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I'm wondering if this is worth floating as an addition. To some degree this is covered (or should be covered) in NOTDIR and summary style, but we've still got a mess of timeline articles that are blow-by-blow (sometimes day-by-day) coverage over the course of weeks, months, and years. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:21, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Not even looking but I bet our Covid articles are like this. And fully agree we should have something like this. There are certainly notable timeliness (eg WW II would be one) but these have been filtered by academic sourcing to highlight key points. Whereas most timelines I see that are problems are written with day to day events without any filtering. This probably falls under the NOTNEWS area of concern since these are written as events break. -- Masem ( t) 18:51, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings on that. It's basically another of the trillions of possible list articles. Some more guidance on such is really needed but the topic lists sort of straddles the fence between wp:not, wp:notability and WP:Stand-alone lists with none of them really giving guidance. But timeline can be a useful way to present things for the right situations. North8000 ( talk) 19:18, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Could we see some examples, and an explanation of why "timeline articles that are blow-by-blow (sometimes day-by-day) coverage over the course of weeks, months, and years" are necessarily a problem? Also, NOTNEWS doesn't even touch on situations like this. It is mainly about not using our own eyewitness experience as a source. Herostratus ( talk) 01:57, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Eg Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic and nearly ever article linked off that: Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 for example. And it is definitely a NOT#NEWS issue under "News reports". -- Masem ( t) 02:26, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Masem read my mind here, because it was running across Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2022 that sparked my thoughts on this. "Not a timeline" itself is sort of probably a bad way of thinking about this, because we do have "Timeline" articles that are not organized like the Covid ones (just bullet points and day-by-day entries), and I have no innate truck with them. As North says, an overview focusing on key dates can be a useful way to grok a large topic. The Covid timelines and ones like them definitely don't serve a useful purpose, they're basically just loosely-aggregated facts devoid of context, organized in breathless detail because they focus on minute, discrete content that is the opposite of what an encyclopedia arguably is supposed to be. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 02:28, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I was hoping some of the WWII timelines were in good shape for examples, but they are not. On the other hand, outside of the last 50yrs in this one Timeline of Buddhism is a good example of what I consider an overview of the broad strokes about the topic, where more narrow coverage of events can be linked from. There's thought in curating and summarizing, rather than bullet-pointing every possibly significant event, which is where the COVID timelines are failing us. -- Masem ( t) 02:32, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I like this idea but it would take some work to find a wording that would not exclude OK, reasonably selective timelines (such as mentioned above). I think I have seen some excessively timelineish historical articles, so this may not be exclusively a NOTNEWS issue, but that's definitely where it is most likely to crop up since current events are just one thing after another. (Many of our current news articles do manage to avoid this structure, which is quite an impressive editorial feat.) Perhaps an appropriately worded bullet point under WP:INDISCRIMINATE? -- Visviva ( talk) 02:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Keep in mind NOTNEWS includes the statements "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 and Wikipedia is not written in news style.", which to me reads that even for historical events, we should not write to the day-by-day of every event that may have occurred but should summarize at the level that enduring coverage has done. Masem ( t) 03:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

A bullet under INDISCRIMINATE would make sense for me. Obviously we do have timeline articles people can agree are fine, so "Wikipedia is not a timeline" can't really be the actual high-level language. Maybe something along the lines of:

Blow-by-blow recitation of events. Wikipedia is not a news source and should present information in summary style rather than relaying information at a micro level like a news blotter. Reliable sources can be used as a guide to determine the appropriate level of coverage.

Or similar? I feel like the last line would help cover some of these excessively verbose cases, in that I have not seen a ton of new sources doing retrospectives on the early days of Covid or whatever and focusing on day-by-day recitation of case numbers as we do, etc., but also obviously doesn't imply that all potential chronologies of the pandemic wouldn't be acceptable. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

That sounds good, but it might not reach the people it needs to reach, since the problem with most timelines (at least the ones that don't have other serious policy problems) is that they are drawing on reliable sources (such as "mainstream newspapers" per WP:NOR#Reliable sources), but are doing so indiscriminately. And indiscriminateness is a somewhat fuzzy concept. I want to say something like "Articles on events that are unfolding as the article is written should highlight the most significant information, as indicated in the best available reliable sources. As retrospective and historical articles become available, the article should rely increasingly on those as a guide to determine the appropriate level of coverage." But I feel like that might be getting a little bit outside of the usual WP:NOT territory. -- Visviva ( talk) 23:25, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

To me timelines are a list article (they are a sorted list of events) , and are on average much better/more useful/more informative/more interesting than the typical list article that I see at NPP. I see a need for a lot more guidance on list articles, but not for a particular focus on timeline types. North8000 ( talk) 18:05, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Not all timelines are expressly designed in a list format, however—there's a significant overlap, but they aren't a perfect sphere. Also, frankly, I don't see a snowball's chance in hell of some meaningful elaboration on what deserves a standalone list, so that seems like a nonstarter. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 20:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Oh for crying out loud we already know Wikipedia is not a road map, religious text, blueprint, or any other random number of things. Do we really need an endless list of everything Wikipedia is not? The whole damn thing is already way too creepy to begin with, and the fact anyone wants to make it even more creepy just creeps me way out. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Given that we have far too many timeline articles that are not written as we expect for an encyclopedia, yes we need something, and David Fuchs' language also goes into other areas that I've seen (eg the timeline section in United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack) Masem ( t) 02:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

This proposal is in conflict with Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Specialized list articles, and WP:Timeline. Also, "Blow-by-blow", "micro level", and "news blotter" sound made up and could be defined differently by anyone. Huggums537 ( talk) 11:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Nope. The SAL section talks about graphical timelines, not those that are basically simplified proseline (which we also want to avoid), while TIMELINE provides guidance on how to make those graphical ones. Nothing on these prose-based timelines. Additionally, given that we're meant to summarize sources, it is clear where those terms like "blow-by-blow" fit into the scheme of things. -- Masem ( t) 12:17, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

The proposal will have adverse effects on SAL and TIMELINE because people will interpret vague terms like "blow-by-blow" in weird ways that would greatly conflict with the graphical timelines, or otherwise invalidate them so the conflict is still there regardless of anything being said about prose-based timelines. Huggums537 ( talk) 13:05, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

This doesn't even account for the fact that such a proposal could be misused or misinterpreted to invalidate more kinds of articles than just the graphical timelines. I'm against any proposal that isn't plainly clear, and well defined. Huggums537 ( talk) 13:18, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I can't see any of that happening. Every WP:NOT line item (as well as other policies) all get misused by well-meaning editors all the time. I agree that any wording to be added should avoid vague terms, but I can't see how the broad summary timelines (what we want to keep) would be mistaken as "blow-by-blow" ones. -- Masem ( t) 13:28, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

The whole point of floating this absent an RfC is to try and hammer out wording issues. What phrase would work more specifically for you? (Day by day seems appropriate, but I don't know if there's a counterfactual where that would be a better approach.) As to "this is scope creep", if we have a bunch of these articles and people are agreeing they're excessive, then clearly our existing guidance isn't working. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

If you/we want wording that works, a good thing to do would be to trying to figure out the aspects that would tend to make such lists/timelines less appropriate. I acknowledge that this is tough because in reality it's probably combination of attributes, but I think that an attempt is needed. North8000 ( talk) 16:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I think the general issue is too much detail, to the point that for a reader, the results are mostly gibberish. The COVID timelines have so much information done in discrete detail based on the point of view of each date rather than relying on sources that summarize details, that you're essentially treated to information that has no point and context— Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria (February–June 2020), for example, has as a significant entry the fact that three Chinese nationals were quarantined... even though they tested negative. The timeline issue is a common one in bad prose, too—band pages that are just section after section of "On X date, Y happened"—but structuring things as a timeline basically encourages content that wouldn't easily fit in prose to exist. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:35, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

This is definitely related to WP:PROSELINE which is discouraged. Its understandable this is how an article will likely be built as things happen, but once stuff settles down, they should be revisited to better summarize. Masem ( t) 13:49, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

This war on prose is harmful to all timelines no matter what kind they are because all timelines require a certain amount of prose, so if you are going to be declaring war on the prose in all timelines then it is going to have a negative impact on all timelines, and thus you have the conflict which essentially exists as a war on all timelines. Huggums537 ( talk) 06:11, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Frankly you don't seem to understand what I'm talking about. What "war on prose" am I suggesting beyond actually following summary style? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 13:35, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I can't see this as a war on prose, but instead to get away from things like proseline in favor of better refined prose. You can still document chronological events, but they just shouldn't detail at the microscopic level. -- Masem ( t) 13:47, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

What's not to understand? It started out as a war on "blow by blow" coverage, which has been pointed out would affect any articles with any kind of chronological structure to them such as historical articles (not even counting all other timelines I mentioned), and it was also pointed out that this war is on articles that are properly sourced, but that doesn't seem to be good enough - we are now trying to call for only the "most significant", and that is the most terrible idea I ever heard of. What's next? Only Featured articles allowed? Except, it wouldn't stop there because then the debates would be about what still qualifies as a featured article. Let's just nip it in the bud now, and accept the fact that if you hit the history books you will see that if we summarize at the level that enduring coverage has done, then the significant events covered are extremely extensive so the only reason for any kind of limitation is because you just don't like it because saying something is "not encyclopedic" is highly subjective, open to interpretation, and certainly should never be enough for justification of radical policy changes requiring extensive original research of sources to determine what qualifies as "most significant", and what doesn't. Huggums537 ( talk) 00:45, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

The short answer is easy: Wikipedia is supposed to summary, not lay out in detail. It is entirely possible to write a timeline that properly summarizes the events along it, just that most timelines written now are build on a day-by-day basis without regards to summarizing. This may be good for initially collecting information for the timeline, but needs to be corrected to meet the idea that we summarize. We already do have advice along these lines in that we do not include full patch notes for software or hardware, but instead hit the major changes as noted in sources.

And what you advocate about original research of what is most important from sources -- guess what? 100% of WP's articles use that approach. That's where there is a skill of art in the research to know how to identify key items which may include using WEIGHT/DUE to see what sources say. This is an irrational fear. Masem ( t) 02:34, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

And what you advocate about original research of what is most important from sources -- guess what? 100% of WP's articles use that approach. I think this isn't true at all, and it disappoints me someone with your experience suggested as much. I think somewhere deep in your mind you mind you thought it wasn't really true either, because you subconsciously contradicted that very bold statement directly after in a subtle way; That's where there is a skill of art in the research to know how to identify key items which may include using WEIGHT/DUE to see what sources say. It's obvious anyone can see this approach isn't being used on every source, nor should it be, and it isn't being used on every article either, nor should it be. I have a great fear there is anyone wanting them to be, and I think this is a very rational fear. Huggums537 ( talk) 16:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Show me an article where the structure and content is directed by one single source. Otherwise, our combination of using articles to determine structure and to summarize appropriate content is original research, but it is of the type required to be a tertiary source. That's why its a skill of art to know where the line gets drawn between this tertiary source OR that is essential and problematic OR that we don't want. And we've established that because we summarize, we don't want something as detailed as day-by-day timeline, similar to the minutiae of patch notes for software programs. Masem ( t) 16:39, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, except that isn't the kind of OR I was talking about in my post. My complaint had to do with the subjective determinations about what is "most significant", and we have no guidance for that. There is no scale to go by. No measuring stick. It would all be something made up in the heads of editors in contrast to what we now have which is just that it be significant or not. Just making the determination about if something is a yay or nay is complicated enough all by its lonesome without the added headache of where the scale begins and ends with whatever the hell "most significant" is supposed to be. Huggums537 ( talk) 16:57, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying that we have nothing in policy or guideline as to what makes something significant, short of either its presences of lots of sources or absence in any source (UNDUE). That said, WP:NOT already says we should focus on the significant, via WP:NOT#IINFO.

So yes, what should go in a timeline will be a subjective determination of editors, but that's what consensus is for. Just that we know that an interictally detailed timeline does not follow the principles of WP:NOT and so some refinement is required. Masem ( t) 17:11, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

To be fair, the only thing that explicitly says to focus on significance is WP:NOTPLOT, but even then it is strictly limited specifically to creative works rather than 100% of all articles. Also, if you put this proposal from our style guidelines into our policy, then not only will it apply to timelines, but it will apply to articles about people, things, businesses, or whatever, and they might have a history section or some other similar section with a chronological structure that has lots of details, or otherwise benefits from being more expanded, so this proposal will conflict with the current policy where significance doesn't apply to all articles. The proposal started out as a "fix" for timelines, and then added COVID articles, but now I see it as a takeover for all articles, and I'm fully against this. I hear you saying we've established that because we summarize, we don't want something as detailed as day-by-day timeline, similar to the minutiae of patch notes for software programs and that sounds nice and innocent enough, but what it really does is forcing the significance issue, demanding it from all articles in an unprecedented way when it is clear that even the common way isn't forced on all articles. Huggums537 ( talk) 17:49, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

You're assuming bad faith that this is going to seep into all articles. I have yet to see any other aspect of NOT seep into content in that way. And again, we're not saying no timelines ever, just that timelines should be ideally prosified (but not in a proseline way), when possible focus on key points in time that the secondary sources looking back at the event are describing the event as critical or important, rather than the ruminations of daily news reporting (as the COVID timelines are) and other factors like that.

And yes, the significance issue is enshrined in policy under IINFO: "To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources. As explained in § Encyclopedic content above, merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." This clearly should apply to day-by-day timelines too, where instead we want refined timelines, time-based summary of date (eg the COVID timelines for countries included day-by-day tallies of cases, where this can be moved into Commons (which supports raw data information) and provided as a graph or broader summary like month-by-month), and other better summaries that still cover the key content points. This often requires stepping back and recognizing what is important for the general reader rather than "a student" of the topic. Masem ( t) 18:00, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, I agree about the COVID articles anyway, and we will have to agree to disagree about the rest. The OP has suggested making some changes at the project level, and I think this is a good idea. Huggums537 ( talk) 18:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be some support for reform on these articles there: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19. Huggums537 ( talk) 18:16, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I almost forgot to mention the proseline stuff. That is a guideline we are attempting to implement as a policy. Seems like a higher level RFC should be used for something like that. Huggums537 ( talk) 05:14, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

There is an entire List of timelines and I think most people would concede that there are some good ones. But I see the issue raised by David Fuchs and Masem about the civid-related articles. I'm not sure what the appropriate guidance is here but I am open to proposals. Jontesta ( talk) 01:07, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like there's some clear coalescing around having more verbiage added here, so I think I'll just try tackling the Covid stuff via discussion on the Covid wikiproject talk page? There seemed like there was some sentiment there about focusing on consolidation, so it's worth a shot. Otherwise I guess it's just got to be a piecemeal thing. I don't think an RfC is worth it if there's not a clear opinion expressed that something should be done besides three people agreeing. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:11, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your ability to make an objective self assessment. It is a rare and commendable trait. Huggums537 ( talk) 15:44, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Floating this before doing a full RfC or anything. You can see my full reasoning at User:WhinyTheYounger/NOT proposal. In short, aiming to bridge the gap with e.g. academics (whose pages often list tons of gratuitous publications, e.g. Special:Diff/1077586446 or Norman Geisler#Works) and provide guidance on what sort of stuff should be in a biographical article. This proposal takes what is already often assumed to be the case, it seems, via the humorous essay WP:RESUME and makes it more explicit and official policy.

Proposal: The following lines in green should be be added to WP:PROMO section of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, and the corresponding guidance in MOS:WORKS should be appended accordingly.

Text to be added to WP:PROMO:

Text to be appended to MOS:WORKS:

WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 00:57, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I think this only needs to be at MOS:WORKS, only because its focusing on one smaller facet of articles (the bibliographies), and specific to well-written people which is mostly going to be academics, which have hundreds of papers they may be on. -- Masem ( t) 01:03, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the works-as-promo issue is pretty prominent, though, even among non-academics. A lawyer friend pointed me to Milan Smith#Notable cases a few months ago, asking why a relatively obscure judge had such a detailed description of so many cases he oversaw. Also, in my opinion, part of the problem is it's also likely to be an issue in articles that are not well written. I'm thinking e.g. of Special:Diff/1077586446, with over 34k bytes of journal articles (I may have gone overboard wiping them at the time, which is why guidance here would be nice) or Special:Diff/1079948732, where the inclusion of speeches in an article spawned an RfC. Basically, it'd be nice to say to COI editors via PROMO: Here is why we don't want you to have every single thing you've ever written here. Linking to WP:RESUME sort of gets to the point — but that's a humorous essay, even if it seems to be sort of the norm in how we look at these. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 03:17, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Masem. Adding the first text to PROMO is WP:CREEP² x ∞ since something about résumés already exists with a link to WP:RESUME in PROMO at: 4. Self-promotion., and if stuff about biographies should go anywhere, it would be WP:BLP not here, but since the focus is bibliographies it can go to MOS:WORKS, but it needs a little tweaking done to it:

Lists of published works should be included for authors, illustrators, photographers and other artists. The individual items in the list do not have to be notable to be included in the list. Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable sourcing (WP:V), are encouraged, particularly when such lists are not already freely available on the internet. If the list has a separate article, a simplified version should also be provided in the main article. Works of non-artistic writers should be more carefully selected so as to not mirror a curriculum vitae or résumé; see WP:PROMO for more information.(Changes in bold.)

This last part can still link to PROMO per 4. Self-promotion. and the parts that I changed are because:notable because we don't want to be telling people anything does not have to be sufficiently notable to merit an article, and sourcing because the way it was written seemed to strictly specify academic sourcing to the exclusion of all other sourcing. Huggums537 ( talk) 04:10, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! I agree with the bolded changes above, and I can see why just modifying MOS may be preferable. (On a quick note, I disagree that it's strictly a BLP issue — this can still be a problem in nonliving bibliographies, see e.g. Norman Geisler#Works example. Another example is John Rawls#Book chapters — a giant of modern political philosophy, but I can't help but feel that including e.g. a one-page chapter called "Author's Note" is at some point overboard, and distracts from the more substantive works of his.)

Re:Scope creep/redpulication, my thinking was that the link to WP:RESUME in PROMO 4 is just a reminder to avoid "Creating overly abundant links and references to autobiographical sources, such as your résumé or curriculum vitae" — but my concern is with the recreation of a resume/CV. Would a compromise be modifying that line in 4 to something like: Creating overly abundant links and references to autobiographical sources, such as your résumé or curriculum vitae, or adding excessive links to works to recreate a résumé or curriculum vitae, is unacceptable.? I'm imagining the confusion an otherwise uninitiated COI editor might have reading the current PROMO line after e.g. someone removes a wall of random op-eds from their article. Strictly per PROMO 4 as it stands, one could say "that isn't a link to a résumé, it's a list of works published in [influential newspaper]". If MOS were updated per this proposal, it wouldn't be a contradiction/huge problem necessarily, but more of a question of harmonization. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 15:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this is necessary to codify. Sometimes a list of all works makes sense, sometimes it overwhelms the article. That is true both for people producing art (no, we usually don't want to list every exhibition catalog or every poem, but we may want to list all volumes of poetry) and people producing science (we may list all the 20 articles some mathematician has produced, but not the 500 articles some engineer has published. For the mathematician, we probably don't want to list their individual reviews). Example from my own article work: Rosa M. Morris. Yes, the publication list would benefit from more critical commentary. But I wouldn't like to be discouraged in general from including it. — Kusma ( talk) 15:31, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate the feedback. I think situating this change within WP:PROMO helps contextualize it and guard against nixing listed works for someone like Morris, which is one of the reasons I prefer to have any change made both in MOS and PROMO. In cases like Morris' — older scholars who don't have e.g. a Google Scholar ID or ORCID that can be easily added to Wikidata and Authority Control — I think those sorts of bibliographies are intuitively more reasonable, but you're right that e.g. 500 engineering papers is overkill. We're still left with a gap for e.g. the political scientists with 100 published articles. For the average reader, I'd argued that as a bibliography grows larger and larger, its utility decreases: the reader is less likely to interact with the most substantive works among a wall of text. There's obviously not going to be a brightline, but maybe just wording along the lines of "lists of works in a subject's article should balance considerations of depth and breadth to avoid becoming unwieldy or excessively long and trivial" (spitballing here). That would seem to provide basis to moderate something like the nearly 70 publications in [[ William Baumol#Major publications]. Without some sort of guidance, I do feel weird about culling even what are pretty clearly promotional works lists of questionable utility to a reader, e.g. Danielle Citron#Selected works or Jessica Bell (author)#Bibliography. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 17:49, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, MOS:LIST already says Lists of works of individuals or groups, such as bibliographies, discographies, filmographies, album personnel and track listings are typically presented in simple list format, though it is expected that the information will be supported elsewhere in the article by prose analysis of the main points and this prose analysis is very often lacking. I rather like your suggestion to balance considerations of depth and breadth while making lists. I'd add that what length and level of detail is appropriate for such a list depends on the available secondary sourcing. Very long lists like the one at William Baumol could be improved also by breaking up into sublists by topic or publication type, which again would allow for a few introductory sentences providing critical commentary. As it stands, it is only of limited utility, and it is rather unclear why so many publications are "major" yet not discussed in the Research section.

