Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 53

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Tropical storms change name every year

Johnuniq You said 'we get it', but I'm not sure you do. Tropical storms change name every year. If you calculate the next year every year, next January the policy will say "Tropical Storm Alberto (2019)" is not, even though it is virtually certain that such a storm will occur, which is a lie.

If we want to increase the year that this link points to, we have to do it in 6 years increments, like KN2731 sensibly did. We'll have to change the policy next year anyway; I just wanted it to last longer than 6 years. Diego (talk) 07:28, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Any chance of a proposal for wording? WP:CRYSTAL refers to future events which are not notable in advance and using an example with 2024 is unhelpful because it suggests that the key point is the event being a long time in the future. Johnuniq (talk) 09:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

We should not be using a tropical storm as an example of BALLING, then--we shouldn't have to change the policy each year just to make the example relevant again. --Izno (talk) 13:40, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. If setting it several years in future is not acceptable, we should change the example to something more stable. Diego (talk) 13:47, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

If no one can think of a better example, and if a list of "virtually certain" tropical storm names for the next ten years can be produced, I will make a quick bit of code that shows the 2018 entry during 2017, and the 2019 entry during 2018, etc. Johnuniq (talk) 02:25, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

If you know enough wikicode+templates to achieve such feat, please go on, that should solve the problem neatly.

I believe the list of stable cyclical names is the one at the linked article? Diego (talk) 20:54, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I put the following list of future storm names in Module:Biglist (a module that handles various miscellaneous requirements):

2017: Tropical Storm Alberto (2018)
2018: Tropical Storm Andrea (2019)
2019: Tropical Storm Arthur (2020)
2020: Tropical Storm Ana (2021)
2021: Tropical Storm Alex (2022)

From January to October 2017 (inclusive), the first entry is shown. In November 2017 it will switch to the second, etc. I do not know if there is a predictable pattern after 2022 so I left it at that for now. I made it switch in November so the future storm is always at least two months in the future. Johnuniq (talk) 10:26, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Wow, hardcoded entries (what a mess)... It'll work though, thanks.

Perhaps also of interest could be {{As of}} or {{Update after}}. —Paleo Neonate – 11:42, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, something like that is what I was attempting to do with MediWiki "magic words", before I realized that the names themselves are pre-determined in advance. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 02:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Wikipedia is not a live feed

Closed as withdrawn by proposer. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 16:09, 20 October 2017 (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 is currently an active consensus at WP:FOOTY, and I notice several of its members reverting edits on this consensus, that no match result should be updated live, but rather when the match is over. I've had a discussion similar to this over at WP:DISCORD and had some users say this could be expanded to other sports and topics like award shows or live competition, i.e. Eurovision Song Contest. My proposal is to expand on this consensus so that it covers all forms of live coverage, not just football matches, award ceremonies, or live shows with voting. The proposed shortcut would be something along the lines of WP:NOTBROADCAST and/or WP:NOTLIVEFEED. Please feel free to share your thoughts below. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 18:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Withdrawn. After a while of thinking about this, I realize not only how much of a split the community can be about stuff like this, but I've also changed my mind on the idea itself. I had come up with the idea after seeing all the "live feed" edits on Association football articles, particularly the FIFA World Cup and qualifying matches, but now that I think about it, expansion to some subjects just isn't possible. If someone else wants to restart this proposal with a better rationale than what I provided, please feel free to do so. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 01:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Survey

Oppose There are definitely very good reasons to wait and see about some events before we should be breaking out editing tools on WP to cover it. However, there are also events that once part of the event has occurred, it's not going to change barring extreme cases, such an an awards show - once the winner is announced for a category, that's it, and it can be updated. The only thing tricky with that is that update should include a WP:V-meeting source, which is not likely to be available until after the event is over, but most cases I see, people do supply that within the few hours after the event. I do think editors should defer to waiting to avoid edit conflicts, and make sure to get those sources, but it is going to be difficult to enforce this and not get in the way of other proper edits. --MASEM (t) 19:29, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
89th Academy Awards#Best Picture announcement error. It doesn't hurt to wait for the champagne to be finished. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:37, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
That's the rare rare exception, and it was correct on the show itself within minutes. --MASEM (t) 23:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Support integration of this point into WP:NOT#NEWS, but not as a new WP:NOT section unto itself. This is firmly in NOT#NEWS territory, and is probably worth adding in very short form, because of the frequency with which live updates are made to sporting event pages. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 21:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
No objection to JFG's idea below of a sub-item under NOT#NEWS. I don't care if it has its own shortcut; shortcuts are cheap. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Support – Certainly this should be covered by NOT#NEWS but the semantic distinction between "news" (timely reports of recent events) and "live feed" (by-the-minute chronicle of unfolding events) deserves its own shortcut. Perhaps place it as a subsection of #NEWS. I'd call it WP:NOTLIVE. — JFG ^talk 06:30, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

This is different than NOTNEWS, which is about not including a particular kind of information and a particular style of writing that wouldn't survive the test of time (in fact if you read NOTNEWS, it says nothing about timing). The kind of information in this proposal is one that definitely belongs in the article and typically would require little to no change in the long term.

There might be some concerns regarding WP:RECENTISM and introducing information that we couldn't know if it's relevant in the grand scheme of things; but the usual case is that live coverage, for the kind of events mentioned in this proposal, is done for events we've already decided are relevant in advance, and we want to keep track of their results - so the rationale to be wary of new information doesn't apply. Diego (talk) 08:09, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Support per JFG. — fortunavelut luna(Currently not receiving pings, sorry) 07:39, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Maybe there's something in sports where it makes sense to wait until the end of the match to convey the results, but the proposal fails to explain why it should be expanded to other kinds of information "just because". I see no reason to introduce an arbitrary delay in reporting verifiable information of official events from official sources, as soon as this official information has already been broadcasted to the world through its official channel.

This proposal means that we couldn't inform of partial results in elections, report about new devices announced at Apple, Google or Microsoft media events, or republish data from government surveys, statistics, press releases or government communicates the minute they've been published. Wikipedia is a perfect place for readers to follow live award ceremonies and read the results, since the ceremony itself is a reliable source to get the information (as in, any error will be promtply corrected by the source itself), and the encyclopedia provides a common format across different kinds of events and easy navigation to find about any particular event, which in news sites is often hard to do.

Now if the proposal is merely about the pace of edits and ensuring few edit conflicts, a remedy could be drafted in one the editing guidelines, such as designating a couple of editor delegates who'll introduce the changes as they are known. But a ban on providing accurate, verifiable information that definitely belongs in the article merely because it's fresh? No way. Diego (talk) 08:03, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Support: I have several times watched "breaking news" about a subject and clicked on Wikipedia to see it already reflected in an update with either no references or links to on-going live news casts as a reference. See discussion below for detailed reasoning. Otr500 (talk) 21:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Oppose any attempt to issue moratoria or waiting periods on how soon Wikipedia editors are "allowed" to add reliably-sourced information. If the source is reliable, Wikipedia editors can reference it as soon as it exists, and this includes events in progress. There's no equitable way to enforce this, and it goes against Wikipedia ethos. If the source material exists, and is reliable, use it. If it isn't, don't. --Jayron32 00:01, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- The entire point is that sources generally are not reliable this close to an event; they're all basically primary, and are too often mistaken, either in the alleged facts reported, or in any too-early attempts at analysis. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 02:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
That doesn't make sense for the case presented as example in this request: award ceremonies and live shows with voting. In these, the facts are whatever appears in the broadcast. They cannot be mistaken, because what they announce is the official version of the facts - every other source would be copying the information from what was announced in the show. Is it primary? Yes, but it's also a case of a primary source relying information about themselves. Diego (talk) 09:04, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but if the sources are not reliable they are not reliable. Additional guidance is not needed, and may cause unintended consequences per WP:CREEP. If it isn't reliable, remove it. That's allowed no matter when it is written. If it IS reliable, however, it's fine. None of this is strictly time dependant, and can be assessed of its own merits. --Jayron 32 11:56, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
There seem to be a fallacy latent in the above two replies: that a reliable source is always and categorically reliable for everything, which simply isn't true. Reliability has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, whether they're primary or secondary. It has in fact happened that award ceremony announcements, and sports scores, and other such things have been mis-reported live. It has also happened that news publications have misreported what the primary source said. "I saw someone say it myself on TV 15 seconds ago" is rather poor sourcing, and generally for non-encyclopedic factoids that really should be verified the next day with multiple sources. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:34, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
That's entirely true, which is why I already pre-agreed with it in my statements before you even stated it. Reliable sources DO need to be assessed, and where found unreliable, should be removed or avoided. However, that doesn't happen at some magic point in time after the source is published. Sources which were formerly unreliable don't magically become reliable merely because time is passed, so there is no point in creating an arbitrary moratorium on using them. If they were unreliable, we shouldn't use them. That's my point; the issue is NOT when a source is used, it is WHAT sources are used, and this RFC is going at the wrong problem. We shouldn't care WHEN a person cites a reliable source, and we shouldn't tell someone they CANNOT use a reliable source because it is too soon to use it. But if the source is unreliable, it is unreliable. --Jayron 32 11:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Oppose making this a guideline. While I don't want to encourage people adding content about scoring goals or receiving red cards to football articles before these games are finished, removing correct information that will be acceptable 15 minutes later is at best pointless. —Kusma (t·c) 11:18, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
support of course. doing this goes against the Wikipedia ethos as expressed in NOTNEWS ....which is pretty much a dead letter for many editors. !votes here are splitting along the lines of the division in the community between people who view WP as an encyclopedia and people who view it as part of the blogosphere (but with some kind of "sources" required). People of course can update scores and penalties of a football game as it unfolds, and this has translated to some people even thinking they should. But we are not a newspaper. The people who want to add tweets from the pope and every jot and tittle about some Big Breaking News Story are operating from the same confusion as the person who wants to add content about the yellow card that was just issued seconds ago. Not the mission. Jytdog (talk) 23:30, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I think that "of course" merits further expansion. What is the problem with having a draft of an encyclopedia article written as soon as possible? We've always had articles that develop from small imperfect stubs to full-grown explanations of the topic; the insistence from some editors of having perfectly developed articles, complying with all guidelines from the start and at all times, has never been part of our working methods. If some content belongs to the article and we have a reliable source for it, I don't get the problem with adding the information as soon as possible, and no one in this discussion has provided a reason why whe shouldn't. NOTNEWS in particular doesn't give us one, beyond what one can infer from the shortcut's name. Note that this reason should cover more than sports scores, since the change proposed here is for all kind of information.

