Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
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Views on de-orphaning?
What does the community think about systematic efforts to add links to orphaned articles?
Until recently, my impression was de-orphaning can sometimes be beneficial (I did a bit when I was starting to edit) but, in most cases, isn't hugely significant because decent search engines are widespread. Additionally, many orphans cover naturally obscure topics which just aren't going to get many readers or improvements even if they were linked elsewhere.
However, I've been coming across cases where de-orphaning has actually made things worse, generally by giving too much weight to a subject we might not even want to have an article on in the first place. For example, I recently cleaned out a large number of dubiously-notable companies whose establishments were listed as nationally prominent events on pages like 2000 in the United States because of systematic de-orphaning.
It's become increasingly unclear to me whether de-orphaning efforts, as currently practised, are doing more good than harm. But this is based on my impressions, not detailed analysis. So I'm interested to hear others' thoughts.
(A couple of previous discussions: 2017, 2019, there's probably been others). – Teratix ₵ 06:15, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- It probably depends on exactly what is meant by deorphaning. Adding links to relevant articles is good, in that it provides readers a path to find new information. Search cannot help someone find something they don't know they are looking for. The 2017 and 2019 discussions however make a good point that deorphaning as an end in itself is obsolete.Stepping back slightly, is there more information on what the de-orphaning efforts as currently practised are? The adding of links where they are not beneficial is not great, but how much of it is a problem, and is it a systemic issue or a relatively occasional occurrence? CMD (talk) 06:54, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- The issue with de-orphaning is that it tends to be rather black-and-white. WikiProject Orphanage has the singular objective of reducing the backlog of orphaned articles, which can result in articles that may not meet GNG being given undue weight. Something like the introduction of an 'Orphan-Notability' template, alongside the 'Orphan' template, might help. When de-orphaning a particular article, the option of replacing the 'Orphan' template with 'Orphan-Notability' would create two lists: one for orphaned articles and another for orphaned articles requiring a notability check before they are de-orphaned. Svampesky (talk) 09:15, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- I've seen good things happen from good links. If an article has no inbound article links it gets very few page views, and thus very few edits. With meaningful links from other articles it is now being seen by readers interested in related topics, and someone reading an article on one topic is probably just the person to make good edits to a related article they click through to. It's true that low-quality links, like linking to a dubiously notable company in a large city article because the company is based there, tend to lower the quality of the established article. Cluttering it up without adding useful information for readers.
- I think if meaningful, good article links can't be created to an article, that's a strong sign that the article subject is not notable. It's not a criteria for deletion of course, just an indication that a topic might not be encyclopedic, if no other encyclopedia articles should even mention it. Here2rewrite (talk) 11:29, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- +1 for
I think if meaningful, good article links can't be created to an article, that's a strong sign that the article subject is not notable.
. CapitalSasha ~ talk 11:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- +1 for
- As an "Orphanologist" working on oldest orphan articles (beginning with 2014 backlog articles), I have seen much progress. At one point the backlog was over 120,000 articles and now about 55,000. And millions more of non-orphan articles. Prior to my involvement, the consensus is to make orphan tag "invisible" after two months. My suggestion would be to show all orphan tags. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 13:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
It always seems odd to me if an article can't reasonably be linked to other articles. This could of course mean that those other articles are missing rather than that our orphan is not notable. As for whether we use visible or invisible tags, it rather depends on whether we think the task is something we want to invite our readers to do. In its early days, yes I assume most new orphans can easily be linked into the project. After some time it ceases to be a newbie task and it requires a bit more experience of the project - does this link improve the pedia or is it visual clutter? I'm not sure whether two months is the right time and if not whether it should be increased to three or more or reduced to one. But if we were going to change the interval I'd like it done with some data as to the relative ease of deorphaning articles after one, two or three months. Ideally the link should become invisible at the point where deorphaning becomes a task we don't want to promote to newbies. ϢereSpielChequers 13:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't find this odd at all, and being an orphan isn't the end of the world. Of course some articles are crying out to be linked to (creators of new articles are often very poor at looking for links to add). I'm strongly against WP:UNDUE adding the name and a link just for the sake of de-orphaning. Johnbod (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- When this was discussed in 2017, I left rather lengthy comment. Although I no longer de-orphan to the same extent that I once did, I still think the tag is valuable as a diagnostic that signals that an article should be looked at. As I said back then, I have found plenty of instances where investigating why something is tagged as orphaned has helped me improve Wikipedia - merging duplicate articles, upmerging stubs to parent articles, creating new articles in a taxonomic chain, fixing broken links, and initiating the deletion of junk that no one has laid eyes on in years. Issues can arise when people focus more on the idea of removing the tag at all costs rather than figuring out what to do with the article, but that can happen with any maintenance backlog. Think of someone who mass-redirects unsourced articles rather than improving sourcing. Is the problem the tag, or the behavior? Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater if we can solve the crap-links problem by dealing with whoever is doing it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree. Even if someone deorphans by mechanically adding a See also link to a more prominent article, the watchers of that more prominent article will then be alerted to the lesser article and it then has an opportunity to be improved. ~Kvng (talk) 14:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- As is often the case when editing WP, de-orphaning requires a degree of editorial judgement. The problems almost always occur when people edit without discernment - adding links just for the sake of linking. The reality is that some de-orphaning links are very beneficial, while others are not. Blueboar (talk) 14:44, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree. Even if someone deorphans by mechanically adding a See also link to a more prominent article, the watchers of that more prominent article will then be alerted to the lesser article and it then has an opportunity to be improved. ~Kvng (talk) 14:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
The relevant policy/guideline is actually already there:
It may be the case that some articles currently just cannot be de-orphaned. If this is the case then please do not try to 'force-fit' by adding unrelated links to articles where they don't belong just for the sake of de-orphaning. Always keep in mind that our primary goal is to improve the reader's experience, not satisfy the editor's indulgence in statistical achievements. Your priority when adding links should be to maintain article quality by adding relevant and useful links wherever possible
— WP:CANTDEORPHAN
So, unnecessary links can always be removed. But it's not always bad, and the inclusion or non-inclusion criteria of certain articles in general articles such as "X year" may not be straightforward; what "degree" of notability (if a person has an article on Wikipedia that person is already notable) a person has to have to be included in "Births"?
Companies can be included in some lists by location or something else. What to put in "See also" is also covered by a guideline.
But do some articles even need to exist? I somewhat agree with other users regarding the (probable) lack of notability (though it may require changes in some notability policies). The other important thing here is the size of the article. Members of the state legislatures are presumed notable, but what if the fact that a person was a member is almost the only thing we know about them? Example. Named natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist. But for some very small streams, this "information beyond" is the etymology and what bodies of water they flow into (sometimes another small stream). Example, Example. The same doubts arise regarding small unidentified villages (that may not even exist), very small neighbourhoods or just "areas".
There are also a lot of articles about New Zealand court decisions, but that's a separate story.
Finally, there are some interesting guidelines about orphans: Editors may also remove the tag from any article if they believe that de-orphaning is unlikely to be successful, or if they have attempted to provide incoming links
-//- However, if you are certain the article is unlikely to ever be de-orphaned then simply remove the tag
. Can this also be the answer sometimes? It can also be elaborated. For example, after some time and/or a number of attempts an article may be declared "hopeless" and the tag may be removed.
The reality is that some de-orphaning links are very beneficial, while others are not.
A lot of those that "are not" are not harmful either. Oloddin (talk) 05:53, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
- I've opened a new section on your first question below, as it extends beyond the question of deorphaning. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:58, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Let's go a bit deeper here. So far, a fair few editors have said something along the lines of "well, sometimes de-orphaning is beneficial and sometimes not", with varying emphasis on "sometimes beneficial" and "sometimes not". But what proportion of de-orphaning, in practice, is beneficial? Is it 90% beneficial, 10% not so much? 70–30? 40–60? 20–80? And where is the threshold for "this benefits Wikipedia on net"? – Teratix ₵ 02:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
- To go a bit broader, I would estimate that 90% of good-faith edits are beneficial. The deorphaning edits I have reviewed have about the same level of quality as the other edits I review on my watchlist. ~Kvng (talk) 13:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
- "De-orphaning" is not some special process; it's simply connecting an orphan with the other articles by creating links to the orphan. This is beneficial unless these links don't fit into the articles where an editor is trying to put them in. It's hard to estimate how often that happens (not least because, again, whether the link belongs or not is often subjective), but I would say not too often (I agree with Kvng on that). In general, the appropriateness of a link, of some text that includes a link, or of the element in the list (or list-type article) is not dependent on whether it was an attempt to de-orphan or not. Oloddin (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Teratix, I suspect that the benefit depends on the subject. De-orphaning a sports or film actor bio probably has a ≥90% benefit: the athlete should be named in some list of the people on their notable team(s), and the actor should be named in the articles about the films they appeared in. De-orphaning a business probably has a 10% benefit. You might occasionally want a sentence like "Bob's Big Business has been the biggest employer in Smallville since 2005", but there are currently about 15,000 places to eat in London, and even if only 0.5% of them are notable, London#Leisure and entertainment doesn't need 75 restaurants named in it. It doesn't even need all six of its Michelin 3-star restaurants listed. However, when something like List of award-winning pubs in London is available, then that's an opportunity to de-orphan these pubs without unbalancing London. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
What is the policy for maintaining access to Wikipedia's library?
