reasons noted above. I see no reason why vanished users should, in general, be treated differently from those who retire without vanishing. If a productive editor vanishes, then returns a couple of years later intending to continue editing productively (either openly or under WP:CLEANSTART), why not let them? If there are existing blocks or other sanctions, of course these should continue to apply - but that goes regardless of whether the editor is vanished or just retired. Pfainuk talk 19:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

  If you vanish, it becomes harder to find the old account, and thus harder to identify patterns of abuse. If someone who is vanished wants to come back under a new name, that's possible. First, they make a request that the old account is unvanished. Then, they leave the old account to rot and come back under a cleanstart. That's perfectly legal, you just can't skip the step of unvanishing the old account. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

•  Bureaucrat note: I will note that it is unofficial practice that if someone has their account renamed to a random string of characters per RTV and then resumes editing, a crat (or admin) will usually block their account until they agree to a rename or to stay RTV'd. MBisanz ^talk 19:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

  I would support this unofficial bureaucrat practice to become codified into a guideline. (Isn't "common practice" how most guidelines are initially adopted anyway? : ) - jc37 20:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

  I'm happy with that - random strings of characters aren't permitted as user names with good reason - but presumably this does not still apply if the editor comes back under WP:CLEANSTART or through a new account with full disclosure? Pfainuk talk 20:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support At least in spirit, even if to simply acknowledge that RTV and CLEANSTART are incompatible. A user can do one or the other, but should not be entitled to both. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 19:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Tentative support A better proposal than the other two. I like #1, #2 is doable for normal situations if a good privacy workaround is in place for those who leave due to harassment, #3 may need some refinement to not be too big of a bat. Montanabw^(talk) 22:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support This is a common-sense approach with deals with returning users using existing channels and principles.   Will Beback  talk  00:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support returning vanished editors should, at the very least, inform ArbCom of their return. It would definitely limit problems in the future. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 00:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support This option seems to be reasonable. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 00:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose With same concerns as above. Knee-jerk solutions do not work, and generally are more deleterious than the problem they are itended to solve. Collect (talk) 00:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I note that RTV is supposed to apply only to users (a) in good standing - a banned user is not in good standing -- and that include changing username (b) "courtesy vanishing applies only to cases of permanent departure" --Iantresman (talk) 08:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support.  Sandstein  12:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose there are plenty of RTV editors who would be an asset if they returned. We need to differentiate between people who we don't want back and those who we would welcome. ϢereSpielChequers 19:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

  Indeed, and the steps as I outlined them allow a route back for returning RTV users. They do not, however, allow for returning RTV users who attempt to CLEANSTART while still under RTV (as per our RTV guidelines, "It is not a fresh start and does not guarantee anonymity" - one can either vanish or have a clean start, not both concurrently). The goal here is to prevent RTVers using RTV as a extra-powerful version of clean start that lets them not only obtain a new identity, but also erase the old one from record. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

  Unless the user talkpages have been deleted there is little practical difference between someone exercising RTV and someone getting a username change and then exercising Cleanstart. In particular if vanished user ***** starts editing it is extremely obvious that they are a returned user, and if they haven't already requested it hopefully the first admin to pass by will check that their talkpage has been restored. By contrast if user:random new name turns up and starts editing productively it is not always obvious that they are a returning user or a completely new one. So blocking the vanished account achieves nothing meaningful or useful. ϢereSpielChequers 10:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

  Sigh... talk pages really shouldn't be deleted in the first place, per Wikipedia:RTV#Deletion of user talk pages. And yes, there is a massive difference, RTV is the active hiding of the user; it becomes noticeably harder to search for the user's old contributions because in most cases the user is moved without a redirect. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Fluffernutter gets to what I was going for, albeit in a way that's more diluted than I'd like. I still think that it leaves open a window of choice, the "expected to", and that if you give any room for the process to be screwed up or abused, it's going to happen. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support RTV was always intended as a way for a user to make a total break from Wikipedia; WP:CLEANSTART is for those who want to continue editing Wikipedia without the baggage (exempting abusive behavior) associated with their current account. Using RTV to avoid scrutiny is effectively socking, and should not be tolerated. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose While I agree with point 1, and have been doing so for a long time when implementing RtV, I disagree with the latter two points. As I have stated elsewhere, I do firmly believe that an RtV means a complete and total withdrawal from Wikipedia, with no intent to return. I happen to believe that it is used too frequently, and retirement and courtesy blanking of talk pages should be offered much more frequently. Regardless, I appreciate the fact that after months or years, people may change their mind. The way points 2 and 3 are worded now, they prevent someone from turning over a new leaf by forcing the person to re-link the account, regardless of how much time has passed and how much the person may have changed. Having been burnt by implementing RtV, being assured that the person was truly leaving, and having them come back within a few months, if not weeks, I understand, sympathize, and empathize with the frustration that many of us feel here, in that RtV is being abused. However, I also (perhaps naïvely) believe that people are more good than bad, and should be afforded opportunities to demonstrate growth and maturity. What I would rather see is some measure of the following:
  • RtV be made more difficult (but not impossible) to implement, with retirement/userspace deletion/user talk blanking be the preferred option.
  • Someone who insists on RtV must be made to realize that it is intended to be permanent, and that violation of that understanding may be met with linking to the previous account without recourse.
  • Renamed user account is blocked as a matter of course (Vanished users are not supposed to be editing).
  • Return of the editor before a significant amount of time (six months, a year, both of those pretty much eternities in cyberspace) will be met with the choice of "undoing" the RtV, if even by openly linking the former and subsequent accounts. Refusal is met by indefinite blocking. Accounts may be linked after block.
  • A user who regrets the vanishing may appeal to ArbCom at any time prior to returning, and accept some form of "undoing" the vanishing. This should act as some deterrent to abuse of RtV whilst allowing those who have truly changed their minds to resume editing Wikipedia. No user rights are to be restored. This is not the resuscitation of the old account; this is a new account which is required to take the name of a retired account so that continuity of behavior and style can be maintained.
  • A user who regrets the vanishing after a significant amount of time e (six months, a year, to be determined) should be allowed WP:CLEANSTART in that they can start a new account. If they manage to edit for a reasonable length of time without being "linked" to the original account, they have ipso facto demonstrated a significant change in their behavior and should not be forced to link the old account for no reason other than they are returned users.

  Obviously, there is much which can be improved in the above, but I think it better than the suggestion here. Also, as always, I reserve the right to change my mind if convinced by valid and persuasive arguments. -- Avi (talk) 04:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - pretty much per Avi and WSC above. — Ched :  ?  10:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Per Avi's description of RTV as a self-ban on ArbCom page. A good side effect of this proposal is that users who "unvanish" using another account would be clearly engaging in WP:BLOCKEVASION, so actionable. On the other hand, self-bans are not community bans, so for the peace of mind, I propose adding the text from the following section. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Wikipedia is built upon anonymity. The only time that we really need to know about the return of a person is 1) if they left under a cloud and 2) if they run for adminship or another position on WP. If they run for something there needs to be disclosure. I mean face it, how many of us haven't considered dropping off wikipedia with thoughts to return with a CLEANSTART? I would even go so far as to say if the new account is created 2 years after the old one was retired, that it can be evaluated on its own merits with no disclosure required.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 18:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  Are you opposing the Alternate alternate, the clarification, or both? :) I think that there may need to be some refactoring. May I trouble you to comment on my suggestion above? -- Avi (talk) 19:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  Indeed it was in the wrong place. Moved.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 23:35, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarification proposal

“ If the vanished user changes their mind, any administrator may unblock the vanished user upon their request, provided that the deleted talk pages and log entries are restored. The unvanished user need not necessarily be renamed back, however redirects should normally be added from the old account to the new account and treated as normal username change thereafter. Note that unvanishing allows the user to later proceed to a WP:CLEANSTART if they so desire and abandon the unvanished account. What is rescinded upon unvanishing is the promise to never return; a "clean start" does not guarantee that old and new account won't be connected, particularly if their behavior and interests turn out similar. ”

Thoughts? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Any user can have their userpage deleted on request, the only extra deletions re RTV are that sometimes we delete the usertalkpage, and obviously if that has been deleted then it needs to be restored when an RTV ends. I'm not sure what logs if any are deleted in a RTV scenario. ϢereSpielChequers 02:23, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Good point about WP:CSD#U1 being available in non-RtV situations, so I've added the word "talk" to clarify that it's referring to "deleted talk pages". As for the log stuff, I vaguely remember from a discussion on a particular user that the user rename log entries are suppressed as well on RtV. I could be wrong about that. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 04:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The way I understand it (and the way I have acted) is that it is up to the discretion of the bureaucrat and whether they think the circumstance warrants revdeleting (and in cases of danger, potentially contacting the oversight team) the log actions as well. -- Avi (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support seems reasonable. Protects from abuse and still allows users to vanish/reappear within fair parameters. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:35, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Secondary schools should meet WP:GNG or are they exempt?

Recently I started a discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools because I did not understand why articles on clearly non-notable schools are kept. Result was a animated discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools#Notability of secondary schools (part 2). In general the useful replies could be bundled in two general groups: a) something has to be done on the notability guidelines and b) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes served us wel.

In the most recent discussion a few attempts were made to get somewhere. NickCT came with Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Draft RfC, TerriersFan with User:TerriersFan/Notability of schools and I came up with User:Night of the Big Wind/Notability of schools. To no avail.

In effect, the current "policy" is to keep all articles about secondary schools/highschools as soon as they can proof that they exist. To prove notability is not necessary.

So my question for this RfC is: Should secondary schools/highschools meet the standards of Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline or are they exempt from that? Night of the Big Wind _talk 01:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of the current situation is that secondary schools are assumed to pass WP:GNG. If that's the case, then your RfC question doesn't help; the answer to it is "yes they should". It might be more fruitful for the RfC to question that assumption, or to require actual references to reliable sources? But even if it did the former, my unscientific understanding of the UK situation is that pretty much every secondary school would pass GNG since there is extensive press coverage of individual schools, not least as a result of OFSTED report and league tables. (For fun, I searched for news stories for a few schools I could bring to mind, up and down the country. None let me down in terms of GNG.) I don't know if the UK situation can be extended to other countries. As to the latter, I would be uninclined to see a secondary school article deleted merely for lack of sources. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe on paper, but the current policy is to keep everything, regardless of notability. People make a real fuss about AfD for schools, even finding deletion-campaigns in it: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools#AfD Campaign on schools. A very unhealthy situation. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Schools is used as policy, overriding WP:GNG. Especially the sentence Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools are being kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists. is often used in a deletion discussion. Night of the Big Wind _talk 02:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

You're right, it is an unhealthy situation, but there is a campaign. There's a small group of editors who seem to nominate/!vote for deletion on as many articles as they can find from mid-December to the end of January there were over 200 school AfD's. 150-odd of which were nominated by the one user.

And it is because of these users that I actually support your moves here. I completely agree that there should be more concrete notability guidelines for schools. I think that schools have claims towards notability per WP:ORG, per this sentence:

When evaluating the notability of organizations or products, please consider whether they have had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education.

(emphasis added)

By definition, schools have educational value. But, further, schools, almost by default, have societal value and frequently have historical and athletic value.

At the moment, differing interpretations of what is and is not notable cause a great deal of stupid debate at AfD and leads to many schools being deleted that should probably be kept. For example, Middle Harbour PS was merged into it's locality despite achieving a consistently high rank in standardised testing, being (approximately?) a hundred years old, being one of the schools at which the primary school ethics program was piloted, and being the catalyst for a change in law regarding speed zones (none of this was enough). On the other hand, Kesser Torah (school) is A-OK because it's a K to 12 school (emphasis on the "to 12" bit), despite it's relatively low enrolment and no special claims towards notability (I'm told that it's a decent school, though, however second hand that is).

So a more concrete set of criteria would be good. Not sure which draft I like most at the moment, let me think about it for a bit longer. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 10:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

While I take no position on the notability-of-every-high-school question, I believe that your reading of WP:ORG is a tad overbroad. There is an important distinction between having "significant or demonstrable effects on...education" and "being a building where education (in some form) takes place". (Similarly, a given textbook might be notable, but the warehouse from which it was distributed, or the presses on which it was printed, probably would not be.) High schools – as a collective phenomenon, and as a way to deliver education – certainly are notable and have without question shaped society's creation, consumption, and interpretation of culture, athletics, economics, history, literature, and science. It's less clear that we should make an a priori assumption that any randomly-selected high school will have had some particular part in shaping that phenomenon and therefore be inherently notable (absent reliable sources corroborating that claim).

To draw a loose analogy, The Catcher in the Rye is a notable work of literature about which we certainly should have an article; on the other hand, we don't want or need a separate article about each of the 65 million copies in print—but we do have a fair bit of commentary about the particular copy Mark David Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Our articles about high schools need to strive to identify the factors that make each one unique and culturally-relevant. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

In my eyes this has always been a point of friction, both because Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes clash here and because (certainly in the early years of wikipedia, not sure about today) a disproportionate number of WP editors were/are young and their high school(s) loomed large and emotive in their minds. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The past has suggested supporting these, but I strongly believe we can move on and require GNG notability to be met for schools. That means we need more than information from the school or its local community itself to have an article. Since we generally presume all towns and regions are notable as geographical features (as long as they are recognized by their respective governments, at minimum), information on a town's secondary schools can easily fit up into that one, barring the cases where GNG can actually be met. They can be searchable terms (leaving redirects behind and included in appropriate disamb. pages) but shouldn't have separate articles. --MASEM (t) 02:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I have been involved in a fair number of worldwide school articles and school AfDs over the last few years. It is my experience that for almost all secondary schools in English-language-speaking countries reliable sources can easily be found to demonstrate notability. If such schools ever get nominated for deletion they are always kept. Articles that have been deleted in the past eventually get recreated. There is, therefore, an assumption that all secondary schools which can be verified are inherently notable. Problems do arise, however, for schools in countries where English is not the first language. The majority of such schools probably would be notable if we had editors who could read the articles in the native language but it is often difficult to find English-language sources. Consequently, we have literally thousands of articles about American high schools but only a handful of articles on secondary schools in China, a county which has a far larger population and in theory should also have thousands of notable schools. There is an argument that a certain leeway should be allowed to encourage creation of such articles to counter the systemic bias on Wikipedia. If an editor makes a valiant effort to create a school article and English is not their first language, I think we should be encouraging their efforts and not nominating their articles for deletion at the first opportunity. The unfortunate consequence of the prevailing view that all secondary schools are notable is that some editors now take the counter view that all primary/elementary schools are non-notable whereas this is not necessarily the case. In practice perhaps 90% or more of these schools are non-notable, but conversely 10% probably are. This view has resulted in the unfortunate mass deletion campaign over the Christmas holidays in which articles for some notable primary schools were deleted because editors did not have the time to vote, let alone investigate and source the articles, simply because of the timing and the sheer scale of the nominations. In England, for example, many historic schools which now serve as primary schools were once the only school in the locality. Children of all ages attended these schools until the then school leaving age so these schools were effectively the equivalent of the present-day secondary school. The current name is often not the same as the historic name which means care must be taken when looking for sources. However, the mass AfD nominators only ever seem to make cursory checks, if any, to see what sources are available and always fail to look for sources under alternate names. I would like to see a guideline in place which prevents a single editor from nominating more than a handful of articles per week. Nominators should also be asked to do more thorough searches before nomination, and especially where a school is over 100 years old. Dahliarose (talk) 10:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Articles are kept because other articles are kept. And based on that, articles are kept...

It's not a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's simply a statement of fact. Secondary school articles are invariably kept at AfD because reliable sources are always found to prove their notability. The only exceptions are some schools in non-English-speaking countries where English-speaking editors can't access the sources in the appropriate language. Dahliarose (talk) 13:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

As admin mr. Kudpung wrote earlier: if you were to read everything I've ever posted on this topic over the years, including on my RfA, you will have noticed, as many have, that I don't personally mind which way consensus falls as a result of a correctly and neutrally proposed RfC, but that I will firmly uphold any existing conventions, precedents, and unwritten consensus that clearly exist until they are confirmed or changed. Note that WP:OUTCOMES, although an essay, neutrally documents historical facts and 'is intended to supplement Wikipedia:Deletion policy' Night of the Big Wind _talk 11:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Dahlia, I think that User:Night of the Big Wind/Notability of schools might be worth a look. It'd certainly create some guidance to prevent what you and I have seen at AfD today. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 11:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

If we were serious about changing how this "inherent" notability of secondary schools was treated, requiring GNG instead of just saying the schools exist, I would imagine there would be a grandfathering process during 6 months - 1 year where all such articles would be "frozen" with respect to deletion, allowing time for sources to be added, and then after that period an organized process to redirect/merge those that weren't shown to be notable. As such, trying to do it piece-part as suggested that happened recent will likely lead to reversion since its not a consensus driven change. --MASEM (t) 13:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

That would just be wasting everyone's time. The sources invariably exist to prove notability. There must be a better way of improving and sourcing articles rather than going through AfD each time. Dahliarose (talk) 13:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

That's not true. Yes, there are sources for the schools, but spot checking a good number of schools shows that most of these are local papers or the like. The bulk of local papers are not independent when it comes to talking about the school, a necessary requirement for notability. --MASEM (t) 13:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

But local papers are independent sources. Schools have no control over what content is published in them. A newspaper or magazine by the school itself would, however, not be an independent source. Dahliarose (talk) 16:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It is interesting to see that people have a great concern about deletions in a discussion about notability. Night of the Big Wind _talk 14:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Why? Deletion is the normal fate of the non-notable article. I seem to be missing your point. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

In fact they acknowledge that there are loads of articles out there, that should not be there at all. Breaking the "common outcomes"-policy to keep everything, puts all those articles at risk to be challenged. (And even then, I assume that a big chunk of the nominated articles can be rescued and brought up to standard.) Night of the Big Wind _talk 15:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Your reading differs from mine. I still have the impression that they are notable in terms of GNG, but that in many cases they do not provide references to RS, a secondary problem. I do not believe that "common outcomes" is what forestalls deletion, so much as that deletion is forestalled by the recognition that they meet GNG, and this has led to "common outcomes" as a guide to prevent further waste of time. I don't think anyone disagrees about whether or not they should meet GNG to stay. But you seem unpursuaded that, on the whole, and evenin the absence of references to RS, that they do meet GNG. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems unlikely in the extreme that a random secondary school exists today in such a secretive town that there is nothing at all published about it in any RS. Perhaps a few such could exist somewhere in North Korea, but not as a general worldwide rule. Failure to cite sources does not equate to nonexistence of sources. That said, there might have been a few pre-Gutenberg schools for which there remains no extant source to cite. Schools almost all have budget battles, bussing issues, staff scandals, real estate, zoning impacts, traffic control effects, etc. Any of these things can show up on the public record, in the news, on concil minutes, and so forth. If someone looks hard enough, the sources are there to be used. The real question is how to motivate people to do that looking, but that in no way is a wp:N issue. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