In any case, if the community is divided along those lines, a hard position should not be adopted as a guideline. Diego (talk) 11:14, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Support -- Wikipedia is not a live blogging platform. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:20, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. First, this is entirely unnecessary. What's the worst that happens? A match score is wrong for a few hours during the game? Second, it creates a whole new set of unnecessary disputes. When is something "over"? Does this policy apply to political news and world events as well as Eurovision and football? If so, how long do we have to wait before we add something supported by reliable sources? Third, and perhaps most importantly, this creates a whole new way to WP:BITE. We know that people edit Wikipedia based on what's current. When we revert newbies' edits and say "sorry, too soon, come back later," they're never going to come back. We want to engage them immediately so that they stay. agtx 21:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Support. This should have been there in 2004. KMF (talk) 01:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of "not a live feed" proposal

WP:V is not to be skirted because a reference might be "out there somewhere" or "soon to be added". WP:IGNORE can not be a valid argument because there is no possible argument that unsubstantiated content would improve Wikipedia. The policy No original research covers this. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought begins with "Wikipedia is not a place to publish your own thoughts and analyses or to publish new information". How can this be proven when content is added without providing reliable sources?

How does the proposal not introduce instruction creep? The policies and guidelines are very clear, and by adding something like "WP:LIVE", we are supporting policies and guidelines. Since we know that Wikipedia has slipped, slid, or otherwise moved away from the above "WP:NOT#OR" about new information, it is reinforcing that we still require a source. Otr500 (talk) 23:34, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Comment: In regards to what was brought up about elections, this can still be handled progressively. For example, United States presidential elections can still be recorded once a state records their final results and awards their electoral points. The Scottish referendum results in 2014 were also announced progressively by county. While my proposal does prevent partial results during voting periods, it does not prevent us from editing in the final result. Similar to my experience editing sports league tables, where a final position on a table isn't clear until the season gets closer to its end, an election's/referendum's final result is also not clear until said election's/referendum's end draws near. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 00:53, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Comment: Here is a great idea which would be extremely good for the encyclopedia, but will never pass: Don't allow anything in any article until three days have passed. That's actually a big part of what a real encyclopedia is. Think how much better our quality would be and how much smoother our operations would be if we always waited three days. We could pair this with a standard announcement about our 3-day rule encouraging people to go to Wikinews for their up-to-the-minute breaking news needs. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:40, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Guy Macon, what is sacrosanct about 72 hours, as opposed to 48 hours or 96 hours? Oscar, Pulitzer and Nobel wins ought to go into the person's biography instantly. As for "Wikinews", they haven't published an entertainment article since Tom Petty died, and only published three articles on politics in September. It is not a news site, it is a pathetic wraith. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:04, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Not our problem. To the extent it's WMF's problem, the obvious solution is to redirect the "I wanna write news" tide back to the site it belongs at instead of continuing to tolerate misused of WP as a news blog. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:48, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

72 hours is a reasonable time for more fact to come to light and for initial wrong reports to be corrected. I strongly disagree that "Oscar, Pulitzer and Nobel wins ought to go into the person's biography instantly". It would be better to manage the expectations of the reader so that he/she knows that any breaking news -- even a Nobel Prize -- will not be found in Wikipedia until three days later. This will train the reader to look in the encyclopedia for encyclopedic content and to look elsewhere for breaking news. Plus, as has already been pointed out, a notice saying "Wikipedia does not cover information less than three days old. For up-to-the minute information go to Wikinews" on every late-braking article would make WikiNews much more popular.

Of course none of this will ever fly. The addiction to breaking news among Wikipedia editors is too great. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:00, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Speaking as an experienced editor that at least twice a day runs through an RSS reader and updates articles, one develops an eye for what is clearly information that has just been announced or stated, backed up by RSes, that reflects "unredeemable content" that is highly relevant to the long-term view of a topic (eg winning the Nobel), and similar information where it's applicability to an existing topic's long-term view may not be clear until some time passes (being accused of a minor crime). The former is of zero issues as long as editors avoid the problems of proseline, and include sources, and not the type of thing we want to limit, nor readily can limit. --MASEM (t) 19:16, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

The comments "and include sources", is important, and what I refer to. "Live" (breaking news) updates that are not sourced, according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, are considered original research. Any "live" update" straight off the TV (or in person via mobile), without some form of published or other acceptable reliable source, should not be encourage, nor supported. I can't see this as arguable because there will absolutely be no way to know the "prose" involved in an update does not include OR, except by those that watched the event. Adding "LIVE" (I like this better also) to the policy wording, including the requirement of source, can do no harm and support that consensus has long agreed there needs to be a source for these live updates (or any added material), more especially on a BLP. Adding Oscar, Pulitzer and Nobel wins into the person's biography instantly, without sourcing, is potentially more harmful that the need to "update instantly" just because some editors may like to do this. No BLP material sourcing= no content to be added "instantly", and we don't even have to check with the Wikipedia BLP police on this as it is also WMF policy. It is a sound proposal with merit but the "after" part should be replaced. There is no fallacy in my comments. If a reliable source gives the wrong information that is their problem and an update can reflect that the information was false, as opposed to a Wikipedia editor providing false original research. Maybe there are others that think content from ""I saw someone say it myself on TV 15 seconds ago" should NEVER be on Wikipedia in the first place. The "WRONG" direction (that this is not necessary) is that no live event should ever be updated on Wikipedia without sourcing ---period--- and that happens all the time. CNN editors (and others) post live updates on their sites almost immediately, often while an event is on-going. I am not saying to wait until "AFTER" an event has ended but source the content according to policies and guidelines and this is oftentimes not possible "immediately". Otr500 (talk) 09:21, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Illustrative example: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Snooker/Hot articles, and look how many times (289, as of this writing) that 2017 English Open (snooker) was updated as "live feed coverage". I shudder to think what this looks like for a major event in a sport that attracts much more attention than snooker. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:27, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
Followup: In just one day, that 289 has shot up to 341 and climbing, and this is just one of numerous ranking tournaments on the way to the big event. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 11:26, 20 October 2017 (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.

Paragraph 2 of NOTNEWS

This reads

2, News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews. Wikipedia is also not written in news style.

This is almost universally ignored. Should we have an RfC to remove it? Jytdog (talk) 04:15, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

No, we should tighten it and enforce it better. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:47, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
No for the opposite reason as above: It is useful guidance for starting a discussion on talk pages where there is a dispute. Sometimes we need to hammer out what is and is not "routine" or "trivial" or the like, but that doesn't go away if we remove this guidance, instead it makes it harder to come to agreements. Leave the guidance there, it's not an iron rule, but it is more important than a rule: it's a starting point for discussions. --Jayron 32 11:17, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
No, although if Wikinews isn't resuscitated soon, we probably have to remove the sentence about Wikinews. —Kusma (t·c) 11:32, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
No though I would link in WP:RECENTISM in the second about "breaking news should not be emphasized" or something like that. It might also be good to caution that not abiding by this leads to WP:PROSELINE or other bad structure to articles. --MASEM (t) 13:39, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

This wasn't meant to be an RfC, and that should be rather obvious from that fact that it is not one. Rather than tossing off pseudo-votes with snappy one-liners, I am looking for discussion.

The division in the community is very real and there are people who completely ignore this, even here on the talk page of this policy.

Actual policy in Wikipedia is not a written thing, but the living practice that happens in editing, AfDs, and the like. The written policy and the practice of the community often diverge, and the writing needs to be amended to accord with what actual consensus is.

In my view, this paragraph is not policy anymore - it no longer has the broad and deep consensus that actual, living policy has.

I don't know if there is any consensus on what kind of topic the notion in this paragraph would apply to. I have asked a few times for people who generally ignore this to say where they do draw the line (if anywhere) and have not heard anything yet.

But in my view we should delete this and then see what, if anything, we can build to replace it. Jytdog (talk) 14:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

It might be helpful to provide examples of what you think are problematic edits under this. That might help with understanding where there may be places for improvement. --MASEM (t) 14:25, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Masem it is what we have been talking about here for a long time including the just failed RfC on commentary and the RfC above on updating games You know exactly what I am talking about. You can provide examples as well as I can. (I don't understand the the purpose of asking me for that but don't want to derail this, with that) Jytdog (talk) 14:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

The previous RFCs haven't really dealt with the area of routine coverage, and to me we generally do a good job of not creating articles on routine coverage. Routine news that is important to a topic is included within that topic. This is why I am asking for diffs, because I feel there's a subjective difference here. --MASEM (t) 15:03, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS was originally a call against Wikipedia being a primary source (i.e. editors directly reporting news they've witnessed, which Wikinews allows), and a warning against becoming a tabloid for the WP:BLP harm it could cause. I don't think anybody would reject that interpretation, although maybe it would be wise to edit it to come closer to those roots.