It took me six months of steady editing to gain access to the library and for months now, I haven't been able to clip articles at Newspapers.com because I access it through an Ancestry account. Needless to say, this has slowed my editing significantly. How many edits do I have to complete in what sort of timeframe to maintain access? Not being able to clip articles for citations for so long has really sapped my enthusiam but I don't want to lose access to the library after working to gain it in the first place. Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 01:27, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- From the TWL about page:
Here's the TWL contact page and the Meta talk page if you're having technical issues. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)Any editor can use the library if they meet a few basic requirements:
- You have an account that is a minimum of 6 months old
- You have made a minimum of 500 edits to Wikimedia projects
- You have made at least 10 edits to Wikimedia projects in the last month
- You are not currently blocked from editing a Wikimedia project
- Note that there are known issues with Newspapers.com through TWL right now, not sure what the status on fixing them is though. ― novov (t c) 01:39, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Send newspapers.com an email. That’s worked for me twice. Wehwalt (talk) 11:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- As mentioned, newspapers.com often (and currently is) has technical issues with Wikipedia Library. Recently I needed to follow the steps in phabricator T322916 (direct link to comment with steps) to basically copy an authenticated session from https://www.newspapers.com/ to https://www-newspapers-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/, which is where a session needs to be in order to clip content using TWL's access. It's annoying and intermittent but at least it's (likely) has nothing to do with your access or account. Skynxnex (talk) 14:57, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you so much. I did try the steps, but Firefox was spitting up errors so I shut the window and walked away from it for a few days. Difficulties with Newspapers.com is really a pity because it's often a necessary source, but I'm so grateful to have it when it works! Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 06:12, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
Starting a compilation of Wikipedia policies
I took long hours to condense core content policies into one document. By my calculations, I can retain at least 95% of the meaning of the policies, including most of their intricacies and details, by using only about a third of space that the policies and guidelines, scattered among multiple pages, now take (I estimated from raw text that the policies and guidelines I summarised have about 530 KB of raw text but under the compilation have just 173 KB - still a lot but much better).
It was a hard task and appears about as hard as working in one person to recompile the Constitution of Alabama - a ridiculously long document running at 373K words - 420K words before 2022 (for comparison, War and Peace is 587K words, and there's a good reason they publish it in volumes), but I think it is more than worth it, as people will have a unified set of policies that will be easier to read for people because there's gonna be much less of that but reflecting the same meaning. The overabundance of policies is one reason we have few new editors - there are too many rules, and then folks just randomly throw WP or MOS shortcuts not immediately obvious to the bystander, and suddenly nobody wants to join a project with United States Code-long rules and obscure jargon.
I will appreciate all feedback from you - positive or negative - and preferably some help into condensing further policies and guidelines, such as those about conduct, legal, editing etc. into one page where everything belongs.