"Schools almost all have budget battles, bussing issues, staff scandals, real estate, zoning impacts, traffic control effects, etc. Any of these things can show up on the public record, in the news, on concil minutes, and so forth." This is all information that would be of local impact, from local sources, and thus fails the independence aspect for WP:GNG (and possibly WP:V). Also, consider : is any of that information of encyclopedic value? If there is value, it is the impact on the town that the school is in, and thus, even a better drive to push that information into the town article (which I don't see going anywhere anytime soon). --MASEM (t) 16:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• I see no reason why a group of articles should be exempt from GNG. Some people see GNG as a ceiling, i.e. "anything that meets GNG is notable". I see GNG as a floor, i.e. "anything that doesn't meet GNG is non-notable", and in addition some things that pass GNG but fail specific guidelines like WP:POLITICIAN are also non-notable. I think that schools of any stripe should have significant non-trivial coverage. I take that to mean coverage above and beyond the following five types of coverage that fail to establish notability:

1. Local coverage (Recall that before WWII, newspapers in small towns also mentioned when townsfolk had the flu or relatives from out-of-town over)
2. Routine coverage (The San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group has a "School of the Week" feature where they have a half-page blurb in each of their papers about an area school. Since the feature is several years old, every school has been coveraged. That doesn't make all of them notable.)
3. Fleeting (a couple mentions of the school here and there, or a five-sentence writeup does not notability make)
4. Human interest stories that aren't really about the school (if there's a story about an 8-year-old who beat cancer and happens to goes to Spiro T. Agnew Elementary School, that article is attesting to the notability of the 8-year-old, not the school).
5. Random coverage (Many news stories pick a school, essentially at random, to illustrate some larger point about a district or state. They could've picked any number of schools to make the same point, therefore the article doesn't really establish the notability of the school they picked)

If, and only if, a school has coverage that isn't any of those five things should it be kept. In short, nothing should be exempt from WP:GNG. Not primary schools, not secondary schools, not anything. Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 17:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Merely being able to prove that a school exists via RS doesn't mean that every school deserves a stand-alone article. The choice is not simply keep/delete; information about schools not meeting the GNG for a separate article can be merged into existing articles on their respective localities. A related issue seems to be a recent rash of deletion requests which has brought the schools issue to a head; while deleting is always easier than fixing, it's often not the best course and in the case of many (but not all) school articles would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The trouble with mass AFD nominations is that there's no time to separate wheat from chaff (let alone figure out what to do with the wheat). Miniapolis (talk) 17:53, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, I'll point out that if there's general agreement that secondary schools are immediately notable and need to meet the GNG, the steps to complete this would start with a 6-12 month grandfather blocking on any AFD of these schools giving editors time to find sources, followed by a rigorous evaluation to redirect/merge non-notable schools to the town article that they serve. This process would have to be broadly announced, likely given a workpage in WP space to explain what's happening and the like. None of these should hit AFD as the name of a school is a likely search term, and its always possible the school may become notable in the future. --MASEM (t) 18:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

This all points to the glaring problem of trying to apply a guideline written to limit "encyclopedic" entries to an article which exists to fulfill one of the other two-thirds of the WP mission (almanac and gazetteer). These are gazetteer articles, but the guideline still does not reflect that standards must be different for articles of this nature. A secondary school is like a navigable waterway in being notable enough by its existance without the additional burden of our definition in WP:N. It still, however, must meet WP:V - no sources, no article. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 18:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

A redirect/merge of the school name to its locality does not fail the gazetteer function. --MASEM (t) 19:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that a redirect could serve such a function, but this would result in an inconsistent and incoherent mix of results. There is no way to properly convey the information on every secondary school in New York City in the article on the city. And while schools in public school districts could be redirected to the article on the district, as is regularly done with primary and middle schools, private secondary schools would have no such redirect available. The end result would be that some schools would have articles, some would be redirects to localities, and some redirects to school districts. This seems to be more than an acceptable amount of difficulty for the reader. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 19:38, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

In the case of large metro areas with more than a handful of schools, I can see supporting the redirect to "Education in X", and further breakout if needed (see List of public elementary schools in New York City extending from Education in New York City). The same could be done for private/parochial schools if they are a sufficiently large number, though I'd suspect we need a specific metric for even inclusion in the list to avoid some person tutoring out of their home to be called out as a school. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

And importantly, if all the reader is doing is using this work as a gazetteer to locate a school, this functionality still works. Redirects can take readers directly to a line on a table or a section of an article. --MASEM (t) 20:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

For what little it's worth, the original "policy" to blanket keep all secondary schools was based on VFD outcomes from about late 2003 to mid-2005 that were (much later) shown to have been tainted by the Radman1/GRider sockfarm. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 14:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• The problem with redirecting to the locality/education district is that you would lose most if not all of the information in the article. The typical Secondary school is a large and busy institution, this proposal appears to be based on a misunderstanding of the concept of a local newspaper, in most places the local newspapers are independent of the school. ϢereSpielChequers 19:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Local papers are not independent because their primary focus is that region of interest. This is why NSPORTS calls out against using local papers to try to demonstrate the notability of high school and amateur athletes, and why we require a strong reliable source than just a local restaurant guide for eateries or other businesses. They're ok as sources once notability is established, but not before then. As for losing information, most of the information that when I spot check through these schools is highly routine and news/timeline-like, and doesn't make for good encyclopedic information in an article by itself. As part of the larger coverage of education in that town or the like, sure, but not as a standalone article. That's why its'a "redirect/merge" suggestion, not just "redirect", some information can be brought over. --MASEM (t) 19:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Their focus doesn't diminish their independence, or indeed their status as a reliable source. Independence is about whether the school has editorial influence on the paper, reliability about having adequate processes in place for fact checking. Notability is of course a very different subject, and at first glance you might think that NSPORTS doesn't follow the GNG. But, and this difference is crucial, NSPORTS is dealing with individual High School athletes as opposed to the actual school - the career of an individual High school athlete can be little more than a BLP1E. Schools are usually longer lived. As for the idea that much of the information in many school articles is routine and overly focussed on the present, yes that's true but also much isn't. More importantly such an approach verges on considering the article as is rather than the potential of the subject. The difficulty of identifying a secondary school that fails the GNG is that you'd need access to the local papers in that area. In theory there could be a secondary school that was ignored by the media throughout its life, but it isn't very likely. ϢereSpielChequers 00:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, it does actually. The more focused a source is on some field, such as a specific geographic location, the less likely they are independent of what exists within that field. Basically - it's tooting one's own horn even if the connection is not financial or personal. This is an idea spelled out at WP:ROUTINE and WP:DIVERSE. And every argument that you can apply to the local coverage of a school can typically apply to any business at the same local level. Yes, some businesses have shorter lifetimes than schools, some don't. And yet some will get the same type of coverage as a local school, but they would fail WP:ORG.
        • Again, I note I'm not talking about removal of information, as, at least with public schools, they are part of a government system. Searching for "Smalltown Elementary School" would still be a valid link, redirecting to the Education section of Smalltown, and where likely the most encyclopedic information can be put such as when it was built, what grades it serves, approximate student body size, etc. Some school may have more in-depth coverage and thus would require a longer discussion and a full article, but I doubt most really can when you work at it. --MASEM (t) 01:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
          • WP:ROUTINE is not related to the concept of independence, independence is a matter of editorial control and standards of journalism. It would be wrong to assume that journalistic standards are proportionate to circulation size. It is highly likely that most name checks of a school in Local Papers will be routine, but enough will not be routine that practically all conventionally sized secondary schools will be notable. WP:DIVERSE isn't about independence either; DIVERSE does have a requirement for national rather than local coverage, but that is a guideline for events not a policy, nor is it applicable to institutions. ϢereSpielChequers 10:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
            • It's absolutely applicable to institutions. The equivalent passage on WP:ORG currently has a shortcut at WP:CORPDEPTH; it's been on the page, essentially unchanged, since 11 September 2008. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 11:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
            • You have to remember that we're writing a world-wide encyclopedia. If we cannot explain the importance of a topic outside of its local field, we're probably in too much detail and need to resummarize to a higher level. If a topic is only covered in depth via local sources, it has very little impact to the whole of mankind, and thus should be discussed in less detail in a border topic. Again, this is not dismissing local sources as WP:V sources, but only as a the sole indicators for notability. On the flip side, the logic being used to justify why local papers give schools notability would be sufficient to give most businesses, local landmarks, and numerous residents of any town with its own paper notability for WP, and that's just not going to happen (WP:IINFO for one). --MASEM (t) 12:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
              • There is no business or institution that has the societal impact on a community that a school has. On the physical level, there are many towns in Australia where the school is one of the oldest and most permanent structures (alongside some combination of a pub, railway station, police station, war memorial and another pub). On a sheer numbers level, there are no places where there are so many people (including children as people) attend full time for so long. On a social level, a change in staffing or pedagogy at a school reverberates through the community; principal retires, Aboriginal education becomes integrated across the curriculum, whatever. On an organisational level, schools are often sites where governments seek to base other community services, such as welfare programs, nurses or children's dental programs. These things tend to be reported in the local news media. If a school (or even a teacher) does something right (or wrong) for their classes across their career, the effects are felt for generations. I'm speaking mostly based on my teaching and educational consultancy experience here in Australia, but I imagine the same is true for everywhere else on the planet.

The local butcher? Not so much. The content of the news article (whether it be local or national) is what makes the difference here. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 12:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• • • • • • • • • Is any of this impact documented, however? You may be able to document the changes, but if you can't document that impact (secondary information), then you're placing undue weight on what the importance of these changes have. And there are other institutions that may be more important than schools: a local business that the town was founded around, or in some cases, churches may be more valuable to the community than the school. The point is: schools have no special weight within WP, and are not intrinsically notable simply because there happens to be very local coverage of them. --MASEM (t) 14:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
                  • What are you asking is documented here? That more people attend schools full time than they do at the local barber shop (sources can usually be found for this, even in the local paper)? Or that school buildings tend to be the oldest documented structures (this is often easy enough to source)? The impact of teachers (the effect of good/bad teachers is receiving wide coverage at the moment in the general news media, as well as more academic publications)? That schools tend to be sites where other services get built in (easy enough to find sources for this too for schools where these services get offered)? You're too quick to insist that local newsmedia be considered unreliable when they most often report these issues quite reasonably.

As for "more important", I'm not arguing that there might be other places that are "more important", even though I think that this is often rarely the case. I am arguing that this is what makes schools notable. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 15:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

No, we're looking for more than just mere existence or mention as a factual event in a local news story. Why should anyone else in the world care about the school? That's why we need non-local sources that provide significant coverage of the school to make an encyclopedic article about it - otherwise its datum with no context, useful as part of a larger article but not enough for an article by itself. --MASEM (t) 15:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• The current thinking at WP:CORPDEPTH was introduced with minimal discussion and has been controversial since then. The Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill page originally contained content which supported the "local sources don't count" idea, but it was removed due to opposition. WP:ITSLOCAL also remains in the heavily viewed WP:ATA essay, which argues against "local sources don't count", and this makes some sense since the WP:GNG, which gets a lot more scrutiny on its content than SNGs, says nothing about local sources being disallowed. Ultimately, the GNG states than an article should pass either the GNG or one or more SNGs, so if a school article passes the GNG, there is really no issue. This idea of local sources being bad opens a large can of worms. What is a "local source" and a "local area"? Where do you draw the line? One could argue that "most of the world doesn't care" about what goes into the national newspapers of a particular country, therefore we should demand international coverage of topic before covering it in an encyclopedia. Judging notability by depth of coverage and independence e.t.c. is far more objective. CT Cooper · talk 00:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

In considering WP:IINFO, we have to state, at some point, where coverage of a topic is so focused and localized enough that it no longer qualifies for a stand alone topic - otherwise, on the assumption that local papers are otherwise reliable sources, you run into the problem that numerous people, businesses, and the like are suddenly "notable" when, when thinking about the larger idea of WP being a summarizing work of human knowledge, is obviously just not going to work. The deciding point between what is strictly just local coverage, and the same for what is just strictly regional coverage, and how that applies to notability, is a discussion that likely has to be resolved at AFD or a similar consensus-based venue, because it is not a hard line. I do agree that summarizing that into "most of the world doesn't care" can be a loaded statement, but the way to look at it is that if you have a geographically-fixed object (the school), and its influence is only to those that live in its immediate location such that no one outside of that location has cared to write about it, it probably doesn't have a larger influence needed for a good encyclopedic article. Not all schools fall into this, but I'd say that at a worldwide level, the likelihood of a school having in-depth coverage from outside its immediate local area is very low. Ergo, it is improper to assume these schools should have stand-alone articles. Covered in the articles on the local area, yes, but not on their own. --MASEM (t) 14:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The appropriateness of an article's existence should be judged by the ability to write a policy compliant article on it. If there are a large collection of local non-trivial independent sources on the topic, then an article might be appropriate, on the other hand if there are a small number of trivial sources on a topic from multiple countries, then such an article would not be appropriate. The idea of blanket excluding local sources is very arbitrary with little relation to article content, no matter how it is defined, as there is no reason why regional sources would be of interest to a worldwide audience, itself a vague idea, while local sources would not be. Excluding local sources would make sense if the aim was to cap the number of articles, but that is not part of the stated aims of notability guidelines, although I recognize some editors think it should be (e.g. to keep vandalism under control, a frequent complaint of school articles). CT Cooper · talk 15:08, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

We aren't capping the number of articles but we are avoiding indiscriminate information, that's a goal of notability. Taking the argument that several non-trivial local sources are appropriate for a school, it is very easy to make that same apply to people, groups, businesses, and the like all of a local nature. But we know as a work that would be far from appropriate for inclusion: WP:ORG, for example, requires wider coverage for this reason. It also further exaggerates an already weighted systematic bias on western cultures, where there are a lot of local papers that cover local events, compared to less better-off countries where the idea of local publication is non-existent. Now, note, I'm not saying its possible that consensus could decide that an article, solely resting on local sources but really well written local sources as to make a very strong encyclopedic article on a school that everyone agrees should be kept. But the challenge is : can that be done for every school in the world? Very very doubtful. --MASEM (t) 15:22, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The mere application of notability guidelines, policies such as WP:NOT, and content guidance such as WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI, mean that school articles are not indiscriminate collections of information, whether they be based on local sources or not. The rationale for excluding local sources remains far from clear. Arguing against local coverage to tackle systematic bias is not an argument I have heard previously, but while the systematic bias is an issue, dealing with it is not a goal of notability and is mainly caused by the English Wikipedia missing content from non-English speaking countries, not having too much content from the English speaking world. Trying to rebalance systematic bias by limiting content from the English speaking world, is in practice little different, to cap on articles. Ultimately, the issue about the lack of publications in certain places is not a bias, it is just a reality of the World as it is now, and one that will inevitably have knock on effects to an encyclopedia based on verifiability.

As for exemptions to the local sources requirement, almost everything has exemptions, but if a good article can be written based on local sources is undermines the case for a local sources rule significantly. I don't think anyone is arguing that all schools are notable; it has long been accepted that the vast majority of schools do not pass the WP:GNG, most of these being primary/elementary schools, which there are far more of than higher level institutions. If the GNG is applied properly then merging and re-directing to locality articles or school districts is the correct solution for most school articles (which can probably be extended to businesses and other such things as well), whether any rule against local sources is present or not. CT Cooper · talk 17:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Let me put on my thinking cap and try and remember the old discussions. At one point we were spending a lot of time at AfD for schools. Generally secondary schools were getting kept and the others merged or deleted. The guidelines were discussed and many suggestions were made. What came out of those discussions was a general guide that secondary schools should be able to meet WP:GNG. So as a rule these should be kept. I don't believe that the intention back then was to override the GNG. The focus was to reduce the number of school articles at AfD. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Schools, like other subjects, shouldn't be exempt from the WP:N/WP:ORG guidelines, but we aren't in a position to organize a witch hunt to rout out the nonnotable schools. If, after a dedicated search, a school doesn't meet the WP:N/WP:ORG guidelines, the article should be merged elsewhere or deleted. Most high schools meet our notability criteria, at least in high-coverage areas like the first world. Editors should be cautious about nominating these for deletion without doing a WP:BEFORE search. ThemFromSpace 02:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• All chools need to meet WP:ORG and WP:GNG. The "all high schools are so important that they're automatically kept" argument is wrong and outdated: there are many high schools that have only one or two students, are really minor extensions of much larger entities (tiny religious schools attached to churches or mosques or run out of the home of a minister), or that exist in places where high schools aren't written about in published sources (most rural schools in developing countries). But the fact is that ~99% of government-run high schools—and middle schools, a fact overlooked by many pro-high school editors—in Canada and the US will easily meet both ORG and GNG, so the practical difference is minimal.
  Anyone with a daily newspaper subscription should think it through: how many papers do you see in a week that contain zero information about your local schools? Has any public school in your area, regardless of the age of the students, ever built a single school building or passed a single tax without information about that change being amply and repeatedly discussed in your newspaper? No? Well, then those schools definitely meet the basic source requirements for notability, don't they? And not "because they're high schools, and we keep all high schools", but because they easily meet the GNG. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• In general we should be keeping secondary schools. As others have noted, WP:N is almost always trivial to meet for schools in the English-speaking parts of the world. The problem that arises is that some people will call that coverage routine, or local, or whatever, even if there are literally 100s of articles. I personally suspect that what will happen is we'll end up with some schools deleted because "all they have is the coverage you'd expect of any high school" (with a cite to WP:ROUTINE) which is effectively making the argument that high schools aren't notable for the normal coverage you'd expect of them. And for non-English speaking places, we generally suspect that the coverage exists, we just can't find it. Perhaps we should have a contest. Someone go through and pick 10 "real" high schools in English speaking locations (say at least 100 students that have been around for at least 4 years) they think notability can't be established for. And others seek at least 2 sources (routine or otherwise) that provide more than trivial coverage of the school (including its bands, sports teams, clubs and the like). I'm having a hard time imagining that the majority of the "worst" wouldn't be sourceable... Hobit (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

  An important difference will be that school will not be kept because they exist, but because they are notable. We will see quite a few discussion about the definitions of "notable", "reliable sources" and "routine coverage" related to this topic, but at least the article should proof why a school is notable and/or special. Night of the Big Wind _talk 15:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

  I think you misunderstand notability as it applies on Wikipedia. It is a term of art. In this case it can be thought of as "others have noticed". That is, we want sources that cover the topic, not that the topic is "special" in any way. I realize that others disagree with that notion, but I think WP:N speaks for itself. Hobit (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. I don't really see the problem. Secondary schools are generally large important institutions, individually and collectively, sometimes going back a century or more. Given the amount of money, legal status, and social/cultural issues they embody it seems like a waste of time to not have default inclusion, except for the most decrepit article. Some will have larger articles than others depending on weight but still they seem like they generally belong in the sum of all human knowledge. (If we were talking about primary schools, I would probabely suggest a different default) Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

There would be hundreds of thousands of secondary schools in the world. Rather than having a time wasting debate over notability hundreds of thousands of times, in (almost?) all cases ending with a Keep decision, I have no problem in keeping them all, and instead putting that editor effort into improving the quality of them all. Far too many school articles are way below Wikipedia standard. (I suspect that's the real reason in many cases why deletion is sought.) Don't delete. Fix. HiLo48 (talk) 23:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

wrong question. The problem is not the secondary schools. It's the primary schools. Too many. The vast majority have nothing notable about them. Fmph (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with HiLo48. The present policy may be slightly rough-and-ready at the margins but it is workable and is not causing any problems. This whole debate is a waste of time, trying to find a solution when there is no problem to fix. I also share CT Cooper's alarm at MASEM's attempt to redefine the concept of "independence" to exclude purely local media. As CT says, where are you going to draw the line? Viewed from the United States, say, it may be easy to see the distinction between local, regional (state) and national, but what are you going to do about, say, Singapore (pop. 5 million) where the city is also the nation? Please tell me this idea is going nowhere. -- Alarics (talk) 09:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

There are problems at the moment. As I've stated elsewhere, there have been 215 (give or take) schools nominated for deletion from Dec. 17 to now. 150 odd of these were made by one user in the space of 3 weeks over the Xmas and New Years period. While 90% of these AfDs were legitimate, the remaining 10% were problematic, for example:

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Li_Sing_Primary_School
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lagos_Preparatory_School
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Huaian_Foreign_Language_School
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Middle_Harbour_Public_School_(2nd_nomination)

The delete !vote-ers and nominators in these are either voting on the basis of primary schools are not notable, period, or that there is nothing that can make a primary school notable (in fact, one of the editors involved in the campaign has said that primary schools are "inherently non-notable". This is a problem that needs solving.

