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Dispense with "In popular culture" because there is no such thing.
Should Wikipedia continue to have sections titled "In popular culture? 20:40, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Executive summary: It's not 1887 anymore. "Popular culture" is just "culture". This is why we don't have commensurate "High culture" sections. It all runs together now, and "In popular culture" sections should be called something else -- "In other media" or "In general culture" or "Other uses and references" or whatever. I'm going to start doing that. You should too.
Extended exposition: The distinction between "high culture" and "popular culture" is so permeable to be no longer useful. In older times some people went only to the symphony and read Livy in the original Latin. And disdained or know nothing about folk songs and banjo music and boxing and Sherlock Holmes etc.
I mean I could have maybe sorted all that into two sections, "In popular culture" and "In high culture" (or maybe "In obscure culture"), but that would be nonsensical. Instead I renamed the section. We don't have any guidance on that so I made up "Use and references in other works". Could have been something else.
(Also, FWIW, the term "In popular culture" makes some editors claw the draperies and call the maid for smelling salts. There's no point in triggering our bourgeois colleagues, so something less suggestive of the tenements is in order.)
"In popular culture" might belong in Snobopedia, but not here. I fully realize that making a rule changing stuff like is near impossible in this hidebound environment, so I'm not even suggesting a !vote, but I'll tell you what. I'm done with "In popular culture" and I'm not going to write that title for sections, and I aim to change them when I see them. That's my proposal: if you buy the argument, vote with your feet and do it too. If you don't, don't. Herostratus (talk) 22:08, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
Interesting thoughts, Herostratus. It bothers me when I see something like this and think, "well, yeah, why didn't I notice that myself (sooner, consciously)"? I believe I'll consider renaming such sections to something like "Notable cultural references" where it fits, when I see such things. Certainly something to think about. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 22:38, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
There are probably essays and maybe even guidelines about it. I label those sections "Influences", it's a form of notability. Something is "influential" when it has "influenced" significant works or people, making it notable, not a list of random trivia. -- GreenC 00:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Influences or (cultural) legacy should be in order. And I agree that this should be reserved to those which made a very significant impact on society, e.g. the Thompson submachine gun or the RMS Titanic. Blake Gripling (talk) 01:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't think there's a one-size solution here, but I do agree that most sections that are labeled "in popular culture" can likely renamed to something more broad. What that is depends; if there's only a handful, such a list might fall under a Legacy or Influence section and not be sectioned off on its own, while longer sections may need something of its own section like "References in other works" as suggested. But I would say that if we are making a distinction between pop culture (the masses) and high culture (the elite), then there are likely cases of older works (thinking Shakespeare-type classics) where we are more likely documenting what is a high piece of culture being reused by the popular culture. I don't know of any immediate examples but I would not be surprised nor balk at an article called "Romeo & Juliet in popular culture". But again, I can't propose a hard-set rule in this area when this would be appropriate, so I would be hesitant to simply say "scrub all 'popular culture' use". --Masem (t) 01:50, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I disagree, both in terms of the naming issue, and with the utility of content falling under such headings. The widespread use of the header indicates the intuitive understanding that people (including readers) have of the term, and is no more snobby than referring to popular music. Speaking of the readers, in terms of inclusion of such content, let's Give the People What They Want (to the extent that it can be cited to sources). BD2412T 01:51, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
But there is a point that WP is not TV Tropes, and such sections often are kudzu for weak or unsourced assertions of pop culture, which we can read as being what people want. We are here to provide educational material for the readers, and to that end we focus often on content that the average reader doesn't want but what a slim minority will want. This is perhaps due to many users expecting WP to provide certain types of content, thinking it a one-stop shop, that are simply outside our bounds established in policy. Hence we really need to be careful if we try to craft policy or guideline around readers' preferences. --Masem (t) 02:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Considering that our most viewed pages for the past week include The Suicide Squad and Jungle Cruise, and that our most viewed topics routinely include pop culture and entertainment topics, I suspect that it more than "a slim minority" who have an interest in this sort of content. BD2412T 02:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I mean that if you take the type of content we want editors to focus on based on what we are not per WP:NOT, that type of content tends to cater to a slim segment of the readers but that's because that's the key academic content of an encyclopedia. I'm sure those movies had huge page views but I also would suspect that the bulk of readers were only reading them for the plot summary, cast list, and reception, and little about development/filming/etc. (which is the more academic core of those articles). That type of popular content is basically one step removed from what IMDB or TV Tropes offers, and while can offer it, its there to augment the more academic facets which typically do not interest the majority of readers but are still good reference for some. --Masem (t) 02:54, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I think that we are ultimately just talking about the title of a subsection, and it really doesn't matter to me which title is used, but I will say the cookie cutter "in popular culture" gets old after awhile, and the titles that have been suggested as alternative options are refreshing, but in the end, I really don't mind which title is used as long as we continue to add the pertinent information. Huggums537 (talk) 02:07, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I also want to add that the logic of the comments suggesting disposal of "In popular culture" for no sound reason other than because it invites trivia, and list cruft etc. totally escapes me. This is the logical equivalent of saying, x could be used for something silly, stupid, bad, or evil; therefore we should dispose of x. Proponents of this type of logic usually like to insert some kind of exaggerated example of where this has occurred with x. The two problems facing this type of logic is that it completely ignores all of the places where it has not occurred with x, and x has worked out just fine. The second problem is that it overlooks the obvious fact that x can always be used for something silly, stupid, bad, or evil, so that in and of itself really isn't justification enough, otherwise we would be able to simply dispose of anything and everything we just don't like, and can replace with x. Huggums537 (talk) 20:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I also want to add an example: Let's say x is Wikipedia lists. Someone could argue that lists invite cruft and should be disposed of. They might provide an example of an exceptionally bad list to prove their point, while ignoring the hundreds of good ones. They might argue some lists could be used to damage Wikipedia, and we should eliminate lists all together, while glossing over the fact that we have a process in place to eliminate individual lists that might be damaging. Is the possibility of a thing being used for the wrong purpose sufficient grounds alone for the disposal of that thing as a solitary rationale? I hope not, and I hope this is a good illustration... Huggums537 (talk) 20:50, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Another fine example of this wrong thinking is that there are way more than enough documented cases of road rage where a vehicle has been intentionally used to harm people or property that proponents of this flawed logic might argue we should dispose of vehicles all together or put some kind of restrictions on them to prevent people from using them in such destructive ways. However, this overlooks the overwhelming majority of evidence that most vehicles are not used in destructive ways, and it also ignores that the minority of them that are used this way are currently being handled by other processes we already have in place, making a blanket ban and more restrictions not only redundant, but an un-necessary burden on the moral majority. Huggums537 (talk) 11:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
WP:IPC does encourage editors to use a section name other than "In popular culture", though that is just an essay. Personally I don't especially care what the section is named; the content is of greater concern to me. I'm not sure what this proposal's goal is: to make calling a section "In popular culture" a warnable offense? To suggest an update to the MoS? If everyone agrees that IPC is poor section-naming, what's the practical result? As far as concerns about the content, I would say that WP:IPCV and the associated RfC were a godsend as they provided bright-line guidance that IPC items require independent sourcing as a means of establishing the items' significance for inclusion purposes. DonIago (talk) 02:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Usually the term / section name just serves as an entre / coatrack for fandom or promotional items that don't belong in the article. I don't want yet another rule but it would be good to put a Scarlet Letter painted on that phase as being such, or discouraging it's use.North8000 (talk) 02:28, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
In my experience a section heading mentioning "popular culture" generally proceeds incredibly useless and off topic information. I think Randall said it best in his xkcd comic. HighInBCNeed help? Just ask. 02:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Drawing from the above comments by JohnFromPinckney and Blake Gripling, "Cultural influence" may be a better header. It implies the subject is the topic itself, rather than the subject being the "popular culture" influenced by it. This may help reduce the propensity for off-topic information. CMD (talk) 02:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
If it fits (it often does) I sometimes use "In fiction". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:18, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Subcultures still exist, and they have various levels of prestige. I think it's funny that all the examples of how culture has blended together are stuff my middle-aged dad would talk about at a party but don't include any band I listen to or any author I've read (and I read Latin). This of course isn't a coincidence because "popular culture" is stuff middle aged dads talk about at parties, not the whole extent of cultural experience. Perhaps the popular culture section includes people you know because that's the point? You know them because they're in popular culture---because they're popular? If you didn't recognize someone on those lists, now that would be remarkable. Idk, this whole thing reads like you're projecting your cultural experience as if it's universal when it remarkably isn't. — Wug·a·po·des 03:11, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with BD2412 - you're right that our current use doesn't match the old definition of "popular culture". However it does match the way the term is used by the majority of people (and sources) now, and thus is a reasonable term. Nosebagbear (talk) 06:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Drawing a distinction between "high culture" and "modern popular culture" or whatever you want to call them isn't really that important. The point is to stop endless lists of off-topic trivia. ReykYO! 08:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree with the idea....what are we proposing to put in practice though Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 11:18, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Reminds me of the now-deleted article about Miami Vice in popular culture. I mean sure, the series is indeed iconic for perpetuating popular 80s stereotypes, but imo such cultural impact is best described in a "Legacy" section. WP:MILPOP handled it better like in the Thompson submachine gun where its significance in pop culture is well-integrated into the history section rather than as a listcruft of all known instances of where the Tommy gun was used. A separate popular culture article wouldn't hurt if it is well-written in pose and there is exceptional proof that the subject gained notoriety e.g. Adolf Hitler. Blake Gripling (talk) 11:23, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
"In popular culture" is now itself a phrase ingrained in (popular) culture, perhaps our most infamous section title. As such, I don't think much misunderstanding or literalism about the connotations of "popular culture" is in the minds of our readers. Such sections are almost always bad, and should either be removed as fancruft or adapted into a proper "Legacy" or "Impact" section (such as Black Mirror#Cultural impact) that doesn't aim just to enumerate random references but to convey the scope and significance of the work on future art or the public consciousness. — Bilorv (talk) 11:31, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I'd say "Controversies" is our most infamous section heading... –MJL‐Talk‐☖ 16:49, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
The wording of the section heading can make quite a difference. Headings such as "In popular culture" or even worse "References in popular culture" attract editors who seem to think it's important to add a bare mention of the subject in episode 12 season 23 of their favourite show. Much less likely to attract that sort of thing is a section headed "Cultural impact" or "Notable cultural developments". I'd like to see us much more strongly discourage the old "In popular culture" wording. MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
”In popular culture” is just another way of saying: “Trivia”. Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
In popular culture is a useful honeytrap for crap that doesn't belong in the article. That's its main value. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 14:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
What Jpgordon said. To the best of my knowledge, its origin on Wikipedia was Gunpowder Plot in popular culture, and (as the person who originally suggested it), I can confirm that the intent in that case was quite deliberately to restrict the edit-warring over every TV show that mentions Guy Fawkes to a single section where people could fight it out without disrupting the main body of the article. It sounds patronizing, but it does serve a valid purpose; IPC sections and subpages means people don't try in good faith to rewrite entire articles just because a movie on the topic comes out or it gets mentioned on Star Trek.
I have no attachment to "in popular culture" as a name, if anyone can think of something better. It's literally the first name that occurred to me and was subsequently picked up on and copied by other articles; it has no particular significance. ‑ Iridescent 14:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Wait.. you are the one who started IPC? This is notable Wikipedia history, given how influential it has been (for better or worse!). If you don't mind, this should be in a "history" section at WP:IPC -- GreenC 15:48, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I thought I'd coined the phrase, but on doing some digging there were already a few IPC pages existing prior to that—the oldest I can find on a very quick dig is Librarians in popular culture (a candidate for "Wikipedia's worst article"). I do believe the Gunpowder Plot one was the first one set up explicitly to keep the IPC froth off the main topic, though. (I am responsible for "civility police", "indefinite not infinite" and "ANI flu"; my footnote in Wikipedia's history is secure.) ‑ Iridescent 16:07, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
The oldest deleted page titled "...in popular culture" - where I can't find evidence that it was moved there later, like, say, Evocation in popular culture, created at Conjuration and moved there in 2010 - is Teaching in popular culture, created 17:50, 29 April 2004. The oldest existing article with such a title is Adolf Hitler in popular culture, originally created at Hitler in popular culture at 15:20, 2 October 2004. (There may be older pages that started with IPC titles and were later moved to non-IPC titles, but that's laborious to search for.) The phrase was likely used in section headers even earlier. —Cryptic 18:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
IIRC these started showing up as sections in articles in early 2004, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone dug up a diff from late 2003, see for example 123; even Exploding whale had one 4. Eventually those sections grew so much they were spun off into separate articles to avoid overwhelming the page, indeed some comprised the majority of an articles content at the time of spin-off e.g. 5. The whole process took place more or less organically; then as now people often just copied what they saw others doing. In hindsight, in popular culture is probably not best, but a lot of the time the thought process was just to be bold and assume that it would be improved upon later.In fact people have been trying alternatives for some time now 6, see also, Cultural influence of Plato's Republic, Venus in culture, Cultural references to Hamlet , Women warriors in literature and culture, Synesthesia in fiction etc. Doubtless someone with a bit more free time available will be able to find other formulations in current use. Regards, 81.177.3.8 (talk) 19:20, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
What I was thinking was using "Cultural influence" or "Cultural allusions" or maybe "Cultural influence and allusions". in WP:VG, we don't have "in pop culture" sections but just "Legacy" sections instead.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Oh but now here's a thought regarding the content rather than the name of these sections. There's plusses and minuses, but to my mind, the purpose of these sections is to indicate how well known the entity is. So, let's take "Do not go gentle into that good night"... is this an obscure poem like say "The Legend of Novgorode" or thousands of others, or is it more well known? That's a very important point for the reader to know! But we can't just assert it. If we have a source saying "This poem is super well known!" fine, but first of all we usually don't, and second even if we do it's just one guy asserting it.
But... remember Writing 101: show, not tell. Well, Do not go gentle into that good night#Use and references in other works shows very well that the poem's reasonably famous. Important info. Even minor examples can help with that. If somebody says a line in passing on some HBO show, that that's another demonstration that it's floating around in the culturespace, unlike say Trilce.
But then: as we all know, these sections can grow out of control, too. So here's what I've tried, and I think it maybe works OK: Make the "References in other works" short but dump the excess examples down into either the Notes or the References sections, where they are they are still there but don't bother anybody. At Anyone for tennis? I gave some examples (basically the bluelinked ones), then added "And so forth" with the ref for that containing all the extra non-bluelinked examples. You can also use a Note instead. Reasonable approach? Herostratus (talk) 16:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I don’t think that works particularly well— feels like hiding cruft that shouldn’t really be in the article. But I have no problem with ‘in popular culture’ sections at all, when put together properly. This whole discussion seems, to me, a waste of energy that would be more productively expended in other endeavors, such as writing content. Eddie891TalkWork 16:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Yeah how about not telling other people how to spend their volunteer hobby time maybe. I've got 500 articles created and many thousands of article edits, how about you. Herostratus (talk) 16:43, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
…I’m just suggesting that I don’t think this is the most productive thread Eddie891TalkWork 18:18, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
since you asked, in the past five years since I began editing, I’ve created over 300 articles and made over 40,000 edits and written several featured content (incl one fa with an in popular culture section) and had almost 100 dyks. In that time, you’ve created 156 articles and made about 11,000 edits. Eddie891TalkWork 18:25, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm going to nicely ask to stay on topic and remain civil. And if you feel its a waste of time, you can contribute to the articles you want. it's ok to not find a topic productive. Others don't feel the same way.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
? I don’t see the problem with my conduct. I said what I thought, herostratus replied to say ‘yeah, no’— which I understand— and I answered his explicitly posed question. Eddie891TalkWork 18:55, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Since it has come up, I have over 1,800,000 edits, with over a million being article edits. I have created over 6,000 articles. To reiterate my earlier position, I think "in popular culture" sections are fine. If you want to police them for proper citation to sources, go ahead. If you want to structure them into prose, have at it. Trying to remove them altogether is counter to the information-sharing function of the encyclopedia, and is indeed a waste of volunteer time. BD2412T 20:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Whatever such sections should be called, they should not encourage every casual reader to think, "Hey, this list doesn't include the fact that in the third episode of the fifth season of Family Man, it is revealed that the neighbor's cat is named Crookshanks." Calling them "In popular culture" seems to do exactly that. —valereee (talk) 17:07, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
This also brings up that, it's also the list format that many of these take. Lists "look" easy to add onto so draw in every trivial mention. It is far better to try to encapsulate how a topic has entered popular culture by prose, if possible, as I've found new editors tend to be a bit more adverse to trying to alter that and making a mistake. --Masem (t) 17:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
It does draw in every trivial mention, but that also means it's drawing in first posts by readers, sometimes. That's key. We get them to add a reference to say something the saw on American Dad. That's the start. Then we sloooowly reel them into our dysfunctional little group here, and one day they wake up and they're writing articles about ninth-century Inner Mongolian minor poets. But by then it's too late for them to rejoin the world of normal people. BWAHAHAHAHA Herostratus (talk) 19:07, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
OTOH, when that edit gets reverted five minutes later with an annoyed edit summary of "rem trivia"...the bait is doing its job, the reel not so much. :D —valereee (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
While lists are a good way for first edits of new editors, 99 times out of 100, when added to a pop culture section, it is unsourced. Which if unchecked creates a self-replicating problem. --Masem (t) 20:54, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I think this gets well off-topic, but it's not specific to IPC: we have a huge problem because no-one's first 100 edits are good, but 100 bad edits in 2006 is alright because at least it creates something new, and 100 bad edits in 2021 is not fine because it makes existing alright content worse. So whatever you do is wrong and you'll get reverted and scared off the website. Or you don't get reverted initially, but someone finally notices you and tells you everything you've spent many hours on is wrong, and now you get scared off the website but you're also in tears. My best answer to this so far is "people should start off at Fandom and then come here when they're already used to the website design and some of the culture". — Bilorv (talk) 01:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Oh $deity no don't send people to Fandom for a good experience. It's as good as testwiki for learning Wikitext I suppose, but does absolutely nothing for learning to edit in a collaborative environment. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 03:51, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
With the levels of hostility expressed to both newcomers and old hands, there's not much collaborative environment in Wikipedia either. — Bilorv (talk) 12:15, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I think that is an excellent point. Lists absolutely beg people to add to them. Maybe such sections shouldn't usually be lists? —valereee (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I think that most of the posts are getting away from the main point, which is that the word "popular" shouldn't be used here. For example opera and ballet are not considered "popular", but mentions in such are just as valid or invalid as mentions in Hollywood films or pop music or computer games. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
This is a fairly interesting point, and I would add my voice to those that more or less hate these sections as they almost inevitably become long lists of unsourced cruft. I'm not sure changing the name will solve that core problem, but I'm nt opposed to the idea of trying it. My personal approach is to just remove anything without a source since that's pretty basic, and also remove mentions based on one throwaway line from a tv show, and maybe add things like hidden comments or edit notices if they persist. (Not that it always works, it's been over a decade of trying get people to stop posting that Commander Riker is "from" Valdez, Alaska). Beeblebrox (talk) 20:29, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Where there are also things like opera & novels, I tend to use headings like "Cultural references", which might also cover a whole themed episode of say South Park, but not a passing reference. Johnbod (talk) 01:36, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
I have no real opinion on the title discussion, "popular culture" is intuitive if not dictionary perfect. Like many above I too generally dislike these sections, principally because they are usually an unsourced dumping ground for passing mentions in an single episode of a sitcom or the like. I think a good start may be to make MOS:POPCULT more succinct and punchy, emphasising the 2015 RfC, possibly elevating the sourcing requirements from that RfC into a guideline itself. Cavalryman (talk) 04:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC).