- User:Szmenderowiecki/Attempt at compilation/Intro
- User:Szmenderowiecki/Attempt at compilation/Content
Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:26, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- I wish you well in your endeavour, but am worried that it will fail in the end because everyone thinks that "their" sub-sub-clause is vitally important. I admit that I rarely look at policies or guidelines now, but find a few basic ideas, along with common sense, to work. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:14, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- That works for me as well (I normally look into the rules on an ad hoc basis), but then you wouldn't need all those volumes of tiny rules covering, like, 99% of cases, and yet here we are. Also, admins themselves need a clear set of rules for proper enforcement (even if you catch the gist that the persob is just NOTHERE - an essay btw - you still kinda need a more concrete reason that just "that's my hunch")
- It's like with RL: pretty common-sense that you shouldn't kill or rob anyone, or what appears common-sense like not using the army or the government to finance/securre your own reelection campaign, and yet these are codified lest anyone have an idea to bend the rules. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- This exists WP:Nutshell and I think your effort is noble but better focused on improving accessible language and navigation of existing guidelines for newcomers. Twinkle has feature to welcome new users for example. WP:Mentor finds ways to automate assisting newbies. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Just to pick one example. There's no policy that an article must have (any) sources, let alone one. Yet we consistently advise new users to create articles with multiple sources. Save the edge cases and careful readings of guidelines/policies for advanced users who want to push the margins or change consensus. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:49, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Actually there very much are two policies that prohibit articles without sources:
- Verifiability says that you should only add content that you can check against a reliable source, and that you can remove any unsourced content
- No original research says you just can't make stuff up. The only way you can have some sort of content is if it can be supported by a reliable source. Technically just have to demonstrate that the source for the passage is somewhere but if you don't provide it in the article, you can totally expect it to be removed and it's gonna be your problem.
- So yeah, it isn't said directly, but policy actually prohibits unsourced articles (and I didn't even go to the guidelines) Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- No, policy prohibits unverifiable articles, not unsourced articles. Sources are required for BLPs and anything that is likely to be challenged should include a source (but this doesn't have to be inline). An article List of uncontroversial statements of fact consisting of things like "The sky is blue", "Many people are Catholics", "The 1970s happened before the 1980s", etc could be completely fine (it would be deleted, but for reasons completely unrelated to not having sources). Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Look, I'm not making this up:
Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source
- Which de facto means that if you are adding unsourced content, you are wasting your time as any editor may come by and just remove what you wrote, tell you "lacks an inline citation, I don't care why, pics or it didn't happen" and you are gonna still default to having to add a source (and then again giving time to fix it is a courtesy you needn't, though probably should, extend; though if you have the means to fix it yourself, you should do it)
- So there's no obligation to source an article only in the most literal reading of policies. Anyone can enforce this policy provision. WP:SKYISBLUE is just an essay, although one with a pretty large following (and which totally makes sense for me, which is why there is a footnote to that effect) Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
... any editor may come by and just remove what you wrote ...
: the operative word is may. The reality is there's loads of unsourced text on WP, much of which will take years for it to be challenged, if ever. —Bagumba (talk) 18:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, I think you might be interested in reading Wikipedia:Glossary#uncited and related entries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- No, policy prohibits unverifiable articles, not unsourced articles. Sources are required for BLPs and anything that is likely to be challenged should include a source (but this doesn't have to be inline). An article List of uncontroversial statements of fact consisting of things like "The sky is blue", "Many people are Catholics", "The 1970s happened before the 1980s", etc could be completely fine (it would be deleted, but for reasons completely unrelated to not having sources). Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Actually there very much are two policies that prohibit articles without sources:
- Just to pick one example. There's no policy that an article must have (any) sources, let alone one. Yet we consistently advise new users to create articles with multiple sources. Save the edge cases and careful readings of guidelines/policies for advanced users who want to push the margins or change consensus. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:49, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- It has been tried before. Take a look at Wikipedia:Attribution, an attempt 18 years ago to consolidate some policies. Some very active and well regarded Wikipedians put a lot of time and effort into that proposal, but it was rejected by the community. Consensus can change, but I suspect the community remains just as resistant to change as it was then. Donald Albury 20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- So I did read the poll, and a lot of stuff that was probably relevant here doesn't apply:
- Users were complaining about lack of participation/that proposal being forced down their throats as policy - not an issue here (yet)
- Merger of NOR, V, RS didn't appeal to people - not abolishing them, just giving sections to these concepts, not a problem.
- Users complained about one massive page, or that they preferred separate policies rather than a massive policy code - well that is an issue to discuss but again it's not something that should extinguish all debate before it even starts.
- Disgusted that truth is deprioritised - kinda not applicable here, because I'm not changing the framing of policy, just condensing it.
- Change is unnecessary - again, debatable but let's have that debate in the first place
- WP-links - well, you will have them all you like. Again, something to be discussed.