Night of the Big Wind, despite the fact that he is coming across this situation from a completely different angle, is doing the right thing. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 10:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It is never wise for an editor or group of editors to push AFD to try to implement policy change, even if its a result of a common outcome that has no exact backing from any guideline or policy. That issue is addressed more by an RFC/U if they know they're fighting policy and trying to fix it that way (WP:POINT), and if they continue to do that, I do recommend that solution. --MASEM (t) 14:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

This RfC will not lead to a policy change. It will lead to the closing off of an undesired stray off the policy, commonly know as "Common Outcomes". Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it is explicitly policy or not, it's still extremely gamey and pointy to try to subvert a long-term community consensus in this manner. AFD is the worst place to start a battle. --MASEM (t) 13:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a subject that has been annoying me for ages, and I start by thanking Night of the Big Wind for starting this. It's a hornet's nest, and I think you're a brave Wikipedian for poking at it with a big stick. I almost started this at WP:SCHOOL a while ago, but I chickened out. :)

So... if you consider a school an organization, which I don't think is a big stretch, then we can apply WP:CORPDEPTH which says (in part), "The source's audience must also be considered. Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary." (emphasis added.) What we have been doing for ages is short-circuiting the GNG and allowing a class of articles to exist under a special exemption. I say this stops now. If a school has coverage in reliable sources from outside its service area, then it's notable. If it's only covered in sources distributed in the same area as the school serves, then it's not notable. I'd really like to see the whole schools tree of articles refactored in the following way:

• Add a paragraph or so in the article about the city/county/whatever (or, in fact all of the above) that describes the school board that serves the area.
• Create school board articles with a list of each school governed by the board. Schools which do not meet the GNG can be covered in a paragraph in the school board article. Schools which do meet the GNG have their own articles and a hat in the school board article pointing to the article on the notable school.
• Create redirects for all non-notable schools in the region pointing back to the school board article, anchored to the paragraph on the specific school.

There, done, easy-peasie, lemon-squeezie. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 19:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Except that now we have these school board articles which have several problems: most would likely suffer the same CORPDEPTH problem of being only significant to local sources, and that the structure of a school board isn't replicated across the globe.

There's already a better article that every non-notable school article can be merged up into: the article about the community it serves. We already acknowledge any government recognized town or village as notable, so we can create sections on "Education" within those to discuss the schools (and school boards if they exist). When these are large as they would be for large cities, separate "Education in X" can be spun out. --MASEM (t) 19:23, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

You know, as soon as I hit 'save' I thought of the first problem you pointed out, I just hoped nobody else would be smart enough to think of it too. I hadn't thought of the second, but they're both valid points. My proposal sucks, but I agree 100% to merge them back in to the town/village/city/county/arrondissement/whatever. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 19:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Western world Schools will easily meet GNG as schools get numerous independent reports carried out and it would be hard in the western world not to find sources written about a school to meet GNG. I also think they meet guidelines in WP:ORG. Therefore the guildline of common consensus was that all Secondary Schools are notable has been in place for sometime. It allows people to work on content rather than fighting AFDs that will ultimately fail as will be worked on. As I've previously pointed out to Night the problem isn't Western schools if you go with all Secondary schools must meet GNG because it would be very hard for them to fail when worked on my problem is schools outside the west they are no less notable than my local school but would be far more difficult to source enough to meet GNG. I have a big issue there we cant include some and not others. My other concern is the clear campaign being run against schools shown by the huge number of recent AFDS that needs addressed its far too many in number to allow people to assess and look to work on. There really needs to be a limit how many one editor can nominate at any one time. I think everyone agrees the majority of Primary schools are non notable unless they have extensive sources to prove notability so why are they being taken to AFD when there is a clear consensus in those AFds to redirect its a waist of everyones time.Edinburgh Wanderer 00:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

  Great! Then you will be able to write an article about the "Plantage Mavo" in Beverwijk, the Netherlands. It is one of my former secondary schools, but I consider the school not notable. If you can proof otherwise, you are welcome to do that! Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

  • There is no consensus that primary schools are non-notable. There is currently a small band of editors who take this stance and are nominating primary schools for deletion purely because they are primary schools. While perhaps the majority of primary schools are non-notable there are some which are clearly notable that are located in historic buildings and which have served their local community for centuries. Some of these schools have got swept up in the school AfD campaign and have been inappropriately deleted or redirected. The people who would normally help to improve and source these articles haven't been able to do so because of the bad timing over the Christmas holidays and the sheer numbers involved. There have been about have been about 222 school related AfDs since 17th December and one user has been responsible for 157 of those AfDs. His editing history shows that he sometimes looks at the articles for just a few minutes before nominating them for AfD. I really think there should be a limit to the number of AfDs that a single user is allowed to make in any given period. The articles can of course be recreated but it doesn't help that one of the articles involved was being worked on by a new user who now unsurprisingly seems to have given up editing altogether. Dahliarose (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
    • More accurately, there is probably agreement that some primary and secondary schools are notable by the GNG, but the argument is that not all primary schools are necessary notable - particularly if the only coverage of the school is by local sources. We don't allow local sources to stand as sufficient GNG evidence for other topics, so it doesn't stand the same to allow schools to get away with it as well. --MASEM (t) 21:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And how can you possibly tell from someone's contributions how long they have spent looking at an article before nominating it? Fmph (talk) 21:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Have you seen his list of contributions? Every few minutes a tag or deletion nomination. Unless he reads all the articles and put them in line for tagging/nominating first, it is impossible to give the articles a good look in such a short time. He is efficient enough to standardize his nomination-reasons Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The focus of the RFC was are secondary schools notable so we should keep to that subject as much as possible as so far this isn't really going either way. However the consensus on primary schools is they are not automatically notable. Secondary schools are far more notable than primary schools mainly due to being far more coverage on them and and has been found in most of those AFDS there aren't good sources to make primary schools meet GNG and they don't pass previously held common consensus either. Anyone looking at a primary school should asses whether meets GNG and if not be bold and redirect there is no need for an AFD in those cases unless contested then they should go to AFD. In regards to sourcing we do allow local sources in some cases to go towards GNG depending on there nature and level of coverage plus inspectorate reports are clearly independent and reliable sourcing. It should be noted i am strongly against the mass nominating of AFDS by one user they aren't looking at them closely enough it also make it impossible for people to adequately asses them and have time to work on them. Also to address a point further up there are loads of projects who have clear consensus that things don't have to meet GNG the schools consensus was never laid out as such and that should of been formally done however the argument cant be everything on wiki has to meet GNG as that isn't the case it needs to be do Secondary schools have sufficient merit not to meet GNG. We also need to asses whether by using GNG as a standpoint on schools we are creating a situation where western schools pass but say Indian schools fail due to lacking substantial sources they are no less notable. Its time the RFC was brought back to the main issue so we can move forward one way or another. Edinburgh Wanderer 22:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Because of the strange layout, I answer Livitup here

I do not agree with your opinion and your attempt to turn the RfC away. This RfC was set up to check if secondary schools (and in fact also primary schools and universities) had to satify WP:GNG or that the Common Outcomes, as used in relating for schools, was allowed to override WP:GNG. The consensus on that point is clear: the Common Outcomes are not allowed to override WP:GNG. So articles about schools just have to satisfy WP:GNG. Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Unless I'm missing something the RFC opening statement says Should secondary schools/highschools meet the standards of Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline or are they exempt from that? that does not mention primary schools or UNI's. Edinburgh Wanderer 00:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I was also thinking today that, absent further substantive debate, it was time to do something before this withers away into another failed attempt at documenting consensus. I think there are two key arguments here:

• Sources with local distribution are sufficient to prove notability. Since almost every school in the world is covered in at least local sources, schools are defacto notable.
• Sources with local distribution are not sufficient to prove notability; notability must be proven by coverage in sources of wider distribution, or sources outside the "home area" of the subject of the article. Some schools have such notability, some schools do not, so each article should be judged on the sources within that article.

Once we settle this basic argument, we can move on to determining a guideline for the creation and deletion of school articles. So without further ado, I present a:

Straw poll to test consensus

Proposed: Schools must be shown to have attention from regional, national, or international sources to show notability. Sources with limited or local distribution are not indications of notability for schools.

Support:

1. As straw poll author. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 22:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Weak support: The "schools are automatically notable" idea is just favoritism shown by people with an overt interest in schools or (more often) people who think their school is Important, and want to bend the rules to favor their local editing interest without any care for the broader effect of doing so. Schools, as organizations, architectural structures, subcultures, or any other categorization are not magically special. I understand DGG's point in the "oppose" section, and it makes sense as observation, but doesn't seem to me to override the issue that there are an unbelievable number of "civic pride" and "local vanity" articles on Wikipedia that should upmerge into broader school district, local government or even town pages. My support is weak because the wording "have attention from ... sources" is not particularly helpful, and this may be too specific – schools are a common example of the problem, but "local crap" is the real problem, not schools per se. That said, some variant of this could deal with that more broadly, by not focusing on schools exactly, but "local civic institutions", and even if it didn't, just slowing the profusion of "my skool's kool!" wannabe-articles would be a net positive. User:Night of the Big Wind's more detailed draft, mentioned at the #Suggestions sub-topic below looks like a good place to start, if schools in particular were to remain the focus. Even that looks to me like it could be broadened to include civic institutions more broadly, from city councils to high school football teams to whatever "local crap" people are generating pointless vanity articles about. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
3. Weak support - This idea needs a rewriting, but I understand and support the motivation. The idea that by simple virtue of being a high school, a high school meets notability requirements, is a bad idea. Most high schools will meet the GNG, but many won't, and we need to separate out out the chaff and be rid of it. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
4. Support I can support this, although I would prefer more precise wording with regards to sources. I don't think this proposal requires all schools to provide evidence of notability from the get-go, but rather if no sources can be found after a diligent WP:BEFORE search, we should consider merging or deletion. Again its worthwhile to point out that I feel most high schools in the first world meet the WP:ORG/WP:N criteria, so this proposal would necessitate little action. ThemFromSpace 16:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. The distinction doesn't make sense as a formal rule, for there will be too many exceptions; in practice for schools as for other local institutions we relatively downgrade the importance of merely local news accounts, but it depends to a good deal what is said in them. I'm more likely to be found arguing against local sources as showing the notability of local institutions than the other way around, but it depends on the article. RS is a matter of interpretation and shades of grey, and most contested AfD discussions tend to involve the nuances of such interpretation. DGG ( talk ) 05:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Strong Oppose. Notability has always been about significant independent coverage. Schools where significant independent is met by local sources still meet GNG. The 'non-local' requirement is in the guidelines for wp:organizations, which is an alternate way to meet notability. This proposal would conflate guidelines, requiring schools to meet both instead of either one. This would be a deep change of the current community consensus that would affect all other organizations and even other subject-specific guidelines. While I can empathize with the motivation to avoid lots of half-backed articles about trivial items, fighting them through the local criteria is absolutely the wrong way to approach the situation. What should be questioned is the reliability and quality of sources available, not their geographic proximity; the existing WP:N, WP:V and WP:RS guidelines are good enough to avoid indiscriminate topic coverage (and have never required non-local sources to establish notability). It would make sense to require a stricter enforcement of GNG if in exchange all this nonsense about local and routine sources was dropped, or at least reduced to criteria to assess the quality of the sources found, not an absolute requirement. Diego (talk) 06:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
3. Oppose Not only because the distinction between "regional" and "local" is unworkable but because Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. If someone wants to write an article on some incurious secondary school, is the resulting article any less worthy for inclusion that

   What happened here? Where is the other half of the opinion and the signature? Sven Manguard Wha? 15:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

4. Oppose Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. If someone wants to write an article on a some innocuous secondary school then is the resulting article any less worthy of inclusion than Teardrops on My Drum, Julius von Mohl or Doite? Those are the last three articles I got when I clicked Random article. No more than those articles, articles on secondary schools may not be notable to you, but they are notable to someone, they meet the general notablility guidelines, and just because they exist doesn't mean anyone ever has to read them. We are only collect the sum of human knowledge, we are not saying that any of it is interesting. --RA (talk) 14:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

   The logic you're using means that I should write an article on myself , since that's notable to me. (And I can find local sources for that). We can't be indiscriminate despite being paper (we are not the "sum" of human knowledge, we are a summary of human knowlege): at some point we have to recognize that detailed coverage fails our goal of summarizing information. --MASEM (t) 15:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

   That would almost certainly be excluded by trivial or routine coverage. Biographies can pass either WP:GNG or WP:BIO, and neither of them ban articles on individuals of local interest. In fact, WP:POLITICIAN opens the door to articles on local politicians. CT Cooper · talk 18:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) Notability is not a solipsistic notion of "notability". "Notability" is intrinsically about what other people believe is notable. To you and I, any topic may still be non-notable, but, if it is notable to others, unrelated to the topic of the article, that's notable enough for Wikipedia.

   So, "I think I am notable" doesn't cut it. What is required is for multiple, independent sources to write significantly on the topic. That is, "Other people think I am notable". Those other people may not be you or I, but it is they are someone. It doesn't matter if those people are "local", "regional", "national" or "international". All that matters is that the topic is notable to some group of people.

   By "sum of human knowledge" I was referring to the Jimbo quote: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing." Of course some summarising is needed ... so we summarise about a secondary school, we don't write about every door and hallway or list every past pupil. But we do summarise it. --RA (talk) 18:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

   This is why notability on WP is treated differently from the concept of "noted by others" or the standard English dictionary definition. It is meant as an objective metric by demonstrating that sources have found the topic to be of note, and not just the subjective argument "others find this notable". To that end that's why we also require significant coverage to assure that it is not isolated by a small group of people. When the coverage is just local, that's a problem towards our goal of summarizing human knowledge. --MASEM (t) 18:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

5. Oppose - The accusation is frequently levied that schools are getting lax treatment with regard to the GNG. If that is true, then the solution is to properly enforce the GNG, and demand a decent level of coverage with trivial references and routine coverage excluded. This proposal will instead raise the bar above the level which is required for the GNG, by excluding "local sources" in a blanket and arbitrary fashion, with absolute no regard to the reasons notability requirements exist in the first place. Reasons given for justifying local sources exclusions among editors have been inconsistent and unclear - with arguments varying from personal dislike of articles on localities (with them being described as "crap" e.t.c.), trying to reduce the number of articles in general, and even trying to tackle systematic bias. There is no evidence that there has ever been a clear consensus for such a rule, with this being demonstrated right here, at WP:ITSLOCAL and WP:ROTM, and by reviewing the "discussion" that led to WP:CORPDEPTH. There remain many unanswered questions on how this actually works, with a lack of any clear definition of what "local" is and how to determine a "local source" in all possible media being the tip of the iceberg. Given these unanswered questions, I think supporting this is analogous to signing a blank cheque. CT Cooper · talk 17:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
6. Oppose - The idea of limiting coverage to subjects that get more than local coverage is antithetical to my idea of what WP is. Even though it is not intended to include all human knowledge (I had Raisin Bran for breakfast, just in case you want to know), I believe that it should include what I would expect to find in, say, A History of Foo County, for all Foos in English-speaking nations and for any other Foos that any of our readers are interested in and that our editors are willing to work on. That means, for every city, county, and township in the U.S., coverage of the founders, the locally-noted institutions and personages, the local climate and development patterns, the local history, government, culture, education, sports, and so on. All of that is included in the suggested coverage for all settlements, and most of the sourcing wil be local. Once you start writing an article on a settlement and aim for GA quality, almost every major section will, eventually, require a sub-article, where almost all of the sources will be local. This policy would lead to endless warfare between the notability police and editors, with creative editors adding encyclopedic content to the project and deletionists taking it to AfD and proposing to merge and redirect it back to the locality. In reality, "merge and redirect" for schools and most similar institutions means "delete all of the content except their name and a self-referencing link to an empty redirect."--Hjal (talk) 18:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
7. Strong Oppose. This poll is flawed. There is no need for altherantive guidelines for schools if the majority feel the current common outcomes is wrong then schools should meet the same set of guidelines as anything else. They must meet GNG the above proposal is wrong and would mean changing GNG you can't have lower or higher rules for schools than anything else. The original poll should be reinstated immediately. Should schools meet GNG or are they inherently notable. Edinburgh Wanderer 18:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Should schools have to meet GNG

Proposal Are Secondary schools inherently notable or should they meet the full guidelines laid out at WP:GNG the above poll is flawed as if schools are not inherently notable schools should meet the main guidlines as everything else not lesser or higher standards. Edinburgh Wanderer 18:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Support:

Oppose:

Straw poll discussion

Trouts and pitchforks welcome. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 22:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Again thats a side argument the GNG guidelines are already there as are the WP:ORG. A straw poll is needed but it should be the straight question do Secondary schools need to meet GNG or are the exempt the original question of the RFC.Edinburgh Wanderer 22:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No, I think this is the right question to be asking. The justification in the above sections and past AFD is that any secondary school will have local source, ergo defacto notability by the GNG. It is not the case we allow secondary school articles never to have to show any type of notability. No topic is except from the GNG; the reason secondary schools are kept is the presumption of GNG -meeting. When framed in this manner the question is whether local sources satisfy the GNG for secondary schools. --MASEM (t) 22:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well thats not true at all there are plenty of things that are exempt from meeting GNG such as professional sports players. That poll is for another RFC not this one thats a RFC on GNG and what is needed to pass it not are schools notable.Edinburgh Wanderer 22:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Masem, you're echoing exactly what I am trying to get at. If we can first decide whether local notability is enough for schools to meet the GNG, then we can decide what to do. If the consensus here is that yes, local sources are enough, then we can probably wrap up this RFC and move on with our lives. But if we decide local coverage does not make a school notable, then we can discuss what to do with schools that only have local coverage. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 22:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Edinburg, we're not talking about "lots of things". We're talking about schools. For years, secondary schools have been presumed notable based on coverage in sources of local or limited distribution. My straw poll just tries to determine if this is still consensus or not. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 22:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No GNG is the same for everything it is no different whether for a person, school or football team therefore a debate on what is needed to pass as GNG for schools isn't appropriate its for another RFC altogether. You cant set a level of sources required for one thing and not another its taking this on another route and the end result will be this RFC getting nothing done. The original question needs answered first If you want to go on a sidetrack meaning the main issue does not get addressed then go ahead. The subject of what is required to meet GNG is a different story all together. It should also be pointed out the RFC isn't about all schools its about secondary ones which will be able to be sourced a lot better also WP:ORG does come into play at that level not just GNG. Edinburgh Wanderer 22:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Livitup it was already as said above by Masem taken on another route when he said No topic is except from the GNG. Thats shows this is going to be about GNG not schools. There are so many things on wiki where consensus was laid down properly that things don't have to meet GNG. All I'm saying is you risk this being about GNG not schools.Edinburgh Wanderer 22:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No, pro sports players aren't exempt from notability guidelines. They have to meet the criteria of the sub-notability guideline NSPORT, which is to establish criteria that - given time and resources to locate sources - GNG sourcing can eventually be obtained. While I personally disagree with some of the points, the arguments at NSPORT given for each rational make sense as to why there will likely be non-local coverage of each pro player, for example.