I suggest "Society and culture" as a title (used in WP:MEDMOS) which I think does a better job of reflecting this. What's popular culture now is usually not even in 10 or 20 time (which are now timespans relevant to Wikipedia!) In general I also find that sections "In popular culture" are almost always WP:TRIVIA and could be completely blanked.Tom (LT) (talk) 10:32, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Strong oppose to a change (although hopefully this isn't a decision that is being taken here). On individual pages I'd guess that 'In popular culture' sections are themselves quite popular, have likely been a Wikipedia mainstay since 2001, and have a name which is both extremely recognizable and a more-than-adequate descriptor. On stand-alone article pages the idea of changing this ramps the "Huh?" factor up a level or six. Important pages such as World War I in popular culture, World War II in popular culture, Apollo 11 in popular culture and dozens if not hundreds more have educated readers about cultural events which have themselves educated the public since their inception. A good discussion, but let's leave it at that. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't know. Who cares. This seems like something that should be handled on an article-by-article basis.--WaltCip-(talk) 17:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
I think that the underlying issue is this. The normal practice is that In the normal inclusion / exclusion decisions are made based on a multitude of factors including degree of relevance and degree of importance to the topic. Headings should be for material that inherently belongs in the article. Certain headings distort that process towards bringing in material that would not have otherwise been included. Headings like "in popular culture" are of that type. Particularly promotional or fandom items. North8000 (talk) 17:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. I'm not going to talk about whether or not we should have these sections in the first place, because that doesn't seem to be the point of this RfC. But I don't think most people intend a negative implication when they're talking about popular culture. I also agree with Randy Kryn's reasoning. Clovermoss(talk) 22:03, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
The existence of the article Mermaids in popular culture is presumably what allows the article Mermaid to pursue a purely zoological examination of these alluring beasts. The former article includes such pop culture phenomena as Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau; which seems only right as Die Seejungfrau has been put out on at least ten commercial recordings, AFAIK five times as many as there have been of Tubular Bells. -- Hoary (talk) 22:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose any across-the-board deprecation of "in popular culture" sections, which to me is where you place mentions of snippets of musical pieces heard in video games, TV shows, etc., instead of discussing modalities, orchestration, and influences (which probably fairly applies to the Dylan poem referenced above), etc. The lack of sourcing in such sections is notorious, but that's for editors of individual articles to decide how much original reporting to let in. Dhtwiki (talk) 09:03, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
The lack of sourcing in such sections is notorious, but that's for editors of individual articles to decide how much original reporting to let in. We already decided that; the answer is "none," and we wrote that up on a core content policy page called WP:No original research, which is global consensus that editors of individual articles cannot change. Levivich 14:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I tend to let plausible, innocuous statements stand, not to violate policy but in the hope that other editors will come along and find sources for them. Leaving unsourced a statement that a subway's door-closing chime is inspired by a piece by Handel isn't at the same level as, say, leaving an unsourced statement alleging criminal wrongdoing. If left unsourced, even the innocuous statements may eventually be swept away by more deletionist editors; and I won't object. Dhtwiki (talk) 01:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose deprecating the term 'in popular culture'. It's merely one of several acceptable titles for such sections/articles, and I see no need for any new rules. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
Deprecate such sections. Listing every time X appears in fiction (or popular culture, or whatever) is what TV Tropes does. As I said in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space stations and habitats in fiction: If there is sufficient coverage in WP:Reliable sources to write a prose article aboutX in fiction/popular culture/whatever then such a separate article should exist (I don't think this is a terribly tall order – see e.g. eco-terrorism in fiction and space stations and habitats in fiction, which—full disclosure—were both rewritten as prose articles by me), and if there isn't sufficient coverage to do that then we shouldn't have a "in popular culture" section in the main article about X. We should never just enumerate examples of X in fiction/popular culture/whatever. In general, I quite agree with the essay WP:CARGO—fiction is not fact and collecting raw data does not produce analysis. TompaDompa (talk) 01:32, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
You are iVoting in the wrong discussion, TompaDompa. This is just about the changing of the section title, "In popular culture", not about whether the sections should exist or not. (That is for a whole different discussion.) GenQuest"scribble" 07:02, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm not at the wrong discussion, I'm just proposing a more radical solution – one that would cut the Gordian Knot, so to speak. The text at T:CENT says Should articles continue to have sections titled "in popular culture"? My answer is no—not because the title is bad, but because having such sections is. TompaDompa (talk) 03:24, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose deprecating the term 'in popular culture'. Like it or not, this content is going to continue to be added to the articles, and we have to put this junk somewhere, and the un-cited and trivia can then be easily deleted from these sections. Now, someone start a discussion about whether these sections should even continue to exist and things will get quite interesting. GenQuest"scribble" 07:02, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Comment I don't understand your reasoning for the opposition. You just commented that this discussion isn't about removal of these sections, but you used that very reason for that. What do you mean by "we have to put this junk somewhere". Would it hurt the article if we don't?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:13, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
I am against the change of the title of these sections. If we are going to have them, they should be consistant. (That was what this discussion is about.)
With that said, however, I don't think the existence of these sections is particularly helpful or needed. Actual, non-trivial, referenced information regarding the article(s) subject(s) should be in the article body where their presence is explained in relation to the subjct, not tossed in at the end of an article with no clear indication of why it is important to an understanding of the subject that they must actually be there. But that is an issue that has not yet been advanced by anyone, not this proposal. And to answer your question, Blue Pumpkin Pie no, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't hurt the article if we don't put/leave the junk in, it improves it. But, junk will just continue to reappear without that alternate discussion taking place some day. GenQuest"scribble" 03:15, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose deprecating the term 'in popular culture'. The term isn't the best, but it's easily understood. The links are often found nowhere else, people refer to them, and show usage changes over time similar to the OED. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 01:51, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
break
So I'm seeing kind of three questions:
1) There's the question of whether sections should even exist' at the end of articles that have things "In Joyce Carol Oates's 2000 novel Blonde, the character of The Ex-Athlete is based on DiMaggio" and "In Seinfeld, Season 3, episode 1 "The Note, Kramer spots DiMaggio in a Dinky Donuts" and "DiMaggio appears in Harvey Comics' Babe Ruth Sports Comics (August 1949)"
2) There's the question of, if they do continue to exist, (and they will) how should they be named (the original and basic question of this thread).
3) And then there's also always the eternal the question of, if they do exist, how to curate? Should stuff like the first item above (important character in a serious novel) be in them and stuff like the second (passing mention in a vulgar and witless, but very popular, TV program) or the third (cover appearance in a long forgotten and lost children's comic) not? (And other questions of details.) And what practical procedures might be used to curate them?
So, for the first question, there are a lot of decent arguments either way, but as a practical matter, come on. We're always going to have these sections. It's entirely legit to express your opinion for/against them, but it's not going to change anything. So moving on.
For the third, well the current procedure is for editors -- driveby anon readers often enough -- to keep adding stuff (some good, some marginal, a whole lot silly; some well ref'd, some poorly ref'd, some unref'd) and for other editors to come across them, mutter "oh my God" under their breath and trim them (or even delete them), and for people to occasionally argue about it, since ultimately it's a matter of opinion how to curate. That's kind of kludging along (like a lot of the Wikipedia!), but it's OK, and I honesty don't think there's a better way. It's alright. It works OK. The project is not going to collapse over this. I can't imagine any rules that could be put in place ("No more than ten items" or "No refs to non-bluelinked sources" or whatever).
For the second, that's the question.
Should these sections continue to be named "In popular culture" as is usual (altho far from universal)?
If not, should they mostly be named one other single name, or let 1000 flowers bloom?
I just don't think there's any way to make a rule. There is the general practice of naming them "In popular culture", and rules are to codify common practice, so there could be a formal guideline made to that effect, such that someone could come along and rename your "In art and literature" to "In popular culture" and have the high ground. But I mean that's not going to happen. You're not going to get even 60% of a large group to agree to that. So just forget it. Trying to make a rule to have the sections be named some other thing is forget it squared.
It would be preferable to have a (generally common) name. As we do for "Early life" and "Personal life" "Discography" and "See also" etc. That's a good point. And they only possible generally common name is "In popular culture", barring a long-term sea change. So it's fine for individual editors to keep doing that.
For my part, personally, in my personal opinion it just sticks in my craw. In my article, I don't want to put "Chaucer says this..." and "Juan Ruiz de Alarcón says that..." under popular culture. Yes they're in the vulgar tongue, and yes in their time they were for the common people, but I mean not anymore. Mostly people only read them in college classes. Few people say "Pick me up a guilty-pleasure novel, Jackie Collins or Cervantes or Melville or something like that; I'm just not in the mood for Boethius today". They just don't. Chaucer and Richard III (1699 play) are closer to Terance and Quintilian than to Nicholas Sparks or Tom Clancy, n'est-ce pas? It's just incorrect. It's misleading the reader. I don't want to do that, so for my part I'm not going to.
So... different names in different articles for sections that are pretty much the same content? Oh well. Least bad option IMO. Herostratus (talk) 18:48, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose deprecating the Popular Culture sections. That is the name that Wikipedia has had for those sections, and usually they are useful additions to the encyclopedia. In cases where they are silly or useless, we can get into ugly edit-wars that go to WP:ANI and keep the tone of WP:ANI a little less heavy. That's only half humorous. But the sections are useful and the name is as good as anything else. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Deprecate the sections as WP:UNDUE/WP:OR. When writing about the topic "Foo," what we're supposed to be doing is summarizing WP:RS about Foo. If the RS state that Foo was mentioned on The Simpsons, then yes, that should be included in our article, probably in a section called "Impact" or "Legacy" or something like that. But if no RS mentions it, and an editor adds to the Wikipedia article that Foo was mentioned on The Simpsons (or in a song lyric, or as part of a plot of a book, or whatever), then that's WP:UNDUE and WP:OR because it's including something in the Wikipedia article Foo that isn't mentioned in any of the RSes about Foo. Anything not mentioned in the Foo RSes doesn't belong in the Foo Wikipedia article at all. Levivich 14:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I seriously doubt that changing the typical name for these sections would stop them from accumulating cruft. XOR'easter (talk) 22:24, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Meh. There are probably far more important things to be doing right now, this feels very navel-gazey. Stifle (talk) 09:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose change This is a solution looking for a problem. There is nothing wrong with the phrase "in popular culture"; everyone knows what it means. I don't see any good reason to change it. Mlb96 (talk) 20:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Support change. I just had to wipe out the entire "In Popular Culture" section in When Johnny Comes Marching Home because of a mix of WP:UNDUE, WP:OR and WP:UNSOURCED issues. I suspect that renaming the sections will reduce the affinity for people adding random trivia. I would also lean towards User:Levivich's position of a general depreciation, but that goes beyond the scope of this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 07:02, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Support change This is not, unlike what some claim, a "solution in search of a problem". The problem is very real; and you don't need a particularly acute sense of what is encyclopedic and what is not to figure that out - even xkcd gets it. There are some decent examples of sections which appropriately deal with the cultural impact of something; for ex. this (which is half decent) or this (probably one of the better examples). However, far too often, it looks just like unrelated notices of appearance, almost sillier than the xkcd comic I link as a parody earlier. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:09, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose Popular culture is a thing. We have an article on it but it wasn't invented on Wikipedia as there is scholarship going back long before. As for the archetypal IPC section or article, that's a thing too. The main thing that's not clear to me is who updates such sections and why. Is it done by regular editors, specialist gnomes or the general public? Anyway, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit and this seems to be one of the consequences. So it goes. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment I think that In Popular Culture sections can be appropriate if (1.) the thing is actually significant for its role in popular culture and (2.) the section is a succinct summary that gives a general overview and names only the most noteworthy works. The Empire State Building article does a really good job of the latter. In practice however, most In Popular Culture sections are just indiscriminate lists of times that really famous or significant things appeared in works of fiction; many of these listings either lack sources or are sourced solely to the fictional work that the article topic appears in. Honestly, I think any In Popular Culture section that consists solely of a bullet pointed list can be safely removed without negatively impacting the article. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 02:19, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment. I oppose depreciation, but I'd support considering a new name. "In culture", shorter, will do fine. What's popular is debatable anyway.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:31, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
So is what's "culture", "literature" etc. I think we must deal with each article sep94.44.112.244 (talk) 06:38, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
Proposal by CaptainEek, ft. Baby Yoda
Proposal: In general, our "In pop culture" sections are the worst parts of articles. Occasionally, they are actually useful. But usually they are an agglomeration of OR and are 9/10 times trivia. I think the substantive change that we could implement is in effect a meta-notability requirement. I suggest The content of "In popular culture" sections, or similar sections, must have been discussed in reliable secondary sources which specifically link the cultural item to the subject. These sources must be focused on the subject, NOT the cultural item. Take for example the subject of "Bone broth", and you wish to include mention of how Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian drank some. An appropriate source would be "The Illustrated Catalogue of Soup", which is a secondary source focusing on soups. Should the Catalogue of Soup mention how Baby Yoda famously drinks some, then it is fair game for a popular culture section. By contrast, an article in Polygon reviewing the latest episode of the Mandalorian is NOT an appropriate source for a popular culture section on the "Bone broth" page, because it is not focused on the subject, which is soup related.CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I used this as one of the criteria to delete parkour in popular culture (the other was just "have an RS"). Izno (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
CaptainEek, but the Polygon article is also relevant to the subtopic of "popular culture", which is what the main subject of IPC is all about, and if it mentions how Baby Yoda drank the bone broth, then the main topic of the article now becomes relevant to the subtopic as it relates to popular culture as well. There are more topics to consider staying focused on besides just the main topic since many articles contain subtopics (some of which are far removed from the main topic, IPC sections being a good example of this) and so opening the door for a narrow view that says content within subtopics must ignore the relevance to that subtopic and focus on only the main topic is generally a bad idea. Huggums537 (talk) 14:29, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Support the hell out of this. GenQuest"scribble" 14:51, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Support - Donald Albury 15:05, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Support per nom. ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:23, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Support. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:05, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose proposal that contradicts set guidelines that clearly dictate notability shall not apply to content within articles. See WP:NCCWP:NNC. Not only does this proposal attempt to apply notability to content within articles, it also attempts to apply it to the value of reliable sources as well, which is something I think we should have another guideline clearly dictating doesn't apply to sources either. The purpose of notability is for determining if a subject warrants having an article, not for nitpicking over trivial details of subject matter content or determining value of sources. It tells you that in the very first and second sentence of the notability guideline. Wikipedia has gone wildly out of control with "notability mania" for far too long, and it's time to stop the madness and think about what we are doing. Huggums537 (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, I meant to link to WP:NNC. You can see how I might have got the links confused as they are rather similar. I will strike the other link and correct it now that you brought it to my attention. As for the list criteria, it is the exception that can be, but does not have to be, not the rule. Notability does not apply to the vast majority of article content as I have pointed out in both the main paragraph of WP:N, the now corrected link I provided earlier, and in the nutshell of WP:N as well as all throughout it. This exists as an actual rule, not an optional exception that may or may not be such as is the case with the list criteria... Huggums537 (talk) 18:23, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, after having re-read the guidelines related to lists, I realized that I/we have misinterpreted the guidance about lists as being an exception to the notability rule allowing notability to govern content within articles. This exception actually does not exist in spite of popular belief to the contrary. I have examined the list guidance carefully, and WP:LISTN is very clear about this. It says that notability applies to lists essentially the same way it applies to articles. In other words, it applies to the list or article as a group or as a whole, and not to the individual items of content within the list. This is entirely compatible with the notability guideline, and the rule that notability does not apply to content within lists or articles. (WP:NNC). Even the Common selection criteria for lists suggests that notability should apply to the list article as an entire group rather than individual items of content because it refers to the entire list of entries being grouped together as either all meeting or all failing notability. So, none of this suggests any variance from the notability guidance that tells us that notability should not be applied to individual content within lists or articles. Huggums537 (talk) 18:01, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
That is not true. If the pages have been written to make you believe that is true, then we need to write them more clearly. But perhaps you could start by reading and telling us about the third bullet point in the list? There is more to CSC than "all meeting" and "all failing". There are three items in that list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
(different discussion)
Although the proposer has framed this as a notability-related idea, the proposal itself is not rooted solely in that policy; the reference to sources on the subject can also be understood as related to due weight. If no reliable sources on the subject discuss a particular IPC mention, it follows that our article also would not. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:55, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, of course I agree if there are no reliable sources to support an IPC mention, an article should not, but that is not the WP:DUE policy this proposal is asking us to follow. Rather, the proposal is asking us to take two sources that do in fact both discuss a particular IPC mention, and come to our own conclusions about how reliable they are based upon notability in relation to the subject. This actually has nothing to do with due weight at all since we are still talking about the very same IPC mention that would otherwise be allowed into the article no matter which source is used, because you can't say, "I'm removing this content per DUE because the source isn't "notable", but then turn around and put the EXACT same content in per DUE with a different source that you have concluded is "notable". That's not how DUE works. You don't get to play both sides of the field. DUE doesn't apply to sources any more than notability does, it applies to article content. Huggums537 (talk) 23:10, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
The "notability" framing was part of the intro, but the proposal itself does not mention that concept; it discusses sourcing. DUE is entirely based on sourcing, because the idea of DUE is that we represent things proportionally to their representation in sources. In that context, it's absolutely appropriate that different sourcing would change whether and how we include something in an article. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:25, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, but this proposal never was talking about representing things proportionally to their representation in sources as DUE was intended either. Therefore, it runs the risk of damaging the current notability guideline by weakening it through setting precedents which go against it. Huggums537 (talk) 01:05, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure how it could accomplish that? We make decisions about including or not including content within articles all the time. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, well because the proposal itself actually does mention the notability concept considering the fact it requires content must now be sourced with reliable secondary sources, and not just mere mentions, but focused on the topic. Sounds very much like same requirements for articles being applied to content against notability. Setting a standard against existing guideline is what opens that can of worms... Huggums537 (talk) 01:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
But "secondary" is not a consideration only in discussions of notability; it's a pretty fundamental part of WP:NOR. And the need for secondary sourcing in this area specifically has already been established by RfC. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:41, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, as explained before, this isn't the same thing as your previous discussion though you are desperately wanting it to be. The old idea of needing secondary sourcing to include IPC entries is now being superseded by this new idea that IPC entries not only require secondary sourcing, but they now also require notability standards to apply to both the sources and the content being added, which is against current guidelines. Further, we are being asked to believe that it is ok to remove an entry per DUE presumably because the "bad" source holds a minority view, only to have the exact same entry reinstated per DUE because the "better" source now holds a majority view? This specific discussion about "secondary" is for sure a consideration about notability not DUE or NOR unless you want want to talk about the original research editors might be using to determine which sources they have concluded warrant a minority vs. majority view for the exact same content? Huggums537 (talk) 05:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
We will need to agree to disagree on the interpretation of the proposal. I see it as a reasonable conclusion drawn from existing policy and precedent. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Support Good idea. De728631 (talk) 21:10, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Support This is the "directional relevance test" that prevents the mention of, e.g., hundreds of Pokemon on taxon pages, but doesn't argue against the mention of taxa on Pokemon pages. The connection is relevant one way but not the other, and that is normally reflected in the available sources. It's actually a rather common sense rule, and as such in wide practical application even if not codified. Let's codify it. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:47, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
An illustration, just this minute reverted from Roe deer#Culture: In Hiawatha Longfellow depicts his hero killing a "roebuck" on the shores of Lake Superior, quite a feat since the roebuck only lives in Eurasia. Leaving aside the smart-ass tone and and the lack of sourcing - I think any rule precluding this kind of thing is quite obviously useful. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Elmidae, sure that's a good example, and I would support a proposal for lack of sourcing in IPC, but we don't really need one since you have just proved it can be done without it, and that is also not what this proposal is about at all... Huggums537 (talk) 23:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
That's why I said "leaving aside" these issues. The point is that the poem is irrelevant to the species, whereas the species may well be relevant to the poem (if you want to discuss how much natural history knowledge Longfellow put into his work or whatever). The requirement should be to demonstrate that relevance. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Elmidae, the species might very well be relevant to the poem, and the poem might not be directly relevant to the species itself, but it might be relevant to the species as it is related to the world "in popular culture", which is why it is in that particular section to begin with. I agree the smart ass tone and lack of sourcing are problematic, but again, existing policy provides that sourcing could have been applied, and the smart ass tone part removed, or the entire thing removed as you proved. This proposal has good intentions, but is ultimately more harm than good. Huggums537 (talk) 06:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Also, the above mentioned about directly and indirectly relevant is another reason the proposal doesn't make much sense, since the proposal is asking that all content in IPC sections be directly related to the subject of the article, rather than the subtopic of the IPC section, which kinda defeats the whole purpose of the section in the first place. This isn't "directional" at all, and is actually impossible to be since we are not just talking about comparing the relevance of some random content to the topic (or vice versa), but rather the relevance of that content to the IPC section as well, which is another topic within the main topic. This proposal is essentially saying that article content is no longer allowed to have any relevance to the subtopic of the very IPC section it might be included in, but it must have direct relevance to the main topic exclusive of the relevance to the subtopic it sits in. Does that really sound like a sensible solution? Huggums537 (talk) 12:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Strong Support for this or something like it. Paul August☎ 23:58, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Support, Elmidae has articulated my thoughts exactly. Cavalryman (talk) 05:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC).
Two suggestions - I want to support this, but have two suggestions.
These sources must be focused on the subject, NOT the cultural item - might modify this to be similar to the way we talk about notability, which is to say it doesn't have to be the subject of the source, but the source must provide some in-depth coverage of the subject, not just the cultural item. So, for example, if e.g. Polygon writes about the Mandalorian and goes off on a long tangent about the history of bone broth, that seems like at least a gray area worth considering.