- Assessment of any changes and their impact on disputes - to be discussed, again. This is how rulemaking process should work.
- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - my whole point is that it is, in fact, broke, so needs fixing.
- And again, you can say "meh, we tried eons ago and it didn't work, why bother anymore" but that's gonna be a catch-22, because nothing will change without discussion, which you don't want to hold anyway.
- I believe the attitude should be "OK, let's see what you did there and if it makes any sense". It would be another thing if you told me why what I did was bullshit, which is fine. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:45, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- So I did read the poll, and a lot of stuff that was probably relevant here doesn't apply:
- FYI in addition to WP:Nutshell and WP:Attribution mentioned above, there's also WP:SIMPLE, HELP:GUIDE, and other variations listed at WP:Principles. Levivich (talk) 04:42, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- I know, but that's not the point of the compilation. What you are pointing to has a different purpose.
- Nutshell, WP:5P etc. is a post hoc summary of policies and guidelines that summarise the main goals in slogans. Just like a company saying "we want to increase the market share; we want good treatment of workers" but not saying how.
- WP:SIMPLE is a very high-level summary of policies and guidelines. It's the company analogue of saying: Good treatment of workers means paying more than the minimum wage, giving them extra breaks, paid leave and some other perks, without telling much specifics.
- The body of the policies and guidelines is like all internal company directives about pay grades, conditions of getting worker benefits, levels of compensation, powers of HR/executives etc. This page intends to clean up all this body of policies and codify them in a couple of places, grouped by category, so that we remove unnecessary bloat, as in too many redundancies and passages repeated across different policy pages, extraneous comments etc.
- We should have all of these and I don't have an issue with the first two, they are mostly fine. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, I don't feel like you're hearing what people are telling you, so l'm going to try a completely different, un-Wikipedian way of explaining this, because the previous efforts haven't worked, and maybe this will get your attention. Here's my new way:
- Hi, Szmenderowiecki, and welcome to Wikipedia! I see you've been editing for just four and a half years, and that you've made a few hundred edits at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, which I really appreciate. I don't know if you knew this, but you're in the top half a percent of contributors for all time. I also notice that you've never edited a single policy, and you have only made one small, uncontroversial edit to a guideline.
- Just so you know, most of the people who have responded to you in this discussion have been editing for 15 to 20 years, and have made between 50,000 and 170,000 edits. Also, relevantly, we've been much more active in developing Wikipedia's policy and guideline ecosystem. If you'd like to see an incomplete overview of my own policy-related work, then you can start at User:WhatamIdoing#Policies and guidelines you can ask me about.
- Now that you understand who's at the table for this discussion, I want to point out that there is an English saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Every person in this discussion has more experience than you, and every single one of them thinks that, even though your goal is laudable and praiseworthy and at least partially shared by everyone here, your approach is not likely to be successful. It is, of course, possible that you know better than any of us and that rushing ahead is a great idea, but I suggest to you that it is unlikely that all of us are wrong in urging caution and small steps.
- If you think you could slow down and get some more experience, and if you're willing to consider doing this over the space of years, then I think we could help set you up for success. For example, if we implemented this idea, that would get about 300 words out of a policy. The next step is to write a good RFC question. If you're interested in this, you could get some practical experience by helping out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know if you realise it, and I guess you didn't mean it, but the comment has a very strong patronising "you are too young to understand" vibe which I have a hard time shaking off rn.
- I asked you for specific input in opinion and help, and I just think the folks who suggested Nutshell etc. misunderstood my intentions. I apologise if I wasn't clear. My intent is to retain the same scope and level of detail but in fewer words.
- If what you meant is to do it in increments, fine, that's an option, still I'd love some feedback if I fucked up with the text in the first place. That is valuable. I'm open to discuss it one-by-one. I will hear input from people who actually drafted policies. That was what I intended to do anyway. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:30, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- You've dropped things, rearranged things, and changed things, and I suspect you have done this without knowing what effects any of that will have.
- For example, you've added the word secondary to the WP:GNG, and swapped in a description for the WP:SIGCOV language:
- Original: "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."
- Yours: A topic generally may have a stand-alone article or list when several reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject address the topic directly and in detail, so that editors do not have to resort to original research.