Note that there is no subnotability guideline for schools. It has always been listed in OUTCOME on the justification that local sources are likely to exist to satisfy notability. The question is now raised: are local sources sufficient? They are disallowed via WP:ORG (another sub-notability guideline) and NSPORT rejects them as notability measures, so is there a different consensus for schools? That's the question to be asked. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No they are exempt from GNG if they meet those guidelines as at WP:Footy loads of players aren't well sourced but it they play in a fully pro league they stay. You said nothing is exempt from GNG which is wrong.Edinburgh Wanderer 23:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead but its a side argument that in no way need addressed there are no sub guidelines for schools as you say just common outcomes. Therefore they are either notable inherently or the must meet GNG. The original question is the best do they need to meet GNG or not. By going down local sourcing we aren't getting anywhere. What your saying is schools should have sub guidelines its no better than common outcomes. Edinburgh Wanderer 23:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Remember, the GNG is not the overarching guideline for inclusion, it is WP:N itself, which says that notability is determined by either meeting the GNG or by a subject-specific notability guideline. As there is no sub-notability guideline for schools (unless you want them under WP:ORG) we have to look to see if they meet the GNG. The argument until recently is "yes secondary schools meet the GNG because they have coverage by, at minimum, local papers". The arguing in question is can local papers be used to justify the GNG. It has never been the case that the GNG has never been applied for schools, simply that the default answer has been presumed yes due to the local sourcing. --MASEM (t) 23:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The issue, also, is that sourcing should be appropriate for a claim of notability. People voted delete at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle Harbour Public School (2nd_nomination), despite coverage in national level news media on issues of (a) being the cause for a change to legislation in regards to speed zones near schools; (b) the principal being a go-to expect on school issues; and (b) being a highly ranked school as determined by standardised testing. Personally, I think that should be enough (and voted so), but the bar regarding what is and is not notable in terms of schools is set artificially high. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 23:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Its fair to say it hasn't been applied. It has always been the common outcome that Secondary schools are likely to meet GNG therefore should stay. Thats been the case at so many AFDs over the years. It means that schools are very rarely fully assessed. There isn't a need for another subguideline. Eithier the common outcome is correct and should be put down properly or must fully meet GNG. Then you go down the route of what a local source is. Also independent National reports are published for all Secondary schools in the UK anyway that are widely reported in the national press so either way that is an independent national reliable source.Edinburgh Wanderer 23:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Annual school reports commisioned by the same government that pays for the schools? I don't think you can call those reports "independent sources". The old saying still works: Who pays the piper calls the tune. Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not just "local" coverage. We need "significant coverage in secondary sources". I am absolutely sure in most Western countries and probably some Eastern ones that there's an annual document accessing all schools - number of students, teachers, graduating, average grade, etc. That's not significant coverage - that's data points. Now, if a report praised the top 5-10 schools and described how they got there; or critiqued the bottom schools for certain aspects, that's secondary and a start for the GNG. To take Danjel's example of a school where an incident lead to a national/state law, we have the concept that singular events aren't sufficient to lead to notability, unless there's a much larger and long-term impact (eg Columbine).

To put this another way: prior to recent discussion, the approach to secondary schools is "OUTCOME says will meet GNG, ergo no need to delete/!keep vote at AFD". Now people are saying "Ok, how exactly does Smalltown High meet the GNG?", exposing that most of these are built on local sources. The question is begged: are local sources sufficient for schools (where no other area allows for them) or not, and thus adjusting some policy/guideline somewhere to reflect that consensus. --MASEM (t) 23:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Its a common outcome and national reports are very likely when combined with other sources to meet the general notability guidelines. Im not saying schools shouldn't be subject to GNG I'm saying that going down the line of what is enough to meet GNG in a schools case isn't helpful its a sidetrack issue. The original question needs answered first should schools meet GNG. If the answer to that is yes then you could say what constitutes enough in a schools case to meet that but by not answering the original question its not going anywhere. Anyway if the consensus is we should go down that route first then fine but the risk is the original question will get missed. As is shown the longer the discussion goes on people drift away from it so if you don't answer the main question by the time you get to it you may no longer have a discussion its a risk but hey ill let everyone else pitch in.

We don't have gun massacres at schools in Australia, but this is a similar sort of thing. Speed zones near schools is a major political issue in Australia at the moment, with positions by both major parties (Liberal and ALP). There is substantial and continuing coverage on this issue, and the school where the issue started is of note. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 00:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, there you go, that's an example of showing a school notable, which I'm satisfied with. But let's take the case of something like Emma E. Booker Elementary School - this is the school where President Bush was at when the 9/11 attacks started. Just because that happened to be where he was at on a historically critical moment doesn't create notability for the school - its a passing mention for all practical purposes.

To the preceeding question: every entry on OUTCOMES that suggests "keep" is one that has been justified (in the past) that sources will ultimately exist to meet the GNG. None of the entries in OUTCOME is a bypassing of GNG to allow an article. So it has always been about the GNG, not the non-existent free ride that schools got from the GNG. Whether local sources satisfy the GNG is the heart of this matter. --MASEM (t) 00:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Nice attempt to declare all schools notable. But I don't buy that! In general the line was that all school-articles have to meet WP:GNG. Now you are trying to lower the requirements to a level that is almost zero. With help of several other, I have compiled a draft for a set of rules to check if a school is notable. The draft only tries to give an upper limit (on or above this level = notable) and a lower limit (on or under this level = not notable). The grey area in between is for discussion. Life is too creative in inventing exceptions, that I don't even try to write a manual on notable/not-notable. That won't work. You can find the draft here: User:Night of the Big Wind/Notability of schools. Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The question is flawed. I don't see why any additional guidelines should be needed for schools when WP:N already suffices. The key point in WP:N seems to me "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger article or relevant list." Virtually all secondary-level schools in English-speaking countries can easily meet WP:N. The problem with the current AfD campaign is that the editors are setting a higher bar for any school that has the word "middle", "primary" or "elementary" in its title, regardless of the history or importance of the school. This 300-year-old school for instance got redirected despite the fact that there are nationally available sources including a whole book written about the school and mentions in several other published books, though the delete/redirect voters weren't aware of this when they voted. I plan to recreate the article but it just wastes everyone's time and discourages new editors when certain types of articles are singled out for a witch hunt. Dahliarose (talk) 00:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Lack of independent reliable sources killed off that article. Night of the Big Wind _talk 03:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That article got redirected because of block voting by people who hadn't read the article or checked for sources and were voting simply because the school had the word "middle" in its title despite the fact that it had only been a middle school for a short part of its history. The sources were found after they'd voted. Dahliarose (talk) 10:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If you had sources available, why did you not add them? Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That is an extremely bad faith accusation to lay on those editors. You should strike it now. You have no idea in the world whether they read the article or checked for sources. Fmph (talk) 11:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I can't prove or disprove that people haven't checked for sources but the voters in this case clearly hadn't understood the article properly and the votes were cast *before* additional content had been added to the article. The school has only recently been called a "middle" school so it is not surprising that sources couldn't be found if searches were restricted to the present name. There was no such thing as a middle school in 1725. The school leaving age was 14 right up until the beginning of the twentieth century in England. 11:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I've now struck through the comment. It is, however, clear that nominators and voters should take more time to investigate sources rather than voting on gut instinct which does seem to be the case with a lot of these school articles (high school = keep primary/middle = delete). For any school article one should always omit words like "primary" and "middle" from searches as schools, especially old ones, often undergo frequent name changes. Dahliarose (talk) 12:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, at issue are secondary schools as well. Most that I spot check are only locally sourced, and suffer the same problems as elementary schools.

The question: Are local sources suitable for demonstrating notability of a topic? is the core of the matter here. If they are, then yes, likely all primary and secondary schools are notable. If not, then most are likely non-notable and should be merged to the town/community they serve.

Again, I would put a large cavaet on this discussion: if this consensus drives towards that local sources are not notable, hence making schools *not* inherently notable, I would strongly suggest a 6 -12 month moratorium on deletion of school articles , giving time for editors to find sources for notability. --MASEM (t) 00:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it makes any difference whether the sources are local or not. All that matters is whether sufficient non-trivial sources can be found to produce an article of a reasonable length. National sources can be found for every single school in England, because every school is inspected either by OFSTED (state-run schools) or the Private Schools' Inspectorate (fee-paying schools). I don't think this should mean that every primary school in England is automatically notable simply because it is has a detailed OFSTED inspection every few years. The key points are that multiple reliable sources should be found and the article should be of a non-trivial nature. Dahliarose (talk) 01:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It does make a significant difference. WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information. At some point, as the focus of a reliable source gets narrower and tighter, the relevance of the material within that source to goal of summarizing information as a tertiary sources becomes less and less. Eg: not only would all primary and secondary schools be notable, but all churches, most restaurants, many businesses, most student athletes, all streets and roads, would be notable by the same means. That's indiscriminate and would fail that part of our goals. We also have to worry about the systematic bias between nations with a large amount of free press and those without that for various reasons. By restricting local sources, we avoid that systematic bias and maintain a discrete summary of mankind's knowledge. This is why NSPORTS and ORG already put the foot down on local sources for evidence of notability. --MASEM (t) 01:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Masem, if the problem is that routine coverage would create an indiscriminate amount of non-notable articles, the point that has to be clarified is routine, not local. Of course sources shown to provide significant and independent coverage can be used even if they happen to be geographically close to the subject. They are both within the spirit and the letter of GNG, which is having something relevant to say about the topic, and compatible with WP:NOTPAPER. Most churches, restaurants et. al. still wouldn't be covered because they don't get significant coverage beyond routine, but we should keep the small percentage that do get it (NOTPAPER again, and WP:SNOWFLAKE). Diego (talk) 06:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

No, it's not routine coverage, it's "local" coverage. Local coverage, broadly taken, often includes routine elements (a local paper has a weekly restaurant review column, for example), but not all local coverage is routine; not all routine cover is local. And routine coverage is not necessarily bad - eg: we pretty much assume every film that reaches a movie theater screen is notable because, by routine, it will be reviewed, establishing secondary sources, though often there's more coverage than that. The point is to understand that to fairly apply the idea of "WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information" is to restrict articles on topics that can only be covered in depth by local sources, whether that coverage is routine or not. As soon as something outside that local area takes notice, it's a different ballgame, but not until then. --MASEM (t) 07:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If people want to restrict the use of local sources to prove notability then it's WP:N that needs changing. You can't make one rule for schools that other articles aren't required to follow. Schools need to meet WP:N. We need to get away from the divisive and unhelpful AfD debates where one camp argues that a school must be kept simply because it is a "high school" and another camp argues that a school should be deleted simply because it is a primary/elementary middle school. Dahliarose (talk) 10:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If that is the case, I fail to see how significant coverage by several independent local sources that provides enough context for the topic (and thus are non-routine) can make that coverage "indiscriminate". You're discriminating from all the other items that don't have significant coverage by several independent local sources. Diego (talk) 13:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It's because if you allow "significant coverage in local sources only" to be allowed to use to show notability for one class of articles, you have to extend that to all classes of articles, which suddenly is going to drastically expand WP without reasonable bounds and consideration for discriminate coverage (churches, businesses, etc.) --MASEM (t) 13:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"Significant coverage in local sources" is already allowed for all classes of articles, it's called the General Notability Guideline. What you suggest is to restrict the GNG for schools so that an additional requirement (non-local sources) would be required for that class. Again, that indiscriminate coverage that you fear is not happening because not all churchers or businesses are covered by significant reliable sources, not even local. Those which are covered should definitely have an article because Wikipedia is not paper. Diego (talk) 14:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"Significant coverage in secondary sources" and "local coverage only" are contradictory statements - barring some exceptional cases, you cannot have "significant coverage" if the secondary source coverage is only coming from local sources. The same type of coverage that some in this discussion have said assures schools are notable - despite coming from local sources - also exists for many other local entities. While WP is not paper we are still a tertiary source meant to summarize information, not outline every possible tidbit. That's why restricting the creation of articles on topics that have only local source coverage helps to assure that if we are including a specific school, business, or other factor, it has wider reaching notability beyond just the community it serves. --MASEM (t) 14:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"Significant coverage in secondary sources and local coverage only are contradictory statements" - only in your mind. There's nothing that by their nature would make a local source necessarily not significant, and you have failed to make a convincing case why this would be so. If the goal is to avoid lots of cruft, I can empathize with that sentiment; but that's logically unrelated to the physical position of the sources with respect to the covered item. We are not "outlining every possible tidbit", only those which have been noted by reliable third parties. Why should "local" be synonym with "not reliable"? Diego (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:N as currently written makes no discrimination between local and non-local sources. The GNG guideline does exclude routine and trivial coverage, as it should, though that doesn't mean local sources are banned entirely. However, I am doubtful that if the guideline is applied as currently written, that all primary schools would survive. Secondary schools usually have a lot more coverage, and do overwhelming have the sources available to pass the GNG as currently written. What would happen with a local sources exclusion is more debatable, with the vagueness of the proposal with defining what local is e.t.c. being the primary cause of this. I have seen at least one supporter of the local sources exclusion claim that a decent majority of secondary schools would survive such an exclusion. CT Cooper · talk 01:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that the suggestion that all primary schools are notable (as much as I think it) is an appropriate compromise, so no one's really saying it seriously. But I strongly agree with you that the guidelines as they are not being applied appropriately. But rather than worrying about survivability, I worry that the bar is being set inappropriately high for primary schools (with local, regional, national and international sources not being enough, for example, in the AfD I linked to above). ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 01:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"Significant coverage" suggests that local-only coverage fails notability; there is also the aspect that a local paper reporting on local events is a partially dependent source since they have a vested interest in coverage in the news in that local area. Notability is meant to be demonstrated by a breadth of sources. --MASEM (t) 18:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"Significant coverage means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." I don't see anything here which can reasonably be interpreted to mean local sources are banned. There is also more to local sources than local newspapers, and while some local sources may have be closely connected to a school, it is rather sweeping to suggest they all are. CT Cooper · talk 22:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Just because it's not written down explicitly doesn't mean it's not taken that way. The idea of local sources not being sufficient for notability is a defacto standards for people, organizations, businesses, and the like, and schools cannot have special exemption from them. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The archives at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)] suggest otherwise. Once and again the warnings for local sources were as caveats to mind the possibility of non-significant or non-independent coverage, not to ban them outright; and that the notability for organizations and businesses guideline is not an additional requirement that articles should meet but an alternate way to reach notability. So not only schools don't have any special exemption but all organizations are treated the same way, and can find notability from local sources of enough quality. That is what Notability means, and that is the consensus that our wikipedian Founding Fathers left us. The interpretation that non-local sources are an absolute requirement has never reached community-wide consensus. Diego (talk) 23:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• The idea that any organization less significant than, say, a national or (major sub-national, e.g. US state, UK county) government should not have to meet the WP:GNG is pure favoritism by people especially interested in such organizations. Of course schools of all kinds should have to meet the GNG. We've long merged pointless "my school is so cool" wannabe-articles into broader articles on school districts. If you ask me (and this is an RfC, so you did!), school district articles in turn should almost always actually merge into articles on the city government more generally, which for most cities (and virtually all smaller-than-city settlements) should in turn probably merge into the article on the city, unless and until WP:SUMMARY criteria are met that strongly suggest splitting. There are innumerable "local vanity" articles. I.e., if New York City gets an article about its bus system, editors in Peoria and Albuquerque want one too, as a matter of civic pride. Wikipedia is not a place for hanging pennants. The vast majority of articles on schools below the collegiate/university level are not particularly useful, and can be done away with as separate articles as long as searches like "Franklin High School, Dallas" will still find their subsections in the city government article. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, that "favoritism" is as outrageous as having one school who does meet the GNG deleted because all the significant coverage is from local independent sources. If school articles shouldn't require less than meeting the GNG, they also shouldn't require more. Diego (talk) 13:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions

The proposal needs a target policy (I suggest WP:ORG) and I'd really prefer for it to be more definite in order to provide a brighter line. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 00:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Something like this draft: User:Night of the Big Wind/Notability of schools? Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

To avoid misunderstandings: this draft is not a set of rules hammered in stone, but a set of guidelines (unfortunately I have named them rules earlier) to help determine if a school is notable. Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. :) ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 01:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Something like that would work. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Trademarks

Hi. :) The Wikimedia Foundation has an issue with which it could really use some help. It occasionally gets letters from trademark owners who are unhappy about the way their trademarks are represented on Wikipedia. I have never really in my volunteer role worked much with trademark questions, and the only guideline I know of dealing with trademarked terms and how to handle them is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks. What I haven't been able to find is any guidance on determining when a trademark has been genericized, or what to do when a term is assumed to be generic but is also trademarked. (For a few examples taken from the List of generic and genericized trademarks: Dumpster, Rollerblade, Frisbee. These are not examples of products about which we've been contacted, just of some trademarks that according to that list are or may be in danger of becoming generic.)