Regarding fair game for a popular culture section - It would be worth framing this as a minimum requirement rather than what absolutely determines inclusion. This might be assumed, but given the nature of "in popular culture debates" it may be worth articulating. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, good ideas! I think I can craft some wording for point 2 (after ...fair game for a popular culture section add (this is not the only factor for inclusion, merely the minimum; other relevant policies apply)., but am a little more at a loss for point 1. Do you have a suggested wording? CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm frankly appalled that a long time experienced editor like Rhododendrites and even an admin like CaptainEek who are both very well respected members of the community are still attempting to apply notability guidelines to article content even after it has been pointed out this is against the guidelines. I did notice the masterful tactic to go around it by saying the intention was to frame it as something "similar to the way we talk about notability". I have a suggested wording. You could call it note-ability. That way you're technically not violating any notability guidelines while you apply something "similar" to them. Yeah, sounds good to me. I just might be good enough to get into the master tactic club one day... Huggums537 (talk) 20:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Guidance can change. No rule is written in stone on Wikipedia. Also, I argue that this is not an actual notability requirement. Notability requires that at least three sources exist for an article to exist. This is only requiring one source (like basically every other peice of content), it's just that that source needs to be related to the subject. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
CaptainEek, sure guidance can change, but it hasn't. Not yet. So, why do we even have it if nobody is going to bother following it? Also, I argue that if your proposal is in a situation where you find the need to argue your point in a debate about whether it is violating the guidelines or not, then that makes the proposal questionable. Lastly, my final suggestion for wording is not-ability, like a hyphenation of not notability. Lol. Oh my gosh! I crack myself up sometimes! Huggums537 (talk) 20:48, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
What better time to change it then now? Sungodtemple (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Notability requires that at least three sources exist, @CaptainEek? I've always heard that it was at least two. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:30, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@Huggums537:Rhododendrites ... attempting to apply notability guidelines to article content. No, saying that we could explain X in a manner similar to how we explain something Y doesn't mean X=Y. If we wanted to write a new policy about something and wanted to convey "it's not explicitly against the rules but it's usually a bad idea" I might say we should explain it like we explain COI. That doesn't mean we should apply the COI policy to whatever the new policy is. But ultimately, yes, using the word "notability" in Eek's original proposal is a mistake. That word is loaded, leads to confusion, and leads to lots of unnecessary subthreads over the use of that term. This isn't actually about notability it's about inclusion criteria for a particular kind of material. Some people throw the word "notability" around about this stuff, some people say "noteworthy"... whatever word people are using, we can tell from the context that we aren't talking about WP:N because that's not about content, and we're talking about content. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 20:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites puts it better than I do: I did not intend this to be a notability requirement, I was simply at a loss for better words. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, as I just explained to your our colleague, if you find yourself in a situation where you feel the need to defend the proposal about it violating guidelines or not with a bunch of technical jargon or other debate only proves the proposal is questionable. Huggums537 (talk) 21:00, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
... Eek shouldn't have said "notability". Nobody's trying to apply the criteria for an article on Wikipedia to whether we include a cultural reference. If you think the proposal is bad or would prefer to oppose until "notability" is nowhere to be seen, I completely get that, but can we move on from the semantic line of argumentation to what's actually being argued? I would add that if you find yourself in a situation where you feel the need to stand by an objection even after it's pointed out that nobody actually supports the thing you're objecting to, it may prove the objection is questionable. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 21:15, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, you are right. Eek shouldn't have said "notability". Likewise, you shouldn't have said "similar to the way we talk about notability". I see a lot of "shouldn't haves" here. Also, I would add that if you find yourself in a situation where you feel the need to stand by an objection even after it's pointed out that nobody actually supports the thing you're objecting to, it may prove the objection is questionable. Or, it could just mean nobody knows me and everybody knows the nominator so the natural tendency is to support who you know and trust because they have proven themselves, and be watchful of the newcomer because you don't already trust them yet. Or, it could be that the nominator has been around way longer so they have way more followers. It could also be that newer editors who might feel the same way I do are simply not aware processes like this exist or they may not be skilled enough to participate. There could be any number of actually reasonable explanations for not having any support other than my objection being questionable. OTH, the only really reasonable explanation my colleagues would be having to try to prove that this proposal is not violating any guidelines is because it is questionable to begin with. Now, as much as I would love to argue the finer points of what's actually being argued, I think you made all of your points clear. I also think my "semantic line of argumentation" is pretty clear as well, and it sounds like you don't wanna hear any more "semantics", and I sure as heck don't wanna hear no more technical or policy jargon, so I guess that's a wrap. Huggums537 (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, I guess I just could not resist to argue the finer points with you. This isn't actually about notability it's about inclusion criteria for a particular kind of material. Well, inclusion criteria is just different words for notability. Almost everything we have about inclusion, or inclusion criteria links right back directly to notability. See: WP:Inclusion, WP:Inclusion (essay), and the most damning of all, WP:Inclusion criteria which is just a redirect to WP:N. Huggums537 (talk) 00:25, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Just for the record, I am also against any proposal to apply a rule to any one subtopic that I would not find reasonable to apply across all other subtopics. The reason for this being that it opens the door for more and more subtopics to be restricted to the rule until some idiot thinks it is a good idea for all of them. Huggums537 (talk) 20:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, please do. Watch your step. Be careful. Take care. Don't take any wooden nickels either. Also, please note the above referenced article acknowledges the slippery slope as a logical argument in critical thinking (as opposed to a fallacy). Huggums537 (talk) 23:45, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose on the common sense ground that if something is noteworthy but not independently notable, imposing such a requirement will merely force editors to put it in other parts of the article rather than in a "popular culture" section. BD2412T 20:12, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Support: Basically WP:TRIVIA except it applies to sentences instead of sections. And some sections are just one sentence. Sungodtemple (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
I support the intent of this proposal, but do worry about the potential confusion over notability, whether intended or not. I've developed the proposal a little, as noted in the section below, and suggest tightening up the existing concept of 'noteworthiness' instead. Comments would be very welcome there. MichaelMaggs (talk) 02:32, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose anything that mixes up notability like this. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Proposal by MichaelMaggs
Our biggest practical problem is that we don't have a consolidated set of guidelines on cultural material that can be easily linked to. The rules are spread across various guideline pages, with the most important substantive rule actually being on an MOS page, where many editors will never find it. MOS:CULTURALREFS notes that the 2015 RfC was closed with "The consensus is very clear that a secondary source is required in almost all cases. A tertiary source is even better, if available. In the rare case that a primary source is judged to be sufficient, it should be properly cited. The source(s) cited should not only establish the verifiability of the pop culture reference, but also its significance."
This is a proposal to bring the rules together into a single new guideline. It's based on CaptainEek's proposal and editor feedback, but with a few modifications. Specifically I've added more explanatory material, have made use of the existing concept of noteworthiness rather than inventing a new meaning for notability, and have based it on what the secondary source establishes not what it 'focuses on'. I doubt in practice that this would represent a radical change, but it should make it easier for editors to curate Cultural reference sections and to explain to new editors how they work.
Noteworthiness of cultural references
Some articles include a section devoted to the subject's cultural significance, often called "In popular culture", "In the media", "Cultural references" or the like. Especially where they are presented as lists, such sections can if not effectively curated degenerate into mere collections of trivial or otherwise non-encylopedic references. This guideline applies to all Cultural reference sections, regardless of the specific title used.
As explained at WP:NNC, the general notability guidelines define how notable a subject has to be before it can have its own Wikipedia article. Those guidelines do not, in themselves, apply directly to article content, which means mean that (with the exception of certain lists that explicitly restrict inclusion to notable entries) an individual item of content such as a cultural reference is not normally required to demonstrate standalone notability. However, the fact that a reference may be verifiable does not automatically make it suitable for inclusion (WP:VNOT and WP:INDISCRIMINATE). For example, evidence that the article's subject verifiably appears in a particular cultural context such as an episode of a TV series is not in itself enough.
As with all content, a cultural reference must be sufficiently noteworthy to be mentioned within the context of the article. 'Noteworthy' in this context means capable of being supported by at least one secondary source that establishes not only the verifiability of the cultural reference, but also its significance to a discussion of the article's subject. Note that this is a one-sided test: it is not enough for the article's subject to be of significance within the cultural context of the reference.
Example
An imaginary example may be useful. Assume that in a Cultural references section of the Bone broth article, an editor has added a reference to the fact that some soup of that type was drunk by Baby Yoda in an episode of The Mandalorian. Is that a noteworthy addition to the article? That will depend on the availability and content of the sources:
Unsourced, or supported solely by the primary source of the episode itself
If challenged, no, since no secondary source has been supplied.
Sourced to a national newspaper article that discusses how important the broth-drinking incident was to the development of the overarching storyline of the entire Mandalorian TV series
No, since the source does not establish the significance of the specific drinking episode to the article's general discussion of its subject, namely bone broth. No matter how prominent the incident may be within its own cultural context, it cannot be considered noteworthy unless it is significant within the context of the article's subject. In this example, the incident would best be added not to Bone broth but to The Mandalorian.
Sourced to a cookery book in which a recipe for bone broth mentions that Baby Yoda famously drank some
Possibly yes, as this is a secondary source that establishes the significance of the incident within the context of a discussion of bone broth. Of course, editors may still hold the cultural reference to be insufficiently important even in that context, per WP:INDISCRIMINATE, but in principle the source should be usable.
The Manual of Style has further information on the preferred layout of cultural reference material: see MOS:CULTURALREFS
Feedback would be welcome. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
MichaelMaggs, I think this proposal has the heart in the right place, but I have some concerns. One can be easily fixed, but the other is so disturbing it might affect the whole proposal. First, I think this: Those guidelines do not, in themselves, apply directly to article content, which means that (with the exception of certain lists that explicitly restrict inclusion to notable entries) an individual item of content such as a cultural reference is not normally required to demonstrate standalone notability. needs to be changed to: Those guidelines mean that (with the exception of certain lists that explicitly restrict inclusion to notable entries) an individual item of content such as a cultural reference is not normally required to demonstrate standalone notability. because the previous sentence refers to both WP:NNC and WP:N, but the way it is currently written it's not crystal clear to the reader exactly what "apply" means or which one of these guidelines is being referenced when it says "those guidelines don't apply directly to article content". Better to just leave that part out if it's going to confuse things. Now for the doozy. I went through the MOS you linked to and found no references at all to "Noteworthy", and the only three references I found regarding notability were all three related to the main topic of a subject and had nothing to do with the treatment of the cultural references. Your proposal mentions "noteworthy" something like 4 times (not counting the subtitle). That alone makes this proposal even more problematic than the one Eek tried to come up with and I would promptly oppose it once voting started. I'm sure you are probably more than well aware of this by now, but I refer you to: WP:NOTEWORTHY because I think it is rather ironic that this is where that link leads to... Huggums537 (talk) 23:04, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
On your first point, I've made the clarifying change you suggested. On the second, I'm sorry to hear that you intend to vote against this proposal as you have against CaptainEek's, but there's nothing remotely "disturbing" about it. As I mentioned, 'noteworthiness' is a concept already used in WP:NNC (or WP:NOTEWORTHY if you prefer) but it's currently undefined. I'm proposing that 'noteworthy' is clarified so that in the specific context of cultural references it is defined as "capable of being supported by at least one secondary source that establishes not only the verifiability of the cultural reference, but also its significance to a discussion of the article's subject", a slightly rephrased version of the 2015 RfC closure. MichaelMaggs (talk) 02:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
MichaelMaggs, thank you for making the suggested change. However, noteworthy can't be a concept being used in NNC because it isn't even defined just as you said. Also, the way it's being used there isn't so much a concept as it is an interchangeable term with "content coverage". You could remove the entire "noteworthy" parenthetical statement from that statement leaving you with: Content coverage within a given article or list is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies. or you could just as easily interchange it with: (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies. and you would still be saying the same thing, but the significance of all this interchanging is that the guideline is clearly telling us that both "content coverage" and "noteworthy" are already governed by DUE and other policies. I've gone into some detail about how none of these proposals have much support in DUE. The only policies you have provided to support this proposal are WP:VNOT and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Both of these are great policies for removal of bad stuff, and even prevention, but we already do that anyway, and neither of those policies in any way support requiring significant coverage similar to notability for content, and we actually have guidelines against it. You would have to show me policy that supports such a proposal, especially in DUE since the guideline said DUE is the principal governor of noteworthy, but if you can find anything in WP:V, WP:NOR, or WP:NPOV that supports regulating content in this manner, then I will accept that too. Huggums537 (talk) 06:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
MichaelMaggs, P.S. I got a little carried away with the whole "disturbing" thing. Pay no attention to my occasional melodrama... Huggums537 (talk) 06:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Huggums537, I'm really sorry. I've read every word of the many postings you've made in response to this and the above proposal but I'm truly unable to discern your underlying rationale. I think you are arguing that things can't be done because they aren't compatible with the wording of existing guidelines. But the whole point is to change and improve those guidelines. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
MichaelMaggs, ok so if I am understanding you correctly, what you are saying is that you do in fact see my argument about these proposals being against the guidelines, but your counter argument is that the whole point is to intentionally go against them in order effect a change in them for the purpose of improvement? To that I would say that if you intend to go against the current guidelines and/or effect any changes in them, then the discussion should be brought before an even larger community with proper discussion notices posted at both WP:N, the central discussion area of village pump, and anywhere else a controversial guideline change might be made known to the public... Huggums537 (talk) 14:14, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Huggums537, Oh dear, I fear you've expended a lot of time and effort arguing on the basis of a false premise. Of course the proposals aren't in line with existing guidelines. They suggest improvements and changes: that's the whole point. I thought that was quite clear, in that CaptainEek referred to the "substantive change that we could implement", and I explicitly suggested "a single new guideline". This is a preliminary discussion about possible changes, and everyone understands that any consensus to change a guideline that emerges here will naturally have to be presented to the wider community in a formal way before anything actually gets implemented. MichaelMaggs (talk)
MichaelMaggs, ok then. You might be right about argument over a false premise, but I feel my time has been well spent making some valid points. Huggums537 (talk) 17:10, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Also, I'd like to point out that unless the intention is to modify or replace current existing guidelines, then "a single new guideline" that is along the same lines of the ones being proposed here would be in direct conflict with the currently existing guidelines. That is the whole basis of my underlying rationale. For example, if you made this "single new guideline", in order to make all guidelines compliant with the others, there would then also have to be discussion about removing all the instances in WP:N where it talks about how notability applies only to articles. (There are many.) Then, there would have to be talk about removing the whole section dedicated to the understanding that notability doesn't apply to content. All this in order for the new guideline to be compliant. If you are going to start talking about simply writing guidelines that conflict with each other and just letting it ride, then we might as well stop calling it guidelines and start calling it Wikipedia:Optional choice - Choose your own adventure! Huggums537 (talk) 18:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Yet another proposal (sorry)
Based on the work above, but I feel a little clearer, and including the suggestions I listed above. If unhelpful, let me know, and I won't put up much of a fuss about collapsing it. :) It's much in line with the original proposal b CaptainEek above, so I also don't mind if we just swap it in up there (if participants feel like it's an improvement, of course). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 04:03, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Articles often include material about cultural references to the subject of the article. Sometimes this content is in its own section ("in popular culture" is the most common, but also "in the media", "cultural references", etc.), and sometimes it is included with other prose. When not effectively curated, such material can expand in ways not compatible with Wikipedia policies like what Wikipedia is not and neutral point of view.
Cultural references about a subject should not be included simply because they exist. Before including a reference in an article, that reference should be discussed in reliable secondary sources which specifically link the cultural item to the subject. These sources should cover the subject of the article in some depth, and not simply mention it in a source about the movie, song, television show, etc. which referenced it.
Take for example the subject of bone broth. You may wish to include mention of how Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian drank bone broth. An appropriate source might be Bon Appetit magazine, which is a reliable source for articles about soup. If Bon Appetit mentions how Baby Yoda drank bone broth, it may be suitable for inclusion in the bone broth article. By contrast, an article in Polygon reviewing the latest episode of The Mandalorian which does not go into any detail about bone broth but simply mentions that Baby Yoda drank some in that episode is not sufficient to include in the article because it does not provide any significant coverage of the subject of the article.
Note that this sourcing requirement is a minimum threshold for inclusion of cultural references. Consensus at the article level can determine whether particular references which meet this criteria should be included.
I support this version, as it accomplishes what I intended, as well as dealing with some matters I hadn't considered. More than happy to have this be swapped in for my version. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 05:01, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, this seems more reasonable. Where would you intend to implement said proposal? I meant to ask this of CaptainEek on the original proposal, but forgot. This seems like important information to me, but nobody else seems to be worried that much about it... Huggums537 (talk) 05:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Good question. I wasn't sure, either, and don't have a strong opinion. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 15:53, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Actually, now that I'm looking at it, this just seems like the same proposal rewritten. There is nothing whatsoever in WP:DUE that supports the idea of making it a content requirement that you must have a secondary source, and the only policy or guideline that supports the idea that a reliable secondary source must have more than a mere mention of the subject, or that secondary sources must cover the subject in depth, or have "significant coverage" is WP:N (which does not apply to content WP:NNC), and all these WP:Inclusion criteria, are supposed to apply only to articles, not content. Huggums537 (talk) 17:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Words have meaning outside of what someone chose to assign as a redirect target. We make decisions about what to include or not include within articles all the time; we also regularly codify these sorts of decisions in our policies and guidelines (some quick examples: WP:LPNAME, WP:GAMECRUFT). "Inclusion" as a concept is not tied solely to notability. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, Words might have meanings outside of redirect targets, and policies or guidelines, but that would indicate those meanings only exist in the minds of the Wikipedified. You may very well have been making decisions about what to include or what not to include within articles for a very long time. but you have been doing so against current policy and guideline. WP:LPNAME is more about privacy issues than it is about "inclusion", therefore a poor example, and I actually do see a clear violation there in the last sentence, but just because WP:Other stuff exists doesn't mean it should be repeated. WP:GAMECRUFT is a MOS, not a policy or guideline. Nevertheless, I think you should read it again since everything there actually is tied to very well to notability in that the directive applies to the notability of gaming articles not content just as it should when it comes to notability and all the "inclusion criteria" is focused on the noted exception; lists. Although, I do see a violation of the notability guideline with #13 and #15, but again, just because violations exist don't mean we should repeat them, we should fix them. Huggums537 (talk) 23:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
MOS is a guideline, and much of the material in that guideline (aside from #1 and #2) has nothing to do with notability and everything to do with what to include within gaming articles. What specific policy or guideline do you think is being "violated" in making decisions about content within articles, when you have argued repeatedly WP:N does not apply to content? What "clear violation" do you feel exists in the WP:BLP policy, and why would you believe N would take precedence over other policies? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:31, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, WP:NOT also has plenty about what not to include in articles as well. You could just link to that too, but everything there will offer just as little support for this proposal as what you have linked to. The only guideline that offers the most support for this proposal also just happens to be the same one that says it isn't supposed to apply to something like this. The problem you have identified with what you linked to is that policies, guidelines, and editors are conflicting with each other in the first place. So, I think identifying this conflict is the first step in solving the problem. Therefore, your question about what violation I think exists is a valid one. The conflict (i.e. "violation") arises when we have a policy : However, names of family members who are not also notable public figures must be removed from an article if they are not properly sourced. and it is worded so ambiguously that it could mean several things, including one interpretation which is against our guidelines about applying notability to content. So, the problem isn't about "precedence", it's about "conflict", and why we have clear directives telling us that notability is not supposed to apply to article content, but yet you just gave us examples of where people have introduced this so called "concept" into the MOS at WP:GAMECRUFT #13, #15 and I see #8 also now. Huggums537 (talk) 00:32, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
We've gotten well off the track of what the actual proposal is now, so I'll suggest you take any perceived conflicts between our policies and guidelines to a different venue. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Notice - this discussion has slowed down considerably. Considering there seems to be broad agreement about the basic principles, I've boldly updatedMOS:POPCULT. I only see a couple people dissenting throughout these threads (not counting the original thread about the term "popular culture," but also including past discussions about sourcing/inclusion/what's usually preferable). So let's see if we can shift the conversation to discussion over specific wording at that talk page rather than here? — Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:52, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts here. Regarding, "Rather, all such references should be discussed in at least one reliable secondary source..."...I wonder whether this language should be strengthened, perhaps in accordance with the RfC referenced at WP:IPCV, which uses the language, "a secondary source is required in almost all cases." To me, that's a bit stronger than "should". DonIago (talk) 20:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
enough to source this claim to the film itself? (primary, non-independent)
enough to source it to an interview with the film's director that mentions the names? (primary, non-independent)
enough to source it to a magazine article that mentions the names? (primary, independent)
Or do you need a "true" secondary source, which is one explains why these particular songs were chosen and what effect was produced as a result? (If that true secondary is by the film's makers, it's a non-independent secondary source; if it's by someone unconnected, it's an independent secondary source.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I think it depends on the claim. If it's "the music is played in the film" (say, as part of a short list), then the film's credits may be sufficient. If information about the music being played in the film is being added to an IPC section though, essentially claiming that the occurrence of the music in the film has some level of significance, then it should be a source that gives some context to the use of the music within the film beyond the mere fact of it. If it's an interview with the film's director that mentions why the music was chosen, for instance, that could work. In my experience 75% of IPC items are problematic because no source is provided, with an additional 15% being problematic because the source doesn't discuss the item in any significant detail. Is this helpful? DonIago (talk) 20:53, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Super helpful. Also, I tend to agree with you. ;-)
I think it might be helpful to say that there needs to be "a source that gives some context or explains why it is significant, beyond the mere fact of it". That would prevent editors from incorrecting each other about whether the cited source is "really" a secondary one. It would presumably include a wide range of sources, but all of the usable sources would be able to support a sentence longer and more significant than "This music was in this film" (or "This disease was mentioned in one of the 17 years that Grey's Anatomy was on television"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
The analogy I like to use is that the source should establish not just that the tree fell in the woods, but that it made a sound when it fell. :p But yes, since we're talking specifically about IPC sections, I agree with everything you just said. The language at WP:IPCV may be useful in terms of formulating the specific verbiage. Cheers! DonIago (talk) 02:36, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
@Doniago, and @WhatamIdoing, could either of you explain to me how this little mini-discussion you just had about requiring "significant coverage" in sources "beyond the mere fact of it" for simply adding minor content to any article or section isn't just this notability guideline being applied to content instead of being applied to the creation of articles as the notability guideline was intended? Is the guideline not clear that notability was not intended for content, but for the creation of articles? 05:04, 4 October 2021 (UTC) Huggums537 (talk) 05:04, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
As I mentioned in my first comment in this thread, there was an RfC that established that when adding IPC content secondary sources are required "in almost all cases". I don't believe anyone involved in that RfC raised the question that you're raising now. If that consensus bothers you, the RfC was long enough ago that you're welcome to raise the question again. Otherwise, you seem to have an objection here, and I'm not sure what it is. DonIago (talk) 05:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
My objection is to the onslaught of various proposals about some "mysterious concept of basic principals" that is supposed to solve article content issues by requiring things such as "significant coverage", and "more than existence in sources" from a community who is seemingly oblivious to the fact that this concept already has a name entitled "notability". Except, our existing guidance tells us this concept is strictly for the creation of articles, not parsing out article content. If it isn't obvious to you by now that my objection is with the direct conflict to the existing guidance, then I'm not sure it really matters what my objection is. Huggums537 (talk) 07:49, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
@Huggums537, it's not about the notability guidelines. It's about WP:PSTS: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources". In this case, we're talking about what it would mean for this specific section's contents to be Wikipedia:Based upon secondary sources.