So overall you're right that there are a lot of especially academic biographies where something should be done about the bibliography sections. The issue is that culling such lists indiscriminately is probably wrong, and pruning them into something better is difficult and needs nontrivial subject knowledge and sometimes research, and it is hard to codify in a catch-all matter what is best. Anyway, if you feel weird to edit without guidance, don't. Just be bold and edit, figure out what you think is the best way to do it, and then write that up as guidance for the next person. — Kusma ( talk) 20:39, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Can we come up with a better turn of phrase than the buzz-non-word "impactful", which I view as meaningless millennial marketing-major-speak, and that others will jump on as an excuse to demand inclusion of meaningless professional articles that were the subject of relatively well-written press releases that came out on slow news days? - Julietdeltalima (talk) 22:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

• I'm opposed to these changes as they are too prescriptive and overreaching. Complete lists are expected in many subjects such as filmographies of notable film actors for example and this advice would just muddy the waters in my view, Atlantic306 ( talk) 22:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  This wording focuses only on written works and would exclude works of art already defined in the MOS paragraph. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)( talk, contribs) 03:53, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

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I agree with the recent minor correction made by Tavix, and I think the suggestion made by BilledMammal about rewriting conflicting guidance to match an incorrect small segment of policy is a bit senseless when you consider all of the conflicting guidance that would have to be rewritten. Not only would MOS:DABMENTION have to be rewritten since it allows links to non-notable parts of articles, but MOS:DABRED would have to be rewritten since it allows redlinks if they are mentioned in other articles. Does it make more sense for all that guidance to be rewritten simply because BilledMammal says that little segment take precedence, or does it make more sense to recognize the small segment is clearly mistaken, and correct it? Also, a blanket policy restricting all DAB lists to "notable only" doesn't just conflict with the above mentioned MOS, it is in direct conflict with WP:NNC, and WP:LISTN Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability. I see this little piece of malformed policy as nothing more than a way for bad actors to tell editors with good intentions who have followed well written guidance tough luck because we gotcha on a little technicality since policy trumps whatever guidance you followed. Huggums537 ( talk) 19:21, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

DABRED wouldn't need to be rewritten; it only allows redlinks to be provided when the topic is judged to be appropriate for a future article, which requires it to be notable.

In addition, dab pages to non-notable people have three issues. First, hundreds of thousands or millions would be required, resulting in them being unmaintainable and as as result less suitable for readers to find the article they are looking for than the search function; mentions added after the dab page is created are unlikely to result in the dab page being updated in a timely manner, and thus the search function is more effective. Second, they make it harder for readers to find the notable individual they are looking for; imagine adding all the non-notable people named John Smith to John Smith. Third, there are often multiple, equally suitable targets, and we do not know which one the reader is looking for; for example, are they looking for Patricia Jenkins's participation in the 1904 Olympics, the 1908 Olympics, or the 1912 Olympics? In a dab page, we would have to assume a single, most likely target, which will confuse readers looking for a different target, while the search function places no such requirement. BilledMammal ( talk) 20:34, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

DABRED would in fact have to be rewritten, and so would WP:D3 as well as WP:DABREF when you consider the only way to really prove any redlink is notable is to add the citations, and the way D3 is currently written citations are not allowed. WP:CSC talks about this redlinks and citations thing although the guidance is admittedly meant for articles not DAB navigational lists. The naming problems you are talking about are already covered quite well at WP:NAMELIST where we can easily organize and manage names without forcing a minor notability policy note that conflicts with other guidance, and has no other support anywhere else in policy backing it up. Huggums537 ( talk) 23:41, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Also, nobody ever asked for DAB pages to non-notable people [that aren't already allowed] in the first place. Your suggestion that making this correction to the policy is an equivalent invitation to millions of non-notable entries is just a bunch of poppycock. D3 makes it clear that entries without blue links should not be included, so that would never happen because you would have an extremely difficult time getting thousands, or maybe even just only hundreds of non-notables that are also mentioned in other articles, and even if that would happen it would not change anything by keeping this incorrect bit because we are already linking to non-notable people mentioned in other articles per DABMENTION anyway so keeping the faulty bit of policy helps nothing. Not only would you have to rewrite DABMENTION, you would also have to make changes to an unreasonable amount of DAB pages that already contain links to non-notable people or things mentioned in other articles. Huggums537 ( talk) 07:42, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

nobody ever asked for DAB pages to non-notable people in the first place - that isn't correct. For example, Arthur Harley is a dab page to non-notable people. I also think you are significantly underestimating the number of non-notable people mentioned on Wikipedia if you think there are only a few hundred or a few thousand such DAB pages that could be created if this part of NOT was removed.

And neither D3 nor DABRED would need to be rewritten; as I pointed out DABRED already only permits red links on disambiguation pages when the topic is judged to be appropriate for a future article. BilledMammal ( talk) 00:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

It is correct now. I've added the additional context to my comment, but the point is that nobody is asking for anything that isn't already allowed. Even the example you provided is already allowed. I think you are seriously overestimating what *could* happen just to push your POV based on nothing more than the bare fact that lots of non notable people are mentioned on Wikipedia, while history itself has data to support the fact that this incorrect bit of policy isn't stopping these pages from being created anyway, and millions of them have not got out of hand yet. OTOH, the policy is falsely misleading people into believing something that isn't true about DAB's, which is that DAB pages are "notable only". Huggums537 ( talk) 12:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur Harley (2nd nomination) shows a strong and clear consensus against for BilledMammal's interpretation of WP:NOTDIRECTORY. My change simply reconciled a conflict that arose from a bold, undiscussed addition that had gone unchallenged until being used in that AfD against the established WP:DABMENTION guidance, one that can be traced back all the way to the first draft of the guideline. (As an interesting aside, that first draft had a DABMENTION example of John Smith (composer) (born 1955), wrote the theme music to Seinfeld, which is the same name being used here.) My change should thus stand unless consensus can be formed in favor of deprecating WP:DABMENTION, for one. -- Tavix ^{( talk)} 21:21, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  See WP:CONLEVEL - a local discussion at an AfD cannot change policy. In addition, the line you proposing removing as been in this page for eight years; you need a consensus to remove it. BilledMammal ( talk) 00:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  He never said the local consensus at AfD should change policy. He was clearly saying that there was consensus in the 2005 guidance long before someone came along making the policy error in 2014, and we are just now finding out about the error because of the AfD discussion. Tavix mentioned making changes to the policy in that discussion, but J947 also said the policy should be clarified. Huggums537 ( talk) 13:27, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

The LISTN guideline doesnt talk to the notability of individual items on the list but the notability or lack thereof of the list topic utself. Using notability to restrict additions if the consensus allows for it. Eh alumni listd. Masem ( t) 23:22, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles., but it doesn't even matter that you are completely wrong about that because the only thing in WP:LISTN that applies to DABS is the quote I mentioned in the OP since DABS are navigation aids, not lists, which are a type of article. You say using notability to restrict additions if consensus allows for it, but consensus has already been restricting additions regardless of notability since 2005 with DABMENTION and the 2014 policy error has had no observable effect on that since we still have the many non-notable listings as evidence of this. Huggums537 ( talk) 13:50, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The only effect the policy error is having is to cause misunderstanding and conflict such as in the example provided by the AfC discussion where it is clear the misunderstanding occurred with this policy error and the editor who nominated the deletion. The error needs to be removed to prevent further incident of misunderstanding and conflict. If deletionists want the DAB guidance changed they are free to try, but until then this conflict error here is causing damage and must be removed. Huggums537 ( talk) 00:43, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Also, if you are referencing WP:ALUMNI as you did earlier in the NOTMEMORIAL conversation, then the only thing I can say about that is you have a great talent for pointing to guidance that doesn't apply whatsoever since ALUMNI was intended for the strict use of school articles in particular, and I've already pointed out that DABS are not even articles at all, but navigational aids. Huggums537 ( talk) 14:03, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

• I just now noticed that Star Mississippi closed the above mentioned AfC with a suggestion to have a meta discussion about this. I think it will be appropriate to ping users from that discussion as well as users from the previous discussion that were pinged by the nominator: @ Eviolite, Mdewman6, Shhhnotsoloud, Lugnuts, Blue Square Thing, Johnpacklambert, TartarTorte, Gidonb, AusLondonder, Bungle, and LibStar: please weigh in on the discussion. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:39, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. Clearly I'm happy for a broad inclusion within dab pages to lists. It provides the opportunity to argue for redirect at AfD discussions, which seems to me to be a pragmatic, compromise option when there is a suggestion of some notability but the sourcing is difficult to access - for example, in the case of Arthur Harley the politician, I would be very surprised if there wasn't sourcing via PapersPast that might allow for an article to just about be created that met GNG. I'm not sure, but it's possible. The same applies to Arthur Harley the gymnast - but in that case, sourcing is much more difficult as he's British rather than a New Zealander, so free, universal access to press sources is generally more difficult (but he was an Olympian - chances are that if he'd competed in 2012 for the UK we'd have loads of sources). In these sorts of situations, I tend to think we're better off not adopting a strict keep or delete line which simply causes conflict. Other people disagree and take a position that we need to massively reduce the amount of articles we have. Personally I think that causes conflict and has clearly driven editors away from the project. I suppose that's shruggable - but that's OK, someone else will come along and write an in-depth article about a moth... Blue Square Thing ( talk) 06:43, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Many dab entries are notable – no one's going to dispute that Mercury (planet) and Mercury (element) deserve articles. Each of those topics would have an article called Mercury except for similarly named subjects preventing them from being a primary topic. However, other dab entries substitute for redirects rather than articles. Even if neither Arthur Harley is notable, that name would be a credible {{ R to list entry}} to either page which would survive RfD, but for the fact that another person shares the name. Dab entries and name list entries only need to pass the lower threshold for redirects, and do not need to describe an entire notable topic. Certes ( talk) 16:13, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

But importantly, the non notable name on a dab list should have a clear article topic to link to where that name can be read about further. A dab list with a non notable name without such a target shouldnt be on the dablist. We want either the name or the topic they are attached to to be notable. Masem ( t) 20:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is already part of WP:MOSDAB, and pretty well enforced: every item on a dab page needs one blue link. Pam D 20:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Which is why the change in question is good but could be amended to say "just the notable ones or those directly linked to a notable topic" would be inline with that. Masem ( t) 20:29, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Or perhaps "Just those about which or whom Wikipedia has information"? Pam D 20:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes: MOS:DABMENTION already covers this well. Tweaks to clarify its wording are welcome but we shouldn't change its meaning. It's implicit that the article containing the mention must be on a notable topic; if not then the article containing the mention should be deleted along with the dab entry (unless other mentions remain). Certes ( talk) 20:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The easiest thing to do is just remove the conflicting policy error. Huggums537 ( talk) 21:30, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Or just make that DABMENTION is linked to the above addition. Policy would be saying dablists should be everything but thinks that have reasonable links. DABMENTION expanding on that Masem ( t) 21:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

You are trying very hard, but not succeeding. That isn't easier at all because you would still have to contend with all the non-notable entries and DAB pages that currently exist. That isn't easier, it's just what you're desiring more, and trying to make it sound as if it was easier. Huggums537 ( talk) 23:57, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with PamD's wording if it has to be there. The intent of navigational aid policy is to [facilitate the ease to] point to other places where Wikipedia has information, not for the embodiment of the enforcement of a lesser notability guideline that doesn't really apply. those directly linked to a notable topic appears to be saying that all DAB entries mentioned in an article must be directly linked to the topic they are mentioned in. That is not consistent with DABMENTION. There is no requirement for the mentioned subject to be directly linked to article topic, only that it be mentioned in another article. Huggums537 ( talk) 21:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I mean "linked" not as in hyperlinked but discussed as you state. Masem ( t) 06:21, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Ok, well then your suggested wording would be out of line with DABMENTION then, not inline with it, which is why something like PamD's is all the much better. Huggums537 ( talk) 23:51, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Also, I forgot to mention my profound shock about your admitting taking this position discussed just as I stated very openly as you are right out here in front of God and everybody, but you don't even seem to be embarrassed or anything. I must be missing something beyond my comprehension... Huggums537 ( talk) 02:58, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Dab page entries like the two on Arthur Harley are useful: they help the reader who is looking for info on either of those AHs, and they alert the editor who might be about to create an article on one or the other (or indeed a third), to reduce the risk that we end up with duplicated articles, or wrongly-connected links. Either of those AHs could well have been the subject of a redirect, and because there are two, we need a dab page. Similarly, anyone for whom a redirect would have been useful, but where the redirect is ambiguous, needs a dab page entry or a hatnote, to help the reader and the editor. Redirects, and dab page entries and hatnotes, help readers navigate to the information they want to find, even if we don't have a whole article on the topic, or even if the name we have chosen for the topic is not the one they are using. If there's a "John Smith" who is mentioned in an article or a list, with some useful information about him (say, that he represented the UK in the 1908 Olympics, or that he was an unsuccessful candidate about whom we have sourced content, not just the result, in an 1881 election), then he should be included in the John Smith disambiguation page. (Another area we could usefully think about is how best to present a page like that, with many people of the same name: is the reader best served by a list in strict A-Z, ie by middle names; a list in chronological sequence of birthdate, either total or chunked by century or similar; a list sorted by occupation (politicians, sportspeople, musicians, etc)?) Pam D 20:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreeing with the majority of opinions above. However, I'm not sure if that sentence about dab pages (even if tweaked) really belongs there. Here's the paragraph it appears in:

Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones. Nor should listings such as the white or yellow pages be replicated. See WP:LISTCRITERIA for more information.

So, the first sentence says Wikipedia articles aren't simple listings. It gives an example of such simple listings in the third sentence (the yellow pages), followed by a link to further guidelines. The bit about dab pages (the second sentence) sits quite incoherently right in the middle of that, interrupting the logical flow of the text. Simple listings without much context is what dab pages actually are, so they're a counterexample here. If they are to be mentioned at all (I don't know if they should be), that will make sense to be at the end. – Uanfala ( talk) 21:51, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

This is actually a good point, and I had thought about mentioning it, but was thinking perhaps I should stick to the simple original topic of whether we should keep the correction made by Tavix or not. However, I do agree with you that the whole undiscussed bold edit made in 2014 is rather out of place now that you mention it... Huggums537 ( talk) 23:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The "logical flow of the text" wasn't "quite incoherently right in the middle of that" when it was written. When it was written, the wording was as follows:

1. The White or Yellow Pages. Contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses are not encyclopedic. Likewise, disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person in the world named John Smith — just the notable ones.

At the time, people were adding themselves to DAB pages and articles about high schools and middle schools. I added this wording to have something to point to when they did it. Where should I point them in the future when I see this nonsense?

Slightly off-topic, I think it's clear that there are or should be two notability guidelines: notability for mention, and notability for article. DAB mentions for people who are notable for inclusion in a portion of an article somewhere are perfectly valid, but not everyone who is mentioned necessarily deserves their own article. Do we have any policies that address this as such? Differentiating who is notable enough for their own article, and who is only notable enough to merit mention? J^♯m ( talk |  contribs) 17:24, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The relevant guidance is WP:N for differentiating who is notable enough for their own article and WP:NNC is the guidance to refer to for who is notable enough to merit being mentioned in content within an article. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:08, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

In other words, we already have guidance for such, and the guidance tells us that notability only applies to the creation of articles, not the content within them. Merely mentioning someone within an article only requires that it follow other editing rules such as verifiable, and NPOV, but not notable. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

But every topic that might meet NNC may not be appropriate for a dab page inclusion. For example in an article about a shooting in a small town or city, we may mention the police chief's name as to effectively describe the investigation, but we would not likely include that name on a dab page, since the discussion on the article isn't really talking about the chief. Masem ( t) 01:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

• Let the current wording stay. The requirement of a single blue link for each entry limits the dab's value as a navigational tool since all non-notable topics mentioned in multiple pages will have to be excluded. BilledMammal is thus probably correct in saying that the search function would be more effective for that purpose. Notability is a reasonable threshold for inclusion, and makes navigation straightforward. At least, having a dab page solely to distinguish minor and obscure list entries contradicts the spirit of WP:D and WP:LISTCRIT. Avilich ( talk) 01:46, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

The dab's value as a navigational tool is far from limited because you can have multiple entries for each article that contains a mention since each blue link would be different for each article, therefore nothing is excluded whatsoever, and the restriction really is no limitation at all. Also, notability is not the current threshold for inclusion, nor was it intended for "navigation". Lastly, I have already made the point that DAB pages are are navigational aids and not articles and lists are a type of article so list rules don't apply, but I am glad you linked to WP:LSC to prove the point even more for me since it states Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item., but this is forbidden for DAB pages because they follow different guidance as they are for different kinds of pages. As for having a dab page solely to distinguish minor and obscure list entries contradicting the spirit of WP:D, I would say the contradiction is highly debatable, and hasn't caused any problems while the policy error here is a much greater contradiction that has caused known damage which I've pointed out earlier. Huggums537 ( talk) 06:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

"Supported by reliable sources" only means "verifiable", not "cited", otherwise purely navigational lists would all be disallowed; and "membership criteria" aren't "likely to be disputed" in dab pages. Otherwise, LSC gives no exception for dab pages that I can see, at least as far as the crucial "not just verifiable existence" is concerned.

To give an example of what I said earlier, a non-notable individual like Émile Sarrade could not be listed in a dab page because he is mentioned in two pages, Tug of war at the 1900 Summer Olympics and Rugby union at the 1900 Summer Olympics, and there is no reason to prefer one over the other, knowing that WP:D3 limits the amount of blue links to one.