Does anybody know if there is a policy or guideline anywhere setting this out? Or has this not been settled? If there isn't a guideline or policy on it, any chance the community might be able to create one and that some very kind person might spearhead that? :D Not only would it be good for editors to know how to write about these (potentially) trademarked items, but would give the Foundation something to point to when trademark claimants contact them with concerns about articles on Wikipedia to say "This is their practice on determining/discussing this, and this is why your product does (or does not) meet their definition." --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we have anything close to that, and as far as I know, the only entities that can determine when a trademark has gone generic is the various legal systems. The problem is that often in reliable sourcing there were be implicit generalization of trademarks (how many times have you seen "photoshopped" without the Adobe mark?) even though there's yet to be a legal affirmation the term's been generalized.

What would make the most sense is to create a new guideline (perhaps policy?) on trademark generalization, and provide a casebook of specific examples (possibly figuring out how to work in the second table of List of generic and genericized trademarks) that we as WPians should avoid in editing, incorporating any specific trademark complains the Foundation has received. WP itself should not be in the act of promoting generalized trademarks that have not be affirmed to be generalized by courts. --MASEM (t) 14:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

What does wikimedia's legal bod have to say on this? I vaguely (and possibly incorrectly) recall that trademark holders have to defend their trademark or face losing it, which might explain some of the letters. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is not as far as I know misusing the trademarks. By way of example, if we were selling throwable disks and calling them frisbees, we'd be in trouble. If we merely (from the POV of the trademark holder) misapply their trademark, we're doing no more than reflecting the common parlance. The mark is only protected in the matter of trade; and we are not trading in whichever domain the trademark exists; and so on this basis, I'd make a starting assertion that we don't have a problem, even if the trademark holder does. (That's not to say that some policy or guidance would not be welcome, but merely to speculate on what the guidance might be.) --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe it's more the issue of using a trademarked term to describe a broader class of products inappropriately, that the WMF is concerned about, as opposed to using a trademarked term about a company or its products in a competing way. That is, if we have articles that say "Red eye in digital photos can be photoshopped out", we likely should be changing that to "Red eye in digital photos can be removed with a digital photo editor program." If WMF is getting letters about trademark misuse, we obviously should abide by that, barring the exceptional case (eg we have a section on "photoshopping" on the Photoshop page due to the colloquial use of that term, so we have to mention it in that context). --MASEM (t) 14:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe that what they're hoping for is simply a clearer statement of how the community might determine these things. To pick a pretty obvious case, kerosene. Thoroughly genericized trademark, and treated that way in the article. Band-Aid is treated like a kind of hybrid; the trademark is first, and reference to genericization (is that a word?) is second. Clorox is treated solely like a Trademark. Does the community require a reliable source to indicate that the term is being used generically? Examples of its being used generically?

What with the whole "non-disclosure agreement", I can't discuss specifics that haven't been publicized as to people contacting us, but I do know of a case on Wiktionary that has been disclosed: wiktionary:pycnogenol. The owners of the trademarked version of the drug were unhappy with the article, but there are plenty of examples now in the definition of the use in its generic form, which is what Wiktionary looks for. Since WMF does not control content, being able to say to somebody like that contacting us about an article on Wikipedia, "This is the community's practice here" would be helpful, in the same that being able to tell subjects of biographies about WP:BLP is helpful. Obviously, though, the latter is far more frequent. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

(Trademark attorney hat on) If we avoid using genericised trademarks, it should be because such terms are unencyclopedically informal, not because someone is sending us letters. We have no legal obligation to avoid using genericized terms, but we have an editorial obligation to our readers to avoid confusing them by carelessly implying that Photoshop or Xerox or Kleenex are the "best" or "correct" vendors from which to obtain a specific product or service. As for when a mark becomes genericized, that is a function of language, and is no different than the process for determining that any other word has entered the lexicon. (Trademark attorney hat off) Cheers! bd2412 T 15:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

On the legal side, if there is yet an establishing case to show the trademark lost, I think we should request those wishes (as well as those that have yet to say anything directly to WP) to remove the generic use as a good faith gesture, even if the letters sent aren't including any immediate legal action. This is, of course, in addition to the editorial obligation. A hard mandate requiring a scrub of all such terms? No, but the type of thing that should be thought of in prose check as articles improve or are assessed.

We do know that the common/colloquial genericization of a trademark will always precede the legal determination, but I do believe that we should definitely use the legal determination as the metric to when to use a trademark in a generic fashion, barring use in direct quotes and discussing the genericization itself (as done with photoshopping). I can see this the type of thing people would edit war about, and the hard line of the legal determination is a much easier metric to set than "when did such and such a term enter the slang". --MASEM (t) 16:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I encountered just this issue just yesterday. (See here and here.) Clearer documented guidelines on this issue would be very helpful, as the [[MOS guideline doesn't really cover it. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 16:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I would say (again, as a matter of editorial, not legal, policy) that we should avoid using genericized trademarks unless we are quoting or paraphrasing reliable and disinterested sources which use the same terminology. I think that adopting that as an editorial policy is something everyone here could live with. Incidentally, I don't think any of the sources cited in Magic carpet (ski lift) would meet that standard; frankly (to veer a bit off topic) that article should be merged into Moving walkway, since the subject matter covered is just one of those moving up an angle on the snow. bd2412 T 16:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I have drafted User:Masem/Trademarks, but obviously leaving it open for suggestions and improvements. I propose that once we've set this down, move it to WP:Trademarks and WP:TM (which I think goes to the MOS/TM presently). --MASEM (t) 16:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

My concern with that phrasing is that most trademarks that become generic never have a single concrete legal determination made on that point. It is extremely rare for a court to rule that an existing mark has gone from being protectable to being generic, even when the general public use of the term would establish an iron-clad case of genericness (the key case on the matter, Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., was one where the asserted mark was deemed to never have been registrable). This is because genericness almost never arises except as a defense to a lawsuit brought by the trademark owner pressing a claim of trademark infringement (or at least in a declaratory judgment action following a threat of such a lawsuit). In any case, courts will avoid questioning the validity of a mark if the dispute can be resolved by addressing infringement itself (so, for example, a court would be likely to say that a party using "PictureShop" was far enough from "PhotoShop" to avoid infringing, without determining whether "PhotoShop" is a valid mark). From my personal experience, lawyers can usually see the writing on the wall, and will settle a case confidentially if it appears that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of invalidation of the mark. For this reason, the vast majority of generic marks are likely to pass into genericism without there ever being a specific legal decision memorializing this event. Instead, what will happen is that the owner of the mark (e.g. "escalator" or "pain-killer") will see that the fight is lost and (if they are able to stay in business) will rebrand their product with a new and decidedly non-generic mark. bd2412 T 21:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the logic still applies. Taking the two tables, we should avoid any term in the second table used in the generic sense, while words in the first table which all appear to have some known generic trademark legal case somewhere, should be considered carefully (but, like, I have no idea what you'd replace "escalator" with). --MASEM (t) 21:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not at all happy with your proposed wording, Masem, though I thank you for taking the initiative. Bluntly, somewhat per BD2412's post above, I have no interest in the wish of the trademark holder to defend the trademark. There's no legal obligation on Wikipedia to avoid using genericised trademarks; there is merely (adapting BD2412's words) an editorial obligation to our readers to avoid genericised trademarks where better terms can be employed. In your proposal, there's no hint of that ethos. Instead the proposal's presumption is against the use of genericised trademarks, fullstop: "editors should replace such words with a different descriptor and avoid the trademarked term". I'd favour wording rather more along the lines of "editors should exercise care when using genericised trademarks, and consider whether alternative non-trademarked words or phrases can be employed". (I also have quibbles about the wording of the Genericized trademarks paragraph 1, but they are less important than the advice we give. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely with Tagishsimo and with BD2412. There's no legal concern here, even in the absence of a court case regarding a particular mark, and we're certainly not going to put a burden on our writing that we don't have to. postdlf (talk) 22:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

No, no, criticism is fine; that's why I made the page to gain input, and that change seems fine, if we're sure we don't want to absolutely remove the use of still-trademark-but-leaning-towards-generic terms. The only reason I've written in the legal aspect is that sets a line where we know the term is no longer trademarked so caution isn't as necessary as with those still on the cusp. --MASEM (t) 22:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I would turn the proposal around and say that, in order to avoid creating the impression that Wikipedia is endorsing specific products, we should avoid using terms that are presently associated with those products where a generic term is available, and provide Photoshop and Xerox as specific examples. bd2412 T 00:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That's one way to do it, or at least a practical and neutral reason why to avoid generic TMs, but I do wonder if that excludes terms that are trademarked that your average editor may not recognize as a trademark to start with ("Dumpster" as one such case). --MASEM (t) 00:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"Dumpster" is no longer a registered trademark for garbage containers (although it is registered for the hoisting equipment used to empty them). Dempster's U.S. Registration #0785783 died on a technicality in 2005, when the affidavit of continued use was executed by the wrong party. The usual solution to such a quandary is to just file a new application, which goes through the examination process all over again. I would bet that they knew they'd never survive a fresh application. There may be some marks out there for which registrations are still in effect despite the name of the product having come to be used generically, but such occurrences should be pretty rare. bd2412 T 03:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm involved in one of these heated trademarked term vs generic usage debates onwiki, and have been for many years now. One of the problems that arises (and has in my case) is that a trademark may be a generic term in one country while trademarked in one or more others - under US law, for example, the doctrine of foreign equivalents doesn't recognise English-speaking countries, so a generic term in an English-speaking county can still be a trademarked term in the US. This creates a nasty grey area, whereby WP's international perspective means that it is difficult to show both the generic use in some countries and respect the trademarked use in another, especially where the trademarked term is the only way of identifying the generic type. I'm not sure how we are going to manage non-universal trademarks, but that would be an area where I'd hope that a guideline might help. - Bilby (talk) 04:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Why wouldn't WP:ENGVAR provide the answer? We don't need to consider TMs in all jurisdictions, just what is the appropriate term to use for that article, based on the variety of English used and the usage in reliable sources. postdlf (talk) 13:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

If you go by the advice BD2412 put forth: we avoid using trademarked terms generic to avoid giving the appearance of endorsement for the specific product, then it doesn't matter on the international discrepancies; if you know its a trademarked term somewhere in the world, simply write around it, with an appropriate amount of IAR. --MASEM (t) 13:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

BD2412 didn't address the issue of international variance, so I can't say that's his advice here, nor does it make sense to defer to brand name status just because it's still a brand name "somewhere." If we're writing about an American topic for example, we're not going to avoid using "aspirin" just because it's still a brand name in other countries, and say instead "acetylsalicylic acid". Or even to a more trivial extreme, if it turns out that Botswana (i.e., "somewhere") still recognizes "elevator" as a trademark even though the rest of the world doesn't... postdlf (talk) 13:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That's where I still think IAR is the best use to apply to these cases, aiming for clarity over tip-toeing around fractured trademarked cases. (Though while there's probably times that people use "aspirin" for "acetylsalicylic acid", there's probably times they're using it as "pain killer", in which case one can avoid the the word). --MASEM (t) 13:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it can't necessarily be written around. In my particular case, there is only one term that defines the subject, which is the generic term used in the subject's country of origin. However, in other countries that term is trademarked. The subject can't really be discussed without using that term, as nothing else adequately distinguishes it, but we have constant arguments from those acting on behalf of the trademark owner that we shouldn't use the term because they own the trademark outside of a small number of countries.

I'm not trying to throw a spanner or anything, but if a guideline could help clarify this it would be great. If, however the guideline precludes or recommends against using a term because it is trademarked in some (or indeed many) countries, pointing to IAR won't satisfy those arguing that it shouldn't be used except in relation to the trademark owner. - Bilby (talk) 13:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

What article is the one that this is a problem on? It sounds like this fits as one of the called-out exceptions, but I'm not seeing it in context to assure that. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like the endless Ugg boots dispute to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly where I can't even imaging trying to define policy for an isolated can, and let IAR do its thing - as long as its perfectly clear that there's a non-trademark use and a trademark use of the same word, which is what that article seems to do right now. We're not here on WP to debate and settle the trademark issue, we just need to write around it, acknowledging it exists since there's zero alternative on the generic term ("Ugg boots") vs the trademark "UGG"). The advice others have suggested since plausible here. -MASEM (t) 12:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It was ugg boots. Sorry, I got caught up in a different issue. The problem with IAR is it works for us, but falls down completely for those outside of WP, which is what I assume this proposal is for. If I say "IAR, we need an article on ugg boots", the large number of people who come here to defend the trademark aren't going to care. IAR is not a means of achieving consensus. :)

The hassles is that what you describe is that the article does do, but that doesn't stop ongoing edit wars, trips to WP:FRINGE, accusations of COI editing, and ongoing attempts to change the article to be about the trademark only. IAR can't help there, and a policy that relies on IAR to solve these problems is likely to worsen the situation, rather than help. - Bilby (talk)

I pretty strongly oppose Masem's page. We need to go in the opposite direction completely. Obviously if a large portion of some user's edits involve converting generic terms into trademarked versions, that user is being disruptive and needs to be shown the door. In most all other cases, if someone just adds the trademarked version in, it's because that person subconsciously associates the product by that trademarked name over the generic name. Now there might be people who have odd associations, and if a generic name is used significantly more than a trademarked name in common parlance, the edit will likely be changed over time. However if it dosen't change, that means that the other people reading the article, if not also subconsciously associate the product by that trademarked name over the generic name, don't find the trademark out of place. TLDR A policy is not needed, let editing over time decide. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

If we were more casual, like a blog, sure, but we're an encyclopedia. We're looking not only at the short term issue but the long term. For example, right now "photoshopping" makes sense because there's the Photoshop product. What happens in 10 years? We'll still have digital photo manipulation, but will Photoshop even been such a tool? If the term "photoshopping" hasn't dropped to a generic trademark, then the term's not going to make any sense to future readers, but "digital photo manipulation" will. It's about precision and professionalism in writing in addition to other aspects identified above. --MASEM (t) 17:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

That's not a problem unique to trademarks, because any language pertaining to (or originating from) technology may change relatively rapidly. How much longer before "airbrushed" is a completely obsolete word? "Photoshopped" has replaced it in many instances because "airbrushing" is now done digitally. That "photoshopped" may one day be obsolete as well is not necessarily a sign that we used the wrong term at the time, but that it may no longer be representative of whatever the dominant technology becomes. Though of course the terms become separate from the originating technology so even once the tech is obsolete the term may not be. I'd imagine more people know what the term "airbrushing" means than those who actually know how an airbrush works or what it looks like, and people may still use "airbrushed" even when it was done by computer. postdlf (talk) 12:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess it still is the fact that "airbrushing" isn't a term burdened by a trademark, and thus if used is non-endorsing of any product, while "photoshopping" is. Furthermore, when we are talking precision, "airbrushing" is the specific, physical act of altering a photo, and there's no effective alternative word. "Photoshopping", on the other hand, has become broad and nebulous to replace "digital photo manipulation", and thus can be replaced in most cases. --MASEM (t) 13:24, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Language changes, generally, and it is possible that to someone reading this encyclopedia in a hundred years, it would come across like Shakespeare does to us today. Wikipedia will inevitably need to update articles as language changes in the future. The question is, in the language that is in use here and now, how do we express ourselves. I would say, first, that we should not say that something was photoshopped (or xeroxed) unless RS points to Photoshop being the program used (or Xerox being the machine used), because otherwise we are making an unsupported assertion of fact; and we should not say that something could be photoshopped (or xeroxed) because that implies that Photoshop (or Xerox) makes the best or only product usable for that purpose. As for names that are generic in some places and trademarks in others (like greengrocer or perhaps aspirin), I think it is sufficient for our purposes if the term is generic for the majority of the world's speakers of the language in which it is being used. bd2412 T 17:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I personally would be very reluctant to abandon genericized trademarks that are becoming widely accepted as words, by our editing and reading population, simply because the courts have not affirmed that particular transformation in the language. The courts don't rule what is and is not an English word in common usage. They do not place anyone at legal risk, because they are not trademark infringements - they just freak out trademark holders because they're trying to hold back genericization from happening. Yet by the time it gets here, it's generally already widespread in many, many other sources, including highly reputable ones like scholarly publications and news media. Dcoetzee 12:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that the complaints will come more from the borderline ones, which are going to be the hardest ones to define. North8000 (talk) 21:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

AFD Procedure: renominating for deletion an article which has been nominated multiple times

There does not appear to be any clear procedure regarding renominating articles which have been previously nominated multiple times. When the community is split on whether a particular article should exist, some editors may in good faith wish to renominate an article, despite it having survived mutiple previous nominations. However I really think they should acknowledge the previous nominations in the new nomination, and briefly explain why they think consensus might have changed. It doesn't particularly matter what the reasons are; passage of time, a new group of editors coming to the article for whatever reason, recent discussions on the Talk page would all be fine.
I personally think failure to acknowledge the previous nominations and give a plausible reason why consensus would have changed should be grounds for a Speedy Keep. Without this, we have the situation I am currently in, where there is a new nomination for an article four months after the previous nomination, raising exactly the same issues as the previous nomination, and leaving me with the prospect of having to devote hours of my time to fighting the case again on AfD, Deletion Review, various noticeboards and various users' Talk pages. This is dispiriting, to say the least. I would much rather spend the limited time I have available in improving articles. Also, without such a procedure, it becomes at least theoretically possible to nominate an article as many times as it takes until the planets are in the right conjunction (enough of the "right" editors are on holiday, for example).
One proposal by a different editor to myself was that multiply nominated articles should have an "exponential backoff", presumably along the lines that the more times an article has been nominated and survived, the longer should go before another nomination is considered. I'm not sure it's necessary to have anything as formal as that, however I do think it would be helpful to establish the principle that there should generally be a decent interval before renominating a multiply nominated article. Otherwise it seems to be a massive drain on the community's time to re-fight the same battles, when we could be making constructive edits. --Merlinme (talk) 14:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It likely can be enforced without changing policy; if the mass of editors feel that the AFD nomination is essentially the same as a previous one and fails to address anything new, they can pile on the speedies to close it. But its difficult to create an explicit process for this because there are times where a new nom , essentially re-iterating a previous one and ignoring any resulting changes on the article, could be valid. --MASEM (t) 14:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

But the Speedy Keep criteria do not currently allow this. If any editors vote Delete (and presumably some will, if it's something the community is split on), then it apparently does not meet Speedy Keep criteria. In the case I'm talking about, an admin closed the discussion essentially as a "Speedy Keep"; they were immediately taken to Deletion Review, where the current opinion seems to be that it did not meet the Speedy Keep critieria (although there is some support for using WP:Common sense. My suggestion is essentially that the Speedy Keep guidelines should be updated to take into account the circumstances I've described above. --Merlinme (talk) 14:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

{edit conflict)

No Masem, the problem that triggered this discussion is a technical one... strictly construed, none of the current criteria for speedy keep are a perfect match. Section 1 has two elements, but only the first one was met (nominating editor merely pointed to policies with a WP:VAGUEWAVE and did not build an argument). However, two other editors said "delete" and, regardless of the strength of their arguments, this alone was enough to deny Speedy Keep. One of the DRV editors opined that their job is to strictly apply the criteria, which contradicts the wiki rule that common sense ought to triumph over the letter of the law. To the extent DRV has declared itself a sacrosanct, strict constructionist WP:SNOW-free zone, then I agree we need to change the DRV guidelines. To test whether this is the case, I asked the DRV editors in the case to offer up a hypothetical where some article does not qualify for speedy keep, and yet the DRV can be closed early using simple common sense under WP:SNOW. To be fair, its only

been a few hours since I asked that, but as yet no such DRV examples have been offered. To address the problem I have a.......