All articles should be primarily citing secondary sources. Why not this section, too? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
it's not about the notability guidelines. So, that's what they keep telling me, except we haven't just simply been talking about making sure content has reliable sources that are secondary. We have been making additional inclusion criteria not covered in the slightest little bit by WP:PSTS which includes "significant coverage" among other things that have way more to do with WP:NRV than any other policy or guideline you could possibly link to. You can easily see that it only stands to reason if this were simply about adding sources as you claim, then the existing guidance that you have linked to would be sufficient when combined with other policies we have about verifiability and there would be no need for any of these abusive and WP:Creepy proposals. So, why not this section too? Because content within articles (including sections) aren't supposed to be having that much to do with WP:NRV or any part of WP:N according to the existing guidance at WP:NNC. Huggums537 (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
@Huggums537, you are the only person to use the words "significant coverage" in this mini-discussion. Naturally, nobody can tell you why you think they were using words that they didn't use.
I wonder, though, whether the answer to your real question is in Wikipedia:Balancing aspects. A mere passing mention in a source suggests that we are talking about "minor aspects of its subject", whereas "a source that gives some context or explains why it is significant, beyond the mere fact of it" suggests that the detail is not merely a minor aspect, and that it should be included in the article "with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
It seems we are just mincing words here. Sure, I've been the only one to use the exact phrase, "significant coverage", but that is only because using that terminology was easier than repeating how others in the "mini-discussion" have talked about 1) levels of significance in relation to claims made in IPC sections, 2) levels of significance in relation to the details of sources, and 3) the significance of content beyond the mere fact of it. All of which are notability concepts that could be summed up as "significant coverage". I think anyone, including myself, would agree with you that, "a source that gives some context or explains why it is significant, beyond the mere fact of it" suggests that the detail is not merely a minor aspect, and that it should be included in the article "with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject". However, this statement also implicitly suggests that material should not be included at all (different from being included proportionally and also an WP:Inclusion criteria) if the source isn't giving "significance". Again, making it go back to a point about notability above and beyond simply being about sourcing or proportion. What I hear the bulk of the community saying is that we have a problem with trivia laden IPC sections that are usually poorly/unsourced, and even though we have sourcing policies already in place to remedy this, we propose some new instruction creep that will conflict with existing guidance, which will by extension, conflict among editors as well. Problem solved. Huggums537 (talk) 04:34, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
SIGCOV is a piece of jargon whose meaning has almost nothing to do with the plain English terms. We can talk about a source giving significant attention to a fact without caring about SIGCOV.
If no source (including sources other than the one I'm looking at) suggests that a given piece of information has any significance/importance/salience to the article's subject, then why would you want to include that piece of information in that article? I mean, it might be both true and verifiable that Joe Film ate an apple on the morning of his wedding, but why would editors include that fact in the Wikipedia article about Apples, if there are no reliable sources that indicate his wedding breakfast menu is a relatively important thing for people to know about apples?
We can talk about a source giving significant attention to a fact without caring about SIGCOV. Except, these proposals are talking about doing way more than just that. Once you start talking about the other added requirements mentioned in these proposals, there is no more avoiding WP:NRV or SIGCOV.
Also, I agree with you on your second point again. We wouldn't want that kind of unrelated information in articles even if it is verifiable. However, we already have lots of policies and guidance to deal with that. These proposals add needless "guidance cruft" and cause conflict. Huggums537 (talk) 09:21, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
(1) I am not responsible for what other people are (or aren't) talking about.
(2) Nothing I was talking about undermines NRV or SIGCOV. Nothing I was talking about is related to NRV or SIGCOV.
(3) The word significant is used in the very first sentence of the NPOV policy, and several times throughout that policy. The use of the word significant in other pages is not related to NRV or notability.
(4) If "talking about the other added requirements" always means that "there is no more avoiding WP:NRV or SIGCOV", then I invite you to contemplate this sentence: "For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic." That's part of NPOV. IMO it does not related to NRV or SIGCOV. This suggests to me that you jumped to the wrong conclusion when you wrote that the existence of other requirements impinges upon NRV and SIGCOV.
(5) The modern version of NRV was created in 2009. It did not contain the word significantuntil the following year. NRV is not dependent upon that word, and it does not have an exclusive right to it. Not everything about significance is about NRV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
I am not responsible for what other people are (or aren't) talking about. True, but you are still part of a larger discussion that you must acknowledge, and more attempts to avoid the facts by saying that will only make your arguments appear weaker.
Nothing I was talking about is related to NRV or SIGCOV. Again, I was referencing the main topic (the proposals). This discussion is bigger than just you and I.
The use of the word significant in other pages is not related to NRV or notability. I love how you keep saying a bunch of true things that have nothing to do with the proposals. The way the word is being used in the proposals does have something to do with notability.
If "talking about the other added requirements" always means that "there is no more avoiding WP:NRV or SIGCOV"... I never said it "always means". Please don't break up my quotes and add your own words in the middle. Only people who want to put ricin in my sweet tea do that sort of thing. Thanks.
Not everything about significance is about NRV But, everything in these proposals is about NRV. Nobody cares if everything else isn't. These talks are not about everything else... Huggums537 (talk) 01:40, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
Nothing in the particular proposal that *I* was talking about is about notability. Maybe you should be talking to those other editors about their proposals that allegedly involve notability, instead of talking to me, since I definitely wasn't talking about notability? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
I want to add that you, Nikkimaria, and others who keep trying to prove how these proposals are backed up by all these policies and guidelines other than WP:N will never be able to escape the fact that whatever any one of these proposals might claim to be based upon, they will all still contain those parts which makes them based on notability as well. I think a good analogy would be to think of the proposals as a mixture of sweet tea. The community is saying, "we have brewed some really good sweet tea here that is based on 99% pure organic cane sugar!", and I'm over here pleading, "yeah, but that sugar has got 1% Ricin above and beyond the 99%. I'd really think twice about having any of that if I were you." Huggums537 (talk) 05:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
I don't think so. Once we've decided that an article about Apples should exist, then we're finished with our advice pages on how to decide whether the article should exist, and we move on to the core content policies.
It's true that our advice on whether the article should exist coordinates with the core content policies. That is intentional, and I suspect that you would think us all rather stupid if we wrote the notability rules to include subjects that can't be verified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
This is essentially a claim that we're finished with notability guidance ("advice pages") after article creation, but if this were true, then WP:NNC would not exist to tell us what not to do within articles after creation. The fact it does exist is proof we are not finished with the notability guidance after the article is created. So, even 1% of the notability guidance in the mix might not sound like that much of a big deal, but it's just enough of the wrong stuff to contaminate the whole sweet tea brew.
Also, if you are suggesting we need these proposals to prevent people from thinking the notability rules were written to include unverified subjects, then maybe it isn't me who thinks anyone is rather stupid... Huggums537 (talk) 11:09, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
The primarily purpose of NNC is to tell you that once the article has been created, you are done with the notability guidelines. We could have written "Note: If another editor insists that this guideline, whose sole and exclusive purpose is determining whether a subject qualifies for a separate, stand-alone article, is also the guideline for determining what to write about that subject, then this guideline authorizes you to trout the idiot", but editors probably would have complained about our uncollegial WP:TONE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
More or less agree with this. Huggums537 (talk) 02:15, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
Put another way: "Go away! You are looking at the wrong page!" does not mean "This guideline controls 1% of the other subject". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
I emphatically disagree that WP:NNC translates to: "Go away! You are looking at the wrong page!". So, I think your assessment about the meaning, and your conclusion about what "This guideline controls 1% of the other subject" does not mean are based upon a false premise. I also think we asking the wrong questions. For example, you posed the question earlier that Joe Film ate an apple on his wedding, and why would we want that in our article about apples? The prevailing question among the community seems to be, "why do we want this stuff?". However, I think the more relevant, and more important question is how do our policies and guidelines relate to this, but the dominating force of the community appears to be about what we want. This is of great concern to me because they seem to be willing to overlook the guidelines and do whatever mental gymnastics it takes to get what we want. This is at the cost of editor conflict later down the road that leads to blocks, retirement, and a host of other problems. There has to be a better way... Huggums537 (talk) 02:58, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
What specific policy or guideline says we should or should not include "Joe Film ate an apple on the morning of his wedding" in our Apple article? And if you are the only one saying the sweet tea contains ricin, have you considered that it doesn't? I agree with WAID's interpretation of NNC. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
What specific policy or guideline says we should or should not include "Joe Film ate an apple on the morning of his wedding" in our Apple article?. There is no "specific" one. We have many policies and guidelines that govern this, which is what makes the already implemented proposal needless and creepy instruction cruft. And if you are the only one saying the sweet tea contains ricin, have you considered that it doesn't? Nope. Never considered it. Just because you are the lone minority doesn't make it a proven fact you are wrong. Also, of course you would agree with WAID's interpretation since both of you have been using the same kind of logic that says, "words sometimes have multiple meanings, therefore the meaning Huggums has derived from, or ascribed to these proposals could not possibly be the correct one since too many other meanings exist for Huggums to have narrowed it down to this one". In other words, you've essentially boldly asserted that there is no possible way for me to have come up with my conclusions with any certainty, and even if there was a way to do it, then I'm certainly not the one who has come to the correct conclusions about it. My only response to this is that I must concede that I can't argue with logic like that. Huggums537 (talk) 04:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Also, another reason I haven't made any considerations about me "being the only one" is because I think it very much depends which side of the fence you are on as to why that even matters. For example, if everyone in my class is doing drugs, but I'm "the only one" who decides not to, then from my side of the fence I think I've made a rather smart decision compared to all my other classmates, but from their side of the fence I could imagine they would think I'm foolish and stupid for not joining in the fun with everyone else. We could argue about which side of the fence is right or wrong, and which is smarter or more stupid, but the law would still say drugs are illegal at the end of our debate...Huggums537 (talk) 07:15, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Worthy?
Just an aside and probably out of sequence, but we need to tread carefully around the word noteworthy. In general, notability talks about a subject having been noted rather than a subject somehow being worthy. (Just wander through the archives of Wikipedia talk:Notability to see plenty of previous discussions.) So, inclusion in WP is about a subject already having been included in other sources, not whether we have a view about how worthy a subject might be for inclusion. The distinction is probably core to much of the IPC discussion – we should not add items to IPC just because we think they should be there (however interesting or entertaining they can be), but because other sources have already noted the connection. — GhostInTheMachinetalk to me 08:23, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
GhostInTheMachine, if you were wandering through talk pages on the WP:N pages, then these distinctions that you have been explaining to us between "noted" or "worthy" is how inclusion applies to articles, not the content within them. To say it a better way, we would rephrase your own statement to say: So, inclusion in WP is about a [subject's article] already having been included in other sources, not whether we have a view about how worthy a subject might be for [article] inclusion. That means everything you just explained about these distinctions is not core to the IPC discussion, it is in fact irrelevant to it. That is what the bulk of the community is failing to grasp. They are confusing main topics (articles) with subtopics (sections) and subjects (which could refer to content or an article title) so it's very easy to see how everyone gets confused so easily. Wikipedia needs to come up with less confusing naming conventions or editors just need to get better at deciphering the madness... Huggums537 (talk) 14:30, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
The reason I keep driving these point home is because people seem to be blissfully unaware that they are wanting the notability policy to support their very well intentioned notions that they should be able to make inclusion requirements for content that talks about such things as distinctions between "noted" and "worthy", or "significant coverage in secondary sources", and "inclusion criteria". However, when it is pointed out to them that the notability policy actually does not support this well intentioned notion, but clearly says it is intended to be used for articles, not content, and even has a section specifically dedicated to talking about how it doesn't apply to content, they start to seek support for it elsewhere, such as DUE, but eventually they will find that support for it only exists in the mind of the Wikipedified... Huggums537 (talk) 15:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Section break for new comments to support/oppose
totally oppose. The phrase "popular culture" emerged organically based upon common popular <ahem> usage. on that basis, it should be retained. I see no basis for discarding or proscribing it in any way. and by the way, there is a clear and highly significant distinction between forms of popular culture such as comic books and rock music, and the more classic, long-standing, and higher elements of our culture, such as classic literature, music and art from past centuries. that is the whole point of this phrase. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 14:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Putting this at the bottom may be confusing, as only the top part of this thread is about the phrase itself. The rest of this discussion is about the content that goes in such sections (under any name). Perhaps it makes sense for us to start a new section at the bottom of this page for the content-focused (rather than terminology-focused) proposal(s), so as to avoid confusion. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 16:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites:, those are excellent points and suggestions. whatever method you think best is totally fine and acceptable to me. thanks for providng your valuable input and corrections. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 16:53, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree, unsure what exactly this section is voting on. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:28, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Me three. I thought maybe this was a response to the OP way up top, but wasn't sure... Huggums537 (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
There are two things that Wikipedia has from the beginning done notably well: Computer technology, and popular culture. Back in 2001, thee weevery few geneally accessible sources reliable forthe sort of computer articles, especially on open software, anywhere near as comprehnsive or good as WP. In 2001 there were very few serious academic sources or reliable non0fan sources of any kind, bout many aspcts of popular culture. Most of the many journals now in existnece weren't yet started; the major humanities journals and indexes ignored it. Again, things are better now, but I think most people in the world think its the one best source for this domain, a domain which is appaently he major concern of hundreds of millions of people. How else would people like me even know about this part of the world? These sections, even when they are inherently trivial, are often interesting--who among us here really always skips over for them? DGG ( talk ) 06:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. Pop culture is extremely turbulent, normal culture lasts. In order to show what span something has been culturally significant for, seeing what timespan it has been used in popular culture makes sense. We can see that Picasso was culturally relevant longer than OJ Simpson because one is featured in works for a longer time and the other isn't. It also doesn't make sense to just rename it to to "Culture" because the fluid changes in pop culture clash with the lasting traditions of normal culture and it's important to keep them distinct. Plutonical (talk) 14:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Keep popular culture sections as is. Not going to go back and read this entire book-length discussion from where I last opined, as it seems obvious that removing or fundamentally changing long-term Wikipedia section and topic inclusion should not be bantered back and forth but left alone. Many readers and editors enjoy the popular culture sections and edit and maintain them. If some editors don't then they should assume good faith that many do, and leave them be. Having a Village Pump result to eliminate them or restrict them would be deletionists paradise, and they would use it like a scythe to fundamentally and cheerfully change Wikipedia for the worse. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:40, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
Keep, but not necessarily as is. The contents of the section help web the 'sum of all knowledge' together; analogy and evocation. "What is it that links words and categories?" [Chapter 2 The Evocation of Phrases Surfaces and Essences Hofstadter, D. & Sander, E.]
A brief, canned subtitle directly below the section head. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 16:07, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
if a section is "X in popular culture", X should be a proper noun, otherwise it doesn't really have a unique identity to be displayed in popular culture. "Clothes in popular culture: characters on Star Trek wear clothes."
if X has appeared in Y, but Y is not itself the topic of a Wikipedia article, it doesn't get mentioned.
if X appears in Y, but is not both indispensable and central to Y, then it doesn't get mentioned. DS (talk) 04:45, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
DragonflySixtyseven, this reverts directly back to my same old arguments of all the previous proposals, in that these very outdated and "Wikipedified" ideas about what the guidelines should be (2009) are in direct conflict with the directives of the current notability guideline which clearly says in the nutshell; The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. and in the lead; These guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list... plus a whole section of the notability guideline dedicated to the very subject: WP:NNC. So, to say that a topic "must have a Wikipedia article" {i.e. must be notable) just to be included as some minor content within an article is a clear violation of, and direct conflict with the current guideline.
Besides, the proposal makes littles sense anyway.
First, it is essentially saying that only articles with titles that are proper nouns may have "IPC" sections because articles with other kinds of titles somehow don't have a "unique identity" (whatever that's supposed to mean). Then, confuses things much further by saying only articles with proper noun titles have IPC sections that must contain topics that have Wikipedia articles, and only these proper noun articles must have IPC topics that somehow connect back to the original proper noun article. There are so many logical content restriction flaws in it, that it makes me grateful the current guidance advises against applying notability to content. Huggums537 (talk) 18:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
I saw this at WP:ANRFC and wondered about closing it myself but very quickly came to the conclusion that it needed an admin close. However, if I had closed it, I would have closed it as no clear consensus to change/a train-wreck since it contains so many proposals, some of which appear to be jokes, and people voting in different directions over differing things, that it is impossible to extract a clear consensus about anything specific from it. I encourage the closer to have the guts to say that this is just such a tyre-fire of a discussion that no consensus is the only rational close. The idea posted at WP:ANRFC that the closer should focus only on the section where a majority of !votes, most unreasoned, was in favour of change, and ignore the other sections where there were many !votes against change, should not be countenanced. FOARP (talk) 13:57, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Counting edits differently for e-c status — is it technically feasible and efficient enough?
In order for a user to achieve extended-confirmed status, they need to have 500 edits. The purpose of this rule is to slow down the new SPAs that are the scourge of problematic subject areas. In particular, socks of blocked/banned users have to do some work before they can disrupt their area of passion again. However, what often happens in practice is that socks reach 500 by making a long sequence of trivial edits to the same few articles. I'm wondering how this loophole can be closed. Would it be feasible, and not too inefficient, to count consecutive edits to the same article as just one edit? I think that the number 500 could be reduced if it only counted non-consecutive edits. If that's not possible, any other suggestions for fixing this problem would be welcome. Zerotalk 07:51, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
That would prevent legitimate consecutive edits from legitimate users. No matter what the cutoff is, people will work to get around it if they are motivated enough. 331dot (talk) 08:24, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
I guess I wasn't clear. I didn't propose preventing any edits, nor did I suggest counting edits differently in general. All I suggested is that e-c status is achieved by performing some number of particular sorts of edits. I disagree with your last sentence; we make rules all the time to remove or moderate problematic behavior. Zerotalk 08:35, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
@Zero0000: so the answer is yes - but probably not going to happen. Option 1, you could make a feature request to change the way autopromote works in the mediawiki software (I really doubt this would be accepted). Option 2, much more refined capabilities exist with Flagged Revisions - however this isn't compatible with Page Triage that we use here - and I doubt anyone wants to go through this major workflow overhaul. Option 3: For dealing with sock-gains, perhaps a bot request could be made that would perform some sort of analysis of users as they get autopromoted and produce a report of accounts that may need administrator review. Option 3 doesn't require any software work, so could happen if there is a willing bot operator. — xaosfluxTalk 18:53, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
A bot that flags suspicious accounts sounds promising. What is the administrative remedy though? Is the offending user permanently demoted? What is the path back to EC status? - Wikmoz (talk) 21:36, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
I generally agree with 331dot, but something we might be able to do (if it's feasible and we don't already) is to set up an edit filter that flags potential instances of edit count gaming, e.g. making and reverting an edit a bunch of times in a sandbox. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 20:08, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
I've seen this with accounts needing Autoconfirmed. They just edit their sandbox or user page 10 times. Usersapce edits and mainspace edits which are reverted by the same user should not be counted for access level purposes. Gonnym (talk) 10:53, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
That may be worth doing but an edit filter can only look at the current edit, not identify a pattern it forms with other edits. Certes (talk) 00:16, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
I agree, this seems like a good first step rather than jumping to making EC different completely. 🐶 EpicPupper(he/him | talk) 16:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Worth looking into. Lots of tiny edits to the same article, or a couple small edits to a large number of articles (say, doing a couple edits, then pressing the random button) certainly could be a little suspicious. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:49, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Recently there were one or two adhoc reviews by an admin of accounts said to have gamed the system (AI area) and they were sent back to zero edits when thought to have done so on examination, obviously not an automatic procedure just relying on someone noting the suspect account to begin with. Are there a large number of accounts hitting 500 in ecp areas on a daily basis? Selfstudier (talk) 10:33, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
The Edit count report accessible from the bottom of the Contributions page will tell you how many pages a user has edited in what namespaces, and the top ten pages by number of edits in each namespace. Easier to look for patterns there than in scrolling down more than 500 entries in the contribution history. - Donald Albury 16:18, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
And here is a good reason to review that log: [1], a user who has been blocked since 2008 was just promoted to EC. Where should I report that? - Donald Albury 16:46, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Whether to upgrade a user to EC is only tested when they actually make an edit. That user already had more than 500 edits (last two), the last one being in 2008, and the EC level was introduced in April 2016; so they could not be upgraded until they made an edit since then. It's working as designed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:17, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
A perhaps more important concern was that that one edit essentially admits to block evasion. * Pppery *it has begun... 22:04, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
I had just come to that same conclusion. If he hadn't bothered to redirect his old account, I doubt anyone would have ever noticesd. - Donald Albury 22:24, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
@Selfstudier: Do you know how these editors were "sent back to zero edits"? That could prevent ec from being reinstated automatically next time they edit. Certes (talk) 01:59, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
EC is only ever automatically granted once per user, so if an admin revokes it then it won't come back regardless of how many edits they make. * Pppery *it has begun... 02:04, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. That's a very sensible approach. So perhaps we need a bot to identify newly EC editors who might be gaming the system, and some reviewers to revoke EC if they agree with the bot. My main reservation is creating a "naughty list" including false positives, i.e. innocent editors whose patterns look suspicious but are actually constructive. Of course, it would require admin volunteers to review regularly. Perhaps the bot should make a second (and rather shorter) list of active non-EC editors with (say) 60+ days and 1000+ edits, who should be given EC if they have mended their ways or were denied in error. Certes (talk) 13:33, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
In favour of this if it can be done; this is a problem. Johnbod (talk) 15:06, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Such restrictions will help discourage casual vandals and trolls, but will not prevent the more serious POV-pushers. The current system can be easily gamed, but any automatic system that we devise will be able to be gamed without a lot more difficulty, simply because our culture of openness means that the criteria used will be publicly known. However good a system we end up with we should not be complacent about the possibility of gaming. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:41, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Lots of other big platforms have some sort of crowd-sourced trust metric. Stack Exchange, for example, does "reputation" which is some mix of things you do yourself (tenure on the site, number of questions, number of comments) and things other people do to you (answers accepted, questions voted up or down). Reddit calls it "kharma", but it's much the same idea. We already have the "things you do yourself" component. Now we just need to mix in things other people do to you. The most obvious is that your edits don't get reverted. But also having a draft accepted, have a DYK/GA accepted, etc. -- RoySmith(talk) 21:35, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
For what it's worth, none of the things mentioned in things you do have any effect on Stack Exchange reputation (other than by indirectly causing other people to cast votes). * Pppery *it has begun... 03:23, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
The proposed non-consecutive edit count approach is a clever idea (though it could still be gamed with additional effort). Introducing a benchmark relying on something "other users do to you" sounds good in general, apart from this issue to encourage good editing. There's already the H:THANK function, which could be made more visible and valuable with a public count. - Wikmoz (talk) 06:24, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
How many editors make it to EC without ever having been thanked by an existing EC editor? If it's a low number, that might be a good hard-to-game filter. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 00:45, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't like this idea all that much, honestly. The only limitation to 500/30 I'd like to see is the removal of user pages from the count. 500 edits in any namespace except "User" (User talk still counts). Legitimate users will have no problem with editing in the mainspace or draft namespace, and this will prevent people from farming sandbox edits for a month. Anarchyte (talk) 10:32, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose as is. Reasons are 1/ Excluding userpages will just mean whack a mole on other pages. 2/ there are no measures in place to see whether it would be effective. 3/ User:Xaosflux advised that this change to [autopromote] is unlikely.Are any of these alternatives more likely?