The important point here is that WP:Disambiguation applies to "potential article title[s]", not every single thing mentioned anywhere. Most of the time this will mean something like an alternative name for notable topics (like the redirect "Bacchus" for "Dionysus", which is listed at "Bacchus (disambiguation)"), or sometimes an important subtopic likely to be split from the parent article. "Arthur Harley" and "Émile Sarrade" meet none of these criteria. NOTDIRECTORY and D don't seriously disagree. If you want to look for a contradiction in the rules, you should be complaining about the fact that DABMENTION doesn't lay out any limits for inclusion (though, as a MoS guideline, it's not its job to do so). Avilich ( talk) 16:18, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

No, Émile Sarrade could certainly be listed in a dab page, assuming there were a couple of other persons of that name, and could have links to more than one of his pages if that was the most likely to help the reader. WP:DABSTYLE says Rarely should a bulleted entry have more than one navigable link; including more than one link can confuse the reader., but "rarely" implies "sometimes". This is indeed done where someone who is a red link, or is just listed in black in a dab page, has a couple of apparently equal mentions - appeared in two films, medalled in several Olympics, etc. If there were more than one, I'd give a couple and use wording with "including ... ". Pam D 17:27, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

"Rarely" + WP:D3 = no. What I mentioned isn't a rare or exceptional case. Avilich ( talk) 23:56, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Note that the sentence "Likewise, disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person in the world named John Smith — just the notable ones." was added on 28 December 2014, but does not seem to have been discussed on the talk page ( this archive seems to cover that period). Given that disambiguation pages are not lists (see MOS:LIST and MOS:DAB, which are completely distinct) I suggest that the sentence is inappropriate and should be removed. A description of disambiguation pages is irrelevant to a section about "Simple lists", because dab pages are not simple lists: they are navigational aids. It might be appropriate to mention surname listings such as Davies or List of people with surname Smith, which are not disambiguation pages but lists (or, in the former case, an article about the surname, which include a list). Pam D 18:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a case of ONUS that the sentence has been there for some time, with many editors' eyes to see it (before the recent changes) and this has implicit consensus to keep. Masem ( t) 23:55, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone has yet pinged Jsharpminor who made the change. Avilich ( talk) 00:06, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes. -- Tavix ^{( talk)} 14:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I fully support the suggestion made by @ PamD, and my read of the discussion suggests @ Tavix, @ Blue Square Thing, @ Certes, and @ Uanfala would likely support such an action as well, but I would let them speak for themselves. However, I wanted to point out that just because the sentence has been there a long time is practically meaningless since WP:WEAKSILENCE shows points 3., 4., and 5. in the box that apply very well here. Also, WP:ONUS The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. We are disputing the content. That means the onus is actually on you for proving any worthy consensus for inclusion. Huggums537 ( talk) 00:40, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

This page has been viewed over three million times since then, and has 1743 watchers. If you had disputed this in 2015 then you would be right, but as you are disputing it now there is currently a consensus for inclusion, and a consensus is required to remove it. BilledMammal ( talk) 01:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

You should be aware of a few things: 1) Neither ONUS or SILENT talk about how many page views or watchers are involved, but 2) the so-called "current consensus for inclusion" no longer exists per Consensus can be presumed until disagreement becomes evident (typically through reverting or editing). and 3) a silent consensus doesn't even apply anyway per Apply the rule of silence and consensus only when a weak consensus would suffice. Silence and consensus does not apply when either a strong consensus or a mandatory discussion is required. and Even in these cases, however, dissent might show up later, and it is then no longer appropriate to assume consensus. Just like earlier, bare facts about millions of page views and hundreds upon hundreds of page watchers doesn't mean the rules somehow translate into some other meaning. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:24, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with that section of the essay; most of our policies and guidelines are based on bold changes that have since obtained consensus through the length of time they have been visible in prominent pages, and allowing editors to dispute that five, ten, or fifteen years down the line is likely to cause significant disruption. BilledMammal ( talk) 02:41, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's convenient! Disagree with sections that don't support, and agree with sections that do. Seems like a workable strategy I guess... Huggums537 ( talk) 03:04, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Disagree with sections that don't support, and agree with sections that do. - Where did I say that? I note that the page you linked is an essay. BilledMammal ( talk) 03:20, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I broadly agree with Huggums537. To have one's own article requires notability. To be mentioned in an article requires a far lower standard. In particular, to be listed on a disambiguation page only requires a WP:DABMENTION. Lists other than dabs can set their own thresholds. Sometimes that can be high – for example, Foo College#Notable alumni usually demands an article – but usually it is nearer to the dab entry standard. Certes ( talk) 09:36, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

And I'd agree with all of that. Lists and redirects to them allow a middle ground between bright-line inclusion and hard-line deletion. That's a good thing. Blue Square Thing ( talk) 11:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• No, for dab it needs to be a "potential title" as well. Avilich ( talk) 14:22, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

  Dab entries aren't restricted to potential article titles, though that's a really common misconception ( most recent discussion). – Uanfala ( talk) 14:33, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of the entire sentence. Disambiguation pages are not lists, they are governed by separate guidelines. -- Tavix ^{( talk)} 14:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

As I argued above, I believe that the sentence should be removed as well. – Uanfala ( talk) 14:33, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The change was in response to an IP trying to add a non notable Ajay to that diamb page [1] Masem ( t) 01:18, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

More relevantly, it was in response to an IP trying to add an Ajay with no WP:DABMENTION. Non-notable Ajays who are described in Wikipedia are welcome (in Ajay (given name), which has since been split off from the dab). For example, Ajay Gogavale is correctly listed despite not having his own article. Certes ( talk) 13:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is mostly it. I grew tired of seeing DABs sprouting redlinks to (for example) eighth-graders who added themselves to a Wikipedia DAB of their name. I also saw multiple instances of articles for middle schools and high schools where people were adding themselves to the article under "List of notable alumni" or some such. I certainly didn't expect at the time that the wording would survive this long, or that it would generate a huge debate eight years into the future, but there you have it.

I think the wording should stay, in some form, in some policy somewhere. I'm not saying it needs to stay here. J^♯m ( talk |  contribs) 17:16, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

When I see people adding list entries with redlinks to articles about themselves, I just revert with a pointer to Wikipedia:Write the article first (WP:WTAF), which does the job well. – Uanfala ( talk) 23:21, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Simple listings summarises two complex sets rules in a very concise subsection. It sets a minimum standard for list entries in articles (note: dabs aren't articles) and also hints at WP:DABMENTION. Should we explicitly limit Simple listings to lists in articles, and refer the reader to WP:DABMENTION for dabs (without attempting to promote it from guideline to policy)? Certes ( talk) 22:20, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• WP:WHYN: Because these requirements are based on major content policies, they apply to all articles, not solely articles justified under the general notability criteria. They do not, however, apply to pages whose primary purpose is navigation (e.g. all disambiguation pages and some lists). end of discussion. Huggums537 ( talk) 00:54, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  Thsts raising the question if the Dab page itself is notabke or not, which per WHYN we dont even question. But that doesnt apply to the contents if a dab page. Masem ( t) 01:21, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  Oh please. Stop being ridiculous. Doesn't apply means doesn't apply. All disambiguation pages means all disambiguation pages. But, even if we were to pretend to play your silly little game, WP:NNC would mean notability still would not apply to the "contents". It simply doesn't apply no matter how many ways you slice it. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:36, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  See WP:CSC; notability does sometimes apply to the contents of lists. BilledMammal ( talk) 01:52, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  The relevant section to refer to in CSC for navigational aids such as DABS is the third bullet point: Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. Which clearly says you are not required to omit non-notable entries and that is entirely inline with DABMENTION. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:03, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  I don't fully agree with that, but that wasn't my point. My point was that your statement that notability never applies to content is incorrect, and that the requirement that WP:NOTDIRECTORY applies to disambiguation pages is not exceptional. BilledMammal ( talk) 02:06, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  You are right. That policy error is not exceptional. It is out of this galaxy extraordinary! Huggums537 ( talk) 02:41, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

• Reading DABMENTION more closely and where it sits in the part of how to format dab pages, it does not actually appear to be a guideline on what topics to include or exclude. It is basically saying that an entry on the list should include a link to a page That mentions and Not to link to a page that doesnt, potentially leaving an all black (no link) line. There is nothing I can immediately see to prevent the Ajay situation related to inclusion of non notable and unmentioned names on a dab list, which is clearly not practice. -- Masem ( t) 02:24, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  WP:D3, MOS:DABBLUE, and MOS:DABNOLINK all cover this quite well. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  To a point but in reading those, the mosdab page overall avois directly stating what should not be listed which is when no blue link can be made (but dabmention suggests otherwise). Yes, we dont want to limit dab pages to only notable terms but what should be excluded when the term is not notable is vague. Masem ( t) 05:50, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  For both dab pages and creation of redirects, the exclusion should be "terms which do not lead to some information in the encyclopedia". Pam D 07:51, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think something needs to be said about not dabbing terms that are only mentioned in passing, eg the name of a local police chief that may be needed to ease how the narrative of an event that occurred, but otherwise not involved with it. Masem ( t) 11:41, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  DABMENTION has the following line specifically for cases like that: a link to that article may be included if it would provide value to the reader. The understanding is that most passing mentions don't provide value to the reader. – Uanfala ( talk) 11:48, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  But as I wrote above DABMENTION doesn't restrict dab additions that do not link to anything (last part of that MOS). The overall MOS:DAB It is internally inconsistent. Masem ( t) 12:03, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  The DABMENTION section doesn't need to repeat points that have been addressed in several other places, including further up on the same page. – Uanfala ( talk) 12:35, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

  The point is that there is no concise statement on the MOSDAB page that says what entries should be included or excluded, particularly for where the term itself is not blue linked. Masem ( t) 12:03, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

  How about the very first sentence of MOS:DAB, which defines dabs as non-article pages designed to help a reader find the right Wikipedia article when different topics could be referred to by the same search term – how can a dab page help a reader find the right article if no article exists? This is further spelt out right at the start of the section MOS:DAB#Individual entries, which states the purpose of dab entries is to direct the readers to Wikipedia articles on the various topics which might be referenced by the term being disambiguated, and then a few bullet points down this is further elaborated with the advice to [i]nclude exactly one navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide readers to the most relevant article for that use of the ambiguous term. Yes, there's certainly scope for major rewrites of the bits in MOS:DAB and WP:DAB that govern what can and can't be included as entries, but in their current forms there's no shortage of clear and concise formulations of the rule that dab entries should link to existing articles. – Uanfala ( talk) 12:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

  MOS:DABMENTION works well for those of us who maintain disambiguation pages. It includes a good example of a character who doesn't merit her own article but is included with a blue link to the notable play in which she features. Certes ( talk) 12:09, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

  But as I have pointed out, the last part of DABMENTION appears to allow an entry with no links, neither the term nor an associated article. It could be fixed by adding, for example "If an entry lacks any links going to other Wikipedia pages, then it should be removed" -- Masem ( t) 01:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  I don't understand why you keeping going on about that. I really don't. First off, WP:MOSDAB is only one particular section of the dab guidelines and there's no need for it to repeat everything else said in the rest of the guidelines. Second, the meaning of that guideline very, very clearly does not allow entries without links: its whole text would be utter poppycock if you assumed that it did. You seem to be approaching that text looking for loopholes that may be exploited by some mischievous lawyer who's being wilfully obtuse. The dab guidelines aren't meant for wilfully obtuse mischievous lawyers; they're guidelines for good-faith editors, they're not trade agreements between countries. – Uanfala ( talk) 09:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  The best option is to add an appropriate link, rewording if necessary. If no such link is possible, then the entry should be removed. If Mercury had an unlinked entry Mercury FM, a radio station in Surrey, United Kingdom then we should link Mercury FM, not remove the entry. Carelessly omitting a pair of brackets is not a licence to delete. Certes ( talk) 09:39, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  The reason I'm there looking for loopholes is that this is what novice editors and often IP ones do to make chances. I know that we talk of the spirit of P&G, but these editors don't so if you have a contradiction or loophole, it will be exploited (it is the same reason that at WP:N we don't talk about the minimum number of sources needed, for example, as we knwo that is gamed).

  What would make sense at MOS:DAB is one section, near the start, of what is and isn't to be included. That advice is in the overall page, but spread out among formatting elements, and even the section "Examples of individual entries that should not be created" is more about the specific types of links to exclude. This thread started as an issue complaining of a conflict between WP:N and MOS:DAB, but without MOS:DAB being explicit on where the line is for what to include, its hard to see how to resolve this, and to that end, it makes the changes that were made to WP:N seem appropriate since this type of guideance is "missing" (in this case, hard to locate) from MOS:DAB. Making MOS:DAB explicit so that all that WP:N needs to do is point to that section when talking about DAB pages would help a lot. Masem ( t) 12:19, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  I spend a lot of time on dab pages, and I can't remember any editor arguing against the removal of an unlinked entry by claiming that WP:DABMENTION allows it. The first line of MOS:DABENTRY says "After the introductory line comes a list of individual entries – lines which direct the readers to Wikipedia articles on the various topics which might be referenced by the term being disambiguated.. An entry which does not link to a Wikipedia article fails that definition. Simple. Yes, perhaps the wording of WP:DABMENTION could be clarified, but that would need discussion at its talk page, not on this very generial thread which started off as a discussion of "simple lists", a group of pages which does not include dab pages. Pam D 13:43, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Disambiguation dos and don'ts has some useful advice, though it is deliberately concise rather then comprehensive. Certes ( talk) 13:44, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  And right at the start of WP:DABSTYLE we see "Each disambiguation page comprises a list (or multiple lists, for multiple senses of the term in question) of similarly titled links.". No link = no inclusion in a dab page. I don't see the problem. Pam D 13:46, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  Masem, I've been dealing with dab pages for years and I've become used to several persistent misinterpretations of DABMENTION, but not a single time have I seen someone use the hypothetical loophole you've described (maybe new editors aren't as motivated to wikilawyer about a silly little dab entry as they would be about something that actually matters, like whether the article they created about their client is accepted). I agree with your other suggestion though: it would be better if the advice on what can and can't go on dab pages (currently spread across WP:DAB and MOS:DAB) were combined in a single place, without all the formatting advice and with some further notes so that it can apply to the closely related questions of what topics should and shouldn't have redirects or hatnote entries. But that's a big project that's beyond the scope of what we're discussing here. – Uanfala ( talk) 16:30, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

  If you haven't it, great, then I do think adding a section on what are appropriate items, and what aren't would be good.

  That would then leave WP:NOT to simply say something like "Inclusion guidance for disambiguation pages can be found at ...", and thus leave out the notability addition - that would still capture that dab pages should not be indiscriminate but the advice for what is indiscriminate can be found there. Masem ( t) 01:41, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

  Thinking about it, I see two times when inclusion will likely cause issues; corporations, which have self-promotion issues, and people, which have the issues I detailed above. Unless editors can see problems that I have missed with the possibility to include other non-notable entities, I would not object to reducing the scope of WP:NOTDIRECTORY down to that. BilledMammal ( talk) 12:48, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

  It has been weeks since the last edit, and no discussion at all on the suggestions made by BilledMammal or Masem, but I seem to understand that for now the majority of everyone is in unison with the Tavix edit being restored for the time being to leave out the contentious notability addition. I'll go ahead and boldly restore the edit to provide what I see is wanted right now regarding that contentious little part, and then we should just wait and see if the community wants discussion about these other suggestions. Huggums537 ( talk) 22:31, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

  I don't believe that is appropriate; I have restored the text, and would suggest if you want to remove it that you open an RfC proposing to do so. BilledMammal ( talk) 23:53, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

  Given that you were the one that added the text, its on your onus to show that there's consensus for it. I don't think this is a fight that is really needed - I would only prefer if there was a clear section at the DAB page to describe what's appropriate to include that we can use as a link from the existing text. Masem ( t) 00:06, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  I didn't add the text; it was added eight years ago by a different editor. BilledMammal ( talk) 00:13, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  Regardless, I'm really shocked that you don't see consensus for removal? -- Tavix ^{( talk)} 00:19, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  Yes; there is too much opposition here for us to say that there is a consensus for removal from an informal discussion. I will open an RfC and restore the text until the RfC concludes. BilledMammal ( talk) 02:10, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  Opened; it will hopefully produce a clear answer as to whether there is a consensus for removal. BilledMammal ( talk) 02:43, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  I already have opened this very discussion proposing the removal of the text, and you insisting by virtue of insinuation that this lengthy "informal discussion" is somehow invalidated, and demanding that it must have been held in some formal RfC process to be valid is just disruptive. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:49, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  If there was a clear consensus then I would agree with you, but there is not; several editors disagree with you, and a formal discussion is the best way to determine what the consensus is. I also note that as an involved editor you should not be determining what the consensus of a discussion unless it is uncontroversial. BilledMammal ( talk) 02:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  The only person objecting is yourself. I see that as very uncontroversial. If you think one objection makes a controversy, then I guess we have different ideas about what a controversy is. Huggums537 ( talk) 03:12, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  At least two other editors objected, Avilich and Jsharpminor; I might have missed some others. The fact that you missed those makes it clear to me that your assessment of consensus was flawed, even beyond the involved issues. BilledMammal ( talk) 03:16, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  BilledMammal is not the only editor in the above discussion that has objected to the recent change. There's nothing disruptive about opening an RfC to determine project-wide consensus before making a substantive change to a policy page. Firefangledfeathers ( talk / contribs) 03:18, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  OK, so just Avilich, and BilledMammal then. Jsharpminor, said it didn't have to be here, and there is something disruptive about opening nearly duplicate discussions in separate places. It confuses things and muddies the water. Huggums537 ( talk) 03:54, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  Also, I see my close of that duplicate discussion was reverted, and some added advertising for it at Notability talk without any mentions at all of this discussion in the RfC, or in the subsequent advertising. Interesting. Huggums537 ( talk) 04:15, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

• I hope @ Avilich, @ Blue Square Thing, @ Certes, @ Jsharpminor, and @ Uanfala are also aware of this new RfC considering this discussion was so old without any edits something like 3 weeks. Huggums537 ( talk) 08:49, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't aware - thank you for pinging me. Blue Square Thing ( talk) 09:27, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

"wikipedia is not censored" cannot be a true statement while the following policy exists:

"...inappropriate material may be visible to readers, for a time, before being detected and removed."

how is the removal of something you find inappropriate not considered to be censorship???

it most definitely is censorship.

the only way it can ever truly be considered to be not censored is if everything that is ever posted to wikipedia is allowed to remain online, this must also include allowing anything deemed "inappropriate" to remain. Snarevox ( talk) 19:36, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Censorship only applies to gov't entities in restricting what can be published. We don't censor most ideas, but there are things like unsupport accusations against BLP that we will remove because it does not fit our content guidelines. That's not censorship because you're free to publish those elsewhere, just not WP. -- Masem ( t) 19:42, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Though whatjSnarevox is saying is nonsense, for the record your statement that Censorship only applies to gov't entities in restricting what can be published is also nonsense. A boss might censor a subordinate, an instructor (at a private school, even -- no government involvement) might censor a school newspaper, a church official might censor clergy, etc. It's all censorship. E Eng 22:28, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

To be clear that what we are doing is content moderation which all those above examples are part of , compared to censorship, this is a good article that compares the difference [2] but the simple explanation is that censorship is where you are told that you can't publish information anywhere, which is really only in the realm of the government that can enforce that. It needs to be clear we're doing content moderation and not restricting the publishing everywhere of material. -- Masem ( t) 22:35, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

The dictionary definition of censoring holds that it consists of examining material to see if it needs to be suppressed on the grounds of being objectionable. [3] I think that article you linked is incorrect, certainly as far as common usage goes, there's no requirement for the suppression to be universal for it to be censorship. So in that sense the OP is correct, we do engage in censorship. But all that is explained in the section in question anyway, so it's not like we're lying or hiding anything. The "Wikipedia is not censored" headline is useful as a high-level description of the general thrust of the policy, but of course it has exceptions, so do most of the "what we are not" policies; they don't need to be changed though, this is just common sense stuff.  —  Amakuru ( talk) 22:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

However, every time that people complain that we're censoring content - and similar to the current ideas that social media networks are censor viewpoints, I think it's important to stress that we are engaging in content moderation, that there is material we will not allow to be published here, but the user that wants to publish that has many other venues if they want to publish that. Ergo, we are not censoring as it applies to being a private publisher, but we are content moderating appropriately. -- Masem ( t) 23:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

There's nothing inherently inappropriate about censorship; publishers censor authors, and news media censor journalists everyday. Even we, as individuals, self-censor ourselves all the time. One man's content moderation is another man's censorship; it's more a matter of what is censored, by whom and how, than whether censorship exists. — Guarapiranga  ☎ 02:00, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "content moderation" means (although it's become a pretty widely-used buzzword in the last couple years, and everyone who says it seems to think that it's a very well-defined concept). At its broadest, it seems to mean any time someone removes anything from a website for any reason, and at its narrowest, it seems to mean one of several mutually-exclusive policies adopted on websites run by large corporations (for example, Facebook removes posts saying that the president of the United States of America should be shot, whereas Baidu removes posts saying that the president of the People's Republic of China should be shot). I guess the idea is that governments do "censorship", which makes it bad, and large corporations do "content moderation", which makes it good. At any rate, I don't think Wikipedia engages in a lot of "content moderation" -- we engage in "writing an encyclopedia", to which some things are conducive (gross medical photos and frank discussion of religious issues) and others are not (replacing the Main Page with "tongue my anus"). jp× g 02:03, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

... to pick an arbitrary phrase that just randomly came to mind, I suppose. E Eng 03:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

i have no idea what "unsupport accusations against blp" means, but see just substitute "that we will remove" with "that we will censor" and finish the sentence "because it does not fit our content guidelines." and then in the following sentence, it most definitely is censorship. you cant claim it isnt censorship on wikipedias part just because other places will allow you to publish it.. other places allow it because other places arent censoring it like wikipedia is. the way that reads, if wp had control of "elsewhere" as well, you wouldnt be able to publish it anywhere, because it would be censored across the board. either everything is ok, or nothing is ok. when only some things are ok, its censorship and there are no two ways about it. its a very easy idea to understand, and it does not only apply to the govt. any entity that removes content that doesnt line up with their agenda or content they find inappropriate is guilty of censorship and should not be allowed to blatantly deny it like that. Snarevox ( talk) 20:38, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

At best you are arguing for the sake of arguing, at worst trolling just to waste our time. The idea the no material should ever be removed from the Wikipedia is so risible that, if you actually were to believe it, you would lack the competence to participate in discussions here -- sorry, but it is what it is. Please either stop or go away, thanks. Herostratus ( talk) 22:07, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

There have been a large number of RFCs in individual articles about the inclusion or exclusion of a list of victims. Those RFCs have largely contained the same participants arguing the same positions with little clear answer as to what the wider community considers NOTMEMORIAL to apply to, with users arguing polar opposite understandings of the policy. Instead of this continuing in individual pages where a smaller number of editors can skew any one discussion one way or the other, I think it would be wiser to have an RFC to clarify explicitly, one way or the other, should articles contain lists of otherwise non-notable individuals within them or does that violate NOTMEMORIAL? I see no reason why we have to have an RFC for every mass shooting, and beyond that this would apply to way more than mass shootings, for example airstrikes, or terror attacks, or any number of other articles. I think we need clarity in the policy when its meaning is being argued as often as this one is. Just recently there have been, or currently have running, RFCs at Talk:Highland Park parade shooting, Talk:2017 Las Vegas shooting, Talk:Robb Elementary School shooting and Talk:2022 Buffalo shooting, Talk:Oxford High School shooting. The closers, which includes me, have come to different conclusions on the consensus in several of these discussions, which also makes me think this needs a wider discussion that is focused on settling this in either direction at the project level and not allowing these page level arguments to proliferate. Dont think I can reasonably ping a subset of the participants, or all of them, but Ill leave a note at the running RFC that Ive opened this discussion here. nableezy - 21:00, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Some previous related discussions: 2017 2018 2018 2019 2019. I may be missing some. WikiVirus C ^(talk) 21:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