PROPOSAL As a precondition for renominating an article for AFD within 6 months of any prior AFD decision (as measured from the closure of any related DRV or appellate proceedings), must an editor (A) provide a link to most recent AFD and any related DRV/Appellate proceedings, and (B) set forth a new argument that was not raised in the prior 'round, including both relevant facts and links to policies on which the new argument is predicated, AND (C) unless some subsequent "delete" response fulfills these preconditions prior to closure should the nominator's failure to do so constitute a new criteria for speedy keep? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion has pointed out that a modification would be needed, to accomodate the renominating editor who simply doesn't know about a prior case. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Please see WP:DELAFD for existing policy on renominations, which should be adequate. For this specific case it is also very important the previous discussions were not closed as keep, but as no consensus. Any fixed time limits between nominations are wp:Instruction creep and very easy to abuse. (start a bad-faith nomination yourself, get a speedy close and BAM, 6 months deletion immunity for your article.) Yoenit (talk) 15:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

False and abuse-proof. Any good faith subsequent nomination, armed with facts and policy not previously raised in my bogus nomination, would comply with this new criteria. Assuming there were no (alleged) obstacles, the subsequent good faith AFD would have to take its course. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yoenit, are you seriously suggesting that someone would try to get "six months deletion immunity" by raising a bad faith nomination for their "own" article? I would hope that we've not become enough of a bureaucracy that would be allowed to pass silently. I would personally expect someone to be censured for abuse of process for doing such a thing. In any case, my original suggestion didn't have a fixed time limit, just a general principle that people wait a reasonable period of time and/ or come up with valid reasons. NewsAndEventsGuy suggested six months, but he specifically stated that, as with my proposal, it would be possible to renominate the article within the time limit, you'd just have to come up with a good enough reason. --Merlinme (talk)

That's not what he said: he said if User X AFD'd User Y's article and it failed, the proposed policy would then suddenly give User Y's article 6 month immunity.

The question that needs to be asked is this: Why does a second (or third, or fourth) AFD that otherwise mirrors a previous AFD attempt need to be closed out quickly? In seven days, the AFD will close in process and assuming the same arguments will close the same way. That doesn't harm anything and avoids instruction creep. I do agree that if it is a single user persistently trying to AFD the same article with little to no new arguments for its deletion, that's behavioral and a problem to solve with an RFC/U. There's also the fact that putting a new AFD shortly after the last one closed is a bit bitey as well, but if it is a different editor, they may not be aware of that (though our DP does suggest reviewing past AFDs to make sure that you aren't rehashing the same points). --MASEM (t) 16:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, exactly. Should it be more formally stated that renominations must consider previous nominations? In response to "That doesn't harm anything", it's certainly harming my ability to make constructive edits to the encyclopedia, and sucking up huge chunks of other editors time as well. If it's two weeks' of my time every four months, that's 1/8 of my time on Wikipedia, spent refighting the same battles. --Merlinme (talk) 16:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it can be required; looking at previous AFDs should be part of WP:BEFORE, but it can't be a requirement for making the AFD. An example scenario: editor X has AFDd the same article three times with slightly different reasons but each time the AFD closes as a no consensus keep (and lets assume this was in good faith and done over several years, not within weeks of each other). So the third AFDs closed, and X goes onto something else. User Y, with zero relationship or interactions with X, sees the article, believes something is wrong pretty much matching what X said was wrong, and AFDs it, say, days after the previous AFD. Y has done nothing wrong here in the larger scope of things, just that his timing on the article was rather poor, and yet this is what you seem to be asking to assert is a bad nomination. Instead, I would expect editors at the AFD to point out the recentness of the AFD, that the reasons haven't changed, and thus a "snow" close should be done. It may take a few more days than the desired "speedy" but as long as editors pile on that there's no reason to re-run the AFD at that time, as well as gently advising Y to review BEFORE before their next AFD. --MASEM (t) 16:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Apparently Masem, you are not an editor being asked to repeatedly spend your free time answering redundant AFDs instead of improving the project. When you say "That doesn't harm anything" you could as easily say "That isn't disruptive except for the parts that are." See also,WP:NOHARM. There is no reasonable basis to believe that "no consensus" will magically convert to "consensus" in under six months time without some change in fact or policy, or at least some new argument not previously articulated. The "no consensus" argument would seem to advocate discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss-and-discuss instead of improve NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

If your article is being repeatedly sent to AFD but kept (particularly if its "no consensus"), that probably indicates that there's an problem with how your article appears to other editors and readers. Common case that I see is the claims of notability: the AFDing editor states there's no sources, other editors in the AFD point out several sources listed in the AFD but don't add them, AFD is closed as keep; until those sources are added, people are going to see that article and go "fails WP:N, AFD" (though I note that WP:N points out that sources don't have to be explicitly defined in the article immediately, but they should ultimately be included as inline cites per WP:V). Or if there are sources but they are blog-like and no other major RS sources appear, people will continue to look at the sources and question whether they are really appropriate. Once those issues are dealt with, AFD will likely not reoccur. --MASEM (t) 16:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

But there's no such thing as a "Speedy No Consensus". If one other editor votes Delete, then according to the current guidelines, the whole process should be followed again. What you're describing does not describe the controversial case I am talking about, where there will not be sufficient support to close either as "SNOW" or as Speedy Keep. If it was days, perhaps there would be. But how about four weeks? 6 weeks? Three months?

I recognise that until consensus is clearer, we will have to go through the process occasionally. I am asking how often that should be, and suggesting that it should not be too often, unless there is good reason to believe the outcome will be different. --Merlinme (talk) 16:59, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• If there are previous nominations that resulted in Keep, discard all their previous Delete !votes and consider all their Keep !votes instantly included in the new AfD. (Ha ha only serious). Diego (talk) 15:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the humor, but dislike propagating the false impression that "keep" or "delete" constitute voting. The process is not about voting. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I think this is why they're called !votes, or not-votes ('!' is the NOT operator in computer science). Anyway, my comment is not (just) a joke. Deletion discussions can be used in the same way, but in reverse. Diego (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• This logic doesn't apply to the incident which produced this thread. The article in question was nominated for deletion having been previously nominated a number of times, however the previous two AfDs had both resulted in no consensus and the last AfD which had any other result took place nearly three years ago. I agree that if the community comes to a decision regarding whether an article should be kept then a renomination should either take place some time later or contain new arguments not put forward previously. In this case though the question of whether consensus could have changed is irrelevant because there is no consensus that could be changed. Hut 8.5 16:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

But in the absence of any new arguments, why is there any reason to believe the result, after a couple of weeks of heat and light, would be any different? I don't mind if it's a "Speedy No Consensus". I just don't see why we have to refight the same battles again and again. --Merlinme (talk) 16:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly possible that a new discussion could come to a different outcome, especially if the old one was close. A new discussion might attract a wider audience or at least a different audience. If the existence of the article is a long-running contentious issue then there is some value to settling it one way or the other. Hut 8.5 17:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, I just think the nominator should advance some reasons which clearly state why they think it will be different this time around. "Has recently featured on noticeboard x" or whatever is a valid reason. What I object to is the failure to even mention the previous recent nomination. --Merlinme (talk) 17:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not "fine", because it absurdly assumes culture war debates are ammenable to being "settled one way or other" which in turn ignores the fact that consensus can change. By making room for truly new arguments, while limiting culture warring to twice a year, preserves both NPOV and minimal disruption to the project. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem with the situations / solutions being described by Merlinme and NewsAndEventsGuy is that while we can apply them to probably likely "abuses" of repeated AFD by the same person or group of editors, and legitimate renoms at AFD by completely separate people. We can't block the latter action to deal with the former.

If it is the case of the same people(s) nominating the article at AFD over and over with little change, and every time they are clearly rebuffed and the article Kept, then that's a user problem, not an AFD problem.

If it is the case that separate people keep nominating the article, that likely means there's a problem with the present version of the article that keeps on having it go to AFD that previous AFDs have not corrected. One needs to recognize there is no deadline, but at the same time, if an AFD is closed as kept pending sources addition (for example), then you'd better add those sources - they don't have to be formatted exactly or perfectly. You just need the quick fix to prevent AFD from re-occurring. Granted, there are some articles that are AFD do to a contentious subject that some don't feel should be a topic but AFD shows differently. That's a difficult to show in the article itself, even if there's a talk page header point to the N times that has been rejected at AFD before.

What this basically comes down to is that IAR should be the applicable rule here. In the latter case, a new editors puts to AFD an article that's been there before for the same reason and kept, and there's clearly - though not exactly - !voting towards a snow closure, we should allow that to happen. In the former case, if it is a single editor or group with a known grudge, the same thing should apply, even if there's a handful of delete !votes in the mix. --MASEM (t) 20:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

False. Your argument seems to have two main parts. First, you refer to cases that are "Closed Pending", but such cases are not actually closed, as in dead-done-buried-over-finished-----closed. This proposal only applies to cases that really-really closed. Your other main argument seems to be what you call "legitimate renominations". Let's take a close look at all nominations and assess their "legitimacy"

Target for this proposal	Renom Type	Is renom "Legitimate?"	Would this proposal apply	Can case proceed
	Editor not in good standing	No, obviously	No	Probably not but in any case other policies apply
	Renom occurs more than 6 months since last closure	Obviously legitimate	No	Yes, proceeds as usual
>>>	Renom by editor less than 6 months since last closure but raises NEW argument	Obviously legitimate	Yes	Yes, this policy always welcomes new arguments
>>>	Renom by editor less than 6 months since last closure with redundant argument	No. Although some may say that any culture war or ideological argument by a new editor is always legit, common sense says they are disruptive because - absent new facts or arguments - there is no reasonable expectation there will be any other outcome such a short time after the prior case. If the renominating editor knows of the prior case, they are essentially saying, "phooey, I missed the prior WP:BATTLE" and, being based on redundant arguments with no reasonable expectation of a different outcome, these repeated dead-end arguments are not "legitimate". Note: if the renom is based on substantive changes to article text that is a new argument so see prior row in table.	Yes	No, this policy is designed to minimize the disruption caused by culture war and ideological battles

• An example of this can be seen in the now a bit old WP:Articles_for_deletion/Occupy_Marines_(2nd_nomination), where the second afd was started around 2½ week after the first one finished. One can see in the first few pages the multiple comments all saying this was wrong, including the person who initiated the afd, but since the discussion was started, noone wanted to close it. Now if I was a new editor to Wikipedia and I saw a second afd started that close to the first, my view of Wikipedia would not be good. Instruction creep is a valid argument against fixed time limits, but there is real damage if new editors thinks that he who shouts afd's long enough will always win. If the afd policy would give some guidlines on what to do in cases like this, we would save both time currently been spend discussing it in the afd, and new editors would not feel so helpless. Belorn (talk) 22:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose enshrining fixed time limits in policy, per WP:CREEP. In general, I agree that where an article received a significant level of discussion at AFD, it should not be renominated again shortly afterwards (what 'shortly afterwards' means is subjective, of course), and most such renominations should be speedily closed. But it's quite possible to imagine exceptions, where an article is renominated after a recent discussion for good reason: e.g. where it's suddenly discovered that most of the editors who commented in the last AFD were sockpuppets, or someone shows that the references which got the article kept are actually false. As such, a strict rule against early renominations is a bad idea. In general though, where there aren't such newly discovered good reasons, it should be discouraged; and in fact common practice at AFD does seem to discourage it, as it's not uncommon for AFDs to be speedy closed for that very reason. Robofish (talk) 15:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

False. Being examples of new arguments this proposal would welcome each case you envisioned, and this proposal addresses cases that can not be speedily closed because tow editors say "delete" (regardless of strength of argument) thus taking WP:SK off the table. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Look at how complicated the proposed direction is good. This is a clear example of WP:CREEP, and there's likely a simpler solution. Namely that if the issue is that *one* delete vote blocks a large number of speedy keeps, IAR needs to apply (remember, AFD is not a democratic process). That's the simplest solution to nix inappropriate, short-term re-noms. --MASEM (t) 16:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Although I agree WP:IAR/WP:SNOW should apply, it appears that DRV sees things otherwise. Some DRV editors have opined their job is strict construction of WP:SK and in the case that brought me here, no one has (so far) provided an example where DRV endorsed a SNOW early close despite two delete votes from editors in good standing. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• No consensus means there's no agreement on how to handle the article at this point in time. If there's no consensus on a dispute, then it's inevitable the dispute will be raised again. Often, re-nomination without any improvement between nominations is taken as evidence that we WP:CANTFIX the article. I'd personally like to see us handle "no consensus" better by making "merge" more of an option at AFD (Articles for Discussion vs. Articles for Deletion). But most people regard that change as too inconvenient. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between truly policy-violating articles under WP:CANTFIX (which I want to believe are ultimately deleted), and redundant WP:VAGUEWAVEs to policy designed to rationalize culure war or ideological nominations that are, if truth be told, predicated on WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT or similar claims. The difficult challenge to our intellectual integrity is to tell them apart. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:20, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we're actually pretty good at telling apart 80 or 90% of the cases. If there are lots of third-party sources you'll find that a re-nomination won't happen, or will lead to a speedy keep. The water gets muddy when there are sources, but most are press releases, some are single-sentence "trivial mentions", and so on. Sometimes those muddy waters end up in a clear keep or delete after some discussion and inspection. But other times, these would be ideal candidates for a merge. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose- Current practice is to treat each individual case on its merits, and this seems to work well. Besides which, AfD is a contentious area and the primary location of the long-standing inclusionist/deletionist feud. I do not like the idea of setting up a policy that restricts the community's ability to decide individual cases while exclusively benefitting one side of that disagreement. Reyk _YO! 23:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This is the most interesting response so far, IMO. I had not encountered this concept before, so for any other editors like me, here is background... Deletionist and Inclusionist NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Reyk clearly gives the present situation after no consensus--the situations are so various that no actually fixed rule is suitable, The appropriate length of time depends on the reasons for the lack on consensus. If it's a true inability to decide, perhaps because of lack of evidence, it might take a long while until there's a decent chance there would be firm consensus; if the debate was simply messed up hopelessly by canvassing, a rapid fresh start is usually sufficient. But after a string of keeps, our tolerance for repeated deletions is, properly, much lower than it was a few years ago. This is I think due to exactly the factor Reyk points out: the need for balance--in the past where multiple successive renoms after keep were usual, the randomness of many discussions with low participation made it possible to delete almost anything for which there was less than overwhelming keep support, by simple probability. My personal rule of thumb after repeated keeps is that the period should start at 6 months for the second, and double subsequently, much as we do in blocking. However, rarely is the situation so simple--typically there will be one or more non-consensus among the keeps. DGG ( talk ) 01:29, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• I hope I'm not the only one who sees the irony in an attempt to make policy about speedy-closing deletion discussions that don't acknowledge multiple previous deletion discussions and advance new arguments... that itself doesn't acknowledge the many prior discussions on this subject or advance new arguments. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 13:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually I did look at the examples in the FAQ of failed policy proposals (there were two listed). What distinguishes this proposal is that those other ones would slam the door on fast renominations across the board - both the legitimate, the culture war, and the bad faith - it doesn't matter they would have all been barred. In contrast, my proposal holds the door wide open, and welcomes fast renominations that advance new arguments. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Such as what? I'm perfectly happy to look at archived discussions if you think they're relevant. No-one has mentioned them up to this point though. --Merlinme (talk) 14:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Here's some of the more substantial ones: 1 2 (continues here) 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. --74.74.150.139 (talk) 16:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, and none of them squarely address the current proposal because...

*1 2 4 6 7 Would have barred ((ALL)) renoms within x months, whereas the current proposal allows renoms based on new arguments;

*3 Its clear they were talking about a proposal but just what was proposed is not revealed by that link; therefore it can not be evaluated;

*5 is irrelevant because the proposal that was made (if any) is made implicitly and is therefore too ambiguous to analyze;

*8 and 9 are irrelevant because they ask questions, and do not set forth a specific proposal;

*The current proposal is different because it always welcomes new renoms based on new arguments; it just requires a time-out before rehashing prior arguments.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I've had a quick look in the archives- interesting. Previous discussions have been against a fixed time limit or a numerical limit on nominations; I can understand that. If the point is to avoid rigid rules, then I think my proposed updating of the guidelines is sufficiently flexible to allow for exceptions. Several editors in previous discussions seem to have suggested that such a case would "obviously" be SNOW closed or Speedy Kept, so no new guidelines are needed, but that has specifically not happened in this case; the closing admin was immediately taken to Deletion Review, where there is some support for re-listing. It could be argued that this is a failure of Deletion Review to WP:Use Common Sense, but either way, I think clearer guidelines are needed to handle renomination, such as the change I've suggested below.--Merlinme (talk) 16:07, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've now had a look at the provided links (as opposed to my own archives search). There's nothing there which makes me change my opinion that clearer guidelines would help. I'll note in passing that WP:NOTAGAIN (from the essay WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions) seems to provide some support for the idea that renominations should address previous deletion discussions. My suggestion is essentially that this should be formalised in the guidelines, with nominators expected to explain why they think it's worth discussing this article again. --Merlinme (talk) 17:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: modify text of "Carry out these checks"

Change the text: "4.Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with." to: "4.Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with. If the article has recently been nominated and the result was "Keep" or "No Consensus", your nomination should acknowledge this and explain briefly why you think the result would be different this time." --Merlinme (talk) 10:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Pointless? As my mother-in-law likes to say, "Locks are to keep out honest people". IMO, editors making emotional, or culture war, or IDONTLIKEIT, or harrassing repeated nominations that are unlikely to result in a different outcome won't see this, and their behavior would not change if they did. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but I still think it would be worthwhile to say that they should (else why do we have guidelines at all?). Also, it would presumably give added impetus to moving to an early close if the guideline was not followed. --Merlinme (talk) 13:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Merlinme in this. None of the existing policies will prevent a problematic editor from misbehaving; policies exist to give the community the possibility to keep those editors in check. In this case we're arguing that an AfD without a valid rationale can be speedely closed even if it has some 'delete' !votes, as long as there's consensus that those !votes don't provide any reason based in guidelines. Diego (talk) 13:40, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing in this subsection about speedy closing, it's just a suggestion to tweak the educational how-to text at WP:AFD. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone actually object to this? If so, could you explain why please? It seems a common-sense approach to me, not imposing any arbitrary limits, but requiring renominations to at least acknowledge recent arguments and give reasons why they wish to re-open the debate. If there's support for more radical measures they could be in addition to this, but I think my proposal can treated separately, essentially as a helpful clarification to guide the renomination process. --Merlinme (talk) 09:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Mer, please explain how your suggestion constitutes a requirement? It reads like (still more) helpful suggestions, does not warn editors about potential consequences if they do not do it, and gives the rest of us no authority to impose enforcement actions. While it sounds nice, it strikes me as neighborly advice, nothing more. Also, I think you should ask this question on the WP:AFD talk page, too. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not a requirement, it's an additional piece of guidance which would provide additional ammunition for an early close if editors blatantly ignored it.