Add option to use Mediawiki Contribution score which measures (number of unique pages edited) + 2 * square root ((number of edits) - (number of unique pages edited)).
I'd back it if it's feasible. I certainly would back removal of user pages from the account. On another note, I blocked the block-evading editor who redirected their talk page and suggested a block review of my block at ANI. Doug Wellertalk 15:30, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
Is there any value in just drastically increasing the length of time people need to wait before getting the various levels of confirmed status? You can't game the clock. Most legitimate editors won't care tuppence how long it takes to get confirmed status because about the only thing it does is let you edit articles that have been temporarily protected, and even then, if you feel strongly enough, you can leave an edit request. Elemimele (talk) 10:15, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
I think that removing user edits from the count makes sense, but other restrictions seem like they'd just negatively impact good faith editors more than bad faith editors, unless there is some calculation showing otherwise. Dege31 (talk) 10:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
Putting a stop to the gaming is not going to completely solve any problems, but is going to slow some bad actors down, and that is desirable. Can some clever person not set up an edit filter to stop or flag this sort of thing, for which there is really no plausible good-faith explanation? Otherwise remove user-space pages from the e-c page count as above. Or both, perhaps. Other things that might help us to re-establish some kind of control over what's going on are (a) limit mainspace page creation to e-c editors, or (b) limit page move ability (not the user right, just being able to move pages) to the same group; or both. Something has to be done – the sea is rising fast, and there are fewer and fewer little children trying to block the leak in the dyke with a finger. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Discounting reverted edits would stop that sort of thing, though of course there are other ways to inflate our edit count. Certes (talk) 00:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Make FA and GA icons in articles more noticeable #2
I am not sure how and what to do for mobile; this is a desktop–only proposal.
The icons are already there, so we might as well push them in the limelight. However, there are varied objections to increasing the prominence and that it's misleading, so I have an easy, and hopefully working, proposal on how to counteract any concerns: when hovered over, the text should say "Underwent and passed featured article review by multiple editors X years ago" or "Underwent and passed good article review by an editor X years ago" . I think this solves every concern(except aesthetic etc) from the last discussion. This tells readers multiple things quickly: not all articles undergo the process; they are reviewed by actual humans; they are not relative grades, but subject to evaluation; it tells them how long it has been since the review happened, so they know it's not checked 24/7 + that it may be outdated; it makes note that GA-class is not as strict as FA-class. A larger focus says that quality assessment, does, in fact, exist on Wikipedia. It also says that it's not unimportant. It's more honest in multiple ways, as well: it's upfront about how this works, and will make it clear how it works. Anecdotally: as someone who used to be an average reader, this would've solved any quick questions I had about what it means, and I am not saying it just because. Change the alt text of it too. It also gets rid of the "click here" which isn't recommended as an inclusion for tooltips. I think this addresses all the concerns in the previous discussion raised by voters who opposed the change.
A/B testing seems like an OK idea if feasible.
To recap the main reasons for the proposed changes: visibility, transparency, clarity. Dege31 (talk) 23:07, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Support it's a shame that we have such good systems behind the scenes that most readers have no idea about. This will be a small step in addressing that. Femke (talk) 07:10, 24 October 2021 (UTC) PS. Not sure what AB testing would accomplish. Femke (talk) 07:11, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Some editors proposed A/B testing in the last discussion, and I am not going to actively oppose it, because I don't want to lose consensus over that, if the proposal appears again. Dege31 (talk) 11:40, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
@Dege31: could you make a before/after mock up of this for illustration (on 2 sandbox pages maybe) - many desktop user use navpopups, so would also want to see how this interacts there. For the review by an editor "X years ago" part, would "...in yyyy" (e.g. in 2017) be ok instead? I'd rather not have to have date math happening on the pages if we can avoid it. Also, "by an editor" - I don't do a lot of stuff with FA's, but isn't the review usually by a team of editors? — xaosfluxTalk 10:46, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
"any desktop user use navpopups, so would also want to see how this interacts there.
It shows up as the alt text.
"For the review by an editor "X years ago" part, would "...in yyyy" (e.g. in 2017) be ok instead?"
Yes.
"lso, "by an editor" - I don't do a lot of stuff with FA's, but isn't the review usually by a team of editors?
That's for GAs, which only have one reviewer. For FAs it would be "Underwent and passed featured article review by multiple editors in YYYY." Dege31 (talk) 11:38, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Quick comment: The Underwent and portion is superfluous. Schazjmd(talk) 16:03, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
I've explained why I think it is not superfluous, indirectly. It clarifies that articles don't automatically undergo the process, which was a concern in the last discussion. Dege31 (talk) 17:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Nothing about Underwent tells readers that all articles don't go through the process (maybe they all undergo but some fail), so it's simply added text that isn't necessary. Popups should use the fewest words necessary to accomplish their purpose. Schazjmd(talk) 17:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
What is your suggestion, then? Is it to just remove "Underwent and"? Dege31 (talk) 12:30, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
I don't see a strong reason to do this --GuerilleroParlez Moi 19:33, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
On the other hand, I don't see a strong reason to keep it as it is. I and others have given various benefits of the proposal. Noone has given any benefits of the current system– most of the objections against the new came more of as a distrust of how it is currently, rather than critiques of the proposed implementation. My proposal, I think, eliminates most objections. Can you give a strong reason to keep it as it is? It's just the way it is doesn't amount to things getting better. I don't think the proposal is enormous, yet there are multiple given benefits. So could you tell me why changing it is more negative than keeping it as it is? Dege31 (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Please save everyone the hassle of finding an example to know what this is all about. That is, post links to an FA and a GA article, and quote the pop-up text for comparison. Yes, we could find one easily enough but it's better to post an example. Johnuniq (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
The icon is in the top-right corner and the hover/alt text says "This is a good article. Click here for more information." Featured article if it's FA–class. Dege31 (talk) 12:28, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
What Dege31 undoubtedly meant to say was, "Sorry; I should have done that sooner. Here's a table with some links and my proposal."
Text appearing when one hovers over a GA or FA icon on article page (desktop)
This is a featured article. Click here for more information.
Passed featured article review by multiple editors in YYYY. Click here for more information.
although Dege13 would naturally change the contents of the table to more accurately reflect their proposal. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:45, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
I am still a bit confused about how changing the hover texts will "make [the] icons ... more noticeable", as in the section title; the texts appear only when one hovers over the icons, which one has presumably already noticed. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:50, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
As I mentioned in the initial proposal, this is an improvement on the previous proposal and also encompasses it- that being, moving the icons next to the title, like I also show in my sandbox. I've noticed that a lot of the opposition to the original proposition is actually thinking that the icons as they are already are unclear(ie, I think that the criticisms can equally apply to how it is now), and I think the change of the hover/alt-text would improve that by a noticeable margin for the least amount of effort. Dege31 (talk) 14:17, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
I am talking about "Move good/featured article topicons next to article name". I have linked it in the OP of this proposal. Dege31 (talk) 21:09, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Well, no, you didn't really, but thanks for the answer. It's clear now. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 07:18, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, I didn't get the link right. Yes, I am talking about this discussion. Dege31 (talk) 15:30, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
I'm also confused as to how this would make the icons "more noticeable", but I support the changed hover-over text (convenient for editors and more meaningful to laypeople), and oppose the removal of the link (I want readers to have their interest piqued and have a visible rabbit hole to fall down). — Bilorv (talk) 11:54, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
I don't propose removing the link. Dege31 (talk) 14:12, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
I added the click-here language back into the table. —valereee (talk) 09:47, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Except, valereee, that I believe Dege31 does not propose that. They expressly said above, Change the alt text of it too. It also gets rid of the "click here" which isn't recommended as an inclusion for tooltips.@Dege31: I would be very grateful (and you would be doing us all a favor) if you would review the table above, adjust it to precisely match your proposal, and then make a formal statement here that the table really communicates what you want to say/do. So far, I haven't had any feedback from you about the table I added. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 15:55, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
They said they don't propose removing it, though, just one post above mine. I'm confused. :D —valereee (talk) 16:10, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
The link won't disappear from the text change. Dege31 (talk) 16:33, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, this is my proposal:
Text appearing when one hovers over a GA or FA icon on article page (desktop)
This is a featured article. Click here for more information.
Passed featured article review by multiple editors in YYYY.
Preview of Wikipedia:Featured articles. Alt-text: Passed featured article review by multiple editors in YYYY.
To see how the alt-text would look like in the navpopup, see my sandbox.
As I have stated, I also propose incorporating this change with moving the icons next to the article titles, how this would look can also be seen in my sandbox.Dege31 (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, this is what I meant. I did not realise it caused so much confusion, I thought it was clear enough, sorry. Dege31 (talk) 14:12, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
@Dege31, so, based on that table, in the proposed without navpopups, there would be no "click here for more information"? So there's actually nowhere for readers to go to understand what a GA or FA is? That seems like a step backward. —valereee (talk) 18:19, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
No, the link would still stay the same as it is now; when you click on the icon, it leads you to the respective pages. I removed it because I've read that putting "Click here" in tooltips is not recommended, but it can stay. The important part of my proposed new text is telling the readers that editors do the reviews, that it's determined by a review, and when the review occurred. Dege31 (talk) 19:57, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
@Dege31, so there is something clickable in your proposed change for without navpopups? What would be clickable under the "proposed without navpopups" cells? —valereee (talk) 20:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
@Valereee There is already something clickable. Clicking on the GA icon takes you to "Good Articles", clicking on the FA icon takes you to "Featured Articles". My proposal does not remove this. Dege31 (talk) 20:47, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
@Dege31, logged out, no navpopups, when I hover over the GA symbol, I get "This is a good article. Click here for more information." What will I see under your proposal? Please add whatever that is to the table. You are saying something will be clickable. What will be clickable, and how will I know it's clickable, and what will I see when I hover, and what will I see when I click? —valereee (talk) 20:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
@Dege31, you click on what? In the former version it says "Click here for more information." which makes this clear. What is clickable in the new version? I'm so sorry to seem clueless. What are we clicking on, and how do we know it's clickable? —valereee (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
You click on the icon. I guess "Click here for more information." can be kept if it will cause confusion otherwise. Dege31 (talk) 22:04, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
As I said in the last discussion, I disagree with the premise. I personally think the good article/featured article icons have an appropriate amount of prominence in their current location, relative to the significance of the article evaluation project. isaacl (talk) 05:49, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
But they are reader–facing. That's why there's a "Click more to find out." in the hover text, leading to the featured articles and good articles pages, with explanations for readers, and indexes of the content. it's not just for the evaluators. I understand if you think readers wouldn't care, but how can we know what readers think if few of them even know? Perhaps there would be more input to article evaluation, as well. Anyway, what do you think about the proposed hover/alt text change? Dege31 (talk) 13:06, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure how being reader-facing is related to my view? It's not that readers don't care, but that the current amount of visibility is, in my view, suitable for the information being conveyed. For example, once upon a time the "edit" link for sections was right-justified. Many found it an easy place to reliably find the link, instead of looking for the end of title. I think having the icon in the same place from article to article makes it easy to find, and I think given the issues raised in the previous discussion, additional prominence is not warranted.
Text that appears when hovering is not easily accessible for those who cannot hover (screen reader users, those who have difficulty with fine-motor control, mobile device users), and so I'm not a fan of putting essential information in tooltip text. I appreciate in this case, though, it would be a non-essential enhancement for the benefit of a certain percentage of readers. isaacl (talk) 05:20, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
The topicons have alt-text, so screen readers are able to read it. Dege31 (talk) 07:44, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Dont care about size or placement.....but we should have a better symbol for FA.....can't tell how many times people say they thought it was a bookmark for the page.Moxy- 20:50, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Oppose Per last discussion. Paul August☎ 22:06, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Support I watched the previous discussion and still fail to see why this shouldn't be added - indicating our best work more clearly to readers is a great idea. Remagoxer(talk) 20:22, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
Support Anything to elevate the status of our best work is helping the encyclopedia, imho. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 15:13, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Allow file uploads by URL
On Commons you can upload files found online by just entering its URL, see c:Special:Upload and c:Commons:Upload tools#Upload by URL. This is good because then you don't have to download the file locally and take up memory. I couldn't find any recent request for this but if there was one, I am sorry.
I personally would want this because I often upload logos of sports teams and such, and if I then just could upload them by their URL I wouldn't have to download them locally.
Enable Article / Talk tab bar for mobile anon users
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a clear consensus that the proposal to enable the article/talk tab bar for mobile anonymous users should be implemented. (non-admin closure) — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2021 (UTC) Note:phab:T293946 has been opened for this. — xaosfluxTalk 23:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
If you visit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa while logged in, you'll see the "ArticleTalk" tab bar. ("minerva__tab-container" element) But if you're logged out, this tab bar goes missing and there's no way to access the talk page unless you manually alter the URL. This turns out to be by design and now consensus is required for a configuration change to ensure that anyone who can edit can also reach talk pages. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:29, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Support as proposer. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:29, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Support, Obviously. Sometimes I really do question if the WMF understands the site that they run, this is supposed to be a collaborative encyclopaedia building site - how on earth is collaboration supposed to occur when you hide the main methods of communicating from the vast majority of users? The requirement for consensus seems to be backward here - removing the ability for anonns to communicate on mobile should have required community engagement, restoring longstanding functionality should be the default. The rationale for removing talk page access for all mobile annons seems to be a combination of "mobile IP users are obviously too stupid to understand the concept of a talk page and would just fill them up with nonsense and spam" (I'd like to see the data that supports this, according to the phabricator task this is based on them putting a talk page link in a rarely visited settings page and being surprised that people didn't understand what it did???) and that the mobile talk pages are too buggy to be publicly available (In which case they need fixing, not hiding.). I just can't see the sense in having a huge body of users who are allowed to edit the site but are barred from discussing their editing - it just seems dumb. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 12:42, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
For background, talk pages were never removed, rather they were added. The mobile site was built from the ground up. In fact, we didn't have editing for a long time as it was communicated to WMF by editors that notifications were mandatory before we could do that. We added notifications, then editing. Talk page access was only added in current form circa 2019 because communities spoke up and helped drive that priority.
Building the mobile site has always been based on priorities, so nobody in WMF has ever removed this functionality as you are alleging here. Please assume good faith. Our software is extremely complex with very few maintainers. Jdlrobson (talk) 19:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
?@Jdlrobson: - any reason someone is going to try to block setting $wgMinervaTalkAtTop = [ "base" => true ]; if the enwiki community asks for it? — xaosfluxTalk 15:49, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm a bit torn here, in that I only partially agree that this is supposed to be a collaborative encyclopaedia building site. The primary purpose of this site is to be an encyclopedia serving our readers. Obviously, to have an encyclopedia, you need to write an encyclopedia, but the writing is not the primary purpose. It's just a means to the end. Screen real estate on a mobile device is precious, and wasting pixels on a feature that's mainly of benefit to writers degrades the experience of our readers. -- RoySmith(talk) 16:41, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
RoySmith, that's a valid argument, but you can't have it both ways. Either mobile anon users can edit (which they currently can) and they need to be able to reach talk pages. Or you remove their edit button (that saves even more pixels) so they won't have a pressing need for talk pages anymore, but that's a difficult topic. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 17:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I'd be happy to see all anonymous editing go away. Want to edit? Make an account and the editing buttons and links become visible. IMHO, the amount of effort we put into making anonymous editing work isn't justified by the value it adds. For example, the whole "IP Masking" effort that's currently underway. -- RoySmith(talk) 17:41, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
RoySmith, I don't oppose, but unless/until we manage to establish a consensus to end IP-editing (this recent effort went nowhere) we have to deal with it. So that's what I'm trying to do. As long as they have an edit button, they should have a talk page link. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:04, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith and Alexis Jazz: I don't think we should make the fork for showing editing features logged in vs. not. We want users to log in even if they never plan to edit so that if they do decide later on to fix a typo it'll be a smoother journey from there down the editing rabbit hole. But if their first reaction when they create an account is "ack, this just introduced all these ugly buttons I don't want", they'll never stay logged in. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 07:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
We should block all edits from all platforms that do not have full access. —Kusma (talk) 16:50, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Support per nom with my thanks for stewarding this issue. Not giving mobile IP editors access to talk pages is just stupid, I have no other words for it. WP:Communication is required. Levivich 06:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Support Paid employees have missed the boat here. An IP user edits, is constantly reverted, but doesn't see explanations on their talk page. Effectively a campaign to frustrate and drive away IP editors, while further stigmatizing IP users to the community.—Bagumba (talk) 11:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
This is now a forked discussion, can I suggest redirecting this back to the WP:VPP section, as that is also diverging into something separate from what the section author originally wrote. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:34, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
This is a specific request for the mobile platform software, the other is a high-level policy proposal.—Bagumba (talk) 14:23, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Bagumba: this is a specific proposal for a skin and should be allowed to reach its own conclusion. The other discussion is a broader one covering all clients. Regardless of its outcome, the skin can be changed as per community consensus. isaacl (talk) 15:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@RoySmith: oppose early closure. This is a specific proposal to do a specific actionable thing. The thing is boolean as well so it is very easy to determine the result. That VPP discussion is extremely broad and vague. — xaosfluxTalk 15:49, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
No problem, I've backed out my close. -- RoySmith(talk) 16:54, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Support If a given setup supports editing, it should support talk pages. WP:ENGAGE. MarioGom (talk) 16:59, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Question I agree that giving everyone (including logged-out folks) access to the talk page is a good idea. However screen space is indeed limited on mobile, as RoySmith mentioned, and we know from our data that most logged-out people are not visiting Wikipedia with the intention of editing. They want to read articles, and the Article Talk tabs push the article down the page a bit, so does that design align with what they want? Additionally I wonder if the "Talk" tab, as it is currently presented to logged-in folks, might be confusing logged-out folks and newcomers in general (i.e. what does "Talk" mean? what will happen if I tap on it?)? Which brings me to these mockups made a few years ago by User:Npangarkar_(WMF), of an expanded article footer that has additional tools and information (including a link to the talk page). I feel like the inclusion of an icon, and the more descriptive title ("Discuss" vs. "Talk") make it easier for newcomers to understand what they might find if they tap on it. It could be even more helpful if the button/link included the number of discussions (something like "2 active discussions"), which was an idea explored in Winter. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@AHollender (WMF): The note about screen real estate makes sense, but nobody really scrolls to the bottom either. There is a pencil icon on each section to edit it. Editing and discussion workflows should ideally go hand in hand, so if it's prominent and easy to edit there needs to be a complimentary method of discussion. Perhaps a button on the warning message that shows up when you click "Edit" is one way forward. For logged in users, the 'advanced mobile' mode (which shows the talk button) should perhaps be default, since most logged-in people do probably edit (?) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
That's a good point about wanting the workflows to go hand in hand, ProcReader. Maybe we want some more mockups of what that could look like.