However, it has never been a reason to reject events that pass the WP:Notability (events) guideline. Even if many editors read it as "do not write about anything recent, wait until it's settled", AFAIK the guideline has never contained wording to that effect (and in fact, WP:PERSISTENCE points to the opposite). Even WP:RECENTISM advices only extend to "be careful that it's neutral", not "don't do it". Diego (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I love when people dig into the history. But it is not black and white as you make it. See this discussion from 2006 which is pretty much the exact thing we are still talking about.... except "current events" have moved way, WAY to the fore from where they were then. We don't think about providing background for events; people want to cover the event as it unfolds, and even provide, well, tweets from pope. That very much to-the-minute, following the 24 hours news cycle. Like the thread above about specific box score stuff as it unfolds. A loss of a sense of the question, "What are sources saying are of enduring, encyclopedic importance?" Instead we get "it's in a source so it is fine". Jytdog (talk) 07:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, yes, but that's why we have WP:DUE WEIGHT as a significant part of Neutrality, right? I still don't see an explanation of why the freshness of the sources is an argument against their relevancy to the topic, that would require an expansion to the policy. Diego (talk) 08:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

This is not about sources or about weight. Those are different policies/guidelines. It is about what folks are doing when they edit - about what WP is and is NOT. Jytdog (talk) 22:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Then you should explain why WP should not be a broadcaster of reliable encyclopedic facts in real time, which you haven't done. Invocations of WP:NOTNEWS won't do, because WP:NOTNEWS explicitly allows broadcasting encyclopedic facts in real time (as long as they're not "emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information"). Diego (talk) 09:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

What you are writing here, is exactly why we should delete this. It explicitly disallows most realtime stuff - it says "For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia". If this paragraph meant anything, the RfC above about sports events would not even be happening. For many editors "it is in a source" is all that matters and the question of "what is encyclopedic" is irrelevant. Jytdog (talk) 00:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

No. Spin that paragraph into its own policy. KMF (talk) 01:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
No - This is the one thing literally everybody can agree on. RileyBugz ^会話 _投稿記録 00:22, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
No - I've worked the talk page of many "breaking news" articles, not editing or giving opinions on content, just keeping the peace, and each time I've been overwhelmed by people who don't give a damn about our policies on NOTNEWS. The people that are attracted to writing these articles always outnumber the people who want to slow down and not make the article update in real time. If anything, we need to full protect articles like this and do all the writing from the talk page, clamping down on the existing policy. The argument is always that people come here to get the latest news on fresh events, which would be foolish since we aren't supposed to be a news outlet. Maybe a template on new event articles that says "Wikipedia will not have the most current information, as we only publish what has been verified in multiple sources" etc etc etc to discourage people from relying on us for "news". Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Dennis Brown aren't you actually saying that as living policy this no longer has consensus? The issue here, is whether or not this paragraph is still policy which is defined as things that have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow. That and is essential. Jytdog (talk) 20:46, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm saying the rush of editors to a new topic tend to be disproportionately the type that think Wikipedia is news and should be 100% up to the minute "accurate". This makes sense, as these types of editors are interested in updating a hot topic. I can't say with any certainty that the community as a whole agrees, just that on these articles, you quickly end up with a local consensus that ignores policy and that is hard to deal with. I would suspect (but can not be certain) that the community as a whole disagrees, but they aren't the ones rushing to the new emerging news articles. I would suggest that this means the consensus on any emerging topic article is skewed away from global consensus and toward those that want articles to be real time news, at least while the topic is hot. People who support a strict interpretation (or represent the global consensus) simply get outnumbered. It is also common for emerging news article to attract several new editors, who have no clue about our policies on NOTNEWS or when told, think that it dumb, and their !vote counts the same in any polling. I still believe the community of regular uses strongly support NOTNEWS. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:20, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Dennis Brown your analysis that "local consensus forms that ignores policy" is dead on. But it is not just a new editor thing. See discussion with Coretheapple below. In my view, for wide swaths of the editing community this is a dead letter and we need to figure out what, if anything, is still living policy that has wide consensus.

Also, to help deal with the "local consensus" problem I had proposed above a "NOT noticeboard", which could help draw local discussions to the attention of the broader community, which i still think could maybe be a good thing.... Jytdog (talk) 14:26, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

It is correct that "wide swaths" of the editing community differ with you on NOTNEWS, which is a point that apparently indelibly scarred you as you were isolated in both the Anne Frank Center and the Charlie Gard articles whose talk page discussions you misrepresented with your usual multicolored gusto below, and which you always haul out and misrepresent at every possible occasion. However, the solution is not to change policy or have incessant dramas because (as in the previous discussion on this page) the community disagrees with your view of NOTNEWS. Nor would a "NOTNEWS noticeboard" do you much good, because when your narrow view of NOTNEWS is subjected to article-specific input via RfCs, as in the Anne Frank Center article that bothers you so much, you do not prevail. The solution is for you to put down the stick and back away slowly from the carcass. Coretheapple (talk) 12:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Both of Dennis Brown's ideas are good and workable ones. And no, the fact that some small subset of editors ignores a particular policy does not magically mean it isn't policy any longer, or WP would have a grand total of zero policies, with WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR first on the chopping block. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 02:31, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I want to say again that this is not a !vote. I am considering doing a formal RfC and framing that in such a way that leads to this being deleted if there is no consensus to keep it, and my sense is that the RfC will show that this is no longer policy - which by definition is something that has broad and deep consensus in the community. Jytdog (talk) 20:46, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

No Not universally ignored, but often abused by editors who don't like articles that meet this policy. No reason to stir the pot again and again and again. Coretheapple (talk) 22:14, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I have been looking for you to weigh in here, Core. Where do you apply "For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia." Your response to this has always been, "it is in sources, so it is OK". Jytdog (talk) 01:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, this comes to mind as I just mentioned it elsewhere. Personalizing discussions and misrepresenting the positions of people you disagree with is disruptive and futile, as is this entire discussion. But don't let me stop you. Coretheapple (talk) 12:47, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

That is just a bad AfD nomination. It is not personalizing anything to say that you and I have exactly bumped heads over this. At Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect - there was a swell of news about the new ED there attacking Trump; that guy is now gone. But this whole section Anne_Frank_Center_for_Mutual_Respect#Criticism_of_the_Trump_Administration (entirely driven by "hot news" driven by the actions of the new ED) is there, and is half the body of the article. In my view this paragraph of NOT is what we disagreed over (i was mostly citing RECENTISM, which is an essay interpreting NOTNEWS and WEIGHT). Everyone can see at Talk:Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect that your arguments were purely We go by reliable sources and It is customary to rely on major articles in major publications. We don't just disregard them and say "oh, that's too much!" and The article in the Atlantic is of self-evident importance and is given proper weight. The longer version is better, also self-evident. -- any consideration of what WP is and is NOT, beyond the baseline need for sources (thank goodness you do acknowledge V) were irrelevant to you. The same thing happened between us at Charlie Gard where your arguments were purely "there are sources" and discussions about what is and is NOT encyclopedic were also just baffling to you. These are the kinds of discussions I mean when I say that this paragraph is a dead letter in much of the community. "there are sources" is not an actual response to NOTNEWS - there are always sources when there is a NOTNEWS discussion; if there were no sources there would be no potential content to debate. Jytdog (talk) 13:41, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, if the NOT paragraph is a dead letter as you falsely claim than do what you always do, and did in the articles you cite: defy consensus. Misinterpret, misrepresent, personalize, stomp your feet. You asked a question. Everyone is saying "no." Interpret that as "yes." Close this out, do your RfC. Or don't. Stir the pot, again and again and again. Coretheapple (talk) 13:58, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this all goes back to the previous RFC on this page about talking-head issues of news. Editors are not asking themselves about what content goes into an article from the stance of that article 5-20 years in the future. If in case of the Anne Frank Center, say the organization closed down for some reason, but otherwise clearly remained notable; at this point would their views on the Trump admin make any sense? Most likely not, and thus should not be included, but are being included because editors clamor "It's covered by lots of RSes!", forgetting we don't write based on # of sources, but appropriateness of content. In contrast, someone winning an Academy Award remains pertinent information indefinitely. That's why this specific piece of advice has to consider the context of application. Wholly objective facts - like an award win or the result of a game, or the results of a natural disaster - are not an issue to include immediately as those remain encyclopedic facts, but subjective aspects, such as views and opinions, should be included in the short-term with much more caution because we don't know if they are encyclopedic details in the long-term. --MASEM (t) 14:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, and indeed it is unfortunate that this goes to the RfC above and the poll at Village Pump that is heading to the same inconclusive end, so I have to ask, haven't you guys had enough? Isn't it time for you to put down the stick? Are you going to continue to relitigate the same passage in this policy over and over again, trotting out the same arguments in one forum after another?

I recognize that you fellas, if you had your druthers, would omit a good deal of text from the project, including Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations and Charlie Gard case, but Masem, your AfD on the Weinstein article was a "speedy keep" without a single !vote in support. Jytdog, I sympathize with the deep pain that you evidently feel that your Charlie Gard AfD went over like a lead balloon. I know it bothers you, and that your failure to achieve consensus on anything related to that article has your underwear in a twist, because every time I comment on one of your NOTNEWS dramas you bring up Charlie Gard, sometimes not even bothering to articulate your pain but rather screaming "POPE!" in horrified recollection over the inclusion in the article of references to the media coverage of papal interest in the case. You also expressed your discombobulation over Charlie Gard by bringing a meritless ANI case against SlimVirgin[1]. That didn't go over to well either. Your tormented recounting of the Anne Frank Center talk page discussion, which was such an ordeal for you, omits that you commenced an RfC, and that your effort to disembowel the article did not succeed. May I suggest that since you guys are continually being thwarted on this issue, the proper remedy is not yet another RfC or another poll but your recognizing that other editors are correctly interpreting NOTNEWS---not "disregarding" it---and that you are not. Coretheapple (talk) 18:10, 22 October 2017 (UTC) adding text re Anne Frank Center. Coretheapple (talk) 12:51, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

The problem is that we have policies that say one thing, practice that says another, and RFCs and polls and whatnot that are coming out without any specific action either way to change policies to make it reflect practice or re-enforce the policies. We say one thing, we do another, and we think yet a third way. Something is going to give soon, and the work here is to try to resolve that before we have a massive problem. --MASEM (t) 18:37, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it's fairly clear by now, after the RfC above and the straw poll now being conducted, that the community is not in agreement with you that there is a problem, and not in agreement with you that anything needs to be done about NOTNEWS. Asking the same question repeatedly, with slight variations, isn't going to accomplish anything. Coretheapple (talk) 18:49, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

What would be helpful, would be if you would identify the kinds of situations where you would apply NOTNEWS. The principles you actually follow. Would you please do that? Jytdog (talk) 20:11, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Better idea ---stop wasting people's time. Coretheapple (talk) 20:30, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Was my previous response too harsh? Let me put it to you this way: I regret that NOTNEWS confounds you, such that you are beseeching me for private tutoring and mentoring on its application, and that it is giving you so much pain to find yourself edit-warring against consensus and isolated on talk pages of articles. I know that makes you feel bad. But I don't think it would do any good for me to walk you through proper application of this or any policy. Sorry about that. Coretheapple (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

What would be helpful, would be if you would identify the kinds of situations where you would apply NOTNEWS. The principles you actually follow. Would you please do that? Jytdog (talk) 21:38, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Was my previous response too harsh? Let me put it to you this way: I regret that NOTNEWS confounds you, such that you are beseeching me for private tutoring and mentoring on its application, and that it is giving you so much pain to find yourself edit-warring against consensus and isolated on talk pages of articles. I know that makes you feel bad. But I don't think it would do any good for me to walk you through proper application of this or any policy. Sorry about that. Coretheapple (talk) 21:40, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually my previous response wasn't too harsh. Waste everyone's time again. I have no problem with that. Coretheapple (talk) 21:43, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

OK, so you have nothing useful to say on this issue. Jytdog (talk) 21:47, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Editing school is not in session, and I truly believe that Montessori herself would not do any good in this situation. Sorry. Coretheapple (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

No – Rather reinforce the wording to refrain from creating spur-of-the-moment articles on "breaking news". Every breaking news story can re related to an existing article and will get more balanced coverage there, along with appropriate context and analysis of due weight by other contributors. See User talk:EEng#X-day/week "embargo" on articles on breaking-news topics for a proposal along these lines. Do toss out the line about Wikinews. This survey is not a !vote but asked a yes/no question, so please excuse the respondents for answering "no"... — JFG ^talk 22:49, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

The paragraph is fine and isn't universally ignored, at all. When it applies it's usually followed. The problem is people misrepresenting the paragraph.