- I've been trying to get a definition of SIGCOV for years (and years), and failing repeatedly because nobody wants to admit how long (or, perhaps more precisely, how low) "in detail" actually is, for fear that some "unworthy" subject might deliberately seek a qualifying level of independent media coverage. The NOR line in the GNG is basically worthless, and AFAICT removing it would have no effect whatsoever on AFD outcomes, but the fear of making changes to such a high-visibility sentence will likely prevent us from fixing that. Your [e] footnote requires a huge amount of work (e.g., primary sources aren't always about events, sources don't have to adhere to the neutral point of view, a smaller number of high-quality sources is not automatically less indicative of notability than a large number of worse sources).
- At the time we started leaning on secondary sources (about 15 years ago), we had a lot of editors who thought that secondary was a fancy way to spell independent. You have added a requirement for secondary sources that does not actually appear in the GNG statement (though it is in the explanations). The GNG offers a conditional rebuttable presumption, which you have turned into a statement of permission (may/are allowed to have...). The GNG says that multiple sources are only "generally expected", rather than required, and you have changed that. Oh, and "several" is often interpreted, at least in American English, as meaning "four" (a=one, a couple=two, a few=three, several=four), whereas the GNG is usually looking for "two".
- Among the things you haven't resolved is whether the sources for an article must be considered in isolation. For example:
- If I have ten brief independent secondary sources, is that multiple+independent+secondary+SIGCOV, or just multiple+independent+secondary and no SIGCOV?
- If I have SIGCOV in a very lengthy, extremely detailed independent primary source, and I have a non-SIGCOV secondary source, does that add up to multiple+independent+SIGCOV+secondary and therefore notability overall, or do I have to get all three key qualities (independent+secondary+SIGCOV) in each source separately?
- There are a few changes you've made that I like (e.g., putting WP:PSTS in WP:RS – I doubt the community will accept it, but it's not unreasonable), but overall I think you don't understand our ruleset well enough to know what changes you're making. Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm gonna try to address your points in a while. Thanks for the feedback, I'm a bit busy rn. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, just so you know, I'm always going to be interested in this. If you want to talk about how to improve our written policies and guidelines, then feel free to drop by User talk:WhatamIdoing and tell me about your ideas. It doesn't matter to me if that's that's next month, or next year, or next decade – I'd be happy to hear your ideas whenever you want to share them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm gonna try to address your points in a while. Thanks for the feedback, I'm a bit busy rn. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, I don't feel like you're hearing what people are telling you, so l'm going to try a completely different, un-Wikipedian way of explaining this, because the previous efforts haven't worked, and maybe this will get your attention. Here's my new way:
- If anything, the project would benefit from more "fresh eyes"—editors with enough experience to speak somewhat intelligently about these issues, but without so much experience that they are heavily invested in the status quo. There is a strong, almost indisputable case that current PAGs are far too convoluted and complex for the project's good. As a practical matter, the core problem is that the self-selected self-governance model, which created the problem, is incapable of addressing it. Resistance is futile; hence my semi-retirement after about ten years of futile resistance. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I would add that it's useful to hear from editors who still remember their first few edits, because a sentence that makes sense to the "old hands" isn't necessarily any good for the majority of editors. An actual majority of editors has made five or fewer edits, total, ever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- It might be "useful" in supporting the position that
current PAGs are far too convoluted and complex for the project's good
(but I think that's self-evident). As for fixing the problem, not so much. Incremental change is never going to be enough; what's needed is massive overhaul, and that's just not going to happen under the current model. Meanwhile, the current model is sacrosanct. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:45, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- It might be "useful" in supporting the position that
- I would add that it's useful to hear from editors who still remember their first few edits, because a sentence that makes sense to the "old hands" isn't necessarily any good for the majority of editors. An actual majority of editors has made five or fewer edits, total, ever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'll confess that I rarely look at the written policies & guidelines, & mostly use them as a citation when I need to emphasize a point to another editor. I consider what they say is basic common sense, but I've been around so long that I've probably internalized all of the important points. (This is not to say that the original poster is wasting their time. The written policies & guidelines have been considered a mess for countless years.) -- llywrch (talk) 01:49, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- This is part of the reason why English Wikipedia's guidance is sprawling: a lot of additions get made because a situation arises, some people say "we should have a rule for that", it gets added with a shortcut used for jargon, and editors brandish it in future discussions. As I've written before, it would be better to address problems without creating new specialized rules. But in English Wikipedia's current decision-making environment, there is little appetite to delegate to a working group to more effectively rewrite any pages. Amongst those who like to discuss these matters, there are enough editors who want to be able to weigh in on each sentence that it's hard to modify existing guidance pages, and instead we accrete more. Writing well is hard; writing well