AHollender, regarding "discuss" vs. "talk", I believe the desktop tab used to say "discuss" instead. I'm not sure why it was changed, but that's probably a discussion to seek out. The biggest issue I tend to see is WP:NOTFORUM—it's not always intuitive that the discussion page is for discussing improvements to the article, not a general comment thread for discussion about the topic. We designed {{Talk header}} to help explain this, but the mobile developers got fed up with the banner bloat on talk pages and just shoved them into an "about this page" submenu no newcomer will ever click on, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 20:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
A common trap is for people to do mobile mockups in English, then be surprised when the German version is a mess because "Diskussion", "Quelltext bearbeiten" and "Versionsgeschichte" don't fit into the space allotted for "Talk", Edit", and "History". -- RoySmith(talk) 21:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
It traditionally was Talk, then globally it was changed to "discussion" and then en.wp freaked out because "discussion" was too long (taking up more space in their monobook skin) and different from "talk" and they feared that "discussion" would invite discussions on the topic instead of the article, so en.wp changed it back to talk. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:17, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Back then definitely. And the bar is all filled up with additional portlet actions for administrative actions as well, because dropdown menus are BAD :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:26, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I do. I try Vector once per year, but never enjoy it. Too much whitespace and all my buttons are hidden somewhere. —Kusma (talk) 10:36, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I absolutely do. Tried Vector for a while, but never could get used to it. Too much clutter. Monobook is clean and simple, and that's exactly what I want in an interface. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 05:56, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Qualified support. This is a classic example of systemic bias toward editor desires over WP:READER desires. I agree with everyone that it's essential to have some way to access talk pages from every editable page, but I agree with RoySmith and AHollender (WMF) that we don't want to give it inappropriate emphasis. The mockup of what it could look like from the bottom of the page looks quite nice, although I'd want to see some more discussion around what we'd want to go in the edit overview section or whether we should just keep the current "last edited by JimboWales" bar. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 20:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Readers also use the talk page. An IP's angry post at Talk:F-777 prompted me to fix a redirect we didn't know was broken. — Wug·a·po·des 22:15, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Support, and (probably deserves its own section) switch from text labels on tabs, to icons with tooltips (ha-ha, the mobile folks won't see the tips). RoySmith's comment about the length of terms like Quelltext bearbeiten raises a good point, but the solution is to follow the example of European road signs and come up with good icons for 'Read', 'Edit', 'History', and so on, and relegate text equivalents to second place. I can visualize one for 'Talk' involving two little talking heads facing each other. It's well established[citation needed] that people process images faster than text, and it would also be a god-send for those of us who occasionally wander off to other language Wikipedias in languages we can't read, and just want to check history, or find a related discussion or compose a diff or something. Mathglot (talk) 22:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Icons works well in addition to text, but on their own are known to sometimes increase confusion, esp the more there are and the more esoteric they become to try to convey the many meanings that have to be conveyed. Especially on mobile, where you have no hover labels etc this actually reduces discovery. Anyways, mobile already uses a lot more icons than desktop does. The Advanced mode for editors on mobile, currently has language, a watch star, a clock winding back, a pencil and a dropdown menu.... and I think most people on first glance have no idea what any of them do...... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Support. However, as other editors have suggested, it might be better to find an alternative to the [Article | Talk] tabs to save some screen real estate. There's a lot of blank space between the language icon and the edit icon. Maybe slip in a Talk page icon in that row? Alternatively, the proposed Tools section at the end of the page looks great. - Wikmoz (talk) 04:56, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Actually, it looks like the problem was already solved in the Wikipedia app. At the bottom of each article, there is an ABOUT THIS ARTICLE section with links to View talk page and View edit history. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:16, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Support as at least a start. Mobile or not, we should always make the channels of communication clear and easy to find, and treat every reader as a potential editor. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 06:56, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Support. It doesn't make sense that a group that is allowed to edit cannot even view talkpages and edit-histories. Why not make pressing the existing "edit" button on the mobile site open up a sub-menu with the options "Edit article", "Go to talk page", and "View history"? I think it's unlikely that anyone technically inclined enough to edit a page would be confused by this additional step. Rabbitflyer (talk) 22:19, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Strong support - Talk pages are the backbone of Wikipedia. It would help me tremendously with my work on Wikipedia in mobile. If we did it in the userspace, we should do it to others as well. Interstellarity (talk) 16:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Somewhat support to turn on now using whatever method is easiest (e.g. $wgMinervaTalkAtTop = [ "base" => true ];), then afterward engage in design discussions, such as whether it should be in the top bar or at the bottom. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 08:58, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Concern: encouraging more people to publish their IP address. (But honestly if this is a blocker then we should also disable IP editing until the masking question is resolved. This might be a topic for the VPP fork instead of here.)
Question: is there a similar switch to show it at the bottom, how it was in pre-AMC, logged-in Minerva? ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 08:58, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment: An article Talk page is of value to readers, even if they never post. It allows them to see that there have been discussions or arguments about contentious issues. Sometimes the discussion counts towards an article's credibility or otherwise. Like History, it sends the message that Wikimedia is crowdsourced, and not created by paid writers. Many readers on mobile mayn't care about references either, but we make sure they can access them. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 09:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Support per nom. Huggums537 (talk) 19:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Very Strong Support I don't understand why this is by design. Does the WMF not want anonymous users to engage in discussions on the talk page if they use mobile? That just seems like they are purposely making it easier for mobile IP editors to get banned because they have no way to try and gain consensus for an edit they made. ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#0001 19:14, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Support. I use Mobile Wikipedia and it would be really convenient fo others to see talk page discussions when not at home. It might also help them learn something, which is a pretty big deal. Plutonical (talk) 14:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Support. I'm not an editor, but I love reading wikipedia and especially the talk pages, because they give a really unique view into how the site works. Sometimes, the processes that go into making something are much more fascinating than the end result. Not being able to easily access the talk pages on mobile is super annoying. 132.241.174.111 (talk) 20:10, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
With this in mind, can you please review – what I currently understand to be – the issues you all have raised here and let us know what issues you think are missing from this list and/or what about this list needs to be edited?
For added context: I'm asking the above because it's important to me that our team accurately and exhaustively understand the issues y'all are raising here, so that we can make sure the issues we prioritize working on in the next few months are the issues that will be the most impactful to address.
Issues
Meta
Talking is a core part of editing and there is a large segment of people who can edit and not talk. As 192.76.8.74[1], @Alexis Jazz[2], @RoySmith[3], @MarioGom[4], @ProcrastinatingReader[5] , and others in previous conversations have articulated[6][7][8][9][10]: collaborating is an important part of writing an encyclopedia. In order to collaborate, you need to be able to talk to people. Currently, there is a large segment of people (anons editing on mobile), who are: A) able to edit and B) not able to collaborate, by way of them not having access to talk pages.
The above, "...wastes time and energy for editors to post explanations/guidance/warnings for contributors who cannot respond" @Johnuniq[11]
It also helps contextualize why anons editing on mobile not having access to talk pages is problematic.
It's disconcerting to learn that we – volunteers and WMF staff – do not seem to share a core assumption/understanding that people who can edit, must also need to be able to talk.
Talk page design
People do not intuitively recognize discussion pages as places to talk about improvements to articles.[12]
People accessing talk pages on mobile lack access to important context about the conventions that guide how these pages can be used constructively.E.g. Talk page banners/templates are difficult to discover and edit notices are absent.[13].
Additional context
Considering there are three teams within the Foundation working on improvements to talk pages, I thought it would be worth making sure you all were aware of the work that is being planned and done to improve volunteers' ability to communicate with one another.
A series of improvements intended to help iOS participants to know when they have a new notification without them having to check Wikipedia’s website or check pages in the app, so that they can take timely action on their notifications.
*You can experiment with the Reply and New Discussion Tools right on desktop, by enabling the DiscussionTools beta feature in Special:Preferences.
I inserted a subheading to make this more easy to respond to. A quick additional point is that there needs to be a way of alerting users of mobile devices that is different from the normal semi-spam that occurs with nearly all apps competing for user attention. I have seen phones where a dozen apps have badges showing notifications—the owner ignores them as background noise. For Wikipedia use, when a user opens their browser or app, and if there are outstanding talk-page messages, there must be something like the orange-bar-of-death that more or less compels the user to respond. The suggestion that real-estate on a phone is important completely misses the point that the first thing the user should do is at least view their talk. That raises another tricky point. By convention, we bottom-post, but on a phone that might require a bunch of scrolling. I'm not sure what to do about that but ideally the current sections would be shown. Johnuniq (talk) 00:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
I inserted a subheading to make this more easy to respond to.
Oh, wonderful! Thank you for doing that @Johnuniq.
As for the additional issue you are raising, I'm glad you drew out this nuance. You can expect a response from me about this point next week. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
there needs to be a way of alerting users of mobile devices that is different from the normal semi-spam that occurs with nearly all apps competing for user attention.
@Johnuniq: would it be accurate for me to understand the issue that's prompted you to share the above as: "Anonymous editors do not respond to the messages others leave for them on their talk pages."
Note: I appreciate the language I proposed above does not include the solution/requirement you proposed. I've done this intentionally so as to ensure I'm accurately understanding the underlying issue any solution(s) would need to address.
By convention, we bottom-post, but on a phone that might require a bunch of scrolling.
This is a great callout and something we will need to consider as part of the work we have planned to help people identify new talk page activity. I've documented – what I understand to be – the question inside of what you are saying on Phabricator: "How might bottom-posting impact the likelihood that people accessing talk pages, particularly on mobile, will see the new messages others have left for them?". PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 01:47, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF): It's not quite right to sum up the issue that's prompted me in the terms above. First, some IP editors are experienced and do respond to talk page messages (so "do not respond" is over generalized). Second, that wording makes it sound as if the anonymous editor might have made a choice to not respond whereas my original concern was for the many edits made by mobile IPs and accounts where the UI does not show them that they have a talk message, and/or does not rub it in their face that the message might be something they "must" see as opposed to the normal spam from many social media platforms, and/or does not provide a simple way to respond. Finally, I am one of many editors who occasionally write detailed explanations for new users and it is destructive for editors like me to later learn that the recipient probably never even knew about my explanation. My point is that the UI is damaging the collaborative community because people like me now think that all IPs/accounts using inoperative software should be banned. Regarding "simple way to respond": I think there should be an orange bar with suitable wording that is hard to avoid. Clicking that bar would take them to the first section on their talk with the most recent date. I understand enough about code to know that would be difficult, but something much better is needed. Perhaps force all new contributors (with a cookie?) to follow a quick tutorial. That might be mandatory if any of their edits have been reverted. Thanks for taking the time to engage here. Johnuniq (talk) 05:11, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@Johnuniq, I appreciate you teasing out the nuance that had been missing from describing the issue(s) as, "Anonymous editors do not respond to the messages others leave for them on their talk pages."
Combining the above, with the language @TheDJ offered , I've taken another pass at articulating the issues you referred to in the comment you posted on 00:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC).
@Johnuniq+ @TheDJ: are y'all able to review the language below and let me know if you think there are ways it could be changed to more accurately/exhaustively capture the collection of communication issues that impact people editing anonymously on mobile?
Revised problem statements
"People editing anonymously on mobile devices do not realize when other volunteers are trying to communicate with them. If by chance these anonymous volunteers do realize that others are trying to communicate with them, they have a hard time responding."PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:26, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF): My suggestion is "Editors using mobile devices may not realize that important messages have been left for them. If they do see the messages, they may not know how they can respond." Of course some messages may not be important, but if there is a problem, the messages might be vital. I think problems can also occur for registered accounts so I omitted "anonymous". I don't use devices to edit so I'm not sure, but I have heard that it can be hard to see what they would have to do to respond ("where do I tap?"). Johnuniq (talk) 02:24, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
I've never been convinced that most IPs read the messages on their talk pages, even on desktop. I've filed phab:T291297 to request that someone figure out whether there's much point to posting those messages in the first place (in terms of whether the IP reads the message; other experienced editors/admins might benefit from seeing that concerns are recurrent). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
"Anonymous editors do not respond to the messages others leave for them on their talk pages." I'd say "Anonymous users do not realize that there are messages/that others are trying to tell them something, and if by chance they do realize, they have a hard time responding to those messages/notifications" —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:43, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I assume we're talking about talk pages only here? If so, I think this question is broken down into two parts. The first is deficiencies compared to the desktop editing experience. However, deficiencies compared to desktop is not the full list of problems with mobile talk pages or things that should be done differently on mobile, but I would have to think harder on that part to produce a list. One example: if you see a protected page and want to edit it, the workflow on enwiki is via a talk page edit request. It's a pretty poor UI esp on mobile (you can explore it by going to Donald Trump in incognito on your phone and trying to edit). Some of this falls on the community but there's not really a much better workflow possible without software changes. IIRC(?) not too long ago the "View source" button wasn't shown at all so it wasn't clear how to request a change, so I guess the situation is improving...
Although I suspect 'solutions' is separate to 'issues' I would like to take the opportunity to note, in regards to 2.2 (talk page banners), that I have some feelings on the usefulness of the banners on many talk pages. They're a mess, like look at this. It wouldn't be reasonable to show it all to mobile users, and very often there is nothing useful in them IMO (but I suspect I may be a minority view there). Conversely, see here for a useful non-generic banner and toggle "read as wiki page" on and off to see it. It's a hack used to make the message visible on mobile but apparently still only displays when you "read as wiki page"; I don't know why that feature even exists? If a solution to the talk banner issue can't be figured out, showing editnotices (somehow) would be a feasible solution. A talk page editnotice should only be placed when there's something substantive to say about that particular article. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:02, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
The problem with not showing banners to mobile users is that we expect all users who use the talk page to have read them. It is not reasonable to expect Desktop users to be aware which banners are visible to other editors and which are not. —Kusma (talk) 19:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
But I agree that we have far too many banners (and many of them are useless). The whole Wikiproject and assessment stuff really should be in a "meta" area, not taking up space on a discussion page. —Kusma (talk) 19:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader – I appreciate you sharing these thoughts. Comments and questions in response to the points you raised are below...
I assume we're talking about talk pages only here?
Yep, exactly.
if you see a protected page and want to edit it, the workflow on enwiki is via a talk page edit request. It's a pretty poor UI esp on mobile...
To confirm: are you referring to how people wanting to edit a protected page on mobile need to submit an edit request by way of starting a conversation on said page's talk page and that workflow not being straightforward? [i]
...the usefulness of the banners on many talk pages. They're a mess, like look at this. It wouldn't be reasonable to show it all to mobile users, and very often there is nothing useful in them IMO...Conversely, see here for a useful non-generic banner and toggle "read as wiki page" on and off to see it.
I've tried to put what you described into my "own words" to ensure I'm understanding this as you intended it. Can you please let me know if there is anything you would change in order for it to better reflect what you are communicating?
Peter's "own words": "Volunteers need to be able to display information to people, across devices, in ways that will enhance their understanding of: A) The subject page they are likely reading about and/or B) What to consider before participating on the talk page."
Also, these examples are great. Particularly the Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory example. Thank you for sharing them; it's clarifying to be able to see what you are imagining in your mind.
---
i.The workflow for submitting an edit request as an anon volunteer on mobile, by my count, requires ~7 less-than-intuitive steps: 1) Click edit pencil, 2) Click the View source link that temporarily appears at the bottom of the page, 3) Scroll the page, 4) Locate and click the Submit an edit request button, 5) Scroll to the bottom of the talk page's source, 6) Draft a message, and 7) Post said message. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:20, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF): I find the "new section" interface is pretty intuitive for new users. If that link could be more easily accessible, not just the talk page link, I think it would be more useful. I tend to use the &preloadtitle=Foo so that the subject line is filled with some default text, and I've found this useful for action links like leaving me messages about user scripts or questions about things from other projects. — Wug·a·po·des 17:53, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
@Wugapodes: you sharing the experience you've had with, what we've been calling, the New Discussion Tool is helpful to know, especially as we approach offering as an on-by-default feature at the first set of Wikipedias in the coming weeks (see: phab:T271964).
If that link could be more easily accessible, not just the talk page link, I think it would be more useful.
Agreed...can you say a bit more here? What about its current location, how it appears, etc. do you think detracts from it's usefulness? Also: have you seen gadgets here, or on other wikis, that you think are effective at addressing the issue(s) that prompted you to share this feedback? For context: you sharing this is timely as well because we will soon be thinking about ways to make the affordance for starting new discussions easier for people to identify and access, regardless of where they are on a given page.
I tend to use the &preloadtitle=Foo so that the subject line is filled with some default text, and I've found this useful for action links like leaving me messages about user scripts or questions about things from other projects.
Interesting! Are you able to share a link to a diff and/or page where I can see what you're describing "in action"? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 03:40, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF): You can see an example at User:Wugapodes/Capricorn#Feedback and bugs. The feedback link is created using the fullurl parser function which also allows you to specify the url query. So for that link, I have it add action=edit§ion=new to the url which opens the new section interface as well as preloadtitle=... which fills the subject line with the currentuser parser function so that the title is unique and I know who sent it regardless of whether they remember to sign. The full code for that link is {{fullurl:User_talk:Wugapodes|action=edit§ion=new&preloadtitle=Message%20regarding%20Capricorn%20from%20%7B%7Bsubst%3Acurrentuser%7D%7D}} At Wikipedia:20th anniversary we did something very similar for the "Say happy birthday" button. I set that button up so that it opened a specific section on the talk page that we made for the purpose, and it used &summary=Wishing Wikipedia a happy birthday to prefill the edit summary for readers.W/r/t the link placement, full disclosure, I use responsive monobook on my mobile so take my feedback with a grain of salt. At least as I've seen, the links on articles tend to just be to the talk page which for lots of readers doesn't mean much. Getting from article to talk post is a couple extra clicks in my experience. If the link were "ask a question" or "suggest an improvement" instead of (or in addition to) a talk page link, I think it would encourage more use of talk and depending on the phrasing make the posts more useful. — Wug·a·po·des 07:08, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I have it add action=edit§ion=new to the url which opens the new section interface as well as preloadtitle=... which fills the subject line with the currentuser parser function so that the title is unique and I know who sent it regardless of whether they remember to sign.
@Wugapodes the above is the precisely the kind of detail I was seeking...thank you for sharing it. I think the workflow you are describing will be compatible with the approach we are taking for offering preload support within the New Discussion Tool. Although, would you be open to reading the "Requirements" section of this ticket and letting us know whether you think there is anything problematic about and/or missing from what's currently written? cc @Matma Rex
If the link were "ask a question" or "suggest an improvement" instead of (or in addition to) a talk page link, I think it would encourage more use of talk and depending on the phrasing make the posts more useful.
Thanks for that info, PPelberg. At a glance, the issues summary you put together looks good and seems to capture the main points. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 03:29, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
At a glance, the issues summary you put together looks good and seems to capture the main points.
Oh good. This is helpful to know...I appreciate you stopping back by to say as much, @Sdkb. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 03:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment. The same IP editrix's address my change frequently, Thus a message to an IP editor may not reach her, however blatant it is or experienced she. 94.21.184.149 (talk) 13:45, 9 October 2021 (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.
Next steps for enabling talk links for mobile anon users
Hey all, I’m Olga, the product manager for the Web team at the WMF who will be taking on the implementation of the decision to give anonymous mobile users access to the talk page. We are tracking the technical details and implementation in this task in Phabricator, but we also wanted to post here again to make sure everyone who was part of the initial conversation can continue to follow along and help us come to the best outcome together for the readers and editors. Although the change is simple from a technical point of view, we’ve been thinking about some of the impacts it could have, and wanted to take a little time to plan things out together. Here’s what we’re thinking could be the right next steps.
Next steps
Identify the impacts that we – staff and volunteers – do and do not want this change to have. What would make it successful? What would make it unsuccessful? This way, we’ll be able to look back and check if the implementation is a net positive for the wikis. People brought up a few ideas in the original VP conversation: we might like to check how the change affects talk pages (Do we see an increase in reverts? An increase in productive posts?), or whether it affects reading behavior (Are readers not scrolling as far down the page?).
Decide on the design for how this change will initially be implemented. A few different implementations were suggested in the original conversation including adding tabs at the top of the page, adding a talk link or button to the bottom of the page, or adding the icons to the user toolbar. From our side, we think that starting with the link at the bottom of the page would help us learn a bit about impact. What does everyone think of this idea?
Implement the change and track the impacts.