People always cite WP:NOTMEMORIAL, but the policy clearly states it applies to Subjects of encyclopedia articles... People may just mean we shouldn't memorialize them, but citing the policy is like citing a notability guideline for a person simply mentioned in an article. WikiVirus C ^(talk) 21:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

That people feel that NOTMEMORIAL applies to including lists of victims within articles is obvious, and that people feel like it does not is likewise obvious. At this point Im less interested in arguing about what it does say as opposed to what it should say. Should lists of otherwise non-notable victims of violence be included in our articles on those violent acts? If so then the language should be clear on that. If not then the language should be clear on that. nableezy - 21:26, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging El C as they suspended the 2019 workshop till 2020 but maybe something happened in 2020 that caused that to go off-course? No clue what it could be though. nableezy - 21:29, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

The way I look at this is that assuming the victims are non notable individuals before the event, then what is going to be useful about those names 10 years later? It becomes just indiscrimate info for all purposes. Of course there are victims that end up being necessary to name in describing the event (the teachers at sandy hook that died while protecting the students) and those people should be named but in context of the event. Masem ( t) 21:36, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. Non-notable individuals are important insofar as they're relevant insofar as sources focus on them, not the mere fact they died in a certain event, and I'd argue lists of victims violates NOTMEMORIAL as well as NOTDIR, NOTNEWS, and basic adherence to summary style and good encyclopedia writing. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 21:45, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Should we have an RFC on what it should say and implementing it? nableezy - 22:47, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

NOTMEMORIAL applies to subjects of articles. Nobody has proposed individual articles for the victims. NOTDIR and NOTNEWS are irrelevant, they are not random or indiscriminate, their relevance is justified by their inclusion in so many of our WP:RS. A summary of an event, like a mass shooting, that leaves over half of the subject unnamed is a clearcut WP:NPOV violation. These people easily satisfy WP:NOTEWORTHY requirements (part of WP:N) and in the interests of WP:UNDUE, should be included in a manner that respects their inclusion in our sources (see WP:BALASP). — Locke Cole • t • c 23:59, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:N/NOTEWORTHY requires enduring coverage, of which normally for victims that were bystanders and non-notable before, means they are still non-notable for our purposes. For example List of victims of the September 11 attacks is very much an indiscriminate list of people who were and remain non-notable 20 years later. We can certainly include ELs that point to victim lists but that should not be WP's function. -- Masem ( t) 00:13, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:N/NOTEWORTHY requires enduring coverage Where are you getting that from? WP:NOTEWORTHY clearly says WP:N does not apply to the content of articles, and lays out methods for determining how best to determine what should be included. We've already established that many of these mass casualty events are notable, in the case of a mass shooting event, it's then a matter of balancing coverage of the perpetrator against the coverage of the victims. The event would not be notable if not for the victims, and leaving them out is (IMO) a clear violation of WP:NPOV. — Locke Cole • t • c 02:20, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

You're making the assumption that covering the victims necessarily means listing their names. TompaDompa ( talk) 02:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Why would we deviate from our reliable sources that do? And why only on that, but not on listing the perpetrators weapon of choice, their childhood, and any other minor detail you can imagine. How do you believe that is at all balanced? This is why WP:UNDUE opens with Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Our reliable sources are dedicating entire articles to the victims, their lives, and how they died. Naming them would, IMO, be the bare minimum to make these articles more balanced. — Locke Cole • t • c 03:03, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, there are several possible reasons we would do things differently from the sources. One point that is commonly brought up in these discussions is privacy concerns. Another is that an encyclopedia and news media have different considerations. But that's not really my point. My point is that "we have to cover the victims" and "we have to list the victims' names" are very distinct positions that could easily be conflated and turned into a motte-and-bailey argument if one is not careful. TompaDompa ( talk) 03:20, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that naming victims of mass shootings should be the bare minimum to make articles more balanced, and it follows current journalistic standards about articles on mass shootings. Naming victims can be a simple list with names and ages. That said, I can see how a policy change would create problems for other types of Wikipedia articles with lists of victims. I think the epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S. is creating a special circumstance and perhaps there needs to be a policy for naming victims only for articles on mass shootings. One of the major problems with having an unbalanced emphasis on the shooter is that it leads to copycat killings. If the victims aren't named, then at the very least there should be enough details about them to balance out details about the shooter. JJMM ( talk) 08:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Except that isnt what the balance of sources support. For example, of the books that discuss Sandy Hook nearly ten years later, there are nearly four thousand results for "Sandy Hook" "Adam Lanza" as opposed to say one victim taken from random "Daniel Barden" "sandy hook" gives a bit over 500. The detail given in those 500 mentions is trivial, one mentions he was given a fireman's farewell, most just simply include him in a list of victims. Lanza's upbringing and so on is given a huge amount of attention. And why should be readily apparent to anybody. But, again, Im less interested in debating what the current wording supports or does not, and I disagree with you for the record and find the idea that simply including a list within another article when that list would be disallowed as a stand-alone list resolves any issue to be baffling, as opposed to trying to settle what our policy should be. Its fine if there is a consensus for the inclusion of these lists. Its fine if there is a consensus for the inclusion of the mini-bios as discussed in the Uvalde article. And its fine if there is a consensus against those things. What is less fine is for these arguments to be taking place disjointedly across individual articles. We have a dispute on what policy says and more importantly what it should say. Lets work on seeing if there is a consensus, project-wide, for that. nableezy - 03:16, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I think there's a misunderstanding. I never said equal coverage of victims. In all the articles I've seen where we name the victims, the perpetrator is still often covered in significantly more detail. My reference to WP:BALASP was simply to note that there exists guidance already. In so much as what this policy says, I agree with Cullen328's comments below. If anything, since apparently the current wording confuses some editors, it should be tightened up to remove any ambiguity about it only applying to subjects of articles, not to article content on otherwise notable events. — Locke Cole • t • c 06:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Except that the fact that the suspect/perp is nearly always given far more coverage in the news as investigators try to figure out the "why" of the event. Per WEIGHT, that means that I expect to see far more about the suspect than the victims. It is false balance to say that we need to balance that coverage of the suspect with more coverage of the victims, so BALASP doesn't apply here. Masem ( t) 12:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Well you said that the victims are over half of the subject, and beyond that these are not conflicting viewpoints. It is not a viewpoint that these people were killed, so I do not even start to understand how you apply in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources to that. But if what you mean by your DUE arguments is that coverage of the victims as a proportion of the coverage of the event overall requires coverage of the victims in our articles then yes I agree, though I dont think it follows that it requires a listing of names. But as far as balance goes, it is exponentially weighted towards the attacker over the attacked in the sources. But most of the argument about DUE just does not make any sense to me, that is about balancing conflicting viewpoints. There is no conflicting viewpoint on did Daniel Barden die at Sandy Hook (at least not any valid one). nableezy - 14:34, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Our coverage of the victims is a "viewpoint", just as our coverage of the perpetrator is another viewpoint. Other viewpoints include: public reaction, political reaction, the event itself and how it unfolded, etc. The intent is not to memorialize the victims, but rather not to censor them either and make our readers feel like the only thing to die that day was dry statistics (ages and races) and not actual people. — Locke Cole • t • c 18:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the objection is not to coverage of the victims (in aggregate) but to what I have seen on various pages, a simple list of names. Describing that as a "viewpoint" seems a bit of a stretch. Selfstudier ( talk) 18:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Describing it as a memorial is just as equal of a stretch if there isn't something else saying, "this is dedicated to:" etc. Huggums537 ( talk) 18:25, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

If it is not a memorial, what is it? Selfstudier ( talk) 18:38, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I believe you described it yourself as a simple list of names... Huggums537 ( talk) 18:42, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

That's a description of it, I mean what is the purpose/utility of it? Selfstudier ( talk) 18:43, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the question has no relevance. It's like asking what the purpose/utility of many of these articles is. (Especially if you're asking someone not that interested in humor.) Huggums537 ( talk) 00:11, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

If I ask it about article content in general, it's a very easy question to answer. Not so easy in this case, doubtless why you are unable to answer it. Selfstudier ( talk) 11:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Also, why are there many people who want to include victims' names on articles about mass shootings, yet none on most articles about other types of mass-casualty incidents & those which took place in other countries? Jim Michael 2 ( talk) 19:08, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

It does seem like there's an impassioned effort to memorialize or WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. That's not Wikipedia's role. Reidgreg ( talk) 13:50, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I got that impression too. OrgoneBox ( talk) 00:53, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment What would be the purpose of including in an article what could potentially be a large list (think war memorial) of non-notable names. If there is a point, I'm sure someone will disillusion me so although my preference would be not at this point, I will wait and see if there are arguments that have not occurred to me and meanwhile try to read those prior discussions (ugh). Selfstudier ( talk) 21:42, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  The potentially large list of victims need not be included in the crime's main article necessarily, being a sort of appendix, as is the case of the List of victims of the September 11 attacks and the Casualties of the September 11 attacks article. — Guarapiranga  ☎ 04:00, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• Permit lists Mass shooting articles exist because people were murdered and these murder victims always receive substantial media coverage, so it is entirely appropriate to include victim lists. While we do and should not include every bit of information reported by news sources, if the sources do focus heavily on a specific aspect of a topic then it makes sense for Wikipedia to contain information on that aspect as well. Regarding WP:NOTMEMORIAL, that policy basically restates our notability requirement; it says absolutely nothing about content within articles cited to reliable sources. Even as currently written, the policy should not be read to prohibit victim lists. Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 23:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  Per BLP1E, people whose death is the only reason they are reported on are not considered notable. Just because there may be coverage of a victim after the event, doesn't make that an encyclopedic relevant. Most of these post event reporting on victims try to make the person seem more important than they really are. Masem ( t) 23:17, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  That policy applies specifically to the subjects of articles; it does not prohibit describing otherwise non-notable people who played a significant role in a notable event within that notable event's article. Regarding importance, the entire point of articles on mass shootings is to summarize the murder of multiple individuals. I would say that the identities of these people is very relevant. Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 23:22, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  Again ten years after the shooting, are those victims going to all be remembered and easily identified? Some might (those known to have tried to stop the shooting for example) but certainly not all, the ones that remained innocent bystanders. Masem ( t) 23:27, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  Quite possibly yes. It is not particularly difficult to find sourcing on the victims of say the Bath School disaster (1927) or other major shooting that happened decades ago. If a shooting is actually remembered, then I imagine the victims would as well. Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 23:35, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  But that's "possibly", and as such, means whether to include victims or not should be a made of how sources far distance from the event in time discuss the event, not those at the time of the event. Otherwise, it is crystal-balling how the event will be seen in the long term for their inclusion. Masem ( t) 12:37, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  The victims have coverage now right here in the present meaning their inclusion does not violate WP:CRYSTAL. The Ten Year Test (which is part of an explanatory essay) itself requires crystal ball gazing; you literally asked me to predict what coverage is going to be like in ten years. Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 14:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  The point about the ten year factor is that we have many mass shootings that are older than.that,and nearly all the time, while the shooting and suspect may be discussed, the victims are generally not covered. So until it is clear that victims have a long term coverage, they should not be included. -- Masem ( t) 14:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  @ Masem: Please read WP:NOTEWORTHY (which is a subsection of WP:N). — Locke Cole • t • c 23:56, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  Also, WP:BLP1E clearly says it applies only to living or (recently deceased) people in the last paragraph. This in addition to the facts that it is intended for articles not content, and notability doesn't apply to content... Huggums537 ( talk) 15:46, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  In other words, clearly not about people who have been dead for a long time so this idea about "enduring coverage" for dead people is a little bit ridiculous. Huggums537 ( talk) 16:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

• I don't remember exactly what happened in 2019, but the broad strokes as far as I'm able to recall is that the pro-list wanted to incorporate the WP:CASL essay into WP:BLP, while the anti-list wanted WP:VL, instead. I don't recall what if anything were to happen to WP:NOTAMEMORIAL. Obviously, the matter can be revisited now through any formal proposals, wherever (might be worth a WP:CENT). Sorry, writing in haste, so don't really have time to refresh my memory by reviewing the material again — though, not sure I would even if I had the spare time, as my experience has been that this is a time sink that never goes anywhere, always ends with no consensus to do anything. But maybe this time will be different, who knows. Here's hoping. G'luck! El_C 23:24, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

  Was some canvasing done, and after that was brought up ended up temporarily postponing the proposal as being compromised. Some reason I thought another one started later on, but I didn't find it when I did my quick search earlier, but like you said they always end up in no consensus or no change. The only consensus I remember being established was to decide things on case by case basis, even though that was what was already happening, it did stop the people that liked to refer to the results of consensus in the shooting that happened the week before the current shooting. WikiVirus C ^(talk) 23:40, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

• The policy language at WP:NOTMEMORIAL is crystal clear: it refers to Subjects of encyclopedia articles, not at all to mentioning victims of notable crimes in articles about those crimes. Accordingly, all such mentions of NOTMEMORIAL in discussions like this should be dismissed out of hand, as irrelevant and off topic. We have countless articles about notable murders that mention the murder victims by name, which is entirely appropriate. The Highland Park parade shooting with seven fatalities is a perfect example for debate. An encyclopedia article about a crime like this should provide content about the impact of this crime on that community and on society as a whole. That cannot be conveyed by dryly stating that seven members of the species Homo sapien perished. These included a grandfather who did not really want to be there, a woman highly active in her synagogue, and a married couple who left an orphaned 2-1/2 year old toddler laying under the bleeding body of his father, and other people who should have their name, age and a sentence or two of well referenced content, so that our readers can gain a deeper understanding of this particular crime. Mentioning and briefly describing these seven people is entirely appropriate in my opinion, because all seven are receiving plenty of coverage in reliable sources. Mentioning WP:BIO1E in this context is spurious and inappropriate, because that refers to articles about individual people, not to mentioning non-notable people in other articles. Again, we do that all the time. When dealing with the 2017 Las Vegas shooting with 60 fatalities or the September 11 attacks with nearly 3000 fatalities, other factors pertaining to length may come into effect. I think that an external link to a reliable source listing all the victims is appropriate in such cases. But such articles about major mass casualty events should always list the notable fatalities. Cullen328 ( talk) 04:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

• For the record, regarding Highland Park, all those things are there, just the victims are not named in the prose. But that parents of a surviving toddler, a grandfather visiting, thats in the article. Just without the "in memoriam" feel of a list of victims. nableezy - 05:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Cullen328. Also, about the Highland Park article, the details about the victims were just removed by another editor. I hope the information can be re-added. JJMM ( talk) 08:48, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think NOTMEMORIAL should have any bearing on this, since it is just a bullet point in a section about not using Wikipedia as a hosting service, which isn't really the issue here. There is an issue, though, which I would characterize as being more about the proportionality of such lists to the subject matter. It seems fairly obvious to me that in an article about a notable incident with, say, three victims, it would be odd not to name them; but it would be even odder to name every victim of an incident with three hundred victims. It can be awfully hard to judge where this line should be drawn in a particular case, however. I think a general rule of thumb would be a good idea, but I don't think WP:NOT is quite the place for rules of thumb. -- Visviva ( talk) 04:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think the issue largely comes down to finding that cutoff. An event with a small # of victims, e.g. 1-4, would usually only be notable enough for an article if one or more of the victims or perpetrators meets notability requirements on their own. In most of these cases, the victims are more important/notable to the event because they were individually targeted. In a mass killing/casualty event, the number of victims alone is what makes the event notable. More often in these cases the victims are not individually targeted - the event would've occurred with or without several of the victims being present. EatTrainCode ( talk) 03:18, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  The problem that I see with that is it leads to some absurd, IMO obviously, results. Such as, in a topic area Im familiar with, due to their being a smaller number of Israeli victims of a given Palestinian attack they can be listed, but a longer list of Palestinian victims of an Israeli attack could not because it is too large. We would be pushing our thumb on the systemic bias scale even further in the wrong direction IMO if you had these cutoffs. Why would we list four victims but not say 14? nableezy - 17:00, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, a wider discussion is needed. Clearly, the community disagrees on what WP:NOTMEMORIAL means. BilledMammal ( talk) 04:57, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as mentioned by WikiVirus in the first part of this discussion, this has been discussed many times, with no clear consensus. Some previous related discussions: 2017 2018 2018 2019 2019. I may be missing some. WikiVirusC(talk) 21:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC) Though I am hopeful that a new RfC would have a clear consensus, I am not confident of that. Natg 19 ( talk) 00:32, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

An exact phrase search?? Thou hath too much faith in readers knowing exactly what they are looking for. What of middle names? What of misspellings? A curated dab page takes care of that (as Terry Pearce does).
One thing I may agree to is that the entries in dab pages be restricted to articles and redirects listed by their name, so that non-notable entries only be included in dab pages if they have redirects to their name, thus putting RfD as the ultimate filter for inclusion of non-notable entries. — Guarapiranga  ☎ 06:51, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

• I would think that the guideline below WP:NOTMEMORIAL, i.e.: WP:NOTDIRECTORY, would be more applicable - simple lists of things not sufficiently notable to merit their own articles are not particularly useful from an encyclopedic perspective. Given the disproportionate space already occupied by death-related events, we hardly need to encourage their expansion. Iskandar323 ( talk) 10:04, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  I was going to point out that the wikiproject level guidance for listing alumni at WP:ALUMNI also would be a reasonable equivalent point. Unless a victim was a critical part of the event (teacher making effort to save kids but killed in process) or notable before, these lists devolve into simply lists of non-notable individuals and can be a problem, particularly with larger events. Masem ( t) 11:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• To be clear, is this RFC only about the inclusion of simple lists of the victim's names and ages? In the case of the Robb shooting, even after consensus was reached to include a list of names & ages, there were more efforts to get additional information about the victims included in an attempt to "balance" the article against information about the shooter. Many of WP:MEMORIAL comments were targeted at this suggestion and not the inclusion of the list itself. EatTrainCode ( talk) 04:04, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, on Robb Elementary School shooting, mini-biographies of the victims were repeatedly added. They included info as trivial as their hobbies, as well as their favourite foods & music. That was followed by a discussion about the matter in an attempt to legitimise their inclusion. Jim Michael 2 ( talk) 19:08, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• Although this is an RFC, it is not that widely advertised so perhaps it should be considered more as RFCbefore, an attempt to see if there is any consensus at all. At the moment, seems like a good candidate for central discussion. Selfstudier ( talk) 11:20, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  It's been a couple years, I think a solid, very focused yeah-or-nay centralized discussion (something like "Should Wikipedia contain itemized lists of victims of crime/disaster") would be helpful. Without answering the question of whether the community thinks that broad a question falls under NOTDIRECTORY, it's basically arguments that can't go anywhere.