The paragraph deprecates "routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities". That is, stuff like "On September of 17th of 2006, Tom Cruise was seen leaving a party arm-in-arm with Penelope Cruz"."American Veeblefetzer announced in on October 25th of 2017 that it was adding four new regional vice-president positions". "The game of October 25th saw two players hit two home runs, only the 73rd time that had happened in franchise history." That sort of thing.

Also "breaking news should not be... treated differently from other information". In other words, breaking news should e included if it is important or notable (just like everything else).

All this is fine. Celebrity gossip often is deleted. Breaking news that is not important often is deleted. The rule works fine for that, it's intended use.

The problem is, WP:NOTNEWS and particularly this paragraph is generally not read, misunderstood, or purposely misrepresented, along these lines:

The event happened recently.
WP:NOTNEWS. I haven't read it (or understood if I have), but I can figure out what it says from the title.
Therefore, delete.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but a lot of rules here are not read (past the title), not understood, or deliberately misrepresented. I would think getting people to stop doing that (somehow) would be a better approach than deleting the rule. Herostratus (talk) 06:52, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

No It is actually not ignored. It's followed quite well. Just because the community as a whole doesn't allow people who wish to pervert it to exclude from the encyclopedia perfectly valid information that they don't personally approve of, doesn't mean it isn't being followed. Proposing deletion of this very useful and productive section is class "take my ball and going home" behavior. People who wish to make Wikipedia a walled garden where a small cadre of editors get to determine what is "allowed" here are being thwarted in their attempts to consolidate power, and since this isn't working, now we want to throw it all away. No. Just now. --Jayron 32 11:34, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Jayron32 that is kind of a frustrated note from you (and you already !voted above, even though this isn't a !vote so I guess it doesn't matter :) ) I have been in several discussions on article talk pages where this is completely ignored -- it is not a starting point for discussion, because efforts to start discussion over it are just trampled over, like this doesn't exist, and instead was met with accusations much like the ones you make here. Above I linked to Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect and its talk page - a good half of that article was written with no concern for what is of enduring notability of persons and events and was completely driven by what the then-recent sources were giving emphasis to. That stuff should be maybe one or two sentences, given the time frame in which it happened in the life of the organization. And the person generating all that news coverage, has now left the organization, just a few months later. Trying to bring this up "enduring-ness" was like talking to a brick wall. This happens, a lot. And as I noted, the whole sports discussion above would not even be happening, if people took For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia seriously.

I remain very interested to hear from you or anybody, where you actually do apply what is in Paragraph 2. Where is the line between NOTNEWS and valid encyclopedic content? Very interested. Jytdog (talk) 03:27, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Paragraph 2 is useful to remind people to not include stuff like the results of local high school football games, wedding announcements, the minutes of local council meetings, and stuff like that. So there's no need to eliminate it. We just need to, as a community, need to ignore and marginilize people who use it to justify their own campaigns against including stuff in Wikipedia that they just aren't personally interested in, but which still have copious source material. --Jayron 32 10:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Jayron32 and would cite the Anne France Center article, which Jytdog has cited multiple times here, is a very good example of how NOTNEWS is deployed against valid encyclopedic content. If you look at the talk page discussion, you can see that NOTNEWS was just one one of several weapons deployed against the article, with much of the animus directed at the coverage. Articles in the Washington Post and The Atlantic denigrated as "lard" and "gossip." The Washington Post reporter was a "bloviator." News coverage was mischracterized as dispatches from the "blogsosphere." It just went on and on like that, and NOTNEWS was just part of the effort. "Recentism" was another weapon used in that article and elsewhere against notable text. If something happens recently, it is argued, it is "recentism." Doesn't matter if recent events happen to be why a subject is notable. Keep it out! In his recounting of his titanic struggle to keep Wikipedia on the straight and narrow in that article, he neglects to point out that he initiated an RfC to advance his arguments and that it went against him. The horrible perversion of Wikipedia prevailed. The fact that it still eats at him, such that he trots it out misleadingly six months later, is a good example of the kind of passion that editors deploy, in misusing NOTNEWS, to get their way in content disputes. Coretheapple (talk) 13:38, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

The Anne Frank article is the epitomy of the problems with NOTNEWS's implementation - or disregard - for the most part. The Center's notable with or without the Goldstein stuff, so the article's not going anywhere, but the situation around Goldstein is being covered from a newspaper-type perspective, and not a permanence, encyclopedic perspective. The fact Goldstein made anti-Trump comments in the Center's name, politicizing it, and thus leading him to resign - that's all completely fair material to include, but the back-and-forth details over that aren't necessary in the long-term perspective. Imagine if this was an event that happened 40 years ago and we're just writing about it now (but otherwise all the same sources available). We'd not be writing in that much detail, but in a sentence or two. Trying to craft a narrative by assembling primary sources in regards to opinions on the matter is Original Research, and should be avoided. Just because the media gives extra weight to things they see controversial in the short term should not be a driver for us. We want to see how those controversies and issues play out over time and then write with a more informed view. --MASEM (t) 14:12, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that this is the epitome---of how NOTNEWS extremism wastes everybody's time, something we are experiencing in realtime. An article has a content dispute in which NOTNEWS is yanked out, among many. There is a long, full discussion. There is an RfC for greater community input. The result is that the NOTNEWS argument is rejected. The added material stands. Again comes out your "40 year argument," but again I'd suggest that no one has the slightest idea what will be worth including in articles 40 years from now. Moreover, while the subject matter may not interest you, it is likely to interest people who want information on the Anne Frank Center. If this did happen 40 years ago, if the controversy involved Nixon and not Trump, I'd suggest that people looking for information would be deeply intereted in the controversy, and more than a few sentences. Again, we don't know. Why not simply accept the fact that your and Jytdog's view of NOTNEWS is simply not the one that tends to prevail in the community, not because the community is "wrong" or that "NOTNEWS is not enforced" but because your view is not accepted by the community? How long are you going to raise the same questions over and over again? And P.S., Goldstein did not leave because of this controversy. Coretheapple (talk) 14:46, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

The way the article is presently structured, including all the details about the comments he made, it certainly is set up to drive the reader to believe he left because of the controversy. That's a problem in both OR and POV, and why this type of coverage is a problem.

And it is actually rather easy to identify what now will remain important 40 years from now, if one focuses on more objective "actions" that occur. Goldstein resigning clearly is one. If it were the case those comments were connected to his resignation, those objectively would be appropriate to mention in summary, but now even knowing they aren't per what you state, then their inclusion at this time is even less appropriate per OR/NPOV/NOT#NEWS. Half the article is dedicated to that, which apparently didn't create any changes. We write more objective, NOR/NPOV articles by sticking to basic facts and avoiding the "routine" criticism that politicial and ideological figures get all the time, at least until well after the event is done and over with and we can make a better evaluation of what is UNDUE and what is not.

This argument also still relies on the presumption that readers are coming here for news. We're not a news site, never were a news site. We can provide larger context for news articles, but we are not the agency that should be trying to keep up with the news, by virtual of all policies. We're feeding the habit by not dealing with news topics appropriately. And I will stress the point I made elsewhere: we have policy (NOT#NEWS) that says one thing, practice (the inclusion of news articles) that same another, and we can't achieve consensus (here or at VPP) to make changes to policy one way or another towards either end. It's not a sustainable model and it is coming very much to a head here. Something is going to give, and it should be policy adjustment (either way) before behaviors get out of hand. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

What you're suggesting is not just that editors project themselves into the future, but that they do so in an arbitrary way, such that only physical actions are viewed as encyclopedic. No controversies matter. We stay silent on them except to state without elaboration the facts, in bare-bones Joe Friday fashion. Tell me, where did you get that from? I'd suggest that it's your personal, idiosyncratic reading of NOTNEWS, under which you view as "routine news" not car crashes and sports scores but pretty much everything generated by a news organ that is only to be considered interesting by hypothetical readers four decades (I won't bother asking where you got that from) in the future. Also, you conflate articles in which news is the source to the underlying news ("readers are coming here for news.") By this logic, much just simply goes out the door. The Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations would be shoehorned into Harvey Weinstein. That's what you wanted, but the community unanimously differed. I realize you feel passionately about this, but a crusade to keep notable controversies, which receive national and global attention, out of the project is simply not happening, nor should it happen, because it would signfiicantly reduce the utility of the project not only for present-day readers but, even more so, for those hypothetical readers in the distant future. Coretheapple (talk) 15:44, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

First, you are skirting the edge of NPA, don't make it about editors.