How does the above sound? Which kinds of impact do you think we should be keeping an eye on as we make a change? Which design change do you think we should start with? We will also continue discussing these and more technical aspects of the change in Phabricator, but @MMiller (WMF):, @PPelberg (WMF):, and I will be monitoring and engaging on this page as well. Feel free to post wherever you feel comfortable. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
@OVasileva (WMF) thank you for the ping. I'm of mixed mind on this. On the one hand, if we're going to have IP editing, then it's critical that we have the ability to communicate with them. On the other hand, I don't think we should have IP editing. -- RoySmith(talk) 00:18, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
In general, the discussion above seems to support that this capability is wanted by the community; in also reading the phab task - I don't think we are married to needing the link at the top of the page, and perhaps the bottom would suffice. However, I don't think it would be a good idea for this to be variable across language editions of the projects - so the team should pick a spot and enable it. — xaosfluxTalk 01:44, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Dumping the link at the bottom was proposed by AHollender (WMF), that idea had one vague support (?) from Pelagic and one clear oppose from ProcrastinatingReader. I agree with Xaosflux that we are not married to wgMinervaTalkAtTop specifically but the essence is that mobile anons should not be treated different from any other editor and that links for editing and talk should have equal visibility and ideally be next to each other. I gave you a free mockup and there are others floating around as well (the idea for a context menu with talk+edit+history is also fair) but whatever you do, such a change should apply to all users. There is some underlying sentiment of not wanting anons to be editors at all (which would largely alleviate the need for a talk page link) as voiced by RoySmith and while I support that as well, that's a much bigger change which requires a different proposal. Important: note that phab:T293946#7451494 is subtly different from Olga's post above. The plan from the WMF is to do some to-be-identified data gathering first which may take any amount of to-be-determined time. Within two weeks after that they will ignore the community's wishes and dump the talk link at the bottom where nobody will see it. If the revert rates after this are not unreasonable (TBD) however and with an ETA of 4-5 months the WMF will honor our wishes "continue with identifying potential user testing scenarios for readers". Olga, this is a farce. Feel free to study whatever you want (get clearance from Legal regarding GDPR etc), rub our noses in the results and propose another change. But just bloody enable wgMinervaTalkAtTop now. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 05:23, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Unreverted IP edits to article pages where there is previously an unreverted edit by the same IP editor on the article's talk page, indicating they have (tried to) engage in discussion prior to making the edit
Unreverted IP edits to article pages where there is previously a reverted edit by the same IP editor within a certain timeframe, indicating they corrected the reason for the revert rather than repeatedly attempting to force through the same edit
Unreverted IP edits to article talk pages where there is a more recent unreverted, non-bot, non-minor edit by another contributor, possibly indicating someone has engaged in constructive discussion with the IP (although the more recent edit may be in a separate section, or a kind attempt at responding to pure gibberish, like how the WP:Teahouse hosts are apt to do)
IP edits to their own user talk page that are not just simply removing material, indicating they have found their talk page and are trying to engage with it
Unreverted IP edits to the user talk pages of other editors, where those editors have previously posted to that IP's talk page, indicating the IP editor is making contact with the people who have been trying to talk to them
Accounts registered after the talk link is exposed, where the account's first edit is to the Talk namespace, possibly indicating a converted IP editor who found the talk pages and considered them useful
WP:ANEW reports of IP editors breaching 3RR (this should decrease)
IP editors blocked for edit warring (this should decrease)
Entries in the block log containing the text "WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU" or "communication is required" (this should dramatically decrease)
I don't believe looking at the metric "reverted talk page posts" is going to be helpful by itself. If the ratio of reverted to unreverted talk page edits by IP editors becomes much higher than the ratio of reverted to unreverted article page edits by IP editors, it may be an indication that they're misunderstanding what talk pages are for, but an increase in the base rate of reverted talk page edits is to be expected and not an indication of failure.
Please don't shove the talk link to the bottom of the page. We don't need people to have to hunt for it. Sending love. Folly Mox (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Entries in the block log containing the text "WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU" or "communication is required" (this should dramatically decrease)
@Folly Mox what you are describing above sounds like a novel way of evaluating how the various improvements we are making to mobile talk pages are impacting peoples' ability to communicate with anonymous volunteers...are you able to share a link to where we might be able to see a list of blocks containing the text "WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU" or "communication is required"?
I don't know what Folly Mox had in mind but I would not expect many "communication is required" or similar in block logs. People are blocked because there is an underlying problem and the lack of communication means what might have been a simple disagreement or misunderstanding cannot be resolved in any other way. Searching for "communication is required" (with quotes) in user talk shows many hits. Here is an example where I used {{uw-ablock}} and added "communication is required" in a comment: User talk:188.149.107.101#ANI notice. Johnuniq (talk) 22:32, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Searching for "communication is required" (with quotes) in user talk shows many hits.
Oh, doing the above is indeed helpful; this is the first time I've seen results like these...thank you for sharing, @Johnuniq! PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
To my mind, "Communication is required" is aimed at editors who could communicate but don't. I'd almost exempt mobile users, as it would be Kafkaesque to both require and prevent communication. Certes (talk) 22:55, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't quite understand the need for more information gathering before implementation. We made this change on the Swedish wiki (I believe it's enabling wgMinervaTalkAtTop?). Here is what it looks like (the "Diskussion" tab) -- it looks fine to me, at the top, like normal. Why can't we just do this also for enwiki now? Levivich 03:40, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
I, too, am somewhat bewildered by the reticence on the issue. What would make it successful? Just doing it! What would make it unsuccessful? Waiting even longer! Please don't hide the link at the bottom. We want (need) to be able to communicate with these users; let's not continue to make it hard. The "talk" link should be up at the top, next to the "Article" link, just as it is for logged-in users already, just as it is for anon mobile users of Swedish WP (per Levivich above). There's no more reason to be concerned about confusion for anon users when they see a "Talk" tab then we should be concerned about logged in users' confusion. And Alexis Jazz had a mocked-up notice explaining how the talk page isn't some chat room. And the comments from Alexis Jazz above are snarky and bitter, and I can really empathize with them. Please don't artificially delay this further; it's bad enough we'll have to wait another 6 months before we see any implementation. Metrics should certainly include the number of reverts, reverts per anon user, and blocks per anon IP, and maybe some sort of percentage of presumed productive posts from IPs. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 15:10, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Hey all -- thank you for engaging here and thanks @Folly Mox and JohnFromPinckney: for the lists of suggested metrics. In reading through the comments here and on Phabricator, we can see that it’s important to volunteers that we take action on this issue expediently, and we’ll be focusing on this conversation and the resulting actions this week.
We can see that several people are saying that including a talk link on the bottom of the page would not give anonymous editors sufficient visibility to article talk pages, and that the desire is to add the tab at the top of the article. Since that’s a change that would be seen by very large numbers of article readers, we want to be deliberate and think through any potential consequences, and how we could detect them. Then after deploying, we can look together at the results to think about whether there is a more optimal solution for making sure that all users have clear access to talk pages.
Given that, would it be okay if we comment again here on Tuesday/Wednesday after talking with the team about the implementation and measurement plan? OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Thank you! I can only speak for myself but I'm looking forward to it. Levivich 23:43, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
@OVasileva (WMF): That's okay (this Tuesday/Wednesday I assume, so tomorrow or the day after). Swedish Wikipedia already did this and isn't currently on fire afaik. So there's no reason to expect disaster, and even if disaster struck this change could be rolled back. We wouldn't even blame you for rolling it back without consensus if a disaster is clearly unfolding, in case of disaster you can rely on WP:IAR. I suspect other wikis will follow in the future, so you'll probably have more chances to gather data. But if this really mattered to you, why didn't you act when Swedish Wikipedia did this? Why didn't you prepare while this proposal was ongoing? Both Jdlrobson and AHollender (WMF) knew about this so if the team as a whole was unaware, that's a communication problem on your end. I look forward to your follow-up, but be aware that anything like the mentioned 4-5 months would be wholly unacceptable. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:19, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
Hey all, thanks for your patience - just wanted to leave a note here that we've discussed with the team and reviewed the metrics and timeline. I'll write up our notes and have a reply here tomorrow morning UTC+2. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
As has already been said above, just do it. If unforeseen problems happen from that, then undo it, and let the opponents of undoing complain if their complaint is valid. Too much time is taken up with such discussion of beneficial changes. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:26, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Hi everyone, thank you for your patience and your continued engagement here. As promised, we have an update on the metrics we think would be crucial to track over the course of the change as well as a timeline for implementation.
The team plans to deploy the change within the next two weeks. We want to recognize that the decision to make this change is important, and that it was made with a lot of careful thought, time, and deliberation from you all. We want to make sure that the implementation is equally thoughtful and sets us up for success. Our mobile site is the most visited version of Wikipedia. Once deployed, this change will likely be viewed over 100 million times per day. Because the top of the article can impact a reader’s experience of the site, changes to it can propagate in ways that are sometimes unpredictable. This is why we’re being extra intentional around making and measuring the impact of this change.
Measuring the impact of the change
First, I’d like to share a list of the impacts we want to monitor as we make this change. This will allow us to flag whether the change has the impact we are expecting it to, or whether there are causes for concern.
Will this change increase the amount of vandalism and irrelevant content on talk pages? (potentially by measuring changes in revert rates of anonymous mobile edits on article talk pages)
Will exposing readers to talk pages confuse them or otherwise make their Wikipedia reading experience more difficult? (potentially by surveying a sample of anonymous users on talk pages and asking them about their experience)
Will this change improve the communication between anonymous and logged-in editors so that anonymous editors make better contributions? (potentially by measuring changes in revert rates of anonymous mobile edits to articles)
Will readers understand the purpose of the talk page (potentially by measuring the average time readers spend on a talk page. Note: we do not currently have the ability to measure this and will continue brainstorming on what the best way to do this would be)
Does this list sound reasonable? Should we add anything to it? (@Folly Mox: -- thank you for your detailed measurement ideas. We’re going to think about how we might incorporate them after deploying the change). Our plan would be to monitor these metrics after the deployment. Any substantial changes would allow us to begin a discussion together on whether we should iterate the design, revert the deployment, or stick with the deployment as-is. We’re not quite sure yet how big of change we would consider to be substantial and are welcome to hear your thoughts on this. Does that sound like a good plan?
Timeline
Over the course of next week, we would make sure the code change is ready to go and make sure we’re ready to quickly look at the right data after deployment. Then at the beginning of the following week, we would deploy the change, giving us time during the rest of that week to alter or fix if needed.
While it’s not as fast as just making the change immediately, we hope this plan sounds both expedient and prudent, and helps us all learn. Please let us know if this sounds like it will work well! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 09:07, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Olga. Two weeks is much better than 4 to 5 months! I sense that you're worried about seriously breaking something, but frankly, the inability of mobile IPs to communicate (or know they're supposed to communicate, and how) is already a sign of serious brokenicity. So, I think we'd have to scare an awful lot of people away with the slight change of up-display UI to outweigh the benefit of being able to collaborate on our collaborative project.Regarding the metrics, I have no concerns with Items 1 to 3 (Item 4, on any site on any platform, always makes me itchy). I only hope you will give the changes time to have their effect. Whenever IMDb changes anything, the howls are ferocious for the first few weeks, and I'm sure they lose visitors each time, but I expect some of them eventually return, and other first-timers are pleased with their user experience and are (more) inclined to stay.I don't know how important this is to you or anybody else, but I would also find it interesting to (somehow) know how much less time admins waste on IP blocks once they have the capability of actually warning them or explaining the rules. Maybe a (subjective) interview of admins, at some point. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 10:21, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Thank you Olga. I agree with John above: two weeks is much better than 4-5 months. This plan seems reasonable to me. For the more distant future I suggest looking at my mockup or other compact proposed redesign options like a history-edit-talk context menu which would apply to all users, rendering wgMinervaTalkAtTop obsolete. This couldn't be done right away anyway as it would mess with your statistics, so maybe in a few months. For now let's focus on enabling wgMinervaTalkAtTop for everyone. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:58, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
+1 and thank you. One metric to track in addition to the others might simply be the number of unreverted Talk: namespace edits by IPs (we'd expect it goes up). IP blocks and rangeblocks would be another metric, which we'd expect would would go down. Mainspace reverts of IP edits should also go down. ANI threads about IPs should hopefully go down. And I assume we have these metrics from before the change is implemented to give us a baseline to compare to, and also I hope we have these metrics for Swedish wiki so we can also compare the effect before and after the change on multiple wikis. Btw I'm surprised we don't have time-spent-on-page statistics as it seems like a common web analytic (like referrer, path through the website, exit destination, etc.). This is a bit of an aside but I've always thought the WMF should be gathering/publishing more web analytics data about how readers travel through the website. Levivich 17:38, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Hi everyone (@Alexis Jazz, Xaosflux, RoySmith, JohnFromPinckney, Folly Mox, and Levivich:), as we’re getting closer to deploying the change (deployment will take place November 15th at 18:00 UTC), I wanted to give you a quick update on the work we’ve been doing to measure impact. Once the change is live, we will begin monitoring the metrics to ensure there’s no immediate concern, then collect data for approximately one month, and get back to you with a report on how things are looking and whether we’ve noticed anything that might require iteration on the experience. Currently, our main questions are similar to last time, but we’ve been able to identify which metrics we currently have, which ones we need to build prior to and after the deployment, and to ensure we are collecting information according to our privacy policy. Below is an update on our thinking based on each main question:
Will this change increase the amount of vandalism and other non-relevant content on talk pages?
We will be measuring the changes in the percentage of reverts of anonymous mobile edits on article talk pages. We would like to compare this rate both to previous reverts for talk pages on mobile, as well as to reverts for talk pages on desktop.
As per the suggestion of @Folly Mox:, we will also be tracking quality edits to IP editors’ own talk pages as well
Will this change improve the communication between anonymous and logged-in editors so that anonymous editors make better contributions?
We will be measuring any decreases in the number of blocked anonymous editors (separated by individual blocks and IP range blocks)
We will also be measuring any increases in unreverted edits from IPs across namespaces, including main and talk. (Thank you @Levivich: for your suggestion on this!)
We will be measuring the percentage of new topics IP editors create that receive a response from other people
Will exposing readers to talk pages confuse them or otherwise make their Wikipedia reading experience more difficult?
We will evaluate this by publishing a quicksurvey to talk pages for anonymous users after the deployment that asks questions about their overall experience, including their understanding of wiki pages, as well as the levels of trust they have in the content they are reading. We have yet to write the questions for these surveys and are welcome to ideas.
Will readers understand the purpose of the talk page?
Here, we will be evaluating the time IPs spend on talk pages on mobile and comparing to talk pages on desktop.
We will also be looking at the number of sessions in which IPs click on the talk page link but do not take any subsequent action, such as opening any sections or beginning a new discussion
We have started building out both of these methods of measurement and hope to have them available before or immediately after the change is deployed.
We are still evaluating whether we can look at some more sophisticated measurements, such as the ones @Folly Mox: suggested above.
Does all of the above sound good? If you're curious, more details can be found on the deployment and instrumentation tickets in phabricator.
Finally, I wanted to thank you all for your patience with this process and for allowing us the time to be more intentional with this change and its impacts. We’re looking forward to seeing it live! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 10:24, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
Sounds good to me; I look forward to learning from the report. Thanks! Levivich 18:34, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
@OVasileva (WMF): I'm late to comment here, but can you confirm if this will enable links to user talk pages too, or just article talk pages? For user talk pages, it seem phab T240976 would be essential for success, as users otherwise would not even know messages are waiting for them.—Bagumba (talk) 09:43, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Update: "Talk" tab is now visible to anons on mobile at en.wiki
On Monday, 15 November, the "Talk" tab became visible to all logged out users visiting the en.wiki mobile site.
In early 2022, we are planning to analyze the impact this change has had on the wiki. You can follow along with this work in T294503.
In the time between now and then, if you notice unexpected behavior that you think could be a result of this change, can you please share what you're seeing with us here? We will share the same with y'all.
Notes: 1) I debated whether it would have made more sense to start a new discussion with this message. Although, not knowing the conventions of this page, I figured it would be best to continue in the existing, Enable Article / Talk tab bar for mobile anon users discussion as I've done, and assume you all will move this message to a new == H2 == if you thought doing so would be helpful. 2) OVasileva (WMF) is away from work for the next couple of weeks, thus why I'm posting here.
This is lovely - thanks guys. Anon mobile user 91.125.195.247 (talk) 23:00, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Now need them to see messages. Have two big problems with ip's... they get no notice about messages and they are stuck with a horrible help introduction. This has caused us to have the worst registration rate since we started.Moxy- 23:26, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Hi @Moxy -- I think I have a couple answers to the two problems you mentioned. We actually just recently made it so that IPs do get notifications about messages on mobile! That work was done in this task, and so now IP editors are getting "new message" banners on mobile. For the problem with help introduction -- are you talking about the kind of help that would encourage an IP to create an account? Or about the onboarding that happens after account creation? For the latter, the Growth features for which I think you've participated in the conversation have progressed beyond their initial trial. We got good results in the trials, and we're now talking about whether to make them the default newcomer experience on English Wikipedia. It would be great to have your perspective in that thread. Thank you! MMiller (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Hmm, interesting idea. There are two main ways I could see such sections coming about: they used to have content but no longer do, and someone added them as a placeholder because they believe they should have content. Doing the second for something like a see also section would be a bit weirder than doing it for a content section in the body, but it could still theoretically happen. If a meaningful portion of such sections have this purpose, that'd make this a poor task for a bot; otherwise it might be alright. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 17:15, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
For both scenarios I'd say that removal is correct. If the section used to have content which was removed, then that section isn't needed anymore. If it never had content but someone wants it to have content, then they should add it or post on a talk page. Leaving these empty sections in an article is just bad practice. Also, we aren't talking about actual article content but supplementary sections. In either case, adding back a section is very simple, so this really has no downside. Gonnym (talk) 14:14, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, thinking more about this, I agree; the potential benefits are clear and I'm struggling to think of any situation in which it'd be unwarranted. So I'm fine with this bot task going forward. I just definitely would not want to see this expanded to empty content sections, since those can be an important indicator to both readers and editors of missing coverage. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 21:29, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
The only time I can think of that removing these might be an issue would be if the content was removed as an act of vandalism or similar. Obviously the bot and vandal can both be reverted, but it might make it marginally harder to spot. I have no idea how often this happens, but my guess would be less for these sorts of sections than content sections? I don't think this is a reason not to operate this bot though. Thryduulf (talk) 00:21, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: I think a time delay (i.e. editing the page only if it hasn't been edited for an hour/ 30 minutes etc.) should mostly resolve this, and leaving the sections for a while won't do much harm. ― Qwerfjkltalk 13:20, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Leaving enough time that cluebot and patrollers have had chance to do their thing if they're going to would seem to avoid most potential issues of this sort. Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Maybe leaving a note on the talk page would be good too? Would be a note for humans to investigate why the section was empty and to restore it if it shouldn't have been. Thryduulf (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Influencer is becoming more and more of a part of our culture, and it seems to be a job of a different nature than any other. Their entire job is self-promotion online, and promoting products along with that.
So, it seems it might be useful to come up with separate set of notability guidelines for them.
If there's agreement, I assume it would be added as a new sub-section here alongside academics and athletes.
And just a FYI, the discussion was spurred out of this Afd.
Influencers are based too much on popularity that it would make sense to create a special carve out for them. Other WP:NBIO routes exist already for them, likely WP:NCREATIVE if the work they make is notable too (as well as the GNG), but we should not include influencers just because they have X million followers - this is far too easy a route to game. --Masem (t) 22:12, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, because their entire job is self-promotion, I'm wondering if stricter guidelines or at least some additional clarity about what sort of mentions make them notable, would be appropriate. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 22:54, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
I doubt we need anything stricter than what is at NBIO or the GNG, given that both of these disallow primary and self-promotional sources to be used as indicators of notability. --Masem (t) 23:57, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
This terminology has really bothered me, since I began seeing it a lot at AFD, specifically when it is used to promote children who are younger than 10 years old. This seems to be the going fad for relatives to try and promote their cute little child for whom they got a YouTube account, by calling them "influencers". Who are they influencing - classmates, their pet dog? And beyond that, every youth out there seems to be grabbing for the "influencer" label. I definitely think we need guidelines. I'd go for the term itself being tossed out as a criteria of notability. It's totally meaningless and overused. Just because somebody says they are an influencer carries about the same weight as someone bragging to be popular, with no evidence. — Maile (talk) 02:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
I think the definition of influencer is pretty clear. But the question becomes if someone's sole job is a increasing their notability so they have more influence, could wikipedia benefit from some additional clarification on what type of coverage in RS makes them notable enough for inclusion?