in a group is even more so. The irony of a crowd-sourced web site is that crowd-sourcing works best for making incremental changes, but consumes a lot of editor time in discussion for larger-scale changes. Which is why the path of least resistance for modifying guidance pages (and articles too) is to add a few sentences, rather than rework the pages. isaacl (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- As a new editor, adopting this would help me contribute more effectively. I would cautiously suggest that it seems like people know too many abbreviations. Support ForksForks (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- And we use different WP:UPPERCASE for the same page/section, sometimes resulting in one editor claiming that "WP:PAGE" supports his view and the next saying that "WP:SAMEPAGE" requires the opposite, and neither of them realize that they're talking about the same page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see any substantive argument that our current P&G structure / the ability for users to peruse it is actually problematic. It should be telling that those editors generally seeing potential in this are relatively new, and those who don't are relatively experienced. That's not (just) survivorship bias, that's experience indicating that what is perceived by some newer editors as a pedagogical issue is (as stated above) actually just the inherent difficulties in learning how to do something conceptually multifaceted and difficult.
- Editing is just hard intellectually and socially, and there's no shortcut to becoming familiar with it to be found in compiling one huge document people will not be able to digest immediately versus having several documents. Remsense ‥ 论 22:18, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with
the inherent difficulties in learning how to do something conceptually multifaceted and difficult
, but I believe there are more effective and efficient ways to communicate the PAGs than our current structure. I also believe it is pretty much impossible to replace the current structure with a more effective one, having seen what it takes to add a sentence to a policy. Schazjmd (talk) 23:32, 26 August 2024 (UTC)- I think there are substantial improvements that can be made throughout each policy, or even refactoring involving multiple policies, but I think on the broadest level the modular P&G structure has no actual downsides—this isn't Justinian's code. Remsense ‥ 论 23:36, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with
- I'm all for condensing our guidance down where possible, but I have to agree with Remsense – I'm not sure the goal should be putting absolutely everything on a single page.
- There are quite a few policies and guidelines which the average editor doesn't really need to understand in detail unless they're editing in the particular area where it applies. For example, you've included our guideline on reliable sources for medical topics in your compilation, but I'd say that's not a guideline every editor needs to know in detail. For the average editor, it's probably enough to know "medical topics have stricter standards on sourcing, and if medical topics ever come up in my editing there's a page out there I can consult for more information". I don't see the benefit in trying to squeeze the details of that guidance onto a single page together with every other policy.
- Sometimes there's a good reason for guidance to be extremely detailed or unusually attentive to particular wording. Our notability guideline for companies comes to mind – it goes over what sourcing does and doesn't demonstrate notability in pretty exhaustive detail. But the details are there for good reason – there's a lot of bad actors out there who manipulate the system for commercial interests, so we need to be unusually strict and explicit about exactly how to determine notability.
- Of course, there's still a lot of cases where these caveats don't apply and we really could condense things down without losing much. My advice would be a more targeted approach: rather than condensing everything at once, work out where the low-hanging fruit is and push for changes there. – Teratix ₵ 13:11, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- This proposal reminds me of Borges. signed, Rosguill talk 13:52, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
In the news
I enjoy reading the news in the "in the news" section of the home page of Wikipedia. It has the kind of hard news I like: tornados, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, etc. from around the world. But new stories don't come out very often. The current "cycling" item is now 10 days old. Can't we get a top story each day? Ifyoucrydon'tlose (talk) 20:06, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- There are some nominations in the queue (see WP:ITNC) but these haven't been posted as they either haven't found to be appropriate topics for ITN to feature, or the article lacks the quality needed to be featured on the main page. As WP is not a newspaper, ITN should not be considered as a news ticket and we don't have an obligation to keep fresh stories there. Of course, more nominations for stories that meet the criteria can always help, but it should be forewarned that there is usually a high bar related to significance of the stories to be posted. — Masem (t) 20:17, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- Discussions at In the news are largely composed of a group of regulars who have their own ideas about what is "significant" enough to be posted to the main page. I largely avoid ITN because my one experience attempting to nominate something there was extremely frustrating and I don't think it's worth wasting my time updating articles with breaking news stories that editors will randomly find "insignificant" for idiosyncratic reasons. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:42, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- I see that "in the news" is not a newspaper and it is not a newspaper ticket. So what is it? Ifyoucrydon'tlose (talk) 23:41, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- Its primary purpose is to point readers to Wikipedia articles that discuss the people, places and events that are in the news. These articles will (ideally) give readers the background information to better contextualize and understand what they read/see in news media. Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- That's a good description and I thank you for that.