Second, we are in a decade where much of the controversies in the news are a result of the media themselves being a part of, or in some cases, a major driver in the news topic area. That makes them dependent sources, where our goal is to rely on independent third-party sources. The Anne Frank Center is one such case, the Weinstein allegations is definitely such a case. Focusing far too much on what the media says in the short-term without the benefit of independent sources that are outside of the media to understand where a more neutral, more objective stance is. We are a tertiary source, mention to summarize, and not go detail-by-detail on any topic, which is why taking the idea of what the topic's importance might be from a far-off time (eg the 40 years) is important - what's the core elements one should know if looking back on such events. It's actually useful to look back at scandals that predated WP like Watergate and see how our coverage handles those, and its clear those less rely on opinions and criticism taken right at that time and instead on the event's long-term effects on the country. (I would also argue there are other issues with the world today extending well past WP's bound, related to identity politics, culture wars, the Trump administration, and other driving factors, that we don't have control of, but we should be writing our news articles to ignore these external factors that are influencing the news and the media that write about them, but that's hard to acknowledge directly by any policy or guideline, just common sense).

I understand the stance that we could be more inclusive of short-term commentary and the like as part of work-in-process and that in time it will sort itself out to reflect a more long-term approach, but I've been on WP enough to know that this is a fallacy. Unless its an event of supreme importance (eg 9/11, Boston Marathon bombing, etc.) these news articles rarely get touched on well after the event is over, and all that short-term stuff, which typically violates NPOV and NOR outside of the short-term, never is removed. We need to editors to be constantly thinking of permanence and avoid succumbing to RECENTISM issues. (This is not just an issue for news events, anything contemporary like films fall subject to excessive WP:PROSELINE style writing that doesn't aim to summarize but simply document.) --MASEM (t) 16:06, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh. It's not about editors? I agree. You might have taken that stance when I first !voted "no" on this, and Jytdog began a repetitive inquiry itno my own personal view of NOTNEWS and how I'd been totally disregarding the policy in recidivist fashion. So I hope to see you speak up strongly when Jytdog personalizes this discussion, as he consistently has done, if you want to have any credibility in taking that stance.

You may well be right that the media is to blame, and that the world has been unfairly focusing on controversies. But we're not here to right great wrongs, but to reflect what is in the reliable secondary sources. While it may be a terrible thing that the majority of the reliable secondary sources on the Anne Frank Center relate to its anti-Trump stance, the fact remains that they do, and that giving inadequate weight to the controversies spawned by the center would be an NPOV issue as well as an abuse of NOTNEWS. This is, remember, a content dispute, one in which your strongly held view was rejected by the community. Coretheapple (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

NPA would apply to Jytdog on those comments, I just wasn't part of that section above.

It's not about righting wrongs, its about understanding that the media presents a worst situation around systematic bias today than before. They are on 24/7, they are opining left and right, but it's all related to Western cultures and politics. Criticism and commentary from the media on topics is the new norm and thus routine nowadays. It makes our job more difficult to separate the essential matters of any controversy from the opinions that surround it, but that's what we need to do as we would do for any other article. We are not using an encyclopedic eye to make judgement calls on these news articles, despite all policies and guidelines saying we should be using more care.

Also to point out, what I had proposed was not rejected, there was no consensus, which is a very significant difference. If it was rejected, I would have stopped worrying about it some time ago. No consensus means there's room to figure out what can be done. --MASEM (t) 16:37, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

The RfC was closed as no consensus but with the current ("longer") version kept as "comparatively better from all spheres." You guys keep mentioning that article (and Charlie Gard) again and again---Gard was used for repeated attacks on me, speaking of NPA---as examples of NOTNEWS-ignoring run amok, but when you do, it does you no favor to keep omitting that all the terrible things in those articles were retained by the community.

What your argument ignores is that Wikipedia is not some crusty, ancient institution that is ignoring all those hot new trends. NOTNEWS, and indeed the entire project, came forth well after the 24/7 news cycle commenced and criticism and controversy became widespread. This policy was not created in a vacuum, but with a full understanding of how the world works. If it's changed the way you want it, so that indeed we don't have a separate article on the Harvey Weinstein sexual allegations, then that would represent a dramatic change for Wikipedia's mission, not some kind of necessary updating due to a major trend being overlooked. I think that editors are fully cognizant of everything you state, are not being ignoramuses, but simply don't agree with you. Coretheapple (talk) 16:48, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not just 24/7 news cycles, the problems with the media that affect NOTNEWS have been several years in the making and are from several different areas, covering several major political and ideological factors in the world today. These problems in the media were not a severe issue ~four years ago but are now. Nor did we have the NOTNEWS problem until only the last couple of years. The volume of coverage has always been there, but we never had as many problems with current events articles today as back then, and it is because we're putting far too much weight on reactionary statements right after the event rather than waiting for a long-term view. This is not changing WP's mission, keeping in mind WMF created Wikinews for this purpose. It was supposed to be a separate silo for news coverage.

And again, I come back to a key point: policy says one thing, practice says another, debates like this say yet a third thing that refute practice and retain policy. This isn't sustainable. We (the community) need to figure out a solution otherwise we are going to get more cases of like what you said you experienced with NPAs and other uncivil behavior, particularly on controversial current events. I've been in your shoes in terms of the civility problems (see Gamergate), I know exactly where this is heading towards in terms of editor civility and cohesion, in addition to stability of the project. The more we stick to facts and less to controversial statements that are the norm of the media today, the better off we are. --MASEM (t) 17:04, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't think NPA has somehow been spawned by this issue; it's really pretty limited, frankly to just one editor.

I think we're getting a little repetitious here, as your other points have been raised and answered repeatedly. Coretheapple (talk) 17:12, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey, instead of removing the paragraph, maybe fix it? Right now it says:

News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews. Wikipedia is also not written in news style.

Maybe something like this would be better:

Recent Ephemera. Do not include celebrity gossip from this week's People magazine. Do not include today's baseball scores. Do not include an announcement that part of a highway is to be closed for maintenance. Do not include similar types of entirely ephemeral sporridge. (As always, an exception can be made in the rare cases where this sort of thing is, for some unusual reason, notable.) Events that are new or are just unfolding should be treated as neither less nor more subject to our usual notability strictures (WP:GNG for instance) than events that occurred in 1373. The appearance of a subject in newspapers, news websites, and television news reports, even in headlines, does not mean that the subject is notable. For instance, stories with these sort of headlines: "Teen Reported Missing For Three Days". "Eleven-Foot Alligator Causes Traffic Tieup". "Colts Hoping To Salvage Season With Win In Cleveland". Stuff like that. Don't write article material about stuff like that, OK?

That's a draft and needs edit for tone and so forth.

I think this makes it a lot clearer about what the rule is about.

I took out "Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews. Wikipedia is also not written in news style" because yeah a lot of stuff can go somewhere else and we're trying to be concise here. What "written in news style" means I don't know. The main thing about news style is they say "This morning" etc. with the date assumed and of course we don't that.

But then we do have this line (which I also took out, but maybe some version of it should remain"

Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events.

OK, so I mean we need to work with this.

What is meant by "enduring"? A year? Five? Twenty? Hundred?
How do you know what is "enduring"? You don't. Jimmy Carter rabbit incident gets 231 pageviews daily. I assure you that this article could not be written today.

What it usually comes down is "I have a personal definition of enduring (quite possibly very different from yours), and my gut feeling uneducated guess is that this [will, will not] meet that standard down the road". That's fairly sketchy compared to our usual criteria. And what it comes down to too often is "1) I personally don't like to read articles of this sort and it therefore has no value, but 2) I don't really have a leg to stand on in arguing for deletion, but 3) it's recent, so 4) I'll pound the NOTNEWS table."

I believe that the best, actually objective and scientific way to handle this would be:

Figure out what we mean by "enduring".
If it's a time frame that we can work with within the project (say 5 years, 10 years) write the article. (I'm assuming the article has refs, there's enough material for a decent article, and it meets WP:GNG; the only question is if the material is enduring.)
Check back at that time horizon (5 years, 10 years, whatever). Still relevant? Keep it. Not? Delete. (Pageviews being relevant and objective data here.) If it turns out it's not enduring and thus we hosted a non-enduring article for 5 or 10 years, oh well. The sun will still rise.

And if it's not a time frame that we can work with within the project -- say we choose 100 years -- then we probably should be having very, very few articles about events after say 1950. Which, fine, if that's what we want. Herostratus (talk) 00:36, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Enduring is generally on the order of days to a few weeks. Not years. If all principle coverage only comes from such a short period, then it already starts to fail WP:N and WP:NEVENT--MASEM (t) 03:03, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

The draft made me laugh so hard that people looked at me funny. :) Jytdog (talk) 03:09, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

And yet, it goes to the heart of the problem. The amount of consensus we have, amounts to removing precisely that kind of crappy news coverage, which is what the majority of editors agrees to. However the grandiose wordings of "enduring notability" and "timely news subjects" are so general and ambiguous, that everyone creates in their minds a different version of what kind of news count as "routine". This is what causes conflict. Diego (talk) 12:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes WP:NOTNEWS is clearly a dead letter as currently written so, per WP:NOTLAW, it isn't policy. Routine reporting on sports is routinely and assiduously repeated here and, as a fresh example, see 2017 United States Grand Prix. The idea that notability has to be "enduring" is directly contradicted by WP:NOTTEMPORARY and so the text is a nonsense. Andrew D. (talk) 17:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

no, that is just very wrong. first NOT is policy and that is a guideline which interprets this policy, mostly. Secondly, NOTTEMPORARY is talking about whole articles - whether the topic should be covered by a WP article or not. Finally, what NOTNEWS says, is that it matters if what is "significantly covered" is of enduring importance or not. (especially with the 24 hour news cycle, there is often loads of sources about trivial stuff). For an example of this dynamic at play see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Short-Fingered_Vulgarian where there is a shitload of decent sources with significant discussion over a long period of time (!), but we deleted per NOTNEWS. This is exactly the kind of confusion that is endemic in the community. But i am glad you agree that there is no consensus around this, and many many editors look only at "are there sources?" and nothing else. Jytdog (talk) 20:01, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, see, here's the nub of the problem right there. Andrew D. interprets "routine news reporting on... sports" as including coverage of the 2017 United States Grand Prix (an important, widely viewed and read about, and highly notable event which was one of the races on the 71st season of the Formula One championship tour). But of course it isn't. That's not what was meant, at all. If the editors who wrote this rule wanted to include articles like this under the rubric of "routine news reporting on... sports", they could have. They could have said "only those rare sports events which reach a world-historical level of impact which extends outside the world of sports shall be included in the Wikipedia" or something. But they didn't. I think this is key here: they didn't. Maybe they should have. Maybe many people wish that they had. But they didn't.