"Influencers are someone (or something) with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or other online channels"
I would strongly oppose any kind of carve-out from the GNG for influencers (i.e. a presumption of notability if they have N followers), as that would simply be opening the floodgates to low-quality stubs. I'm also not sure that we need tighter guidance either - as Masem says above, primary and self-promotional sources (e.g. press releases) do not count towards notability. As long as people are assessing sources critically and evaluating their reliability and independence (as they should be regardless!), we shouldn't have any issues. If that isn't happening consistently, then perhaps some additional subject-area-specific guidance may be helpful. firefly ( t · c ) 12:09, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Here's another example: Alex Toussaint came up for possible deletion and part of the reason given is that he's an "influencer". Some of his top converage, and it's indeed in depth, is centered around how he now has 100,000 followers.[2] As he seems to have coverage in Business insider, Sports Illustrated, and New York Times I'm leaning toward saying he probably meets WP:GNG. On the other hand, I'm also agreeing with the AfD that none of this feels encyclopedic. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 23:40, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
A key about the GNG to keep in mind that it is not a black-or-white "must meet or delete". If there is sufficient sourcing that provides some but perhaps not sufficient in-depth coverage but that is coming from independent sources, then we would usually lean on keeping the article on the idea it can meet the GNG in the future ( particularly if the person is still active). Looking at that AFD, the nom is wrong that the person must meet NCYCLING - -that's an alternative to the GNG, not a replacement. --Masem (t) 00:02, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
OPPOSE - I just looked at the web (on websites I refuse to reference for once :-) )) - the 100,000 followers costs somewhere between $50 to $15,000 depending on "quality". Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Purchased/fake subscribers is a reasonable issue to deal with, especially in the context of spam/promo, but even aside from that there's the general issue of it being impossible to write an encyclopaedic article without sources. Even if you have a legitimate fanbase of millions, as many influencers do, if you have no sources that really discuss your work in a meaningful way then it's impossible to write anything more than "X is a YouTuber who has 15 million subscribers as of November 2021." ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:55, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I'd be surprised if there are many influencers who have RS to talk about them that don't already pass GNG; unless we want a bunch of citationless BLPs, I don't think this would end well. IazygesConsermonorOpus meum 20:40, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
@Iazyges: It feels like almost every day, or every other day, some influencer comes up on AFD who has a flurry of coverage over trivial things. Such as Oli London who got global coverage for getting plastic surgery to look Korean[3][4]. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 20:58, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Well, time for me to weep for humanity, I suppose. I'd support a measure to make it stricter, but not to make it easier, than just GNG, personally. Either way, definitely should not be related to follower count per concerns of buying followers. IazygesConsermonorOpus meum 21:04, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
It looks like Oli London might pass WP:BIO based on getting cosmetic surgery to look Asian, plus faking a suicide on instagram. Weeping for humanity sounds like a reasonable response. But overall, it simply doesn't seem encyclopedic. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 00:24, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for mentioning Oli London, and I left my opinion at AFD. Seriously, if you disregard what they see in the mirror, there's not enough left for even a stub article. We need to tighten up, because we're headed in a direction where anybody with a YouTube account can flip Wikipedia notability guidelines. Wikipedia's policies should not be dependent upon the latest internet fad. What's the next phase after "influencer" becomes antiquated terminology? Today is YouTube, but what is on the horizon to become the next buzz phrase on some newer platform. We're an encyclopedia, not a tabloid.— Maile (talk) 02:25, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
@Maile66: I saw your comment, and here's where I'm confused. Are any sort of accomplishments, achievements, or "work" in a traditional sense required to meet WP:BIO? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for asking me for a clarification. What I was focusing on, from the WP:BIO you have linked, "People notable for only one event", which that one seems like since it's so focused on the plastic surgery to look Korean. As written that seems like it's more important than anything they have accomplished otherwise. And even more than that, an "internet personality and singer" would fall under "Entertainer". Yes? Well, he doesn't seem to have had significant roles in anything, and has not "made unique, prolific or innovative contributions to a field of entertainment". What are those accomplishments? — Maile (talk) 03:48, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
And FYI, I am glad you opened this thread to discuss how we quantify "Influencer". You can see how a film/television celebrity influences others by the fans or imitators who are inspired to be just like their idol. How do you quantify it as "influencer" on social media? To some degree, 2021 United States Capitol attack had social media "influencers", quantifiable by the actions of the rioters who were directly responding to that. But it's a little more difficult to quantify the majority of Youtubers. They label themselves, but how does Wikipedia handle that? — Maile (talk) 04:00, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
I look at royalty who are famous solely because of the nature of their birth are notable because of it. I look at actors who are movies and are notable because of that. But what seems to make influencers different is that their primary job is to become famous.
And maybe we don't need any extra rules to handle this, but perhaps a bit of clarification of exactly what sort of coverage does and does not make someone notable in this era of influencer media? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 06:39, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't think special guidelines for influencers would work. Any proposal that thinks WP:GNG/WP:BIO is not an adequate guideline must, by definition, be seeking to loosen or tighten it. I would oppose loosening the guidelines on the merits (like we do for WP:PROF, i.e. providing a way for subjects that don't meet GNG to qualify for an article), and I don't think tightening it is practical. WP:CORP works precisely because there is a clear-cut definition of what an organization is. There is no clear-cut definition of influencer, so in the hypothetical case where we have a tighter influencer SNG, we might be stuck arguing whether a subject who clearly meets GNG but not the SNG should be considered an influencer. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:51, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
I come to this discussion having seen similar things with pets being presented to AfD with large social media followings, and attracting some inevitable keep !votes based solely on that following. I agree that raising the bar beyond GNG/BIO would be problematic (we shouldn’t even consider lowering the bar), but perhaps a guideline specifying that social media following itself has zero bearing on notability might help. Cavalryman (talk) 08:25, 25 November 2021 (UTC).
I'm suprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but just for reference we deprecated last July the alternative criteria/presumption large fan base or a significant "cult" following that was mentioned at WP:ENT. See Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) § Reviewing WP:ENT #2: Large fan bases or cult followings. In any case, I'm not sure is whether this discussion is about: is the proposal to loosen our notability guidelines (more influencer articles) or to toughen them (less influencer articles)? JBchrchtalk 17:51, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Summarizing some thoughts.
As JBchrch said, number of followers no longer counts toward notability.
Everyone seems to agree that the rules should not be looser.
I think "influencer" could be defined as someone whose primary notability is derived from self-publishing on a site like tiktok, youtube, instagram. (added)
I wonder if what's really required is some additional clarity about what types of coverage should count for notability. For right or wrong, Sassa Gurl was deleted via AFD. Here's example of some coverage where they made headline news: Cosmo Philippines: "10 Sassa Gurl TikTok Skits That Will Unlock ~Highly Specific~ Pinoy Memories"[5], ABS-CBN: "Manila Luzon wants Piolo Pascual as leading man, hopes to collaborate with Sassa Gurl"[6], MSN: "Netizens want Sassa Gurl to be one of the housemates instead of Justin Dizon"[7] -- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:41, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Meaning no offense, I feel compelled to point out that wanting special rules recognizing how very important they are is what influencers themselves generally want. Even if I put aside my distaste for the entire phenomenon, I can't see a compelling argument for a specific notability guideline for influencers. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:49, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
I see no need for a separate guideline. I think this is one area where the WP:general notability guideline works well, as coverage in independent reliable sources seems to be to correlate well with "real-world" notability for this group of people: certainly better that an easily-gamed metric such as number of followers. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:03, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Add disclaimers link in mobile view
Not actionable here, OP doesn't want to file a phab request - and this is already available under the MFE Menu button as pointed out by TheDJ. — xaosfluxTalk 11:42, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
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.
Not there now. As they describe Wikipedia's limits & limitations, it is important they are visible at all times. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 14:08, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
This isn't something we can do here on the English Wikipedia, as that element is not present in the MobileFrontend footer. To request that that extension include that link, please submit a software feature request as described here: WP:BUG. — xaosfluxTalk 15:01, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. As phab requests require an account, this is not something I will be doing. It is interesting that this was not designed in. As it links to a legal disclaimer among others, it would seem a no-brainer. 65.88.88.93 (talk) 17:00, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
The link is in the menu. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:20, 30 November 2021 (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.
Modify HTML title of historical page versions to include date & time
When working on Wikipedia it can often be useful to have more than one version of the page open in different tabs of your browser in order to compare what you are writing with what has been there previously. The HTML <title> tag for any previous versions of a page is the same as for the current page. In my opinion it would be helpful if this could contain the date and time of the edit for all previous pages. Hedles (talk) 13:14, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
One place this is currently done is in previous versions of an image. Clicking on any older-than-current image in the table of uploads at the bottom of a File: page includes the datestamp in the browser title-bar. DMacks (talk) 13:29, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
Would be useful. Can it be done with css or a script? Levivich 05:05, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
@DMacks: I'm not quite seeing what you are describing? For example if I go to File:Semi-protection-shackle.svg and click the old version I don't get any special title element, just my browser default of showing the entire URL for view (as there is no title, or even body element). — xaosfluxTalk 11:46, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
This RfC concerns the language used in MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn, the universal editnotice that appears above the edit window whenever one is editing a page using the source editor on desktop (it does not appear in the VisualEditor). The current language, which has seen only relatively minor changes since it was adopted in 2012, is:
The editnotice is accompanied by another notice, MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning, which appears below the editing window, just above the Publish changes button, and currently reads:
By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
That notice has legal implications and could not be changed without WMF involvement, but preliminary discussion has established that the universal editnotice is under our editorial control.
Given how widely it appears, the universal editnotice is an extremely valuable space. If we use it well, it can help us communicate essential information with editors, particularly newcomers. However, from a usability perspective, the principle of banner blindness is vital: users don't like explanatory text, so the longer we make the notice, the fewer people will read it (and most won't read it no matter what, and even fewer will click links). Therefore, we should ensure that the notice contains only the most essential advice and does not succumb to instruction creep.
I have made two proposals below that I think will help make the editnotice more useful to newcomers and improve its conciseness to increase the likelihood it is noticed. If the discussion here identifies additional possible changes, feel free to open sections to discuss them. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Proposal 1 (Universal editnotice)
This proposal passed. There was pretty strong consensus for adding "citations to reliable sources", but more debate on whether "supportable" was the right word. The discussion ended with a weaker consensus towards using "verifiable", in line with Wikipedia:Verifiability. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 18:14, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
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.
The fundamental issue here is that "verifiability" is not an intuitive concept, and newcomers will not know what it means unless they click the link (which, per above, most won't). "Cite reliable sources", on the other hand, is direct instruction that will make sense to most people. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Support as nominator. The choice to use supportable rather than supported was intentional. It avoids providing technically false guidance (citations are technically only strictly required for BLPs/challenged material, and there are arguably exceptions like MOS:PLOTSOURCE and WP:BLUESKY) but still pretty directly communicates what we want newcomers to do in practical terms. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Comment. I think "supported" is the better language. Not only is this word more common, it is also closer to WP:V's meaning. Under WP:V, what is required is inline citation if the material is challenged or likely to be challenged. However, all material must still be supported by a reliable source, i.e. the editor must have established that a reliable source exists somewhere. (At least that's my interpretation.) In this sense, "supported" is pretty close in meaning to "lifted from" a reliable source. I don't think the meaning of WP:V is to allow editors to add content without having checked first if a source exists (see also WP:NOTESSAY, which is a policy). I also disagree with the implied notion that adding material without an inline citation is a valid way of contributing to the project: it is established that adding unsourced content repeatedly may lead to a block: see {{Uw-unsourced3}} and {{Uw-unsourced4}}. JBchrchtalk 02:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
That's a valid perspective; if others feel similarly, I'll be happy to consider it a friendly amendment. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 03:06, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Support Sdkb makes a good case. Regarding "supported" vs "supportable" I'm not sure, either can be correct from different perspectives. Essentially, what we require is verifiability. Citations to reliable sources is the just common way to achieve that – and which is not strictly required for lists and outlines and glossaries and the like where wikilinks (pointing to articles which have sources) are usually a reasonable substitute for citing sources directly. Nor are they required for MOS:LEAD. But the new wording does strike as the more easy-to-grasp concept. And it's a bonus that the wikilink is spread across several words making it more likely to be clicked. – SD0001 (talk) 17:07, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't like using "supportable" as it's not a commonly used word. "Defensible" or "justifiable" may be more suitable. isaacl (talk) 20:41, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
@Isaacl, how would you feel about "supported", as suggested above? I don't have a strong preference between those two—the main thing I care about is the "verifiable" → "citations to reliable sources" change—but I want to make sure that once this goes wider (probably CENT) it doesn't get scuttled by concerns it'd be in any way changing policy. Perhaps I'm just imagining those concerns, so if you or others do hold that view, I'd definitely like to know. Regarding "defensible"/"justifiable", I think that starts to become less clear to newcomers, who are likely to gloss over "supportable" and read it as "supported" but might not do so for those other words. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 21:15, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Personally, I think it's as clear to say something like Encyclopedic content must be justified by reliable sources. as it is to say Encyclopedic content must be supported by reliable sources. I think it's easier for readers to parse when using a verb rather than an adjective, as I feel the adjective is less direct (it describes a property of encyclopedic content, whereas with a verb, a direct instruction is being given). In this form, either verb is fine with me. isaacl (talk) 21:34, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Comment: I agree with Sdkb that "must be supported by reliable sources" would give the wrong impression; I'd read that as meaning that adding unreferenced content is completely forbidden, which isn't true. On the other hand, "supportable" is awkward; it takes an extra second or two to grasp the meaning of the sentence, and for that reason I suspect new editors would be more likely to skip over it. The proposed wording also omits or downplays the second part of verifiablity, which is that inline citations are required for anything challenged or likely to be challenged. In fine, I'm not sure that the concept of verifiability can be easily explained in a sentence, in which case a simple wikilink might be the better option. Dan from A.P. (talk) 10:50, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think there's a lot of risk in a modified edit notice deterring edits from those who have a reliable source on hand but don't want to add a citation. This happens all the time at present, and I don't think the proposed change will alter this. I think the amount of citations in the existing text will be a greater influence on new editors, for those who are inclined to add citations. I think the essence to get across to newcomers is that they should be making edits based on reliable sources, not just something they know from having heard somewhere. ("...based on reliable sources" could be another way of wording it.) isaacl (talk) 16:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Good thought; that would be fine with me! {{u|Sdkb}}talk 21:13, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
In that case, I support my proposed wording. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 22:47, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't have an issue with "verifiable through citations", but I don't see how it is different from "supported through citations" from a policy perspective. isaacl (talk) 02:47, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
must be supported implies that you aren't allowed to add statements without citations. It's generally discouraged, but there's some places (like plot summaries) where it's the default, and even outside of those cases it's allowed to an extent. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 05:15, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I feel that "must be verifiable through citations" implies this in the same manner. The key passage that does this is "through citations", as this implies the presence of citations. Just saying the content must be supported/verified by reliable sources avoids this (plus is more direct). isaacl (talk) 16:28, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
But "verified"/"supported" and "verifiable"/"supportable" are not the same thing. "The sky is blue" is verifiable, but, inserted into an article that doesn't already have a citation to that effect, it's not verified. Saying that content must be verified would imply that users are not allowed to add statements without adding a corresponding source, which is not a policy. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 18:36, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I concur with Tamzin about interpretation of the meaning of the wording. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 21:23, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
"Verifiable through citations" implies there must be a citation present in order for the statement to have the property of being verifiable. "Verifiable through reliable sources" does not imply the presence of a citation, nor does "verified by reliable sources", nor "supported by reliable sources". isaacl (talk) 22:09, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Support more in line with what we are looking for editors to do.Moxy- 23:15, 16 November 2021 (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.
Proposal 2 (Universal editnotice)
This proposal passed. There was general agreement to remove the last sentence, and no opposition after discussion. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 18:00, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
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.
Remove the last sentence (Any work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions.).
There are two problems here. First, it's redundant to the Wikimedia copyright warning (see Explanation and principles above), and if editors don't read that, they're not likely to read the universal editnotice either. Second, of the three topics covered in the current notice, two of them—copyright and verifiability—are major issues that we are constantly struggling to communicate to newcomers (see the backlog at WP:CCI or Category:Articles with unsourced statements). But the third just isn't. Editors complaining about content they contributed to Wikipedia being reused is quite rare. Per the principles above, the question we should be asking ourselves is not whether any editor might ever find it useful, but rather whether it meets the extremely high bar of being the most important thing for us to communicate. This sentence does not meet that bar. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)Modified 17:48, 12 November 2021 (UTC) in response to misunderstanding below.
Support as nominator. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 23:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Support per Sdkb; this is redundant to the other notice. Dan from A.P. (talk) 10:50, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Support removal - good rationale. – SD0001 (talk) 07:44, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Support as making people less likely to actually read the more important first sentence. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 20:47, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Support. A good case has been made as proposed. –MJL‐Talk‐☖ 14:01, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Misunderstanding
Need legal advice. I'm pretty sure that there are some good copyright lawyers at the WMF, so we should probably ask them and not rely on my hot takes but: I think this is here for purely legal purposes. The CC BY-SA license requires attribution "in the manner specified by the author or licensor". Left as is, the author could think that he would be given personal credit for the content they have contributed, and such a perception could have legal consequences for the re-users of Wikipedia content. In more technical terms, some lawyers may have thought that there was a risk that clause 7(b) of the Terms of Use might not be binding on editors without emphasizing this specific point (see also here, at "Are my terms and conditions enforceable?"). This disclaimer makes this point absolutely clear and I would assume that it's a fine print not there for people to actually read, but to provide protection in case something goes wrong. But again, we should probably ask the lawyers who thought this through. JBchrchtalk 03:20, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
@JBchrch, see the explanation section above; the WMF Legal Team was contacted in the preliminary discussion. It seems it's only the copyright notice that has legal implications. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 03:55, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: We should double-check, IMO. The sentence "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." has definitely been written by a lawyer, and with the aim of having legal/contractual effects. Do we know when and why it was introduced? JBchrchtalk 04:07, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
The WMF lawyers are listed here, under "Legal Ops". I propose that I shoot them an email tomorrow night if we have not been able to clarify this issue by then. JBchrchtalk 04:15, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
It definitely wouldn't hurt, so feel free. And just to make clear, the hyperlink/URL sentence isn't what's under consideration here; it's the Any work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions.{{u|Sdkb}}talk 06:32, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: ooOOOoohh, so the sentence you propose to remove is not You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.? JBchrchtalk 06:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Gotcha. I will now collapse my comment in order not to pollute the discussion, but perhaps you should clarify in your proposal what exactly "last sentence" refers to. Cheers. JBchrchtalk 16:00, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Done! {{u|Sdkb}}talk 17:48, 12 November 2021 (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.
Discussion (Universal editnotice)
A bit off-topic maybe, but if we want to ensure that people read the note, maybe we can also do something about the giant interstitial? ("Welcome to Wikipedia / Anyone can edit, and every improvement helps. Thank you for helping the world discover more!", shoved in front of everyone before they can get to the edit screen, with a button for switching to the VisualEditor.) --Yair rand (talk) 11:17, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
You mean the pop-up notice? My understanding is that that is the current compromise between a VE and a source editor default. So long as source remains the default, I think newcomers definitely need something inviting them to use VE. That's a separate discussion not very related to here, though, so perhaps we should take it up elsewhere. One question that might be more related to here is why the notice doesn't appear in VE. Once we get it refined, I think pushing for it to appear in VE the same as the source editor would be a good next step, since copyright/verifiability are just as important there. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 17:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Suggestion for attracting additional editors to wiki
Wiki edits can be seen as being made up of;
(A) adding new content, and (B) correctly following wiki rules for sources, formatting and non-copyright infringement.
I see various ways in which these characteristics could be achieved;
1. An individual editor does both A and B.
This is the view of a recent ANI group.
2. An individual editor does A, and another editor and/or bot at some point kindly does B.
This is the model I have followed for many years.
3. An individual editor does A, and tech does B.
I accept we may not quite 'be there' yet ref tech (e.g. 'AI') for this, but suspect it is close.
4. An individual editor does A, but also sets an automatic mechanism (§§), whereby if no-one else does B then the edit either (i) does not show on Wiki, or (ii) automatically disappears from Wiki after a period (a day? a month?).
Setting this up might lead to a material increase in wiki editing.
My own feeling is that the potential editors who will not operate under 1 (they may not do B due to e.g. burnout, bandwidth, lack of interest, ability, fear and/or character issues), but who would operate under 2, 3 or 4, may be of a type that is valuable in keeping wiki articles punchy and up to date.
I would suggest considering setting up method 4. above.
Best wishes JCJC777 (talk) 11:28, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
§§ "Dear wiki editor, most of our editors both (A) add content and (B) make sure that content fits wiki rules (e.g. for formatting, sourcing, not breaking copyright). However we know that some editors are motivated to make wiki articles better by adding content (thank you!), but are not able/willing to do the 'fitting the rules' work. If you are one of these please tick [this box] when you edit. Your edit will go live on wiki, but will later be deleted if the wiki editing system does not do the 'fitting the rules' work on it. (The time limit for this will depend on factors including the visibility of the page (i.e. we'll delete it quicker if the page has high pageviews)).Thank you again for making wiki better."JCJC777 (talk) 11:28, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Permitting or encouraging the addition of copyright text under the expectation that it will be rewritten by someone else is a non-starter and incompatible with Wikipedia's licensing scheme, in which every editor affirms that they can and will license their contribution under CC BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL each time they click "Publish changes". If someone is unable to not plagiarize because of "burnout, bandwidth, lack of interest, ability, fear and/or character issues", they should feel free to suggest the source on the talk page, possibly in a {{Refideas}} template. DanCherek (talk) 07:10, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
You may also be interested in Wikipedia:Making editing easier 2021. (Also, this is probably a better fit for the idea lab, but I'm in too much of a hurry to move it myself.) Enterprisey (talk!) 07:49, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Enterprisey, very helpful link. JCJC777 (talk) 19:31, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
Make a reading list system on the Wikipedia website
This would require software work that we can't do here on the English Wikipedia. However, please see phab:T275227 for development related to this task. — xaosfluxTalk 19:29, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
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.
There should exist a system, similar to the mobile reading list system, on the browser Wikipedia. It would be much easier to save articles on the Wikipedia website than to download it onto the computer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constellation314 (talk • contribs) 14:43, 3 December 2021 (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.
Ammending Sources Policy
Hi there I recently edited or at least tried to edit the Spider-Man: No Way Home wiki page and tried to remove some unconfirmed provisonal information (which is not yet live to the public about cast members from what the site currently considers reliable secondary sources. In my opinion no secondary source should be considered reliable unless the information is backed up by information. If this policy ammendment was made it help improve the accuracy and reliability of wikipedia. Please consider this proposal carefully--MKL123 (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Per the above, reliably sourced provisional information can be presented as provisional. BD2412T 21:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Familysearch ID
I have fond an very useful wikidata project: [familysearch] My question where we can see the results; either the person's Infobox Templte or the Authorisy Contol space? It is a very important geneological data and identifier of him or her.
Where shall I ask for building the use of this property? ZJ (talk) 19:54, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
Why would we link an unreliable site where you have to leave your personal information with a cult to even access it? That Wikidata isn't critical at all in which IDs they add is their problem, but we shouldn't add this anywhere, either directly or through a Wikidata-fed template. Fram (talk) 21:21, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
20:50, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
23:26, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