  I will say that the focus on "balancing" articles towards victims to me falls deeply afoul of understanding Wikipedia's NPOV pillar; we are supposed to just follow the sources, and it's very rare sourcing focuses as much on the many many victims as it does the fewer perpetrators. That's just the nature of coverage of crime. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:57, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  This ... the reason the suspect/convicted person gets so much biographical coverage is that this is generally part of the news reporting trying to understand the why behind the crime and how this person became involved, not so much that they want to give a full biographical profile of the suspect/convicted person. This is not the type of coverage that victims would get, unless they were actively involved in trying to stop the crime or protect others. They are faces and names that are meant to sympathize with the victims and particularly in school shootings, to evoke empathy for the victims and distain for the shooter. That's the type of biased reporting that per NPOV (YESPOV) we should not be including. Even when included on a WP article, these victim lists are generally present to try to elicit the same feelings from the reader. The victim list of a typical schooling shooting can be replaced with "X adults and Y children between the ages of n-m" and that conveys the same fundamental information essential to the event without trying to create emotion to it. Masem ( t) 17:46, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  While I agree with this, it's also true that in recent years the sources have been shifting away from focusing on the perpetrators of mass shootings. The same people advocating for victim lists/bios are the ones trying to remove what they see as excess information (including names + photos) on the shooters. Focusing on the arguments around victim lists and WP:NOTAMEMORIAL is missing the larger issue. EatTrainCode ( talk) 22:02, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  That seems like a separate issue? Again, we should be following the sources. I think arguably the biggest problem with our crime articles is the choice to have victim or criminal biographies (complete with infoboxes) randomly smushed into the articles about the killings (which feels like a BLP1E end-run, if nothing else) but that's not really related to the memorial issues this section is discussing. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  the sources have been shifting away from focusing on the perpetrators of mass shootings Interesting if true, do you have a source for that assertion? Not really sure what you mean by larger issue, it seems a different issue altogether. Selfstudier ( talk) 22:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  That may refering to how there is a trend to not glorify the suspects, eg such as in the wake of Christchurch, on the basis that these suspects did the crime for attention, and the excessive media coverage of them only feeds that. However that is not the view WP has taken as as long as we arent talking about a minir, we will nearly always name the suspect if fhe media has done so too Masem ( t) 22:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure how I would source an overall trend in media coverage, and I'm largely playing devil's advocate based on several discussions I saw across multiple Wikipedia articles with mass shootings recently. The FBI and WHO, among other organizations, have made an effort to reduce media coverage on mass shooters - going as far as to recommend a “Don’t Name Them” policy for the shooters. Reaching a consensus on victim lists is important, but I think it's clear to anyone paying attention to discussions on these types of articles that this topic is symptomatic of a larger debate around how Wikipedia covers these events. EatTrainCode ( talk) 04:01, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  OK, so it might be true but while we're waiting for an RS, its OR and recent (I will have a look at the material someone else has posted below). It still seems to me that linking these two issues together is inappropriate, the argumentation is distinct even if the issues are connected via an event. I haven't really had occasion to think that much about the second issue other than noting that typically everyone wants to know about the perp, why did they do it and so on and then there is going to be charging, trial and the rest, assuming they weren't themselves killed. It doesn't even need to be a "casualty" event for that to kick in, a lot of people would know who Ghislaine Maxwell is and like as not, know very little about any victims. Personally, I don't see the need for photos of perps (or victims), but that's maybe just me. Selfstudier ( talk) 09:23, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  we are supposed to just follow the sources, and it's very rare sourcing focuses as much on the many many victims as it does the fewer perpetrators. And yet for some events we have entire secondary source articles written on the victims. Even years later, in some instances. Our coverage of the victims, per NPOV, should be balanced as in our sources. How that balance is arrived at is (according to what I've read in our policies/guidelines) mostly a matter of proportion. So if our sources are devoting 2/3 of the coverage to the shooter and the overall event, and 1/3 of the coverage to the victims, then our article should reflect that. In the worst cases I've seen lengthy articles where the "victims" are notated by numeric count, age range, and ethnicity and nothing more (basically 2-3 sentences). Despite our sources including details on who they are, and obviously, their names.

  To the broader question this discussion was started on, I think it should be clearer that NOTMEMORIAL only applies to entire articles on non-notable people, not to content within articles where the notability has already been established (to be fair, NOTMEMORIAL already does not apply to content within articles, but apparently some people are confused by the wording as is). I think editors abusing the "case by case" result of the prior RFC should be reprimanded for engaging in WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND mentality, and we should get back to making a complete encyclopedia, not one that pushes certain points of views (like that the victims of these events are irrelevant and don't matter, when our sources clearly tell us they do). Reasonable people can disagree on the finer points, but we shouldn't have a handful of editors stonewalling these articles over their own personal biases. — Locke Cole • t • c 02:52, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  An issue still is the 10 year factor and RECENTISM. The media in the short term may give coverage of the victims in detail, but over time, that doesnt happen, yet the suspect or convicted remains of interest of time. That is part of the crimology and psychology of these events that get long term coverage, which its what we should consider the point of balance. Victim lists are an artifact of RECENTISM by the media and which we should avoid. Masem ( t) 03:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  An issue still is the 10 year factor ... an arbitrary number, which if we held to it, then these articles wouldn't exist at all. But they do, so... here we are. ...and RECENTISM RECENTISM isn't a bad thing, being cognizant of it is not a problem, but that is emphatically not an excuse to censor our articles of people so clearly relevant to the events. We wouldn't even have articles on these events if the victims hadn't died. As far as long term coverage, here's one three years after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting:

  • "Remembering the 59 Slain Victims of the Las Vegas Concert Massacre, 3 Years Later". People (magazine). 2022-05-23. Archived from the original on 2022-05-27. Retrieved 2022-05-27. {{ cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2022-05-28 suggested ( help)

  I'm sure if I went digging I could find sources for victims of other events years on as well. — Locke Cole • t • c 03:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  we shouldn't have a handful of editors stonewalling these articles over their own personal biases Can't be a handful, can it? If that were the case they would not be able to impose their view. Selfstudier ( talk) 08:53, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  About 2-3 die-hards, yes. And while I initially edit warred with them, 1) that's counter-productive and obviously WP:EW is a thing, and 2) eventually we almost always get consensus to include them in some form or another. The problem is the protracted, sometimes a month long, debate that is just a recycle of the same arguments typically. But because they don't like it, they will stonewall repeatedly, to a point that is, I think, disruptive. — Locke Cole • t • c 14:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  Youre posting an explicit memorial and arguing that means these lists are not memorials. People magazine has a different mission than Wikipedia. nableezy - 13:40, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  "There's no long term coverage of victims!" **shows editor source of long term coverage that is considered reliable per WP:RSP** No, not that source! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ — Locke Cole • t • c 14:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  Unaware of anybody saying there is no coverage of the victims long term, but proportionally, in actually reliable sources, the weight of that coverage simply pales in comparison to the coverage of the shooter. And yes, People magazine is a garbage source for the Las Vegas shooting, and I cant seriously believe you feel otherwise. And that is a memorial, you are not even disputing it. nableezy - 14:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  You yourself just stated that People magazine has a different mission than Wikipedia. so even if they have their coverage in a memorial style doesn't mean we have to because their mission is different than ours. We only need to summarize the verifiable information. In fact, we aren't supposed to be editorializing in any way like they do so it isn't a problem even if they are a memorial because they don't have to follow our rules only we do. Huggums537 ( talk) 14:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'm honestly curious: what sort of long term coverage of the victims would you expect beyond memorials? As to Unaware of anybody saying there is no coverage of the victims long term, did you miss Masem's insistence that there be coverage after ten years (AKA: long term; I'll reiterate that there doesn't appear to be any policy or guideline behind this arbitrary ten year number)? — Locke Cole • t • c 14:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  If the only coverage you can find for including it is that there are some memorials in the popular press then my view is that is evidence that the only reason to include such a list is to memorialize them, and I dont think that is Wikipedia's mission. What coverage would prove your point to me? If you could show for example that a book about these events, or some criminal justice or other academic field's journal article on it gives substantial focus to the victims in its coverage so that it would make sense to include the same relative proportion of our article on that event. Because I feel you, when you make the DUE argument, are missing an important part. A tiny fraction of sources that discuss these events name the victims. That tiny fraction is the proportion that DUE assigns to that coverage. nableezy - 23:19, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  It amuses me that you continue to berate/diminish a reliable source. You may proceed with that if you wish, just understand that I see what you're doing. As to Wikipedia's mission, I think it is to provide a well referenced collection of information that has entered the corpus of human knowledge. I think that when our sources provide significant coverage of something and our article editors twist themselves into knots to avoid covering that same thing it looks very suspicious. You can label it whatever you like, I choose to call it noteworthy information of a notable event. It's telling that your only defense appears to be to attempt to trivialize it by referring to such coverage as a "memorial".

  To circle back to an argument I've made in the past: These events are notable. Their notability hinges on the deaths of the victims. If these mass shootings had been some random person going into an abandoned building and shooting out the windows or putting bullet holes in the walls, we would not even consider having an article on it. But because people were murdered, that event gets widespread coverage in reliable sources, and we consider it notable. It's unacceptable to cover these events in such detail from the shooters perspective while going out of our way to avoid discussing the victims (even though our sources do). They are an inseparable part of the event. Neutrality and due weight demand that we at least name them if our reliable sources do. — Locke Cole • t • c 06:12, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

  Berate/diminish a reliable source? What is it that you see. Maybe try WP:AVOIDYOU, and really if you want to say what your suspicions are then say them but if you dont then keep that kind of crap to yourself. But if we are talking sources, People (magazine) is certainly reliable for the names of those killed. Is it however the type of source an encyclopedia article on anything other than perhaps the love interest of a celebrity should be relying on? I cant seriously believe this needs to be stated, but no, it is not. Yes, of course it is "reliable" in that what they report is generally accurate. But what am I trivializing here? It is a memorial. You know how I can tell that? Because its title is "Remembering the 59 Slain Victims of the Las Vegas Concert Massacre". That isnt trivializing it. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is also a memorial, and I would never imagine trivializing it or diminishing it in any way. But I also wouldnt say that we should also be memorializing those people on Wikipedia, that isnt our mission here. But again, you are ignoring that due weight requires weight in proportion to the rest of the coverage. And the 146 books that even mention Sonny Melton, much less the tiny number that go in to any depth in their coverage of him, compared to the over 4000 that discuss the shooting in depth suggests that this weight is ~0. nableezy - 13:28, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

  According to WP:RSP: There is consensus that People magazine can be a reliable source in biographies of living persons, but the magazine should not be used for contentious claims unless supplemented with a stronger source. That is the current community consensus on that specific source. Despite this, you've attempted to trivialize/berate/diminish the source rather than addressing the central issue: there is long term coverage of victims of mass killing events. I do take issue with your simple Google search "research", but given that you're apparently taking this personally now, I'll exit discussing this with you and leave it to others to raise what I hope are obvious objections to using those results as anything definitive. — Locke Cole • t • c 15:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

  I believe I already stipulated that People is reliable for the fact that these people died there. I dont think anybody is challenging the fact that these people were shot and killed there. If you would like to ignore my argument to simply restate yours then sure, exit. But since you have no answer to the facts that People is a source primarily focused on celebrity news in the United States and not the type of source that we should be basing an article on a mass shooting (completely ignoring WP:SOURCETYPES) on or that this piece is explicitly a memorial Im just going to assume those facts remain unchallenged in any way. And since you are unable to refute the fact that the weight that the preponderance of the sources give to the victims names is exponentially less, and ~0 relative to the entire topic of any given mass shooting, I will assume that you concede that WP:WEIGHT does not support the idea that the victims are "more than half the subject" or anywhere close to that. nableezy - 16:21, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

  Oh, I can refute it. But you're taking things personally apparently, so I'm exiting, as I already said. I think your Google search results are fucking terrible though, and aren't anything anyone should make a conclusion on this issue with. — Locke Cole • t • c 18:08, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

  Im not sure how else to take it looks very suspicious but I have no problem ignoring that and continuing if you find a point to discussing this without questioning the good faith of your interlocutor. I certainly dont question yours. nableezy - 18:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

• I had posted the following to the Oxford High School shooting Talk page on Dec. 5, 2021 [4]: Research has shown that the amount of attention given to mass shooters correlates with increased imitation shootings. Wikipedia is not news but it is a type of online media. There is both scholarly and media research showing it is best to avoid naming mass shooters frequently, and only when critical to understanding the event. Therefore, the issue is not just that it helps to focus on victims/survivors (their names, stories), but also that it helps to name mass shooters less frequently and to give them less attention…despite the notability of the event. Review the following:

- "Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders" in American Behavioral Scientist

- "Does Media Coverage Inspire Copy Cat Mass Shootings?" from National Center for Health Research

- "Mass Shootings: The Role of the Media in Promoting Generalized Imitation" in American Journal of Public Health

- "A Call to the Media to Change Reporting Practices for the Coverage of Mass Shootings" in Washington University Journal of Law & Policy

- "RTDNA Guidelines: Mass Shootings" from Radio Television Digital News Association Ethics Committee

JJMM ( talk) 08:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I see the argument. Still, we follow the sources, not lead them. If sources take the advice on board, it will then be auto reflected in our articles. Selfstudier ( talk) 10:26, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Numerous reliable sources are currently taking this advice, and there are now multiple articles from reliable sources about victims of mass shootings in the U.S. But editors that are against naming victims or having any details about them in Wikipedia mass shooting articles are deliberately leaving out details about victims from these sources. That, to me, is not a good faith effort to "follow the sources". JJMM ( talk) 19:37, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, we are having the discussion. Just because something appears in sources doesn't mean it necessarily has to go in our articles. My own objection is not to coverage of the victims, it is to lists of victims and those articles have not altered my opinion about that. Selfstudier ( talk) 22:09, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that an underlying consideration is that we don't use "memorial" type considerations (or similar such as seeking to provided extra emphasis or impact) as reasons to weigh in towards inclusion. With these reasons removed, there is insufficient reason to put lists of victims in articles.North8000 ( talk) 15:11, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

What about lists of internees, as at Frongoch internment camp? I can understand a list of notable individuals, but the others there seems to me to be wholly random. Martinevans123 ( talk) 08:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

IMO that's a different question and a different situation both in several ways. But I'd limit it to otherwise notable individuals. North8000 ( talk) 10:49, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Martinevans123 ( talk) 11:00, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I really wasnt trying to just restate the arguments about the individual RFCs here, but I think even this discussion shows that this needs to be discussed at a wider level. Does anybody want to setting up an RFC as suggested above (a solid, very focused yeah-or-nay centralized discussion (something like "Should Wikipedia contain itemized lists of victims of crime/disaster") would be helpful)? nableezy - 13:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I think such an RfC probably shouldn’t be yes or no on their inclusion entirely, since I think it's likely most people might fall somewhere in the middle. I think structuring it like "should lists of victims generally be included/generally should not be included" would be more useful as it stakes out a more suitable position for a guideline regardless, and leaves more room for where to go from there should consensus be achieved. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

And how should we go about getting that going? nableezy - 14:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Community being in the middle, and a lot thinking "it depends" is why we are in current state. Generally becomes to vague. Even if we decide generally it should/should not, the argument will just become when are the exceptions to the generally. It will just be the same current consensus of deciding on a case by case basis per article. Along with phrasing, a mention of it applying to list-list, and in prose should be explicitly said, so there is no confusion of "that RfC was about list not prose".

Separate from the victim list themselves, there probably should be some kind of community consensus on the interpretation of NOTMEMORIAL, which is what I thought we were doing here. Does it apply to only articles or does it apply to content of articles. Some interpret it as applying to articles only, based on first sentence. Some say the second sentence is independent of first and applies to everything. Some agree it applies to articles but cite it via the "spirit of the policy". WikiVirus C ^(talk) 14:55, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree that "somewhere in the middle" isn't going to really work for lists of names unless there are some explicit rules about when a list can go in and when not. Selfstudier ( talk) 14:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree with this, it should be crystal clear that NOTMEMORIAL only applies to full articles (hand-in-hand with our notability guidelines), and that for article content relating to deceased individuals of otherwise notable events WP:NOTEWORTHY is what guides us. — Locke Cole • t • c 15:06, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

All those prior discussions as well as this one, are saying it is anything but crystal clear. At least you are being consistent with your essay, Wikipedia:What NOTMEMORIAL is not Of course there is another Wikipedia:Victim lists :) Selfstudier ( talk) 15:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment: What if we break this down into the cases of living and deceased victims? For living victims, WP:BLPNAME states: When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories. and Caution should be applied when identifying individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event [...] it is often preferable to omit [names], especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. Sources for recent events are mostly WP:Breaking news sources which can be WP:SENSATIONAL and in my opinion do not meet the level of caution that should be exercised. For older events, consider whether sources reporting on the anniversary of the event or providing detailed journalism or analysis provide a victims list. Additionally, WP:AVOIDVICTIM states to exercise caution with living individuals whose notability stems largely or entirely from being victims of another's actions. Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization. So, lists of living victims would not be justifiable in most cases, in my opinion. For deceased victims, WP:BDP states that BLP policy applies to the recently deceased in some cases (e.g.: material about gruesome crimes) and in combination with the sentiments of NOTMEMORIAL (Wikipedia is not the place to memorialize deceased persons) the concerns for living victims above might be applied to the recently deceased, which would exclude naming victims based on breaking news sources, and again leave the decision to whether there is coverage in later sources. –  Reidgreg ( talk) 16:32, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Where did anyone suggest naming living victims in this conversation? the concerns for living victims above might be applied to the recently deceased No. In most of these instances the names of the dead are widely publicized and attempting to omit them is just utterly pointless. — Locke Cole • t • c 16:47, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposed wording for RFC

I had a go at an RFC (below, at the bottom of the page), if anyone has strong objection, please say here and we can perhaps change it before there are replies. If it is OK, I will add it to WP:CENT Selfstudier ( talk) 17:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I dont know what the rush to make that was, would prefer it be ironed out before starting. nableezy - 17:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Apologies if I misunderstood you, I thought you (and others, including myself) were looking for an RFC. We might alter it, there is only one reply until now. Selfstudier ( talk) 18:09, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I removed the tags and closed it, over to you. Selfstudier ( talk) 18:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

No worries, would rather just iron out the details and then start the RFC. Ideally with buy in from all sides here. nableezy - 18:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

• Regarding the RFC, I think that it's important to avoid an RFC that ends on "decide on a case-by-case basis", because that's not the real issue here - it is extremely unlikely there would be consensus for a sweeping requirement or ban on such lists. The issue is that we're seeing similar arguments, again and again, on individual pages and discussions; we need to provide guidance for what the default is, for what arguments and situations are appropriate or inappropriate for a list of victims. I would suggest the following up-or-down questions, in a broader RFC about establishing guidelines for when we should include lists of victims in articles on mass shootings, disasters, and similar events:

• Should lists of victims generally be included for the purpose of parity with the names of the perpetrators, or in the name of similar forms of balance?
• Should lists of victims generally be included for the purpose of memorializing the people named?
• Should lists of victims generally be included simply because coverage of such a list exists in reliable sources?
• Can lists of victims generally be presumed to be core information that is required for a comprehensive article?
• Generally speaking, should the default be to include or exclude a list of victims, absent compelling article-specific arguments otherwise?
• Note that all questions assume that the bare minimum of WP:V is satisfied, of course. That part is non-negotiable and probably doesn't need to be said, but I figured I'd spell it out to be sure there's no confusion.

Those questions are central. If there are other recurring arguments for including lists, please suggest them so they can be asked as well; but those three come up again and again, and they're not really article-specific in and of themselves. If we established that lists can be included on a case-by-case basis but that an article-specific rationale is required and that those three reasons alone are not sufficient, I think that would solve the core problems here. Conversely, of course, defaulting to include or determining that one of those three arguments is sufficient - which would amount to the same thing, since those three arguments are largely applicable to all mass shooting articles - would also resolve things. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:06, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

My argument for including names has always been that they are core, contextual information that ought to be included for the sake of having a comprehensive article. In other words, I believe including names furthers an encyclopedic purpose. (After all, the entire purpose mass shooting articles exist is because a group of people were murdered). Purposes one and two are inherently unencyclopedic purposes while point three elicits an immediate WP:NOTEVERYTHING objection. I personally believe that the question that needs to be resolved is "do victim lists in articles on mass shootings advance an encyclopedic purpose?" Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 23:43, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

That would roughly be covered by the last of those four questions, I think (it's really the most important, but I feel it's worth nailing down the other three because they come up a lot.) Asking "is it encyclopedic" is tricky because many people are going to say "well, that's contextual" which leads to the current situation where we say we want to decide on a case-by-case basis but many people have arguments that functionally push the "context" in one direction on the other on every single article, resulting in endless redundant discussions where the actual arguments don't differ at all. So we need to decide what the default is. A default of "include" would align with what you're saying, while if the default was "exclude" then you'd be expected to provide an argument specific to that article about why it is encyclopedic in that specific case (and simply saying "victims lists are always encyclopedic" or "it's encyclopedic by default" wouldn't be sufficient, because a wider consensus to exclude by default would clearly be rejecting that.) Still, there's no harm in asking it, if the RFC will be a series of simple up-or-down questions. It's also useful to get up-or-down answers on each of those questions, even though the last one is the really important one, because knowing why we default to accepting or rejecting (and which arguments have been accepted, rejected, or reached no consensus) provides a bit more direction for those individual discussions rather than the debates we have now. -- Aquillion ( talk) 00:42, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I keep bringing up the ten year test because that should help refine what is significant to an encyclopedia built mostly on news sources that aim to cover the day to day. In a shooting, how the shooting happened, who did it, what justice was served, and changes made as a result are clear 10 year ideas, but the identity of the victims, short of demographics, are not. Masem ( t) 06:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I like "enclyclopedic" being a core question (that's what wp:not is about) but "advance an encyclopedic purpose" is a far broader and vaguer term than "enclyclopedic". Many could argue that "enclyclopedic purpose" is "providing information" which would include everything that is excluded by wp:not. North8000 ( talk) 13:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I am struggling with how broad an impact we might have with the use of "victim" in this series of questions. The question bringing about the discussion is about mass shootings, but "victim" can be seen in a much broader context - as basically any notable event that involves an injury or fatality could include lists of non-notable victims (from large scale events to a traffic collision, to casualties of war, or from disease). I also wonder if the series of questions asked should also include additional information more than names of victims? - Enos733 ( talk) 20:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this only affects lists. In-text discussion of victims (including naming them if there's sufficient sourcing to write something in-text that isn't just a list) would of course be unaffected regardless of the outcome. -- Aquillion ( talk) 20:34, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

@ Aquillion: So these are good questions, but my only problem is that most of them are already answered by our existing policies, and the answers would really just be showing how people interpret the policies (which raises with it all kinds of other concerns, like can the community of editors override our policies on this singular issue, especially when NPOV states at the very top that it is not negotiable, and cannot be overridden). I think one question not addressed is nailing down whether people think the current NOTMEMORIAL wording applies to just articles (my reading) or to even content within articles (which is what so many who invoke it seem to believe, even if the wording doesn't seem to support that). — Locke Cole • t • c 19:46, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

To be completely clear, this would be an RFC to set policy. It is obvious people have different interpretations of existing policy; but that isn't what's important. We need to decide what we want policy to say on this. If you believe that the outcome contravenes a non-negotiable policy you could try and raise that at a wider venue later on. -- Aquillion ( talk) 01:26, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Leave out as default. Victims who were specifically called out by the murderer by name (in shouts at the scene, in a manifesto written beforehand, or a confession stating that the killer targeted them particularly) can be named. Victims notable before their death can be named. Anyone else should be left out pending the results of the "ten year test" as mentioned by Masem. We should not be in the habit of parroting the sensationalism of the newpapers. -- User:Khajidha ( talk) ( contributions) 13:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)(PS: I'm not sure if this is indented to the correct level. This is my response to the entire discussion.