How do I know this? Well, one is the dictionary definition of "routine". But let's tease what meaning we can out of this: "routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities". Why, specifically, was that passage written that way? I mean, why did they specifically pick announcements, sports, and celebrities (and "things like" them)? Why those in particular? I would assume it is because:

Announcements are made every day in vast numbers. So-and-so retired. So-and-so is going to expand their Hackensack plant. Governor so-and-so announced that today is "Chicken Plucker Appreciation Day". The post office in West Brookline Massachusetts will be named for deceased firefighter so-and-so. OK? This is the sort of thing we don't want. That is why the rule specifically mentions "routine... announcements"
Sports... many many things happen in sports every day. So-and-so goes on the 15-day disabled list. The Rangers beat the Oilers 3-1. Coach so-and-so has benched Joe Slobotnik. Coach so-and-so described his players having "lotta heart". Managers so-and-so describes tommorrow's game plan as "scoring more points than the other team". This is the sort of thing we don't want. That is why the rule specifically mentions "routine... reporting on sports".
Celebrities. Well what goes with celebrities? Gossip. News reports on mundane stuff you would never describe for even a United States Senator or CEO of General Motors -- seen at the beach. Looks like she's put on 15 pounds! Is that a baby bump or is she just digging into the mashed potatoes?. OMG that gown sure was a red-carpet shocker! OMG Tuesday Wednesday's baby is TWO now (can you believe?) and she's soooo cute! This is the sort of thing that is endemic to celebrities and specifically to celebrities and is the sort of thing (rather than [2017 United States Grand Prix]] and so on) that is abjured, which is probably why they specifically pointed out "routine news reporting on things like... celebrities" as the sort of thing to avoid.

We would not have an article (or article section) titled Tom Hanks's Dinner at Delmonico's on Thursday, October 11, 2017 even if it met WP:GNG which it possibly might, if it was reported in New York magazine and the NY Daily News "Personalities" section and so forth to the level of a couple paragraphs, based maybe on it being unusual for Hanks to be in New York and he had many glitterati guests and he loudly made a hilarious joke at one point and there was an unknown woman sitting next to him that set tongues wagging and so on.

But wait, why not? After all it had in-depth coverage in a couple sources (paragraph or two, which is much more than the "passing mention" that WP:GNG deprecates) and so it incontrovertibly meets WP:GNG. There's enough to make a decent short article there. But wait! Here's WP:NOTNEWS to save the day! This is what WP:NOTNEWS is intended for! We're not going to have this cos it's ephemeral gossip of the type specifically abjured as "routine news reporting on... celebrities". Herostratus (talk) 01:07, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Well said, and at a length and depth I can appreciate. >;-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:06, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Herostratus talks about the dictionary definition of routine without saying what that is. From the OED, there are two shades of meaning as an adjective: ".. performed in a more or less identical way on repeated occasions, typically without the need for innovation; performed, given, or carried out by rule or as a matter of course. Of an ordinary or undistinguished type or quality; usual, typical; average, mundane; run of the mill; lacking excitement or variety, humdrum." This well describes the 2017 United States Grand Prix which is a regular event and the outcome was quite unexciting as the winner was Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes just like the last three years. For another example of humdrum routine, consider the recent FA, 2005 Azores subtropical storm – "the nineteenth nameable storm of that year ... No damage or fatalities were reported". For a third example, consider what's in the news at the moment – the Piccadilly Circus lights We cover this at Piccadilly_Circus#Illuminated_signs which records the renovation but needs updating to record that it has happened now. Should we record this maintenance detail? Please continue to discuss at length per WP:LIGHTBULB... Andrew D. (talk) 07:43, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

A problem with the "2017 United States Grand Prix is just the same as last time" rationale is that next year it might not be, but event articles like this go in series and even have navboxes for them, so skipping 2017 and 2016 and 2015 because the final winner was the same as in 2014 would leave red-link gaps that someone would naturally fill. Another problem is that that even is a huge, major-ass deal to people who are big into that sport, but meaningless trivia to people who are not, and this distinction applies to a very large number of topics; if we were to take a "we should delete it if it's not exciting to the average reader", we'd lose well over a million articles in one swell foop.

The storm article seems like a harder sell. Seems to just have been some weather that happened, without serious consequence (at least of encyclopedic level; I'm sure some people had their houses blow over and are in a bad state, and I don't mean to imply flippancy toward their plight). On the third example, if we consider it encyclopedic that the Piccadilly Circus article have a section on lighted signs, that having that be current would seem to be necessary, but it's probably more a question of whether that "if" is really true, and even if so whether the level of detail presented (such that maintenance news would need to be included to keep it current) is appropriate. I.e., it's not really the maint. news that's the underlying issue in that case.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:06, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Worth codifying

Masem completely nailed the central issue, in a post above:

Imagine if this was an event that happened 40 years ago and we're just writing about it now (but otherwise all the same sources available). We'd not be writing in that much detail, but in a sentence or two. Trying to craft a narrative by assembling primary sources in regards to opinions on the matter is Original Research, and should be avoided. Just because the media gives extra weight to things they see controversial in the short term should not be a driver for us. We want to see how those controversies and issues play out over time and then write with a more informed view.

A summary of this is worth codifying as part of NOTNEWS.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 01:38, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Well it's a cogent point and well put, but... "We'd not be writing in that much detail, but in a sentence or two". But why not? I mean, sure, if the article has become too long (over 50 kB of text as a rough rule of thumb). Otherwise, why say "Well, we have a lot of information on this subject, and it's well-referenced. And it's probably of interest to readers and is useful for understanding the entity (event or whatever), what exactly happened and how people of the time reacted to it and so forth. It's probably of high interest right now, but of some interest later. BUT WAIT. We have more information on this event then we do on the Bonnet Carré Crevasse of 1871. Well can't have that! We need to remove some of this information and leave the reader more in the dark and this is a win/win for us and the reader because _________."

What goes in the blank? Answer this question or you're not going to get me on board.

I mean is it so horrible to provide readers with very recent updated news. It is a fact that very many people turn the Wikipedia for info on some event that happened yesterday. It is a fact that many people would like to wish away, but you know how facts are: can't wish them away!

It's an effect of our success I think. We've been very successful and thus attracted readers with a wide range of needs and interests. It's not unexpected that this would include, not just people interested in butterflies and Pokemon characters and churches in Woolagong and fluid dynamics phenomena and Eurovision winners and 1977 in video gaming and Squiddly Diddly and chunks of barren rock which have never been visited by humans and 1651 battles where the casualties were two civilians plus a herd of cows taken prisoner and extinct lifeforms that may or may not have been fungi and 1930s trucks of which six were made etc, but also people interested in learning about and understanding recent events. What did you expect?

Why, in this (IMO glorious) cathedral of knowledge and information do we want to specifically call out brand new things as something we want, especially, to scrutinize and deprecate?

(I mean sure if the event will become entirely obscure so that we guess (and it is a guess) that the pageview is going to drop well below one a day. And we do have a lot of articles that average one page view per day. A lot (I've checked). Some fungus. A hill in East Nowhere. But this doesn't happen so much for events. Jimmy Carter rabbit incident gets 231 pageviews daily.)

I mean really I think we need a template like this:

Hi, I see you're looking for information on [subject]. We could have an article on this subject. In fact we did have an article on this subject, a nice one. But we deleted it! Because, while we are here to provide information, we don't think you should have too much information.

But we wish you luck on your Google search on this topic, and we hope and assume that you have time, interest, and skill to re-create the equivalent collection of sourced data on your own (just as all the other people reading this message will have to do individually, unless they just give up or settle for a lesser amount of information). Have a nice day!

=/ Herostratus (talk) 16:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

A live example

There's been a great deal of discussion on this page concerning how the media has become overwhelmed with gossip, etc etc., and tying it to lax or non-enforcement of NOTNEWS. I think our current policy is sufficient to handle all such issues, and as an example I cite James Toback. That article bothers me, not from a NOTNEWS standpoint---as the coverage of his alleged sexual transgressions is anything but "routine" in my opinion---but because of WP:UNDUE. Simply too much emphasis in the article. I mention this article not to get more eyes on it (though that wouldn't be a bad thing) but simply to point out that much of the wailing over NOTNEWS is misdirected, and that when valid issues arise concerning "news events" they can be addressed through current policies, particularly NPOV. We don't have to travel 40 years into the future. Coretheapple (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Core thanks for providing an example. Please take this question as straight and please do reply straight. Why is it UNDUE? Jytdog (talk)

See [2]. So far the consensus is unanimously that there is no UNDUE issue. But I think it needs to be considered. Coretheapple (talk) 20:11, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Why waste volunteer time?

Based on "volunteer time is the lifeblood of Wikipedia" - why are so many articles on technical subjects in the deletion discussion queue?

If someone wrote about a computer program that people are using (whether it's freeware or not), then why is it under consideration for deletion, rather than - at worst, TNT. One feature that seems to be missing is the ability to place an article into a "SPECIAL READING" space (until it's ready to be a publicly-available article). Physical libraries sometimes did that for reasons that certain topics were "not for everyone." Yes, it was a form of access-censorship, but then again libraries also made certain items research items - can't borrow it, only read it on-site. I know that this would take discussion to define, formulate and then implement, but isn't there a goal to make Wiki better?

While on the soap box (yes, "Wikipedia is not a soapbox"), here's something else: An editor who may or may not want his name attached to this without permission, wrote:

I will respond in more length later, but briefly: You have a case for more and better references needed on a few points, but not at all for "overly promotional". One of the things that differentiates WP from traditional encyclopedias is that we do include articles on commercial products. And such articles must necessarily describe those products. Some of the descriptions will necessarily include statements that may be viewed as positive, i.e., reasons why one might consider buying the product.

But simply mentioning the attributes and characteristics of a commercial product in an objective, descriptive, non-negative manner and tone is not what we consider "clearly promotional" here. (No matter how much you emphasize the word "clearly". Even using both italics and boldface won't help. Frankly, I laugh at such attempts at "argument by vigorous assertion". Drop them, please.)

If it were, then we would have to remove just about every product description article that's here. (No, that is not an "other stuff exists" argument. This is an "other stuff is pervasive through all of, and is practically a defining feature of, Wikipedia" argument.)