- One small note: If you hover over and click on "Ongoing", you can get a list of previous items.
- Same with "Deaths".
- But if you hover over "In the news" you cannot get a list of previous items. Ifyoucrydon'tlose (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Its primary purpose is to point readers to Wikipedia articles that discuss the people, places and events that are in the news. These articles will (ideally) give readers the background information to better contextualize and understand what they read/see in news media. Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- The only thing that WP:ITNSIGNIF says is:
Anything else is subject to who shows up. If non-regulars chose to change the outcomes, there is no current guideline-based reason why present trends couldn't change. Until then, what you are seeing is the will of the "regulars". —Bagumba (talk) 10:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting.
Tags for this (fairly new) WikiProject are being mass-added to practically every article imaginable that is tangentially related to the 2010s — every sporting event in the 2010s; every film, TV show, and video game released in the 2010s; every Super Bowl, solar eclipse, election, notable death, and session of Congress during the 2010s, and so forth. Here's a sampling of the flood of edits that are flooding my watchlist (and likely others). Is this really necessary? To begin with, it's unclear whether a WikiProject should have a scope this large, or if this is attainable (if so, a bot should be assigned to handle mass-tagging). The WikiProject page explicitly states, The WikiProject is and will be involved in thousands of articles.
There's no WikiProject equivalent for other decades or centuries, so we're in uncharted waters. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- @DukeOfDelTaco: could you please explain your thinking? Other than a discussion a few months ago about the scope of the WikiProject, this WikiProject seems to be inactive. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- On a related note, we've been talking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council about the process for creating new WikiProjects. Please join the discussion of you have any ideas about how to support groups of editors without having non-groups (e.g., one editor who hopes that If you build it, they will come) creating and inevitably abandoning a bunch of pages and templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies if my edits have been overbearing or troublesome, I'll make sure to stop with any further edits. To explain my reasoning, I found the concept of a WikiProject with goals like these to be interesting, so I thought it would help to participate by expanding its scope. I understand that there are countless articles that could qualify as relating to the 2010s, but it honestly made the challenge more enticing. Again I apologize for the flood of edits and clogging up your watchlists, I will make sure to end the expansion and mass edits and I wouldn't be opposed if the WikiProject ends up being removed. DukeOfDelTaco (talk) 01:31, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, I am not targeting you specifically; you aren't the first and only person to mass-add these tags for WikiProject 2010s, but you are the most recent person to do so. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:55, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- No worries. I think it's laudable to try to resurrect a WikiProject, but tagging random articles probably isn't the best way to do it. The best way to get the project up and running again would be to find some other editors (maybe @TrademarkedTWOrantula, who revamped the 2010s page a few months back) who are willing to help narrow the scope of the project and focus on crafting some initial tasks. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:03, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- I, um, kinda lost interest in the project altogether... sorry, going back to this WikiProject gives me bad memories of who I was back then :( TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 03:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Well, then ... if the project is inactive, then the tags should definitely not be mass-added to thousands of articles in a bot-like fashion. Even if the project weren't inactive, I still don't think a WikiProject should have a scope this broad. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:08, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- I, um, kinda lost interest in the project altogether... sorry, going back to this WikiProject gives me bad memories of who I was back then :( TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 03:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- I think given that it's inactive, and there's no prospect that participants in the project will come to a consensus regarding narrowing its scope, there would need to be some sort of higher level of consensus to deactivate it and avoid having people tag random articles with this WikiProject going forward. On the other hand, as long as mass tagging isn't occurring, I don't really see the harm with tagging this WikiProject inactive and moving on. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)