As the only editor who's disagreed with this proposal wants something stronger, I'm going to assume there's at least tacit approval, and will discuss on the AfD pages. (I assume this is what you mean, NewsAndEventsGuy, as ADF (Australian Defence Force) is a link to the Military History Project!)(Link was fixed) --Merlinme (talk) 15:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Fact I don't think it will help a whit does not mean I am opposed (I'm not). No need to apologize, we know each other enough I know the assumption was an innocent mistakeNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• No, no, no, no & no! Look the original proposal got thrown out and this looks like a case of the original proponents continuing the argument beyond consensus by changing the form slightly in the hope that you exhaust or outtalk the opposing editors. Sorry, but that isn't how we form a consensus round here and you don't get to change policy that way. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

(A) That's a mighty warm assumption of good faith you got there;

(B) When you say "proponents" (plural) sounds like you are including me, when in fact I simply said I'm not opposed. In consensus, "not opposed" is not the same as being an advocate;

(C) Beats me how one goes from a suggestion to modify the text in the neighborly how-to advice article and inflate its impact into some sort of dramatic but backdoor change in policy for speedy-keep. This would be a good time to re-read my paragraph (A) above. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a substantial objection to make? If so, what is it? I'm happy to discuss the change; as far as I can see at this stage no-one has objected (despite clearly flagging what I was going to do). --Merlinme (talk) 14:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this. Since this is general advice rather than explicit instructions, a good deal of IAR can be used; editors that repeatedly ignore it in a disruptive manner can be handled in RFC/U/WQE cases. --MASEM (t) 14:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Its a recipe for concentrating on process rather then content and will be a wikilawyer's delight. This is a really bad idea but I already expressed my view at AFD. It flys in the face of CCC and doesn't allow for changed standards or bad previous closes. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose essentially per Spartaz. The idea behind this proposal is to make it harder to renominate an article by making the nominator rebut the previous discussion. This contradicts the spirit if not the letter of WP:CCC: the community can (and does) change its mind without any change in circumstances and previous discussions don't have any hold or even much influence over subequent ones. In the case of articles where the previous debate was closed as no consensus the argument for this is even weaker since then there is no standing opinion to be overturned. It is of course possible to be disruptive by renominating articles that have been kept, but such incidents should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and hard-and-fast rules (and yes, this is phrased as a rule rather than as general advice) are just going to create unneeded bureaucracy and wikilawyering. I should also point out that this rule won't actually stop people from disruptively renominating articles unless it is interpreted to mean that the nomination can be quickly closed or the result overturned if the nominator didn't follow it, which would only increase the potential for wikilawyering. Hut 8.5 13:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, let's try looking at this in a different way. Is there a simple way for a nominator to demonstrate in their nomination that they have actually read and considered previous nominations, as the text already suggests they should? --Merlinme (talk) 13:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The suggestions at WP:BEFORE don't have the status of policies or guidelines, at least partly because it isn't possible to enforce them. It is of course possible for a nominator to include a statement in their nomination to the extent that they have read previous discussions and that their objections, but such a statement doesn't mean they did adequately consider previous nominations and requiring nominators to include a statement of this type would be unnecessary bureaucracy. Hut 8.5 15:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If we agree that WP:BEFORE is unenforceable and essentially a guide to best practice, why would it be bad to say that best practice is to acknowledge previous nominations and explain why you want to re-open the case? I'm happy to discuss the exact wording if it would be helpful. --Merlinme (talk) 09:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Addressing the real issue

Which is that repeated AfDs are intended to eventually get a subset of editors who will !vote Delete by wearing out the others who did not so !vote. The solution is to simply require that the full set of previous !voters be notified of the new nomination.

Any AfD nomination made less than 6 months after a previous AfD discussion for the same article shall be made known to all the editors opining at the prior discussion regardless of their position in such a discussion.

Thus making the value of using additional AfD nominations in order to seek the "favourable to deletion subset" moot. And in compliance with WP:CANVASS as well. Collect (talk) 19:52, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

There's stll an easier solution: remind closing admins that they should review the past AFDs, and if the reason the new AFD nom is not significantly different from the last, consider the cumulative effects of all votes involved particularly when we're talking close nominations. This implicitly gives voice to all those that already !voted in the previous case.

And of course, at some point we need to trout the repeat nominators if they aren't suggesting anything significantly new to use. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

And of course, we also have the issue of inclusionist editors block voting keep on non-policy based grounds to deal with as well. Any admin snoutcounting deserves a good trouting at DRV and it should always be the case that arguments by assertion carry no weight and policy based arguments and "sources win prizes" should carry the day. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

As for "arguments by assertion" vs. "policy based arguments and sources", here is what Spartaz wrote at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 December 25#María_Viramontes, regarding the list of sources at WT:Articles for deletion/María Viramontes#Do these reliable independent non-trivial references establish notability?.  Spartaz's edits assert not looking at the sources, assert that these were "poor source"s, and the evidence given that these "aren't good sources" is, "you would have brought them further".  I don't know what "brought them further" means, but it appears that the determination of WP:GNG was affected by something I did or didn't do, which is not a policy-based argument.  The edits also assert that this argument is "clear".  Spartaz, instead of considering whether these edits deserve a trout, would you answer the questions at WT:Articles for deletion/María Viramontes?  Unscintillating (talk) 02:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

What a load of irrelevant bluster. Stop moaning about a past argument where you didn't get your way; it has no bearing whatsoever on this discussion. Neither does your vastly overblown sense of entitlement. You seem to think, because Spartaz has not indulged your irrational demands for answers to your pointless questions at a long-settled AfD, that he cannot express an opinion on other issues. Well, guess what? Nobody cares. Reyk _YO! 03:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"irrational"(x2), "bluster", "no bearing", "moaning", "long", "vastly", "overblown", "pointless", "indulged", "stop", "demands", "guess"—lots of inflammatory words.  At least one person cares, as that was work invested to discourage Spartaz and others from taking a look at the list of sources.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

RTV vs. Clean slate

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that there is a place between the two of these which could be legitimately used.

Imagine someone who used their real name as their username. They no longer want to edit with that username. (For privacy reasons, let's say.) But they still wish to continue to edit. They don't do a rename because that would directly associate their realname with whatever new name they wish to use. So they create a new name and continue on doing what they did before.

This would seem to be RTV, yet by starting a new account, they could be accused of aborting their RTV. This isn't a clean slate, because they're still editing things as they always did.

I think either a.) definitions at RTV and clean slate need modification or b.) something "else" needs to exist on the policy level for situations such as this.

Personally, I think that this falls under RTV (and historically, I believe it did). I would think that the simple definition of RTV is: The user abandoned the account, never to return to editing using that account. But RTV should not by its nature preclude returning to editing using some new account.

Regardless, this needs fixing, and I would welcome ideas as to how to fix this. - jc37 19:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This can be fixed through contacting ArbCom. A WP:CLEANSTART could be granted without revealing the original account (and I seem to recall this has happened before). — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe, but not as I can see on the pages themselves. So something somewhere needs editing if this is the case. - jc37 20:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Not really. It happens so rarely that it's more of an IAR issue than something that needs formalized. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

What jc37 describes is not RtV, it's simply a WP:CLEANSTART (attempt). RtV means self-ban, the user promises to never return, period. As with most things on Wikipedia, RtV should be undoable too. See my concrete proposal above. "Clean start" does not guarantee that the accounts won't be connected; diligence is required on the behalf of the editor doing it. Demanding that someone editing under their real name first and then switching to a pseudonym never be connected if they edit exactly the same articles or behaving the same way is absurd in cases where both accounts are involved in the same disputes. We had something like this on ANI recently. If I may quote:

Basically, if you want to edit Wikipedia under your own username, you're taking a risk. If you later decide to edit under a different account and in a similar manner than before, you're practically telling people who you are. We explicitly warn people about such things in our policies. We can't just turn a blind eye, otherwise a person could make themselves effectively immune to sockpuppetry charges by claiming a username that is the same as their real life name. We try to respect editors' privacy, but editors must take efforts to maintain that privacy
— User:Atama 18:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

A "clean start" presumes that the editor is trying to distance themself from prior edits which have been frowned upon by the community.

What I'm talking about is the leaving of an account due to privacy issues or for that matter, safety issues.

We advise again and again, but well-meaning editors who start out AGF of the internet community can find out that there is some not-so-good individuals out there. And if they make a decision to "start over" with a different account name. We should support that, not wiki-lawyer it. Indeed, I can think of one example of privacy issues where other editors wiki-lawyered it to the point where it became impossible for the individual to even use the new account name due to widespread "outing" through multi-discussions all over Wikipedia project pages and talk pages.

And by the way, this isn't an idea in a vaccuum. I have seen LOTS of examples of these sorts of things to various degrees over the years here. To much drama, and in my opinion, disservice to editors in good standing. Holding an RFC about an editor while the editor is trying to disappear into a new name for privacy reasons (or because they are a minor, or or or), very much defeats the purpose.

And by the way, the confusions above suggest to me that WP:IAR isn't enough for these situations.

Sorry, but Wikipedia concerns about socking are dwarfed by any editors wish for REAL LIFE safety and or security. And seriously, as noted above, it's not like any wiki-wise editor who is accustomed to spotting socks won't be able to easily identify should problems arise. But if they're editors in good standing, there shouldn't be any need for concern.

This confusion and ambiguity should be addressed. - jc37 18:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There's really nothing to address. RTV is for people who want to never edit again. CLEANSTART is for folks whose reputation has been marred, and want to give it another go. What you're referring to is people who want to start over with a new account name... which they can do right now. Hell, I did this. Says so right on my user page. I quit my old account, and started this new one, to avoid issues with potential outing and having unpopular edits being dragged back to my meatspace life. Folks who want to do this for privacy reasons would likely leave this off, and contact ArbCom if questions about their new identity come up.

Just like witness protection, once you've quit your old account, it's best to not go right back to editing the same articles in the same manner, or people will notice.

Simply put, you're adding a process where one isn't needed. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

'A "clean start" presumes that the editor is trying to distance themself from prior edits which have been frowned upon by the community' and 'CLEANSTART is for folks whose reputation has been marred, and want to give it another go' are incorrect statements; it's only one clean-start rationale (privacy being the main one). I'm highly skeptical that many editors who exhibit severe enough problems that community disapproval is so strong they feel compelled to abandon a username, are actually going to be magically successful as cooperative participants with a new account. It's like suggesting that a junkie's going to kick the habit and never turn back, just by moving in with her uncle a few towns away, or that a wife- and child-beater is going to be a different person and not engage in such behaviors if he starts a new family. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 06:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

MOS on animal name capitalization

At WT:Manual of Style#Wrapping this up: We clearly have a consensus to move forward, a loose poll has been opened on how to better express MOS's section on animal names, which has had a consensus for some four years now against capitalization of the common names of species (as in "Johnson had a Rock Pigeon but it was eaten by his Ball Python, who choked to death on it, so he instead got a Dog and two Goldfish.")

WP:WikiProject Birds has long held that such capitalization is actually proper in ornithology articles (as in "The Rock Dove (Columba livia) or Rock Pigeon, is a member of the bird family Columbidae..."). Many have disagreed with this position. This perennial dispute, which has graced WP:VPP, WT:MOS, WT:AT, WT:BIRDS, WT:TOL, and many other talk pages over the years, is not really at issue in the discussion in question (despite much noise about it from both sides, including myself, because I'm easily distracted into side arguments). The proposed tweaks to MOS wording actually explicitly acknowledge this local consensus on ornithology articles, but also acknowledge the fact that it is and has been controversial. For at least seven years running, it has been one of the most hotly debated, recurrent style topics on the whole system, and it is normal MOS practice to annotate when something within its scope is subject to extended controversy. (Note: It is clear that the capitalization practice is the most common in ornithological journals and bird field guides; that is not at issue.)

The main point of the proposed rewording is to reduce inconsistency, confusion, and editorial strife by tightening the MOS language a bit, and then ensuring that related sub-guidelines like WP:MOSCAPS and WP:FNAME stop conflicting with MOS on the matter and sowing confusion, which has been happening for the last several years (in some cases, their wording has also directly contradicted policy; basically, it's a mess). Due to confused and confusing guidelines, combined with the widespread example of (perhaps properly, perhaps not) capitalized bird names in prose and in article titles (over 10,000 bird articles), many, many animal names of all kinds all over Wikipedia have been improperly capitalized, especially over the last 2–3 years, from Przewalski's "H"orse to "B"ottlenose "D"olphin to even "L"ion, at one time or another, with bitter feuding and editwarring about it. Thousands and thousands of cases of this improper capitalization of common names remain to be cleaned up in innumerable articles. Without the MOS and related guideline synchronization, the problem is only going to get worse.

The intent of the proposed changes is to calm this situation down and provide a stable, capitalization-free default (for which there is already long-standing consensus), while neither telling WP:BIRDS it "has to" stop capitalizing, nor pretending that their practice has wide support on Wikipedia outside that project, or should be emulated in other categories of articles. The goal is stop the rampant spread of willy-nilly animal name capitalization, and finally provide consistent style guidance on animal naming. There is a clear consensus at WT:MOS about this, but not about the wording of the improvements to the section.

General input from editors other than MOS regulars and the participants of the birds project would be very helpful. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: There is a "Discussion" subsection at the poll; please direct discussion there rather than forking a new discussion here at VPP. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

There's also the case of certain breed societies for domesticated animals, where the generic name (pony, horse, cow, pig, etc.) is capitalised within specific breeds. For example, Welsh Mountain Pony. It's obvious to horsey people that its name isn't just "Welsh Mountain", because that would seem to imply a large geological feature, rather than a specific type of equine. I think it may be sensible to go for something along the lines of what's in common use amongst specialists / experts / those in-the-know, in each individual field. Or paddock, or barn, or aviary ... Pesky (talk …stalk!) 13:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Deleting orphaned files

There are many, many very valid reasons to delete a free image rather than move it to Commons. Why on Earth would "orphaned" be one of them? It makes sense to say that there is no conceivable use for an image, or that we have higher quality versions of the image, or that it isn't free. The fact that is currently not in use in an article should have no bearing. Granted, if the image is in use in several articles, then the other reasons aren't valid. Wikipedia:Files for deletion is clogged down with "orphaned" images, and always has been. The pages get little traffic, and for some bizarre reason all discussions default to Delete. Yes, there are many orphaned images that should be deleted, but never because they are orphaned. Orphaned should never be a reason for deletion and we should change all relevant pages to reflect that. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 12:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned images are not serving a purpose on Wikipedia, as such they are candidates to move to Commons. There is nothing preventing orphaned images from being moved to commons (assuming appropriate licensing and source info is present), with sufficient access even the deleted images can be moved to commons (almost nothing is every really gone). Maybe a start a project to move these orphaned images to commons, it will require a significant number of volunteers, unless you are able to do them all yourself. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

JeepdaySock we have 150,000 files that are in use that need to be moved to Commons, and another 150,000 orphaned files that aren't in use and haven't been deleted and need moving over to Commons. We don't have time to move deleted images.

As to the matter at hand, being orphaned in and of itself isn't a rationale for deletion. I do send files to FfD on a regular basis, and while I mention that the orphaned ones are orphaned, I pair it with 'no apparent encyclopedic value' and/or 'unidentified'. There are tons of orphaned files that could conceivably be used in the future, and those don't get listed for deletion. What gets listed are the useless files, of which we have thousands. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes looking there a reason is always given as well as orphaned. Orphaned is given because in use is evidence of educational value and overrides most reasons for deleting. The other reason is the particular reason for deleting. Dmcq (talk) 20:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You're missing the point, being orphaned in and of itself is a rationale for deletion, according to our policies. "Orphaned" still listed as a valid reason for deletion at WP:FfD, and "unused" at Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion. I believe that most image deletions are valid, but it would be helpful if our policies were valid as well. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

So I hear you saying that even though, most orphans should be deleted for a number of reasons, there may be a few that somebody might want to use some day, if they happen to be searching Wikipedia instead of Commons for an image, so we should not delete them just because they are orphans. Seems to me a better approach would be to move any orphans that might be of use someday to somebody to commons, the problem being as Sven Manguard has pointed out, is there is insufficient human resources to address the move to commons for the images that are being used. Commons is the place for images, Wikipedia is the place for Encyclopedic content, having orphaned images on Wikipedia is like having a random bottle of high quality perfume for sale in the plumbing section of a home improvement store, no doubt someone might have a use for it, and is probably looking for it, but if the item is not in the correct location (commons) and is not marked to be found (category) how is a benefit to anyone, particularly if it is grouped with a bunch of junk that no one wants? By all means I encourage you to go and follow up on your desire, to preserve those valuable orphaned images, If you really care about it, start a project to rescue them and move them to Commons. But asking to change the policy so others will be obligated to, in this situation is most likely going to be unsuccessful. You may also want to to review Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files #4 JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

No, most orphans should not be deleted; most orphans should be moved to Commons and properly categorized. I really don't have any idea what you are talking about, other than that you are being incredibly patronizing. I've personally moved over 1100 files to Commons, most of them from ENWP, some from Flickr and other WMF projects. By your responses it seems that you do not understand the processes involved, or the topic I have posted about. Nobody is discussing requiring anybody to do anything. I am requesting that "orphaned" be removed as a valid reason for deletion, as it is clearly not a valid reason. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 12:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no duty to save any of the stuff unless it can be shown to be educational any more than any of the other meandering drivel loads of people stick into Wikipedia without citation and gets deleted. People do check whether the stuff should really be deleted as it really has no reasonable education use or is just a bad copy or something like that. But we already have enough problems with people thinking Wikipedia has a duty to save every last silly or offensive picture without making i into a guideline. Dmcq (talk) 12:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• sigh* I never implied anything about making a guideline. I am talking about removing two words that nobody pays attention to from existing policy; "orphaned" from WP:FfD, and "unused" from Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 12:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

What the OP is getting at I think: Commons does not itself delete orphaned files unless they are out-of-scope or copyvios. Out-of-scope does encompass low quality images that are entirely redundant, but that's as far as it goes, they're very reluctant to delete even if the educational use is quite theoretical. If enwp is more aggressive in deleting these files, that may lead to a peculiar inconsistency where a file may be uploaded to Commons and kept, but uploaded here and deleted, which is to be avoided. Of course there's no problem with delaying their move to Commons, so more important files can be moved first. If they're not being more aggressive that's fine (and I agree policy should not suggest that "unused" is by itself a reason to delete a file). Dcoetzee 12:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

"removing two words that nobody pays attention to from existing policy; "orphaned" from WP:FfD, " would also require changing policies like Wikipedia:NOTREPOSITORY#REPOSITORY, While I grant that some orphaned images may have some value, Wikipedia is NOT the place for them to be. If they are not moved, nor deleted, then Wikipedia becomes their repository, for eternity to no-ones benefit. These are images not being used, that have been abounded by their uploaded, or taking advantage of Wikipedia's less stringent image deletion approach. As best I can tell the suggestion is to not delete images that are orphaned where they meet the requirements to be posted on Commons. If they don't qualify for commons (i.e. fair use) and they are orphaned on Wikipedia, where is the benefit to the anyone to keep them here? No one is even pointing at a group and saying we should keep these photos because, the argument is about replacing Commons as the location for keeping orphaned images. Why? as best I can tell the rational is to not delete them is it is to much trouble to move them to commons, and there is insufficient resources to move them. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I personally don't care, thought I do lean towards deletions according to some, I am merely point out why the sugestion to change is unlikely to be successful. RE: the opening question "There are many, many very valid reasons to delete a free image rather than move it to Commons. Why on Earth would "orphaned" be one of them?". JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 17:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Okay, I'm just going to be angry for a second, since it's abundantly clear to me that some of the people here haven't actually ever spent enough time looking at files to know what they're talking about.