Can you explain why we're applying this "ten year test" to only one part of the notable event? Wouldn't we logically demand ten years of coverage for any recent event (or even subjects in general) before allowing an article then? — Locke Cole • t • c 15:47, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Look, we're just going round in circles, how about we focus on what we want the RFC to look like (Aquillion suggestion for example), we're not going to solve this without one. Although it remains perfectly possible we won't solve it with one, either. Selfstudier ( talk) 15:53, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think those first few questions should be part of the RfC. The general concern is mostly in the last question, of should we or shouldn't we include. I am in favor of including victims names, but I never have felt that simply saying who died was memorializing them. I don't feel background information on random targets, even when published in RS, is needed, but background on the shooter usually is needed. So I don't there is a balance or it was reported issue needing to be addressed. While everyone can bring their own other options, I feel the RfC should be as simple as possible, and with directly opposing views such as "We should include names, or "We shouldn't include names". Also should be clear that we are referring to naming the victims, not simply putting them into a list, so the RfC would cover both names in lists and prose. WikiVirus C ^(talk) 17:59, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I would think a possible question on the RFC would be if we should or should not include victim list, and a secondary, that we should not, what rationale dies that fall under , without expressing NOTMEMORIAL. If consensus is for not having such lists, we can use the second question to decide where to add the advice against lists (which end up at NOTMEMORIAL but that is not clear). If consensus agrees the lists are ok, then it would make sense to spell out NOTMEMORIAL does not apply to victim lists. Masem ( t) 19:36, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

• The issue is that ultimately we're probably going to end up saying "decide on a case by case basis", even if we have a default. So it's useful to collect recurring arguments (especially sweeping ones) and see if we can reach a general consensus on them. You can see many people, above, saying "we should include victims' lists for balance" or "we should include victim's lists because they deserve equal billing with their killer" or the like, and having an unambiguous RFC result we could point to saying that that's not a valid rationale would help avoid redundant discussions and would help encourage discussions to go towards more useful / valid arguments instead. More generally, my concern is that if we only ask the final question but none of the earlier ones, and the final question gives an "exclude by default" answer, we will still see people constantly using generic "it's encyclopedic" or "we need parity" arguments even though those arguments are ones that point towards including everywhere. I think a split decision is unlikely, but if one happens it would be informative in terms of the differing things the community wants for these articles. -- Aquillion ( talk) 01:39, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree keeping current consensus of case by case basis is most likely. The more complex the initial questions, the more likely of no consensus happening with people disagreeing to one degree or another of complexity. That's why I prefer something simple and straight forward. If base questions is simple, people can agree/disagree with the basis and anything additional in there response. I agree with Masem when he says have a secondary question involved. WikiVirus C ^(talk) 03:58, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The more questions we ask, the more information we get. I feel it is absolutely essential to get a straight up-or-down answer on the core rationales people give for including lists, so we can at the very least find out which are inappropriate. Putting more in the response is a terrible idea that would encourage another useless no-consensus outcome - we want to break it down into a series of hard yes-or-no questions to at least narrow the area under dispute. eg. you say that you consider it a given that parity and memorialization are not valid reasons to include a list - but many people above continue to argue that they are, and it's a constant reason people give for including them in discussions. Therefore, we need a simple up-or-down RFC on those specific questions, so that (assuming the RFC rejects them) future people who mistakenly make those arguments can be pointed to an existing RFC and told they need another rationale. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I said a separate questions for those things should happen. For the main question, asking whether they should or shouldn't be include, should be simple. Giving more complications in initial questions will require more detail in responses, and much more likely to be no consensus. If question says "Should victims names be there because of XYZ", you will get responses that say yes to victim names but no XYZing, which is basically is a no to the question but yes to victims list, and which to make things nonconclusive for the RfC. Any additional detail given to a simple yes or a no, still is a direct yes or no, just with additional comments not conditionals. Obviously closer is going to have to all comments into account in both ways. WikiVirus C ^(talk) 13:15, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I look at it this way, in the fuzzy wikipedia system. In making a decision on whether or not to include the names of victims, unenclyclopedic considerations would otherwise be likely to exert influence e.g "as a memorial" , "to respect the dead", "to places extra emphasis on the fact that people died" "to have a stronger effect on the reader". In the fuzzy Wikipedia system, "Not a Memorial" either says "don't do that" or counterbalances doing that. So then the net effect is to make the decisions based on encyclopedic considerations. If you ignore the nature of the wiki system and try to get stand-alone-prescriptive, (via an RFC or whatever) it would just make a mess out of the situation. One area which might be good for clarification is that it currently influences such lists within articles but is not written explicitly to do that. North8000 ( talk) 18:21, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

What would you write in order to clarify that? Isn't the likely outcome still what we have now, case by case? That is a legitimate outcome if we don't mind spending time and energy on multiple RFC's elsewhere with apparently contradictory outcomes. Selfstudier ( talk) 10:09, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

See the questions I propose above. We can ask a series of questions about what people consider valid rationales to include lists of victims, one of which would be Should lists of victims generally be included for the purpose of memorializing the people named? A negative outcome there would allow us to then update policy to make it unambiguous that that is not a valid reason to include a list of victims, and arguments premised on it could be disregarded afterwards as being against established consensus and policy. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:37, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

• Permit lists, both within articles and standalone (like the List of victims of the September 11 attacks, which I initially put together, and was discussed at AfD; disclaimer).

1. I agree with Cullen328, Spirit of Eagle, Locke Cole and WikiVirusC that NOTMEMORIAL applies to subjects of articles, not to list entries;
2. Like Visviva, I too don't think NOTMEMORIAL should have any bearing on this;
3. To the objection that long lists of victims might overwhelm the crime's article, WP:SPLIT applies, and the list may be published as standalone, as an appendix (or See also) to the main article; and
4. To the objection that a standalone list of otherwise non-notable victims of a notable crime violates WP:N, one need only verify that WP:LISTN establishes that:

   Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles.

   — Guarapiranga  ☎ 23:57, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• This isn't the RFC; we're still discussing how that will be worded. I think there's general agreement that lists will be permitted (in the sense that we're not going to push for an absolute unconditional ban everywhere.) The question is whether they should be included or excluded by default, and what sorts of arguments are appropriate for including or excluding them in general. -- Aquillion ( talk) 23:16, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

• Proposal for RFC question: “Do victim lists in mass shooting articles have the primary effect of providing encyclopedic information or memorializing the victims?” This gets to the very heart of the issue and was specifically designed as an either-or type question so that an outcome of “decide on a case by case basis” is unlikely. I think we should also strongly encourage responders to explain the reasoning behind their !vote and discourage them from merely linking to or proving a basic summary of policy without explaining why and how that policy applies to the issue at hand (i.e. “exclude per WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Wikipedia is not the place to memorialize the deceased”-this is a bad argument because it assumes without providing justification that victim lists serve primarily as memorials). We are all aware of the key policies and are at odds because we disagree on how to apply it; mere reminders that a policy exists does not nothing but clutter up the conversation. Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 18:21, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

No, this avoids the main question (include or exclude by default.) My answer would be "no" or "neither", say, and some people are going to answer "both." We want precise answers to finally settle things. More generally my problem with this is the same one I outlined above - this reads as asking whether they never provide encyclopedic information; what we want is to firmly nail down the question of whether they are included by default, and to specifically address each possible argument that people might make to include them by default. That way, if we get a negative in inclusion, we can point to the RFC and say "no, we established that that specific sweeping argument is invalid; you need a more specific one." Conversely if we get a positive then we will know what specific arguments justify inclusion and therefore which have to be answered if they're going to be excluded on any specific article. I would suggest the questions I mentioned above, with Can lists of victims generally be presumed to be core information that is required for a comprehensive article? as the question for the encyclopedic-information aspect instead, since that is the really' pressing aspect when discussing whether they should be included or excluded by default. I do also feel we need the up-or-down questions on the "balance" and "memorial" aspects so there's no doubt about those. These are simple up-and-down questions that will cut to the heart of the issue without leaving us in another vague state where people repeat the same arguments over and over again on every article where this dispute occurs. -- Aquillion ( talk) 20:34, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Ok fair enough. I’ve read through your multi-question proposal in a bit more detail and I think what you’ve suggested is probably the best route forward. It’s precise, forces people to engage with the real issues at hand, and is likely to produce some results. (I’m not sure if you made some updates or if I just did a really terrible job reading your proposal, but I rescind my prior objection). Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 02:17, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

• Question - Just to be clear. This (above) is not an RFC? Correct? We are just preparing the proper wording for an upcoming RFC? I am confused. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 00:44, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes to all the above. nableezy - 01:24, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 03:14, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

For an RFC, how about: "Add the following:

"Goals to memorialize, honor or place extra emphasis on victims are not reasons for including lists of victims. Lists of victims are seldom included in articles unless such serves an unusually strong encyclopedic purpose." "

North8000 ( talk) 17:14, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Lists of victims are seldom included in articles Bullshit. — Locke Cole • t • c 18:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

This doesn't seem very neutral for this particular RfC. – Reidgreg ( talk) 19:07, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I like the five proposed questions. However, I notice that they do not make clear whether this is about lists of living victims, lists of deceased victims, or lists of living and deceased victims. What the responder infers could greatly inform their responses, so it would probably be best to state this plainly. – Reidgreg ( talk) 19:07, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree that this needs to be clarified in any wording so that editors don't mistake that we're talking about dead people (though I would be curious about how living victims are viewed; my view would be to follow our sources and respect BLP concerns). — Locke Cole • t • c 19:48, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

FYI, I summarized what I could find for living victims in another 18 July comment above – oh, wait, you already saw that. I guess you mean current views polled through an RFC rather than the community viewpoints codified in policy. –  Reidgreg ( talk) 23:31, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Update

Well, what became of all of the above? It's been a while. Has an RFC ever been started? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 03:38, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The idea was that the parties here might coalesce around some sort of RFC, hasn't happened as yet. Selfstudier ( talk) 08:30, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

• WP:NOTDIRECTORY:

  Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones.

• WP:N:

  when notable topics are not given standalone pages, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them (see also Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap).

Emphasis mine. — Guarapiranga  ☎ 03:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• No contradiction; in the line you quote WP:N is talking about notable topics, abet ones that don't justify a standalone page. Since those topics are notable, they are permitted to be linked in dab pages under WP:NOTDIRECTORY. I would actually consider the two to be closely aligned. BilledMammal ( talk) 03:53, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• Per my earlier quote from WP:WHYN, I think it does contradict and we hope to have it removed in that discussion. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:56, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
• @ Guarapiranga: what is the contradiction related to just the notable ones, as I understand that is your emphasis? Jay (talk) 11:46, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think they just accidentally misread the second passage as being about topics in general thinking it was a contradiction. That passage is easily confusing. BilledMammal is correct that it is technically talking specifically about notable topics so there is no contradiction in that particular passage alone. The passage is worded in a weirdly easily misunderstood way that leaves no room for discussion or guidance about topics in general. The entire WP:PAGEDECIDE section is plagued with this problem. However, the quote I gave above is evidence that the emphasis given by Guarapiranga is true to the fact of a conflict. Huggums537 ( talk) 14:42, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

  You're right, Huggums537. Thanks for clearing it up. — Guarapiranga  ☎ 23:17, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

  The phrase "notable topic" occurs no less than three times in lead of that section alone, and then three more times within the section. The most intense usage of the phrase in the entire article. It is used in almost no other section in the article. Huggums537 ( talk) 14:51, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for clearing that up. The contradiction between PAGEDECIDE and WHYN w.r.t. notability can be a separate discussion. Jay (talk) 15:54, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

• No contradiction; the end of the quoted line from WP:NOTDIRECTORY and the beginning of the quoted line from WP:N are both consistent with all topics on Wikipedia being notable John, AF4JM ( talk) 17:03, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

• There is a contradiction, per the extensive discussion elsewhere, and also per that discussion the words "just the notable ones" should be removed to resolve it. Thryduulf ( talk) 21:28, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I have noticed that WP:NOT gets referenced in a lot of discussions about whether information is suitable to include in Wikipedia. Sometimes it's mentioned in passing (e.g. linking the policy in an edit summary) and sometimes in more prolonged debates, like on talk-page RfCs about including sections, or even at AfDs about whether an article should be permitted to exist at all.

One thing that often gets brought up is that "Wikipedia is not an instruction manual", for which this page is cited. In many cases, this is appropriate, but I think that in some cases it is not, and it may be condign for the policy to reflect this explicitly. Here are some hypothetical examples to illustrate what I am talking about:

1. An article about a fruit, the tropical bababooey, includes a section called "Recipes", which goes through a step-by-step explanation of how to cook a pie with the fruit. It provides a list of ingredients, seasonings, preparation instructions, oven temperature, cooking time, and serving suggestions.
2. An article about a fruit, the tropical bababooey, includes a section called "Culinary use", which covers some ways that the food is prepared:

The tropical bababooey is often used to make cakes and pastries.[3][4] Bababooey pies are considered a delicacy in Eastern Elbonia.[5] These pies, referred to as "foobars", are traditionally made from ripened fruits late in the growing season, which are dried in the sun for several hours before being mashed into a paste, baked in a crust of thin dough, and served with mint sauce.[6]

While 1. is clearly unencyclopedic, and violates both the letter and spirit of this policy, what I often see happening is that someone will remove 2., and cite WP:NOTGUIDE. To me, this is anathema to the policy -- the material is being covered in a clearly encyclopedic way, which is only incidentally an "instruction manual" because it... provides information to the reader.

My understanding of why this policy exists is because large amounts of instructional content are generally not in the vein of what Wikipedia is meant to do: provide a neutral, well-researched, and verifiable description of what a concept, object, process, &c is and how it works. Toward this end, I think that there should be some language in this section that clarifies the telos of this policy, and clarifies in some way that WP:NOTGUIDE applies only to material which is not encyclopedic. jp× g 02:22, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

As an example of what I'm talking about -- note that this is just off the top of my head and not a concrete proposal -- the first bulletpoint in that section currently says "Describing to the reader how people or things use or do something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to use or do something is not". It may be smart to have it say something a little more substantive, like "Describing to the reader how people or things use or do something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to use or do something is not. This policy should not be used to justify removing encyclopedically presented material solely on the basis that it could be used as instructional material". jp× g 02:26, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the general answer is that things should be in Wikipedia if they have due weight and of an ancyclopaediac nature. They are not excluded just becuase they also look like something else. NadVolum ( talk)

In mathematics some proofs or methods are notable in themselves, not just the result. For instance in Euclid's theorem there are a number of interesting proofs that there is an infinity of primes. Such proofs are only included if they are quite small and people have remarked on the method of proof, otherwise the default is to only cite a reference for details and just have a description of what people say is interesting about them. I guess these could be counted as instructions but the important point is that people have remarked on the interest of the instructions not just on the result. This corresponds fairly well with the fruit pie above, the details of making a particular dessert probably would not have attracted interest, though some aspects like flambé for a Bombe Alaska might deserve their own articles. NadVolum ( talk) 09:17, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I think basically we should not be including anything that looks like a recipie or instructions unless there is another good reason for inclusion, that is it is not included as an instruction but as something else. NadVolum ( talk) 12:10, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

There is a discussion on proposal that is right on the point with what I am trying to figure out, but it is still in proposal phase, which is about contents in articles related to awards and accolades. Something I would like to get input on is a statement in articles about companies, people and products about their association in a group/organization/list and citing the listing group itself. For example business A is a member of trade association A cite reference: trade association A. To avoid unwarranted aggranderizing of the associated list or the article subject itself, it would seem reasonable that such association should be addessed in a reliable indepenent secondary source where the mention does not come from the article subject itself. Currently, I am involved in such discussion at Talk:Music_Millennium about some minute, obscure coalition called Coalition of Indepemdent Music Stores that cites the coalition itself Graywalls ( talk) 18:31, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

This would be seriously problematic for articles on professors and other academics, where major notability criteria (such as being an IEEE Fellow, a level of honorary membership explicitly listed as counting for notability in our guidelines on academic notability) are usually best sourced either to the society giving the award or to the subject's employer, and where the guideline explicitly states "For documenting that a person has been elected member or fellow (but not for a judgement of whether or not that membership/fellowship is prestigious), publications of the electing institution are considered a reliable source." — David Eppstein ( talk) 18:56, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

@ David Eppstein:, So perhaps something like WP:RSP can be built-up saying citations to the award/membership itself is not considered noteworthy unless... that awarding institution appears in the curated list. What does the current consensus says about listing out things like The Actor is a member of Purple Hair Actors Guild and is named as the most influential purple haired rock singer that cites the obscure vanity group itself as the source though? Graywalls ( talk) 19:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

There is no "curated list". What there is, is typically consensus at academic deletion discussions on which societies count as major and which of their fellowships are of the appropriate level of selectivity. As for your purple-haired actor, questions on whether we should have an article on an actor are based on WP:GNG or WP:CREATIVE, which do not generally concern individual awards but rather media coverage of their acting. For questions on what content should be included in an article, WP:NOT (where we are here) is relevant, and the sort of content you can describe could be problematic under WP:PROMOTION if it is part of a campaign to spam purple-hair awards across Wikipedia, but for neutrally-worded items of content on individual articles I don't think we need additional guidance. For instance, if a person is a member of a board of directors of a notable charitable organization, I think it should be perfectly acceptable to source this that organization's web page listing their board of directors: a non-independent source such as that would not count towards WP:GNG but article content and notability are two different things. — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:39, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

For corporate-level membership, awards, etc., that absolutely needs to follow the type of independent, secondary sourcing that NCORP recommends. Outside of what NCORP normally covers, if we don't have independent sourcing covering the specific awarding or membership , then the award or membership should be notable on its own. Anything else, we start to get into promotional content. -- Masem ( t) 20:11, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Are you talking about material that counts towards notability, or material to be included in an article whose notability is established in other ways? Those are two different things and your comment seems to conflate the two. There is no requirement of independence or secondary in the sourcing for content within articles; that is only for article-level notability. Content must be verifiable, and verifiability requires reliability, but it does not require independence or secondary sourcing or depth of coverage or non-locality or any of those NCORP-type things. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:24, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm talking about the sourcing quality that NCORP details for when we are talking industry groups or awards. The industry group or award itself doesn't have to be notable, but the coverage about the entity receiving it should be independent from any element related to the entity or the group/award. Masem ( t) 20:37, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