Even if a product happens to be the first of its kind to provide some capability, saying so wouldn't be "promotional". "First to offer feature x", if true, is an objective fact. (But if we said "first and best", then that would indeed be promotional, unless we had some very very solid references.)

Nor are primary sources a problem when they are only used for objective facts, as opposed to judgments and conclusions.

In short I believe you need to review WP:NOTADVERTISING and then recalibrate your understanding of what is meant here by "overly promotional".

My comment is intended to retain the value and guidance of the above (volunteer time) contribution to a Talk Page. The placement that I suggest is that it be added to/following

"Advertising, marketing or public relations" within

"Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion" within

"Encyclopedic content" within

Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not -- (WP:NOTADVERT redirects here)
in its entirety, if possible, unless someone with the appropriate skill writes a more consolidated summary that retains what I see in it.

Either way - THANKS in advance. Pi314m (talk) 03:57, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

The articles you're concerned about are up for deletion because they fail WP:GNG or are in fact written in a promotional, non-neutral tone. We could have more articles on tech products and services if people would actually follow the core content policies and write proper articles about them. WP:NOTSOAPBOX is not the problem here; people trying to use WP as an advertising or fandom platform is the problem. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 11:56, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

WP:RAWDATA conflicts with accepted practice re: sports

In sports in particular, there are thousands of pages like List of Italian football transfers summer 2016, that feature enormous tables with very little context. These pages have clearly been deemed acceptable at some point (or points) in time, presumably by some reasonable level of consensus, but this decision has not made it into the relevant guidance: a naive reading of WP:RAWDATA suggests these pages are not appropriate.

Presumably, the way to reconcile this is to revise the guideline (not to start mass deletions). But how should the guideline change? Is anyone aware of what standard(s) are being used to decide what data pages are appropriate as articles? —swpb^{T go beyond} 18:54, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Alternatively, a discussion with the WP:FOOTY wikiproject, which this would fall right into, would be helpful, to figure out how these came to be and if we can come to an agreement these are problematic, so that they could be deleted in bulk (the appropriate way to approach a mass AFD). I fully agree this violates the spirit of RAWDATA, since trading players between teams is a routine happening in nearly any professional sport. --MASEM (t) 21:58, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

List of Italian football transfers summer 2016 doesn't appear to be an encyclopedic article and is what WP:RAWDATA doesn't want us to do. The fact that the sports wikiprojects are ignoring the policy doesn't mean there's a consensus to invalidate the policy, it means that a wikiproject is having a WP:CONLEVEL problem. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:31, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The linked article seems consistent with the consensus approved at WP:LISTN and WP:LISTCRITERIA, though; so I don't think this is such clear-cut case that the community consensus doesn't approve this kind of articles.

Unless you're seriously proposing to delete almost everything under the huge Category:Sports records and statistics's subcategories, and you're willing to block editors who insist in creating that kind of articles as disruptive, it's fair to say that the problem that WP:RAWDATA warns us is merely against raw data dumps, partially completed or copied from elsewhere; i.e. the endless lists of Pokemons and Transformers attributes that we got rid of as poorly written WP:FANCRUFT. Yet the community practice don't seem to have a problem well-formed, comprehensively curated sport records, and we could ammend the policy accordingly - since policy is supposed to reflect accepted practice, not the other way around.

I'd rather see a guideline that accepted those areas where there's people willing to make a good work maintaining them in good shape in a systematic way, rather than telling them that their work is not welcome because "principles". Diego (talk) 11:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

To editors Masem, SMcCandlish and Diego: Ok, so I see there's more controversy than I thought over whether these articles should exist at all. It's not clear to me that WP:LISTN and WP:LISTCRITERIA support their inclusion either, but those guides do shed more light on the matter, and this guideline should at least link to those. I will add those links if no one objects, while we mull the larger question.

On the larger question, Diego is right that the deletion route would be a huge undertaking. If that's a route we want to seriously consider, we'd eventually need to bring more visibility to the discussion, by way of a {{centralized discussion}}. —swpb^{T go beyond} 12:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Lists of sports stats that mirror what regular sources do, such as career stats of a player or the season results table for a team, are generally, but when you create a list that is otherwise not something regularly reported in sources, that starts becoming an issue, particularly if it is just stats. NOTSTATS applies across the board, not just fancruft. --MASEM (t) 13:17, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

If we go legalistic, and addressing the original question, WP:RAWDATA only forbids excessive use of statistics; and what counts as excessive is open to consensus, so it's not unreasonable that a project's participants might decide the proper level. Barring a community-wide consensus that the detail in those articles is excessive, or a detailed guideline that would contradict how they're written, it's not even clear that the local consensus is against the guideline. Diego (talk) 14:40, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

It may be true that these sports data pages don't violate the letter of the guidance, but they do seem to violate the spirit, as I think it would commonly be interpreted. There is an inconsistency that needs to resolved, I'm just agnostic about how to resolve it. If the pages are to stay, this guideline needs to do a better job of encompassing why that's ok. If we can generalize from how major wikiprojects have determined what's excessive, we should add that here. —swpb^{T go beyond} 15:18, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree it would violate the spirit as it's commonly interpreted nowadays (though I'm not sure that the policy was intended to be so strict when it was written).

My point is that common practice should take precedence over forcing an interpretation of policy over a whole wing of the encyclopedia where it is not being used, unless there is a very strong consensus to extend it there. As you said, this would require a {{centralized discussion}} with high participation and clear arguments of how this benefits the project; a mere "it's the rules, thou must comply" reasoning would not hold much weight. It will be easier to tweak the guideline, or even declare the sports project "compliant" and forget about it. Diego (talk) 15:56, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems like there are lots of instances of pages going against this convention, and the consensus seems to be that large pages of information copied from elsewhere are fine. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Results of the United Kingdom general election, 2017, by parliamentary constituency for a case I brought up earlier this year. That page is a good example of where I don't personally think Wikipedia should carry that sort of information. Unlike an article there's little value-add compared to the source, and there is a definite possibility of misleading readers because (a) a number is copied wrongly, or (b) the page is vandalised and nobody notices. As you can see from the deletion discussion, it gained little traction, but I would still support deleting that and other similar material myself. — Amakuru (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

A very significant detail for making such kind of pages acceptable is when they're not stand-alone tables, but part of a larger encyclopedic topic. In the AfD you link, the Keep !votes point that this is a WP:SPLIT article of the notable United Kingdom general election, 2017. WP:NOTSTATS recognize that such main articles are enough to provide the context needed to make the stats encyclopedic, and even recommends using that particular split structure even if it results in a statistics-only list article. I'm not sure that you're taking into account this view that articles (topics) may be distributed among several pages. Diego (talk) 16:29, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Then shouldn't these split-off stats pages always point back to the page(s) that provide context for them? Maybe: "articles with statistics should include or link to explanatory text providing context." Then, is category membership enough to serve that purpose? If it is, we should say so, and if not, we should say so too. —swpb^{T go beyond} 17:22, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The list that triggered this discussion isn't encyclopedic information; it's regurgitation of raw sports news trivia data better found at, and more likely to be current and correct at, websites that specialize in sports stats. The kinds of editors creating pages like this are basically spinning their wheels, but are intensely interested in lots of more encyclopedic material about their favorite sports/teams/players/etc., and can and should be shunted gently into doing more encyclopedic, less trivia-tracking work on them here. The idea that Category:Sports records and statistics would just get nuked is an alarmist red herring. Records, simply by the fact that they're records, are by definition encyclopedic (if the topic to which they pertain is notable). Various sports stats matters, especially for statistics-heavy sports like baseball, are also encyclopedic by nature when given some context. Another contextually encyclopedic use of sports stats – to get right to heart of this case – would be to give a player's team/squad/club history at the article on that player, and to give a player trades timeline at the article on the team/squad/club. There is no encyclopedic purpose in a raw dump of all trades being crammed into a singe page, and that isn't fixed by prettifying the data dump with list to table formatting. It's still just an indiscriminate, context-free pile of data. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 23:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

So then: what should we do? You say the possibility of nuking the category is alarmist, but there are a lot of pages like the one that started this discussion, that you and several others, with good justification, say are inappropriate. Clearly, if these pages didn't exist, we would not encourage their creation, but that's not the operative question – they're here, so what do we do with them? Do we:

Start deletion nominations en masse, one at a time or in batches?
Devise a standard for inclusion that at least some of these pages can be fixed to meet, and start fixing them?
Revise the current guidance in a way that supports the existence of these pages as they are?
Some combination of the above, or something else?

It seems like #2 would be the best solution, but it would also be the hardest. I'm trying to get us thinking about what that #2 standard would look like, but we don't have many ideas so far, to say nothing of the difficulty of implementing a new standard, or the fact that we don't even have agreement that #2 is the answer: just in this discussion, we have editors arguing for #1 (nukes) and #3 (the pages are fine as is). So, WADR, staking out positions is fine, but what we need are practical paths forward. —swpb^{T go beyond} 12:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Maybe the first step should be notifying the relevant project, to see how they're assesing whether their categories of statistics contain an excess of articles or not? Oh, and note that a strict enforcement in this sense would also likely get rid of a large chunk of Category:Medals and Category:Awards, so you may want to notify wikiprojects History, Film and Music, and ask them what they think of a large portion of articles in their scope being batch-deleted.

If #2 seems a viable option, surely the people working in that class of articles will have more experience in the nuances of each kind of article. Diego (talk) 13:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I think we're all aware that these wikiprojects would not like this idea, which is why, yes, we should see what standards (if any) they are using, but we should not necessarily assume those standards are acceptable to the larger community, and we should not invite wikiprojects to weigh in here unless we're ready to also advertise the question to the rest of the community. "#2 but leave standards up to the wikiprojects" is the situation we're in now, and doesn't seem to have any supporters here besides yourself. Which doesn't mean you can't argue for it to a point, but keep in mind that consensus starts from common ground. —swpb^{T go beyond} 14:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

To wit, I've posed the question to WikiProject Sports, in a neutral way that doesn't suggest they're doing anything wrong. I think this would be a good way to gather info from other projects as well. I ask that we don't taint the outcome of those probes by bringing up the actions being considered here – all relevant parties will have plenty of chance to weigh in later. —swpb^{T go beyond} 15:19, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The conversation there is worth reading. I'll make mine Djsasso's words, reused under the CC BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL licenses:

Per the Five Pillars we are [a statistics collection]. "It combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." And sports almanacs contain sports statistics. Hell even the link you provide in a very big font say we are also an almanac which is what these types of articles would be. And WP:NOT doesn't say no stats collection, it says no unexplained stats and in any sports articles I have seen what the stats mean is pretty clear so they aren't indiscriminate. Hell, it even goes on to explain how stats can be split off to their own article so as to make the main article easier to read.