1. We already have a process for moving these files to Commons already. There is a group of people that work on it, and we hold discussions on improving the process on a regular basis.
2. While simply being orphaned is a deletion criteria, it's not one that is, by itself, used. It is mentioned at FFD that files are orphaned, but always in the context of another more concrete reason for deletion, such as it being unusable, unfreee, or unidentifiable. Really, go check FfD for yourslef.
3. Files default to keep because participation is limited in FfD (only a tiny number of people work in the namespace itself with any regularity, even less work in FfD), and the vast majority of FfDs filed are good FfDs. FfD can reach 100 filings in a day, and it makes no sense for someone to go in and agree with all of them. The system works.

Please, in the future, make an effort to talk to the file workers before you start complaining about file work. It's a highly specialized field, and there are good reasons for why things are they way they are. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If the conventional practice is to consider "unused" or "orphaned" to be an inadequate rationale (i.e., you should normally pair that reason with another, more substantial reason), then perhaps the policy pages should actually say that. It's not helpful for Wikipedia to have "unwritten rules" that might accidentally confuse or trip up less experienced users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to be the devils advocate here, by the same rational as WhatamIdoing and looking at Wikipedia:FfD#February_2 & Wikipedia:FfD#February_3 Unencyclopedic would also be an inadequate rationale (i.e., you should normally pair that reason with another, more substantial reason), it is always used with orphaned. As is "Low quality" used in combination with other reasons. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

My experience of FfD is less happy than Sven Manguard's. Take Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_December_26 as an admittedly bad but not at all unique example. Hosts of free files were nominated as "Orphaned/Unused, no foreseeable use". A high proportion were saved by other people pointing out that there was not only a foreseeable use but a very real use. Sometimes the file was actually in use, the "orphaned" claim was false, and on these occasions the "unforeseeable" was absurd. The Fbot bot is (was?) frequently tagging as "orphaned" erroneously, nominators were not examining actual usage and were giving a "boilerplate" second reason for deletion. As for "files default to keep", that does not describe actual practice. WP:FFD says "Files that have been listed here for more than 7 days are eligible for deletion if either a consensus to do so has been reached or no objections to deletion have been raised". Deleting files with unopposed nominations is absolutely standard practice. Now, I couldn't bear looking all the way through that same day of FfD but I couldn't find any files that had been kept and the one's deleted after moving the Commons (good!) were those to which someone had objected. The rest of these free files are still stored away but we are no longer able to look at or listen to them. Thincat (talk) 11:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Those looked like reasonable nominations to me. Other people pointed out actual uses in some cases where it wasn't obvious and they were kept. The idea of keeping every last bit of that stuff reminds me of stories of people who've kept every egg-box and newspaper and tin can and can't throw them away and they have to crawl through holes in the rubbish in their houses until it finally falls over and kills them. Wikipedia is not a repository for such stuff and it makes finding good stuff hard if we keep it. Who's going to spend their life cataloguing it properly? Dmcq (talk) 12:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And of course Wikipedia has an article about it Compulsive hoarding. The story of the Collyer brothers is what I was thinking of. Dmcq (talk) 12:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

What? You can't be serious! Was Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_December_26#File:Etobicoke.ogg a reasonable nomination. It was very sensibly in use at Etobicoke and Etobicoke Creek. It was neither orphaned, unused or of no foreseeable use. There are so many dreadful nominations and deletions that is is difficult to see the detail clearly. Thincat (talk) 12:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That ogg file is on commons and the uses in the articles you mention use that. Why would we want to keep a copy on EN? older ≠ wiser 12:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

But at the time it was nominated for deletion (not tagged for move to Commons) it was not on Commons. If Calliopejen1 had not intervened it would have been deleted and not moved. Look at the next nomination, Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_December_26#File:Invention.ogg. There was the identical nomination, Calliopejen1 thought "neutral", and it was deleted. The default at FfD is "delete" even when the nomination is wholly specious. Thincat (talk) 12:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

So the reason given was invalid because it was in use, if you feel strongly complain to the nominator for not checking. However that a reason given by a nominator did not apply for a particular nomination does not mean one should remove that reason for nominating in general. Dmcq (talk) 13:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I complained about other files here and was politely received but here was deleted as "remove rude message"[1]. The matter was also discussed here. The problem is widespread and general, not particular and is not restricted to one one two editors. Thincat (talk) 14:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

IMO, the root cause of the issue that Thincat brought up isn't 'orphaned as a deletion rationale' but 'drive by deletion nominations'. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Plus there seems to be a problem there with some files in use not being marked properly as such which excuses the mistake an editor made when they said some files were orphaned when they were not. Files can be recovered if there is a mistake so there is no point getting het up with someone who is trying to deal withthe huge number of rubbish files around when they delete something. Dmcq (talk) 18:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Publicity photos

Although the WP:Publicity photos page is inactive and only retained for historical reference, several current policy articles link to it. It seems that the pages that link to it (and probably their content) should be changed, but I do not have the time to do this. Is there a specific project that takes care of this sort of thing that I could request addresses links to the Publicity photos page? Thank you. —Zach425 ^talk/contribs 04:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of the article rescue list for disputing a spinout/merge

Recently, an editor tried to spin-out a fictional character article from a fictional character list. I reverted it, thus re-merging the spin-out back into the list, in accordance with WP:AVOIDSPLIT / WP:SIGCOV.

That editor accused me of deleting the article. In the interest of disclosure, I didn't look closely at the article and quickly reverted the spinout. But I did re-add some information back into the list, and I did invite him to add further information to the list. Instead, he took the issue to the article rescue squadron.

My goal is not to dispute what to do with the article. The process around this article has already become needlessly dramatic and it doesn't need more drama.

I'm here to ask the community about our policy on the appropriate use of the newly created rescue list.

ARS recently saw their rescue template deleted from a consensus that there were systemic problems. I honestly don't know if the community would consider this use of the new "rescue list" to be kosher or if it's slipping towards the problems that got the rescue template deleted. So I thought the best thing to do is to just ask. I'm okay with what the wider community decides.

The rescue list is currently used for articles at AFD. (I guess that could include prods and speedy deletions, but those processes are so easy to contest that it makes the ARS kind of redundant.)

A few ARS editors recently expanded the scope of the rescue list.[2][3] Should the rescue list be used for content within articles, merges, and disputed spinouts?

Thanks everyone. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I accused you of eliminating the article, which you did, by putting a redirect back there. And as I clearly stated on your talk page and on the ARS discussion for this, every single Wikiproject there is list the deletes, merges, and redirects for things related to those projects. I clearly listed that having millions of search results for "Avatar" and "Ultima" made it hard for me to find what I was looking for to prove it was notable on its own. So I asked for help [4], hoping someone can think of a better way to sort through all the results and find what I'm looking for. Three long term and active members of the ARS discussed this, saying asking for help working on an article like this was fine. Dream Focus 16:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I still take strong issue with you characterizing a merge of an article as the elimination of an article. But let's see if the wider community thinks this is an appropriate use of the new rescue list. Seeing as there's been a recent controversy with the rescue template, we need to be 100% sure. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Semantics again? Fine. Instead of saying you eliminated the article from easy viewing by putting a redirect there, I'll just say you prevent people from seeing it. Honestly now. I have no idea what you are getting all worked up over. The article isn't there anymore, its a redirect. Dream Focus 16:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's not just a semantic difference. How are people prevented from seeing the content? Shooterwalker (talk) 16:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

They aren't seeing ALL of the valid content. [5] Dream Focus 16:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

All verified content. Anyway, this isn't about the article. It's about process and policy. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Merging w/ redirect is not deletion, so the need per ARS' charter is not as significant as if it were an AFD. But that doesn't mean that in a discussion about the merge that ARS can't be notified to see if there are sources that better justify the separate article over the merge. --MASEM (t) 16:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please consider WP:Civil and reply to each other with civility and assuming good faith (WP:faith]]. Above all, avoid WP:Edit warring. Two reverts are one to many, and three reverts violate the wp:3rr three revert rule. --DThomsen8 (talk) 16:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No dispute here. You won't see any civility from me. Nor any additional reverts until this policy discussion unfolds. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree per Masem. In a discussion between having the article, or merging it back into a list, there does not seem to be a problem to me in inviting the ARS to get involved to see if they can come up with RS to V the N of the article topic. I think we should do all we can to support the creation of articles, and we should not arbitrarily close of an avenue such as ARS merely because we're not dealing with AfD or PROD. I respect that you're trying to head off discussion on the instance which precipitated this discussion, but I take it we're talking about Avatar (Ultima). Seems to me there's enough information and enough hints of notability on that page to warrant a new article. Insistig that it stays in the list stymies development. Shelling it out into an article at least provides a forum for additional work of the sort ARS purports to be interested in. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - The ARS rescue list can be used for any and all content to be considered for rescue, in my opinion, including Files for deletion, Categories for discussion, Miscellany for deletion, articles proposed for deletion, etc., as this is historically what ARS covers. It's imperative that people simply follow the instructions for posting, and include their rationale why the content should be retained on Wikipedia. See Articles & content for an overview of the content that ARS covers. Why is there a sudden interest in limiting freedom of speech in a public discussion forum? Northamerica1000^(talk) 17:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

  It's a process/policy issue. I think the analogy would be taking a merge dispute to AFD. Would shutting the AFD down be a matter of process, or would we be limiting free discussion? Every process is different. The more clarity we can have on how the rescue list is used, the fewer disputes we will see down the line. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's analogous to saying that the article proponent should not be allowed to develop the article whilst an opponent is trying to shoe-horn it back into a list. Or should not be able to solicit others to do so. How does that help? Seems to me that if there's a segments of an article hovering around the cusp of being articles in its own right, we should do all we can to push it forwards, not all we can to pull it back. That latter, bluntly is what you appear to me to be arguing for. Again: how does that help? --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Also, note that there is significant precedent for WikiProjects to maintain Cleanup lists. See This search for a search list of cleanup listings that numerous WikiProjects maintain. Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• merges shouldn't be deletes, but in practice they usually are, and redirects are almost always intended as deletes--the only difference is that any editor, not just an admin , can reverse them. Probably we shouldn't have such as strong focus on individual articles as designators of importance, but just as convenient ways to organize content--but nonetheless, we do have that distinction, in the general way the public looks at it, the general way most Wikipedians look at it, the universal way article creators look at it, & the way Google's ranking algorithms look at it, so it isn't that surprising to find it enshrined in WP:N, Given the functional identity of the three processes, probably the increasing custom of using AfD to get consensus on any of them is reasonable. The effectiveness and use of AfD is that of the people who respond to their suggestions that an article might be improved to increase its capability--the results will of course be variable--variable in whether an article listed is actually improvable, in whether it does get improved, in whether the improvement is enough to warrant keeping it as a separate article, and finally in whether it does in fact get kept. Different people here have different perceptions about the rate worthless articles get kept to the rate at which worthy ones get deleted, but there are certainly errors in each direction. What will help the situation is greater participation in working on articles, rather than in meta-debates about whether to work on articles & how to organize to do so. I've rescued a number of articles at AfD, , and I strongly support the efforts of the people who do use it a base for working, but in my own work I ignore ARS banners, for I know myself what I am most likely to do effectively. DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Why not? - Surely it's OK for editors to ask for help, whether from the the ARS or elsewhere? Given the degree of biting, personal attacks, and incivility I've noticed on Wikipedia, and the contrasting friendliness of ARS members, it's not surprising that the ARS should be increasingly sought out. As long as the ARS can cope (and that's for registered ARS members to decide), it seems completely reasonable for articles threatened by merger to go to the ARS list (merger is, after all, essentially a reversible deletion). If this gets forbidden, the result could well be to bounce the articles to AfD for a keep-vs-merge discussion, which will just clog up AfD. -- 202.124.72.226 (talk) 13:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Files uploaded to the English Wikipedia from outside the US

It is my understanding that a file should only be uploaded to the English Wikipedia either when its content is copyrighted and is intended to be used under the "fair use" doctrine, or it is public domain in the US and not in the country of origin. In both these cases isn't it true that the uploader must actually be in the US at the time of upload? It seems to me that uploading files with content that meet these criteria would be illegal in most countries outside of the US, and therefore uploaders outside the US are not actually eligible to upload to the English Wikipedia. However, all uploads performed from outside the US should be eligible for upload to Commons, so shouldn't they therefore be automatically redirected to Commons? (I'm assuming one can determine the country of upload origin based on the IP address of the uploader.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, if something is going to be used for fair use, the being in the US or not wouldn't have anything to do with it. As for PD in the US, it's always possible it's also PD in the country of the uploader but not its origin -- something published in England where the author died less than 70 but more than 50 years ago is PD in Canada, for instance. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you are correct about fair use. It is my understanding that fair use is only legal in the US, so someone who is outside the US cannot legally upload such a file. Besides, very few files qualify for uploading to the US site, and for the vast majority of users who are outside the US, those files which should be uploaded here cannot in general be legally uploaded. Actually, since it is a problem that too many files are being uploaded to the English Wikipedia that should really be uploaded to Commons, it seems to me that all upload requests (from the English Wikipedia Toolbox) should be automatically redirected to Commons. Uploads to the English Wikipedia should be presented on the Commons upload form (or Wizard) as a special case, a limited option spelling out the two types of files that should be uploaded to the English Wikipedia, which perhaps would also have a warning that most users outside the US may be violating the law, if they upload these types of files, and would present a link to an English Wikipedia process or form for uploading these special cases. (The case you mention is an exception, but those users could also use this link.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 03:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

You're conflating laws that affect Wikipedia (i.e., U.S. and Florida) with laws that affect Wikipedia contributors. Not the same thing. If the mere act of uploading a copyrighted image is forbidden by the laws of the uploader's country even though it is for a legal use by Wikipedia, that is solely the uploader's problem, not Wikipedia's. Similarly, I could live in a country where it is illegal to post negative information about my government, but obviously Wikipedia has no obligation to remove such content or to block me from contributing to my country's article and bears no consequence for retaining that content. I'm sure we could think of a million other analogous examples. postdlf (talk) 04:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I see your point. Not Wikipedia's responsibility, so it is not necessary to point it out. But it still seems like we need to do something to reduce the number of files going to the wrong site. Perhaps I was coming at this a bit from the wrong angle. I still think it might help to redirect everyone initially to Commons and make uploads here an exceptional case. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It can make sense to upload directly to Commons. Files on WP are regularly transferred there by others, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drives/March 2012. While accepting the principle behind these moves, I find the activity sometimes disruptive because the moves are done on a very large scale without careful individual consideration. Files that were OK here can, after transfer, get deleted from Commons. Commons requires either a free licence or public domain status in US and source country[6]. WP only abides by US copyright[7] though I sometimes see gestures towards being respectful of non-US copyrights on ethical grounds and/or arguing that the US courts are respectful towards foreign copyright. There does indeed seem to be a lack of warning about infringing one's own (non-US) law. Paradoxically, I have found a problem that old UK material, now PD in the UK but (probably) never published in the US, cannot be uploaded at all because it has become non-PD in the US. Thincat (talk) 11:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

To quickly address this point - "fair use is only legal in the US". The specific fair-use provisions we cite are an artefact of US law and are not in law in that form elsewhere. However, many countries have provisions broadly analogous to the US "fair use" concept (see, eg, fair dealing), and the uploader can be assumed to be invoking those, where relevant, as well as the explicit US fair-use statement. Barring non-US fair-use uploads would probably not help much, in this regard. Shimgray | talk | 12:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Idea Lab discussion: Admin Portal

I recently posted a new discussion at wp:VPI#Admin Portal, but due to low traffic, it was suggested that I post a notification on the policy and proposal VPs. I am a newish user, so if this post is a violation of any VP rules, please remove it--I understand. Vert3x (talk) 14:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not for press releases

My original edit to Light-emitting diode was reverted by User:Wtshymanski. I found the edit summary to be incorrect in its characterization of my source (I saw nothing in the source about a press release, and "not from a publicity department" would be a good thing rather than a reason to revert an edit). So I reverted the revert and was reverted again. The edit summary this time was clearer on the Wtshymanski's objection--the event wasn't important enough, which may have been justified--but it seemed to indicate Wtshymanski objected to the reliability of the source as well. The source was a reporter who had worked at the newspaper for many, many years, so I asked on Wtshymanski's talk page what made him the authority to deem this reporter an unreliable source. I confess that I violated WP:CIVIL in my wording, but I felt perfectly justified in my edit and Wtshymanski seemed unreasonable. Wtshymanski reiterated the lack of importance of the event here but indicated willingness to add the edit to Cree Inc.. I indicated a willingness to compromise and Wtshymanski blanked his/her talk page. But the edit summary for Wtshymanski's response to me was "Wikipedia is not for press releases". I don't see where I've done anything wrong, and Wtshymanski seemed happy to let me put the edit in Cree Inc..

So I didn't use a press release as a source (though the reporter might have), and the only justified objection to the edit seems to be the importance of the event.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I took the content issue to Talk:Light-emitting diode but since this could happen again, I sure would appreciate a comment about press releases.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

One of the sections of our verifiability policy is titled Exceptional claims require exceptional sources and is relevant here. Your edit states that Cree's new LED "delivers twice as much light for the same price", which I would qualify as an expentional claim. Accordingly you would need multiple high quality sources to back it up. The source you give is barely one step up from a press release, the guy is obviously just repeating what he heard from the PR guys. Yoenit (talk) 00:07, 11 February 2012 (UTC)