If a person/organization/company has established notability otherwise, how do we ensure we're not drowned in proliferation of list of literary/marketing/association award lists? I don't believe awards that cites the award issuing group itself should even be included anywhere in the article, but that's just me... I am not sure if current consensus differs. A good example to the opposition is "Music Millenium is a member of Coalition of Independent Music Stores" and cites that coalition as the source... Graywalls ( talk) 21:09, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that if we have verifiable (but not necessarily independent!) description of association with a notable organization, then there should be no obstacle to saying so within an otherwise-notable article. For instance, it should be acceptable for articles on academic journals to state that they are indexed by Scopus or Web of Science; that doesn't and shouldn't require them to hype up their listing in third-party publications. To do otherwise would be to make our coverage of these topics less encyclopedic, while only making dubious and very indirect steps to cutting back on actual promotionalism. When you twist the content guidelines to focus on promotion at the expense of all other content, the result will be an encyclopedia that itself focuses on promotional content, as the promoters adapt to the twisted guidelines while everyone else suffers. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:29, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I find that generally reasonable. XOR'easter ( talk) 22:04, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely. Could not agree more. Huggums537 ( talk) 22:23, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

All of this would be far more relevant as a discussion at WP:DUE, no? JoelleJay ( talk) 00:49, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

• I have only read the first statement. However based on some of our guidelines, the following seems to be true. We can cite an organization itself for its members, for those who have received awards from it, etc. However we need independent sourcing to show the award, organization etc. itself is notable. If we have enough information on an award to show it is truly a notable award, than the organization's own statement of giving the award is enough to show a person received the award. What we need on an award to show that it is the level of award that receiving it makes one default notable is less than clear. However that is best handled on an award by award case. Independent sources covering specific people receiving the award is a good sign that it is probably a notable award, although at times you have to distinguish covering the person receiving the award because receiving it is notable from the person being covered for receiving the award because they are notable enough that most things they do are covered. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:33, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
• Actually there is wording in the general notability guidelines that winners of some awards, and people nominated multiple times for them are notable. I think at one point it was thought that all winners of academy awards (the Oscars) are notable, and some seem to have thought that all winners of Emmy Awards were notable. Whether we actually end up with adequate sourcing on all such award winners (especially in the case of some early 20th-century film productions workers who got Oscars, we may or may not have more than a bare listing, at least some of those articles currently lack much substance), to justify an article is harder to say. I think there is also an issue with not all Emmys being seen in the same level. Just to pick an example close to at random William Holmes (film editor) has 2 sources, oscars.org and IMDb.org, the second is not reliable and the first is not an independent source. I have not tried to hunt up more sources, my experience is that early 20th-century film professionals usually actually have more sources, but people in the past have basically mined IMDb to mass create articles (despite it being not reliable) and so have not bothered doing the deep digging to even try to create well sourced articles. The results often end up being lists of works created with very little actual prose. We also appear to have articles on almost all people even nominated for the Film Editing Award. Roland Gross for example only was nominated for an Oscar once, and being nominated once does not pass any notability guideline. The articles is sourced only to IMDb (not reliable) and the Oscars website (not independent since they are saying he was a nominee). Now Gross's total body of work may be enough to be notable, but we do not at present actually have the sources showing that. None of our guidelines suggest that 1 nomination for an award when you do not win is enough to show notability. If there are awards we think one time non-winning nominees are notable, than we should adjust our guidelines to say this. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:53, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
• I think we may also want to have different rules for listing what awards a person has received, as opposed to for a company. People only live so long, while companies can last forever. So the ability to receive awards, join associations etc. is less limited. There is also the fact that because of franchising, branches etc., companies really can be active and participating members of far more organizations than a person could be. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:56, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion whether the inclusion of an incident on a college campus that just happened, but received numerous national coverage would be something of NOTNEWS or inclusion worthy at Talk:Lewis_&_Clark_College#Column_collapse_death. Graywalls ( talk) 00:45, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

These two items in § Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal are very closely related to eachother. Scientific journals are part of academic publishing using high-level language. The "Academic language" item is very short and mostly (2/3 of the sentences) overlap the former item (compare: ^{[1] [2]}; emphasis mine).

~~  lol1 VNIO (I made a mistake?  talk to me) 19:48, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose Academic language or jargon is much wider scope than scientific journals. For example, the arts and humanities are not scientific but they may well be academic. So, the bold merger has narrowed the scope in a confusing way. Andrew🐉( talk) 08:52, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

  @ Andrew Davidson: How about merging them and then call the item "Academic language" since it encompasses scientific journals? ~~  lol1 VNIO (I made a mistake?  talk to me) 17:32, 7 September 2022 (UTC); edited 17:34, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

There are two sections that says Wikipedia is not a Dictionary. I think we only need one section. Cwater1 ( talk) 01:04, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing it. Perhaps you misread Wikipedia is not a Directory? (That's exactly the kind of thing I'd do inadvertently.) 78.26 _{( spin me / revolutions)} 04:37, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I did. I did not see that until you pointed it out. It is a good thing I said something on here before I did any edit. Cwater1 ( talk) 02:45, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

The section "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy" says that rules "do not set accepted practice" but "they document ... what should be accepted". Isn't this contradictory and confusing, at least to the average reader? Using the word "accepted" twice here is very problematic. Nxavar ( talk) 12:15, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't see your problem with that. The word means the same thing in both places, it woud be more confusing to use different terms I'd have thought. NadVolum ( talk) 17:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

"rules set accepted practice" for the Brits is like saying "rules are the law". If you are familiar with that the phrasing is not confusing. However, we should not assume the reader is familiar with the British legal system. Nxavar ( talk) 19:44, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I see the problem, but I also don't think it's "accepted." What if we change "set" to "establish"? (And, in the next sentence, maybe "already-existing" to "current.") - Butwhatdoiknow ( talk) 19:26, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

What the phrase "do not set accepted practise" is trying to say is that, in Wikipedia, there are no firm rules. Nxavar ( talk) 19:44, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps you could explain what the problem is please. The comment about the British legal system did not explain anything to me. NadVolum ( talk) 14:34, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

BTW I'm happy with replacing set with establish and already-existing to current. THey don't mak much difference to me so if they help others tht's good. NadVolum ( talk) 14:38, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

When the rules "set accepted practice" some interpret it as a MUST be done and some as a SHOULD be done. In the first use of the word the MUST is assumed, in the second the SHOULD is explicit. "Established" also does not make it clear if it is a MUST or SHOULD. I chose "compulsory" in my edit attempt but it was reverted because of possible change in meaning. Nxavar ( talk) 20:25, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't have any firm rules. How many times does that have to be repeated in Wkipedia? If people don't get it there's no point going in for more complicated words - that will just reinforce the idea of fixed rules for anybody like that. NadVolum ( talk) 23:41, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Please come join the discussion I started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Music#Lists of Repertoire/Compositions on Wikipedia! Why? I Ask ( talk) 13:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I think the 'upcoming broadcast events' of a television channel can be included if reliable sources are available. So I request to remove the 'upcoming events' term from WP:NOTTVGUIDE. Thank you. DoraShin15, 14:04, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the current text, in context, is fine. The prohibition is on a simple list of broadcasts. If noteworthy, "upcoming broadcast events" are covered under the clause: although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable. - Ryk72 ^talk 21:53, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

But The Banner is removing 'Upcoming broadcast' from some list articles. The Banner, will you say something about this? DoraShin15, 09:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOTTVGUIDE. And beside that, it is a form of advertising. The Banner  talk 10:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Agree with The Banner. Upcoming broadcasts are usually just advertising. If the broadcast attracts real coverage, then we write about it in an encyclopedic manner. Jontesta ( talk) 19:56, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I started to read this:

1. Internal links, except for disambiguation pages when an article title is ambiguous, and for lists for browsing or to assist with article organization and navigation; for these, please follow relevant guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists.

It took me a while to see there are only two elements being discussed. Those two elements are prepositional phases with short, clear objects (of the preposition). Each of those objects is followed by a description that lacks parallelism, has additional conjunctions, etc.

One simple way to fix this is is to use parenthesis around the descriptions:

1. Internal links, except for disambiguation pages (when an article title is ambiguous), and for lists (for browsing or to assist with article organization and navigation); for these, please follow relevant guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists.

( talk) 17:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Editors able to give clarification at Talk:Fort Albany First Nation#Notability of council list would be appreciated. There is a dispute about whether three lengthy lists of mostly non-notable names should be added to the article, per MOS:LIST and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Thank you. Magnolia677 ( talk) 15:36, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

It currently reads:

Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as "people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y" or "restaurants specializing in food type X in city Y". Cross-categories such as these are not considered a sufficient basis for creating an article, unless the intersection of those categories is in some way a culturally significant phenomenon. See also Wikipedia:Overcategorization for this issue in categories.

How do you define a culturally significant phenomenon? A list of buildings or businesses in a certain region, all notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles, should be considered valid for a list article. We have plenty of list of people born in a certain region already. Notable enough for a category, then notable enough for a list that can provide far more information than a category so people can find what they are looking for. List of restaurants in New Jersey is currently at AFD and someone mentioned WP:NOTDIRECTORY as a reason to delete it.

Suggested change:

Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as "people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y" or "restaurants specializing in food type X in city Y". We do however allow lists of people from a location or lists of people by ethnicity and lists of restaurants by nation or states. See also Wikipedia:Overcategorization for this issue in categories.

Dream Focus 21:03, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

wouldn't it be better to wait for some conclusion about the AfD and seeing if there is any actual concern that might affect here rather than taking one particular person's comment as anything to do something about? This policy is never going to be a complete list of everything that can or cannot be in Wikipedia. NadVolum ( talk) 11:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Maybe we need Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is not (shortcut: WP:NOTNOT). E Eng 12:22, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I would like to propose a change in policy that specifically makes it clear that wikipedia is not a database. Articles created which can be sourced from nothing but database entries are not notable I argue. This proposal is being discussed here, it started with expand notability criteria but I've come to realize this probably isn't enough to solve the issue. EvilxFish ( talk) 13:16, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this, and this is the essence of our policy against primary data. Shooterwalker ( talk) 18:45, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Databases may or may not be primary sources. As David Eppstein says below, databases are just a way of storing and accessing records, and we should evaluate the reliability of database like any other source. - Enos733 ( talk) 23:48, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

It depends, I think, on what you mean "sourced from nothing but database entries". Most of our articles on United States federal judges are sourced from the database of the public doman Federal Judicial Center, which contains a profile for every federal judge to have served. Most judges will have other sources, but there a few comparatively obscure ones for whom the FJC is the only readily available source. BD2412 T 23:13, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

So, we shouldn't have articles on those few based on a single source. That might be enough for a hypothetical list entry on List of US federal judges on the Nth circuit, but a single database source like that, if that's all there is, is not article material. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:17, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

That wording seems to be poised to ignore the relative quality of different databases. BD2412 T 23:48, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

The quality of a database is not in question, the problem is if the only source is a database (and maybe the primary reference the data is pulled from) then that topic is not a notable topic. In the case you mentioned of the judges, assuming its an amazing database, those judges whose only information comes from that database are not really notable. EvilxFish ( talk) 01:42, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

United States federal judges are national officials squarely meeting WP:NPOL. All of them are appointed by the President of the United States and subject to confirmation by the United States Senate, to lifetime appointments in a position that allows any one of them to interpret federal legislation and deem such legislation unconstitutional, if warranted. So, yes, they are really notable. However, the federal courts have existed for over 230 years, so records on some of the earlier ones are sketchy. Also, yes, the FJC is an amazing database. A typical entry is this one, for Benjamin Johnson. BD2412 T 02:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

That's the type of logical that doesn't really work anymore. We want secondary information about these judges (in this case), what impact they have, etc. There are some that clearly have that meet notability guidelines, but most of these the best we have is a simple bio which is not the type of indepth, significant coverage we want to see. Masem ( t) 02:42, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I would like to clarify that extent of coverage in a database is an important factor. A database with lots of information about an individual is different to one that just highlights some points about their career. I've looked in more detail at the notability criteria for people (most of my edits focus on scientific articles so I am less aware of them), these clearly state that by virtue of being a judge at the highest level, they are inherently notable. However if an article was to be created about someone who works say in a local traffic court, their entry into that same database you shared would not be proof of notability as I would argue that is not extensive coverage. This proposal would impact the traffic court guy but not the federal judge. EvilxFish ( talk) 02:58, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no valid distinction between information in databases and information in other kinds of sources. Being in a database is a matter of data storage and access technology, not of what type or depth of information is being stored. For instance, all Wikipedia articles are stored in a database; that's how the Wikipedia servers keep track of article content. Probably most newspaper articles online these days are stored in a database. It would be stupid to say "articles sourced from nothing but online newspaper articles are not notable", but that's what this proposal would amount to, because those newspaper articles are database entries. — David Eppstein ( talk) 23:36, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the above and I added a comment on the proposal page for a tweaking of this in an attempt to reflect database quality. EvilxFish ( talk) 02:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

We have had certain instances where editors have nominated hooks for WP:DYK containing vulgar terms or racial slurs, and defended these against claims of their being innappropriate on the grounds of WP:NOTCENSORED. We should have a statement upholding the opposing principal, that just because Wikipedia is not censored does not make it a vehicle to take a stand against censorship with the use of gratuitous vulgarity. BD2412 T 23:45, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I think the "gratuitous" part is necessary. Like it or hate it, sometimes vulgarity is necessary, for example if a quote is included, it may contain uncomfortable references/words/ideas that should not be censored. I would refer you to WP:GRATUITOUS that covers the case you mentioned. EvilxFish ( talk) 03:02, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Generally speaking, rules are supposed to be descriptive -- codifying accepted practice -- rather than prescriptive and passed like a law. The purpose being so that we can avoid repeated arguments over the same ground, instead just point to the rule. That is how it's supposed to work anyway.

The problem with the proposal is that Wikipedia is a place to add gratuitous vulgarity as a means to take a stand against censorship. To a lot of editors anyway, for various reasons too complicated to go into here. IMO it shouldn't be, but it is. Just be glad the rule doesn't say "In order to advance the Wikipedia's overall remit of advancing human culture generally, editors are advised to go out of their way to shock and discomfit the squares" or something, heh. Herostratus ( talk) 12:40, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this is either necessary or beneficial. There is already a significant amount of censorship happening on the Main Page, both before articles or files hit the Main Page or after, like when File:Waterboarding a captured North Vietnamese soldier near Da Nang.jpeg was removed while torture was on the Main Page, and I oppose making the fight against that harder by muddling the waters whether taking a stand against censorship is "soapboxing". — Kusma ( talk) 13:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

These discussions are basically worthless because we're not even speaking the same language. "There is already a significant amount of censorship happening on the Main Page" isn't true, because no government entity is at all involved with the Main Page; instead, what happens there is editorial judgement. Different thing! However, it's impossible to get most people to understand this; some can't, and the rest won't. OP complains material is "defended these against claims of their being inappropriate on the grounds of WP:NOTCENSORED", and if that's true (I'm sure it is), that's just filthy. Deploying the misleading and inflammatory word "censorship" to stand in for "editorial judgement" is basically arguing "Well, my editorial judgement is such-and-so, and if you don't agree, you're a Cossack". Not helpful to reasoned discussion. Herostratus ( talk) 10:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Present text:

5. Electronic program guides. An article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc., although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable.

Proposed text:

5. Electronic program guides. An article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc.. Mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable, when those programs have been broadcasted in the past.

Reason for this - proposed - change is that some people see the second part as allowing it to add future programming despite the first part disallowing it. A clarification can take away this confusion. The Banner  talk 17:40, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

If it is "near future" planned and with little chance of being changed - for example, the next Oscar ceremony is very likely to happen at the planned time - that seems to be something to mentioned. Far future programming would fall more into the CRYSTALBALL disallowance. Masem ( t) 18:01, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The sections in question are specifically discussing the business actions of streaming and television studios – for example, noting that Netflix is developing or has ordered a specific series on the List of Netflix original programming. Documenting the fact that a television studio has ordered or is in the middle of filming a series, backed up by vetted WP:RELIABLE news sources (i.e., film and television trade publications such as Variety or The Hollywood Reporter) is, I believe, not an example of an electronic program guide nor promotional advertising and misses the intent of WP:NOTTVGUIDE, which is to avoid publishing schedule guides as referenced in Electronic program guide. Nisf ( talk) 19:25, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

This is my interpretation of it also. This rule seems intended, for example, to make sure that the List of HBO original programming page is not cluttered with a day-by-day account of what is being on the cable channel shown. It is not to prevent general information of upcoming shows, which I think is a useful resource to have. JordanP7893 ( talk) 19:29, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@ The Banner I reverted one of these changes recently also. This section of the rule seems to be specifically about electronic program guides, which I think is a very sensible rule; our disagreement comes in the interpretation of it.

I would define an electronic program guide as a daily tv schedule with listings of programs with viewing times which would change everyday, with repeats of the same program multiple times for re-runs. This does not seem to conflict with showing upcoming programs for a specific tv studio/streaming company. To me this seems no different to how film studios can display upcoming releases, e.g. List of Warner Bros. films (2020–2029)#Upcoming JordanP7893 ( talk) 19:04, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Electronic program guide disagrees with you. And it is my intention to focus on TV-channels, not on production companies. The Banner  talk 19:24, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Television channels are largely also production companies (e.g., the BBC produces original content in addition to syndicated content), with the exception of channels that only broadcast third-party licensed content. How do you propose to extricate the two? Nisf ( talk) 19:27, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

As I said, the focus is on the TV-channels. TV-channels broadcast. As far as I know, they don't produce programs as that is done by the parent company. The Banner  talk 17:46, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually I would say that Electronic program guide only gives examples of guides which are based on daily schedules by time.

It seems to me the reason for this rule in the first place was to prevent hundreds of entries for tv programs each day based on what is on each channel, and not to prevent lists of upcoming projects. Whether that is for a TV channel/streaming service or production company is a distinction I'm not sure that matters. JordanP7893 ( talk) 19:47, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

should not list upcoming events clearly prohibits future programming for TV-channels and the likes. The Banner  talk 17:46, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

This all being under the subheading of 5. Electronic program guides. though I think is the key, in which case I don't think general list of in-development/upcoming productions would count as breaking it.

I'm new to editing Wikipedia but would it be possible to get some clarification from the history on what the original intention of this rule was?

I would instead propose the below clarification:

5. Electronic program guides. An article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc., in an EPG format. Mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable. JordanP7893 ( talk) 18:27, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

That does not solve the fact that some editors use the second part to circumvent the "prohibition" on future programming. The Banner  talk 15:32, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

This rule is all under the subheading of 5. Electronic program guides, in which case lists future programs can be allowed as long as it is not in a EPG style format. Since the upcoming program lists on the pages in question are not electronic program guides they are not in violation of this rule. JordanP7893 ( talk) 16:59, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The quoted policy is intended to address day-by-day lists of programs, which are almost never notable enough for inclusion – the only such list I recall is List of first music videos aired on MTV. However, the issue at hand is with lists of all programs broadcast by a network/service, which is a much higher level overview. I know it says upcoming events are excluded, but I interpret that as pertaining to a promotional block or something similar (something like Shark Week or Must See TV) – note that it says event, not program, show, etc. I wouldn't be opposed to requiring programs to have something more concrete than a press release announcing the show (i.e., maybe the show has to enter production like WP:NFF), but excluding all future releases is excessive to me if there is reliable coverage of those releases, and the quoted policy is the wrong place to address this issue anyway. RunningTiger123 ( talk) 19:46, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Support for now. But remember WP:CREEP I would rather take down entire subsection prohobiting guides/manuals. This should be decides purely on a consensus basis. The only thing I would keep in this policy is a mandatory requirement for a discussion to be taken in order to define extends to which details of manuals/guidelines should/might stretch. Best. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:59, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I am in favor of the proposed amendment. The more clarification there is for a policy like WP:NOT, which is often misused, the better. Lapadite ( talk) 09:51, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. While "broadcasted" is sometimes included in some dictionaries, "broadcast" is the far more accepted past tense and ought to be used. JoelleJay ( talk) 23:39, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
• List_of_Netflix_original_programming#Upcoming_original_programming is what started this. Some of those shows listed have their own articles. And some of the things listed as what they show now don't have articles. The list article wouldn't be complete without listing everything. I don't see what the difference is between things shown already to those going to be out soon. The rule was made before streaming services existed, and was so we don't have a TV guide listing all the channels and what's coming on that day on them, so it has nothing to do with the situation here. Dream Focus 07:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Wrapping up?

The discussion has petered out. I am not sure, but I think I see support but with reservations. So, to revise the proposal:

Old proposal:

5. Electronic program guides. An article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc.. Mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable, when those programs have been broadcasted in the past.

Revised proposal:

5. Electronic program guides. An article on a broadcaster/TV channel should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc.. Mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable, when those programs have been broadcast in the past. This refers specifically to broadcasters, TV channels and the likes. Not to production houses, as they are often different companies than the actual broadcasters.

Changes in bold.

I hope to hear soon. The Banner  talk 14:28, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe this revised proposal takes into account the comments from myself, @ Nsif @ RunningTiger123 and @ Dream_Focus, that the issue is the interpretation of what constitutes an EPG.