In short, the standards they're following are what is written at WP:5P and WP:NOT. Diego (talk) 08:43, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

In the spirit of open discussion, I've posted a link to this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports, given that the articles in that Wikiproject are the ones specifically being debated here as a relevant particular case of the more general guideline. Diego (talk) 09:08, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Fallacious reasoning. WP:ENC: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The fact that it's one that selectively integrates some features of some other kinds of works in the course of building that encyclopedia does not mean that it indiscriminately integrates all of them. This is a variant of the fallacy of composition. WP integrating some elements of some almanacs does not mean "anything goes", or we would not have WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. It is an insufficient argument that sports almanacs contain sports stats thus any/all sports stats must be permissible here because WP has some features of some almanacs. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Nowhere did I say any and all, WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE requires the statistics to be explained and put in context. As long as they are, then they aren't violating WP:NOT. It is very rare that I see any that do not do that, those that have been borderline I have seen deleted. -DJSasso (talk) 11:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

The fact that it's one that selectively integrates some features of some other kinds of works in the course of building that encyclopedia does not mean that it indiscriminately integrates all of them. And what are, according to you, the elements of almanacs that Wikipedia selectively integrates and are allowed per WP:NOT? Diego (talk) 11:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

The only one that we do do and recognize in policy is that of being a gazetteer for (recognized) geographic locations; these don't have to prove notability, and can be constructed from almanac-type data. --MASEM (t) 13:34, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

It does seem, mind (and I disclose that the great majority of my mainspace edits are to sports articles), that especially given the reaction to the UK election example, a strong factor to whether data-related articles/lists are objectionable is the areas in which people do their edits. (grins) Ravenswing 11:59, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

The solution to this, is to do nothing, because WP:NOTDONE and WP:TIND are important guiding principles as well. The OP's concern that there shouldn't be entire articles that consist solely of tables of contextless data is a valid one. The solution, however, is not "delete the data". The solution is provide the context. And if you do not have the time, skill, or interest to provide that context, you are quite allowed to leave it for such a time as someone who IS interested to do just that. Just because the work hasn't been done yet, or that you don't feel like doing it is no reason that you have the right to prevent someone else from doing it. Let them. "I don't feel like doing this so no one should be allowed to" is a bad way to run an open, volunteer project like this. Should WP:RAWDATA be abided by? Yes. The solution for when it isn't, however, is not "delete it". The solution is "fix it, or let someone else fix it". Deleting it serves no purpose except forcing someone to do the work again later. --Jayron32 13:37, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
- For the record, I (OP) have never endorsed mass deletions (and I've been very consistent about that). The point was to evaluate all ideas about what to do about the obvious disconnect between guideline and content. The question is just "Can we give better guidance that will help everyone to close that disconnect?" Paranoia and poor reading comprehension have driven the idea of mass deletion to the front, but it does not belong there. —swpb^{T go beyond} 13:51, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
- There are times there are valid data tables, and to avoid the NOTSTATS, adding context is important, such as the voter results table. But adding context cannot magically "bless" any list of stats into being acceptable. There's a reason that lists of stats should at least follow a similar approach done in other sources or group elements using methods similar to other sources, so that we aren't crafting original research in the presentation of such stats. That then gives us sources to use to help with the providing of context for the list. That's the concern with the lists in the original question: while trades are part of the operation of professional teams, listing them out in this fashion seems to be novel, from what I can tell, and that makes it a NOTSTATS issue that just can't be resolved by adding context. --MASEM (t) 13:52, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
adding context cannot magically "bless" any list of stats into being acceptable Why not? WP:RAWDATA only forbids excessive, unexplained stats; if the stats are explained, they are no longer affected by the current wording. They may become unacceptable for other reasons, but not per WP:NOTSTATS.

we aren't crafting original research in the presentation of such stats Doesn't that imply that we shouldn't create list articles unless their data is compiled from things published in list form in the original sources? Diego (talk) 14:36, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
To both points, we don't want to create unique compilations of stats that haven't been the subject of discussion before, otherwise it is original research to say that we should be comparing these stats in this manner. As a random example List of 40-plus point games by Kobe Bryant is based on the fact that the media frequently talk about the # of 40-plus point games he had. Not 35, not 45, but 40. Once that is established, then it makes sense that even if the full list of games that meet that is not completely published (eg the most recent games), we can add to that as long as we have validation it meets the criteria. List of most viewed YouTube videos and various iterations are based on the fact that there were, at one point, third-party sources tracking top videos, and while they don't do it any longer, that still gives us reason to update it. What we don't want are tables of stats that have been selected solely at the discretion of WP editors, as the trades list appears to be. That is original research (from what I can tell) to assert the list is of importance. We're not asking for notability (WP:LISTN specifically notes this), but that we're not creating a random list/stat inclusion metric that doesn't have any recognition outside WP. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't follow soccer so I am not sure if trades are collected like that for that sport. For other sports I do follow, hockey for example, most sports networks have trade trackers that list all trades in a season, as well as more specialized sport websites that do the same. So it is not outlandish to have these lists at least in the cases I am aware of. But to your bigger point, no we shouldn't be letting people make up random combinations of stats to create a list on, but if it is something that is typically a notable set of data then it is supported by our current policies to exist. -DJSasso (talk) 15:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
OK, requiring that the statistics articles are about types of statistics that are regularly compiled by RSs seems a reasonable criterion; this is consistent with the criterion at WP:NOTDIRECTORY not to create novel cross-categorizations. We could explore the implications and limits of this criterion applied to statistics articles, and later create a RfC based on it. Diego (talk) 16:25, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

@swpb: You did not request mass deletions, but SMcCandlish did suggest it, right as a direct reply to your original post. I do not agree that "a naive reading of WP:RAWDATA suggests these pages are not appropriate", but I agree that revising the guideline (in the sense of explaining why these articles have been accepted by the community current practice) and being aware of the standards used to justify these articles are good things we should do as a result of this discussion. Diego (talk) 14:54, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Just to bring us back to the incident article that started this, a list of transfers (or trades, in North American method), within the context of a league's season article is, without question, notable. Due to the size of these articles, however, splits are definitely useful and this is a logical place for one. However, as noted earlier in the thread, the solution here is to add context. There will unquestionably be articles about the most significant transfers, any record price set, and probably (once the season ends) moves that had the greatest impact on the season. Ideally we would all like to see these things added. Hopefully, in time, it is. The lists are entirely valid under WP:5P. And, indeed, I've written several GA and FL class articles that would certainly be considered in the nature of a sporting almanac. Reso lute 22:53, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

It strikes me that the sort of information List of Italian football transfers summer 2016 contains is something that could be easily, and more usably, kept at Wikidata. I'm not saying you can't have an article on this subject, but for the most part, notes about individual trades, particularly the more noteworthy ones, ought to be made in the respective seasons that were affected by the trades (I'm assuming these are inter-season trades, so you'd probably mention the more noteworthy ones in the previous and following seasons), as well as articles about the athletes themselves. I will admit, I don't know much about list article standards, but it strikes me that unless there's more that can be said than "date of trade, player's name, sending club, receiving club, fee paid, citation", we're within RAWDATA territory. Perhaps not as deep within RAWDATA territory as a table of logarithms would be, but it's definitely in there. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:12, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
- "could be easily, and more usably, kept at Wikidata"
- One would hope yes, but actually no. Editing Wikidata is harder than editing Wikipedia, and using Wikidata is extremely hard, as very few people can write queries. --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:33, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I see some sentiment for exclusion on the basis that we are an encyclopedia and you would not expect to find this type of information in an encyclopedia. I'd like to push back on that argument a bit. I don't disagree that this type of information is unlikely to be found in a paper encyclopedia, but that's because the information is most valuable when it is recent. By the time a paper encyclopedia is written, the usefulness of this information is becoming stale, so it may not be justifiable to take up the paper space. Obviously, Wikipedia has neither the time nor space constraint. I don't think paper based encyclopedias chose not to publish this type of information because it wasn't interesting to their customers, but because of the time and space problems.

As partial proof of this point, but also to illustrate a separate, relevant point, check out page views. 10 or 20 a day now, which isn't many, but roughly 1000 a day in July 2016. I've tried and failed to see how that would rank among all articles, but I'll bet easily in the top 10% of all articles at that time, and probably closer to top 1% than to the top 10%.

Is there a hybrid solution? Maybe it should be an active article in 2016, but sometime, maybe now or in another year, it should transition to Wikidata?--S Philbrick (Talk) 23:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I guess the test would be to take one of these transfer lists to AfD and see what happens. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:30, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I see no violation here. If I go to that list of football transfers and look up source #787 (!) it is not a table; it is an article about a transfer. It completely boggles my mind that any Wikipedia editors could possibly have put together this table, but from all those references I do believe THEY PUT TOGETHER THIS TABLE. Which makes it not "RAWDATA". To be clear, a RAWDATA violation would mean that you found this table in a source online and decided to mirror the whole thing on Wikipedia because it might be useful. We can't copy the entire literature of the world here. But if editors actually want to put in the effort to collect 700+ references and make a table out of them, then I dare say it passes GNG -- and has a place in Wikipedia! (I should add that making this table a separate article rather than putting it in 2016-17 in Italian football is the behavior specifically recommended in WP:RAWDATA. My impression of WP:NOT overall is that he who cites it, does not read it, and he who reads it, does not cite it. Wnt (talk) 15:36, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd just observe (pace Diego Moya) that the fans who created the stat articles about Pokémon, Transformers, Gundam etc. may well be of the opinion that football articles are far less notable. Stifle (talk) 15:54, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
List of Italian football transfers summer 2016 should absolutely be deleted. I agree with everything SMcCandlish has said. There's no need to change core policy to accommodate wikiprojects. James (^talk/_contribs) 18:51, 6 November 2017 (UTC)