I propose the below, changes in bold:

5. Electronic program guides. An article on a broadcaster/TV channel should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc.. Mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable, when those programs have been broadcast in the past.

Note: this specifically refers to Electronic Program Guides (EPG), such as listing the daily schedule of a traditional linear broadcaster, showing the dates and times of each episode. Listing upcoming productions of a broadcaster is allowed if it is not in an EPG format, such as the just title of the series and the premier date (if known). JordanP7893 ( talk) 15:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but that bites with WP:PROMOTION. The Banner  talk 15:50, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Are you able to clarify which part of Wikipedia:PROMOTION you believe that this proposal would violate?

I am assuming point 5 around "Advertising, marketing or public relations", but that only appears to be specifically to prevent promotion. Including a list of upcoming programs in a "objective and unbiased style, free of puffery" should be allowed it seems. JordanP7893 ( talk) 16:19, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

In your version you allow each and every program, notable or not notable, sourced or unsourced. That would be the dream of every marketing department. The Banner  talk 16:39, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I think lists of original programming are a natural place where people come to Wikipedia for a central source on such information (I know I did).

Of course the entries should be sourced, and these pages cleaned up to prevent spamming/marketing/un-notable entires, but this is no different in my view to how this works for film studios (for example List of Universal Pictures films (2020–2029)#Upcoming). If we are going by this interpretation of Wikipedia:PROMOTION then these also would be disallowed. JordanP7893 ( talk) 16:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

All announced series must be reliably sourced (usually in the form of an news article from a third-party industry publication such as Variety or The Hollywood Reporter), and in fact, those that are not sourced are regularly reverted or removed.

There was a decision at some point in the past to not source current and ended series on programming lists for reasons that precede me, but that's not what you currently have beef with anyways. Nisf ( talk) 20:34, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

It's tricky when it comes to upcoming shows. I can understand peeling "In development" out of "List of X programming" pages as there's no guarantee they'll see a greenlight. However, it's important in my opinion to retain "Upcoming programming" when it comes to that series being ordered/having an article. It's helpful for the reader if that's what they're looking for. Rusted AutoParts 16:34, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. Especially since in development programs can often be cancelled without notice so these lists could eventually grow overtime as it is unknown if shows are still in development.

Maybe only allow shows which have officially have entered production? JordanP7893 ( talk) 16:41, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Why not limit the listings to notable programs (as in: having their own article on ENWP) that are or were broadcast? Otherwise you will be very quickly in the realm of promotion and crystal ball. The Banner  talk 17:11, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

How is listing their ordered series either promotion or crystal? Any action that could be taken on a tv series list could be construed as promoting the service so I don't see that argument. I can see the crystal argument with the shows they're only in development on but ordered/filming shows just don't apply to me in that regard. Rusted AutoParts 17:57, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Notability is only used as a test for whether a topic deserves its own article, not whether a reported fact warrants inclusion on a notable article.

Removing "in development" titles seems reasonable to me, as there is a high likelihood that they won't get made (although I would still prefer they remain, unless there hasn't been news in reasonably long time), but everything else should remain IMO. A list of ordered, in-production, and in-post titles should have sufficient sourcing to warrant inclusion, but that is all that should dictate inclusion. There is no promotion nor crystal ball here. Rmaloney3 ( talk) 17:59, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that this fails to take into account any of the points brought up by the discussion. In addition to others' comments, 1) Announcing that a show has been ordered by a television network is no different than announcing a film is in production by a major film studio; 2) Broadcasters and TV streaming channels ARE usually "production houses" and saying they're not shows a basic failure to understand the television industry. The BBC is both a production studio and a broadcaster – the same is true for HBO, Netflix, Disney, etc. Many of their shows are made in-house, others are purchased from third-party production studios.

I do greatly support a greater shift away from "List of programs broadcast by [X Channel] to "List of [X Channel] original programs" to further differentiate between broadcast guides and programming lists, as I don't think it's informative to anyone looking at Wikipedia to know that, say, Comedy Central airs reruns of The Office.

I also don't see how listing series that have been ordered by a streamer or a television studio is WP:CRYSTAL or WP:PROMOTION - is 2024 Summer Olympics a promotion of the Summer Olympics?? Nisf ( talk) 19:28, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

1) Announcing that a show has been ordered by a television network is no different than announcing a film is in production by a major film studio; That is a very curious statement. Ordering something is a few steps earlier than "in production". The Banner  talk 19:36, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

There's also a strong difference between "this network has announced they are making this series" and "Amazon Prime is excited to announce their hot new drama series "X", coming soon." The former is a basic reporting on a fact. That's not promotion. Rusted AutoParts 19:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Series order is a specific step that a studio takes to create a series - it means that a written commitment has been made to produce a series, and that casting and hiring has begun (or is about to begin) on the production (prior to the step of principal photography). Again, no different than, say, reporting that Warner Brothers has announced a planned sequel to The Batman or a reboot of Ocean's Eleven. Reporting that a studio has committed to producing a film or television show ≠ promotion. Nisf ( talk) 19:59, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

With other words: Crystal ball. The Banner  talk 20:43, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Series orders are verifiable, though! The series has received an order, the same way any other product is ordered or commissioned! This order has been reported on by a reliable source. I don’t see how this is WP:CRYSTALBALL?

The only solution I can see is changing the name of the section from “Upcoming series” to “Ordered series”, as that demonstrably shows that the series was ordered but that we cannot know whether it will be released. Nisf ( talk) 21:07, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I find the need to rename the section goofy to be honest. There is no problems or violations being committed with listing the shows the network has fully committed to. It’s not speculation, nor a rumour nor a presumption. The reader isn’t being tricked, or led astray. Rather they would be put at a massive disservice not providing that information. Rusted AutoParts 22:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Is this appropriate venue to discuss WP:CRYSTAL? I was seeking an intrepreation relating to "Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included, though editors should be aware of creating undue bias to any specific point-of-view." Does this text mean reliable and expert/recognized... or does it mean reliable, or expert, or recognized? I have been having a discussion with another editor here Talk:Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk#Source and I thought I would seek clarification as my thought was AND rather than or. If this is also the incorrect venue to seek clarification on policy consensus, kindly guide me to the correct one. Note I have provided the specific talk page link to provide context, and this post is not about that article specifically but rather to guide me on general CRYSTAL policy. Thanks Jtbobwaysf ( talk) 07:25, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Doc OckI just wanted to sincerely applaud your efforts to seek opinions, clarification and answers in the correct place. The Talk page. Requesting assistance in the event you are asking in the incorrect place and requesting to be pointed in the right direction in the event you are not requesting in the correct place. Unfortunately I am applauding your effort to an empty auditorium. I do so despite this fact. Mostly because I have done the exact same thing 30 or 40 times, (no joke here) and not once time in over 15 years have I ever received a bit of help. Nope, you'll need to fill out an "official" Help form and hope to by golly you asked the correct question to the correct commandant or you shall be shunned. But I also have a sliver of good news, I seem to attract (unwanted) attention even if I just correct spelling, so perhaps someone will be irritated with me enough to offer you assistance.

Best of luck to you from a former, very active, wikipedia contributer (before it all went mad.)

>>Doc Ock — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:8A90:ECF0:9489:316D:F2EE:4A97 ( talk) 06:17, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I'll bite. I read that as "reliable, expert sources" or "recognized entities in a field" (ie 2 choices). The idea is that the source is likely to be correct. For the car articles that I usually work on, I treat manufacturer claims of "to be released in 3 months" as probably true, their claim of "next year" as 50/50 (plans/economics/technology can be hard to predict) and their claim of "within 5 years" as propaganda. Any future claim by car magazines ("Exclusive! Read about next year's models!") are just sensational headlines designed to sell magazines (ie untrustworthy) unless it is a direct quote from the manufacture (see previous sentence).  Stepho   talk  10:00, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a content dispute about whether individual concerts should be added to stadium articles in advance of the concert date. Your input is welcome at Talk:SoFi Stadium#user @Magnolia677 removing concerts. -- Magnolia677 ( talk) 10:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Recently, many existing national anthem pages had their lyrics removed from the articles in the name of WP:NOTLYRICS. While superficially, such a removal would seem to agree with the policy, I believe it may be against the spirit of Wikipedia. I propose changing the NOTLYRICS policy to specifically exclude national anthems, so those articles are able to retain lyrics in them. I hereby provide my justifications for such a change:

1. When a removal of lyrics on a national anthem page occurs, multiple users tend to undo the removal. A larger number of users tend to add the lyrics back into the article, compared to the number of users who perform removals. This suggests consensus is on the side of those who wish to keep the lyrics in the pages. See the recent revision history of La Marseillaise for an example of this. The spirit of Wikipedia is very consensus-based, and so if consensus can be shown to favour those who wish to retain the lyrics, that should override any policies that go against this consensus.
2. The lyrics to national anthems are generally not in copyright. One primary motivation for not usually including lyrics is copyright, but that problem doesn't exist for most national anthems.
3. The article about the national anthem is usually more helpful, and thus better quality, with the lyrics included, compared to without. The spirit of Wikipedia should be to maximize the quality and helpfulness of its articles, even if it may sometimes contradict policy to do that. In those cases, it is the policy that should be re-examined and potentially modified.
4. Apart from consensus, another important aspect to consider is Convention. Even if the policy goes against it, practically all existing national anthem pages have/had lyrics included in them. We should respect this convention, and instead of going through each and every national anthem page and removing the lyrics in the spirit of WP:NOTLYRICS, we should retain the existing lyrics and maybe even add lyrics for pages that don't have them, in the spirit of convention. Then, this convention should be codified in policy as well, by changing WP:NOTLYRICS to reflect that national anthem pages should have lyrics.

Policy, arguments, and conflicts on Wikipedia should be settled by the majority. It is important to note that going against the majority is never a good idea on Wikipedia. Personally, I believe every editor should have an equal voice in issues like these, regardless of their duration of Wikipedia editing service, level of experience with editing, or the number of edits they have accumulated over the years. That being said, I am happy to wait and see how well this proposal to change the WP:NOTLYRICS policy is received by the Wikipedia community. If no serious objections arise in the next week or so, I will edit the policy itself and revert any edits on national anthem pages that removed their lyrics. Thank you. Royal Cannon 2630 ( talk) 16:44, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

If the anthem is not copyright then the lyrics can be put in full at Wikisoirce, and in the en.wiki article, appropriate sections can. Be quoted to describe the anthem against sourced commentary. But there is no need.for full anthem lyrics on WP'S pages. Masem ( t) 17:24, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

It would be inadvisable to make a substantive change to NOTLYRICS without ensuring that contributors who might wish to offer input are properly notified. Given what is stated above, it is clear that the proposed modification to the policy would be controversial, and it would almost certainly need a formal RfC first. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 17:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to the norm/convention argument, asking to retain material that multiple contributors thought would be appropriate, but the nature of Wikipedia is that many articles are built in a sort of patchwork, incremental manner, with a good percentage of the contributors unaware of larger policy issues. I don't think we need to change our guidelines to accommodate users who aren't following policy, however well-meaning they may be. And the obvious place for those lyrics is Wikisource, where they are welcome. Binksternet ( talk) 21:13, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I say keep the lyrics in the anthems! Damian001 ( talk) 22:21, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

While an RfC might be appropriate, the national anthem vs. any other song distinction makes sense. Relegating primary sources to WikiSource might be reasonable for things too long to be reasonably included in an article, that seems an overly pedantic solution to national anthem lyrics, which clearly are not. Jclemens ( talk) 22:34, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

An article about Sonnet 18 without including the text would be ridiculously incomplete, and so is an article about a national anthem without including the lyrics. Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources but do include poems and anthems of reasonable lengths, provided that is OK from a copyright point of view. How can you even talk about revisions and extra stanzas of the Ode to Joy without including the full text? It seems WP:NOTLYRICS needs to be seriously toned down if it is used to justify removal of the text of national anthems. — Kusma ( talk) 23:19, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding this issue, the Vietnamese national anthem " Tiến Quân Ca", if Văn Cao died in 1995, and remains protected by copyright as per WP:NOTLYRICS and Wikipedia:Non-free content policy. Also, what they discussed about multiple translations for " The Internationale" has been partially removed via discussion at Talk:The Internationale#Translations and Talk:The Internationale/Archives/2004. Surveyor Mount ( talk) 23:43, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the point in carving out exceptions for some songs. And I don't see national anthems as being particularly worthy of listing the lyrics in full, with a special carve-out that would not apply equally well to other notable songs such as famous hymns, the Internationale, folk songs, etc. In short, I am not in favor of changing NOTLYRICS in this way. — David Eppstein ( talk) 23:58, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think this is another example of the WP:UPPERCASE problem. The shortcut says NOTLYRICS, and that means no lyrics at all!!!1!

Um, if you read the that section of the policy, it says that "Wikipedia articles should not be:...Lyrics databases." As long as there is a proper encyclopedia article in addition to (public domain) lyrics, then I don't think there's an inherent policy-based problem with including them. In some cases, it may even be essential. It could be difficult to explain why certain verses just get skipped. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 15:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I've started this discussion over on the talk-page of WP:DICT that people may want to have a look at. FOARP ( talk) 09:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Apokrif ( talk) 22:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

It kinda does though. -- Jayron 32 15:56, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I read this line earlier today:

To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources.

I'm not sure that "in context with explanations" makes sense. Compare the demand here for "explanations" against Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Provide context for the reader. To put, e.g., a biography in context, you need to say where the person lived and what century the person lived through. "Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553" provides context: what's this article about (Edward was king), when did it happen (16th century), where did it happen (England and Ireland). We don't need "explanations"; we just need context.

If that doesn't sound "data-y" enough, consider the track listing for an album. It's straight-up tabular data, listing the track position, title, author/performer, and length. The context we need isn't "an explanation"; we only need to have the context (i.e., these are the songs on the album).

I think we should shorten that sentence to:

To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context.

This would add a link to Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Provide context for the reader, in case anyone wants to read about what "put in context" means.

Pinging @ Diego, because he had a relevant discussion about it a few years ago: Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 55#Data.

WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:35, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

This discussion appears to have resulted from a discussion on my talk page; pinging Paradise Chronicle and Chipmunkdavis who were also involved in that discussion.

I disagree with shortening that sentence; articles should not be database entries, and what prevents them being database entries is explanations referenced to independent sources. BilledMammal ( talk) 03:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band#Track listing is data. It's also an FA. There is no "explanation" of the track listing in the article. What "explanation" of this data do you think should be added to make it not only "be put in context" (which the article already does), but so that it will also be "be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources"? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:11, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Add a link to context

This policy says: To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources.

I would like to add a link to Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Provide context for the reader, so that it says To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources.

BilledMammal has reverted the link, saying "I don't think that section reflects what is meant here".

What do you think? Would this be clearer if it had a link to something (anything – I'm open to other links) to explain what it means to put data in context? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 15:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The essay you link is about making sure the article is understandable; I don't believe that is relevant to that section of WP:NOT. I don't think any link is necessary, as "put in context" is already explained by "with explanations referenced to independent sources", but if there is one that is appropriate I wouldn't object to it. BilledMammal ( talk) 15:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

You think this section of NOT is not about making sure that the data-related parts of the article are understandable? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:28, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Data can be understood without context; this section is about requiring that context is provided. Ensuring that readers can understand the article is a different problem, and one that I don't believe we need much guidance on although to the extent we do it is covered by the MOS. BilledMammal ( talk) 07:15, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

It sounds like you believe that readers don't need context to understand the data, but this section requires context to be added anyway. If I've understood your view correctly, then that sounds pretty WP:CREEPY to me. I'm not sure it's true that readers don't need context. Plain data ("1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13") IMO isn't always understandable without providing some context.

But let's stipulate that you're right. What would you tell the editors who are trying to do the right thing, who agree with you that the data in question can be understood without context – I suggest pretty much every use of Template:Climate chart as an example of that – and who discover that this policy requires the data to be put in context. They come to you and ask: "Whaddya mean, 'data should be put in context'? How do I know whether that data has been 'put in context'?" WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Not all data is the same. Some data requires explicit context to be understood, some data requires context that comes naturally from the surrounding article, and some data requires no explicit context. Whatever guideline we have here needs to account for these thee different scenarios. The current text makes sense when considering the first scenario, maybe confusing with the second (it could imply that examples need to be repeated for example) and is unhelpful regarding the third (how do you add meaningful context or explanations to a table of average adult human height for example?). Generally the presence of the link is neutral to a slight improvement when considering scenarios when some sort of context is required, but doesn't address the more fundamental problem I've just noted. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

As I said above this policy isn't about understanding the content; we have guidelines and common sense for that. The context it is referring to is an explanation of why the data is in the article; it instructs us to explain to the reader why the data matters and why it is relevant rather than dumping it in. For your example, look at human height throughout history; data on average adult human height is provided there in the form of graphs, and meaningful context is provided by the surrounding prose which explains why it matters and why it is relevant.

Personally, I can't think of any data that can't be put in context and belongs on Wikipedia. BilledMammal ( talk) 10:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a graph like File:Average adult height by year of birth, OWID.svg is what this section of WP:NOT refers to as "data".

BilledMammal, you're saying here that this bit of policy is unrelated to readers understanding the data (we are agreed that the data is content, right?). You do not think that this bit of policy wants editors to add data and then help readers understand it. When it comes to the data, you do not think this bit of policy wants the article to (in the words of the link you reject) be "accessible and understandable for as many readers as possible", to "explain the subject fully", to "make sense if the reader gets to it as a random page", "figure out what or who the [data] is about", etc.

You instead(?) want the article to explain why the data matters and why the data is relevant ...and you point to an example of article that contains no data directly (only graphs based on data), and paragraphs that do not mention these graphs or the underlying data at all, as an example of an article that explains why the unmentioned data matters and is relevant. Except that since the article doesn't contain the data, and these paragraphs don't mention the graphs, I don't find this a convincing example. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:23, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a graph like File:Average adult height by year of birth, OWID.svg is what this section of WP:NOT refers to as "data". Why wouldn't it be? The format? Data is data, regardless of whether it is presented in a table, in a chart, or in prose (In 1800, the average human height was 160cm. In 1801, the average human height was 161cm. In 1802, the average human height was 162cm. In 1803, the average human height was 162cm...).

BilledMammal, you're saying here that this bit of policy is unrelated to readers understanding the data (we are agreed that the data is content, right?). Yes; we don't need a policy that tells us to write articles that readers can comprehend. Why do you think we do?

these paragraphs don't mention the graphs They don't need to directly mention them; they give explanations of human height over time and in doing so put the data of human height over time in context. Why do you think the data needs to be directly mentioned to be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources? BilledMammal ( talk) 01:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The policy prohibits "Excessive listings of unexplained statistics." Graphs are not "listings". Sentences that contain numbers are not "listings". Perhaps none of this applies to those graphs, since the policy says:

"Wikipedia articles should not be:

Excessive listings of unexplained statistics. Statistics that lack context or explanation can reduce readability and may be confusing; accordingly, statistics should be placed in tables to enhance readability, and articles with statistics should include explanatory text providing context."

Those images are not "listings of statistics" (unexplained or otherwise), and those sentences are not "listings of statistics".

As for your assertion that They don't need to directly mention them, if those were "listings of statistics", then the policy directly says that they would need to be directly explained. "Data should be put in context with explanations" means "This policy says you that if you put [at least, certain types of] 'data' in an article, then you actually should 'put that data in context' and provide 'explanations' of the data itself."

The problem might be in the rule (maybe we don't actually believe that 'data' should always be explained, since some of it is self-explanatory), but to the extent that we have this rule, I want to provide some assistance to editors who are trying to follow the rule but can't figure out how to do that. The typical link for "provide context" is the one I previously linked. You object to the normal link. That's fine with me, but if you won't accept the normal explanation, then please provide an alternative one. Secret, unwritten, unexplained rules are unfair. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 15:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The section you quote is part of the policy, but not the part of the policy we are discussing here. We are discussing To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources.

Why are you calling it the "normal link"? As far as I know, that link has never been part of this policy. And I've provided an explanation above as well as an example of it in practice taken from your earlier example - human height throughout history. BilledMammal ( talk) 05:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

It's the normal link because it's the one we normally link to when we want to explain how to put something into context.

Also, you will find it in WP:NOTDIRECTORY, so it's already in the policy to explain that "simple listings" need context. And to prevent the obvious "well, if it's already linked several thousand words earlier, then we shouldn't link it twice on the same page" objection, I add that WP:NOTPART says the Manual of Style doesn't apply. Each section of this page needs to make sense if the editor reads nothing else, because almost nobody reads this behemoth of a policy. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 15:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I deleted massive changelog tables from both iOS version history and Firefox version history but was reverted in both cases. These tables were copied verbatim from primary sources and are not needed as the articles already include prose summaries of the important changes. The tables are so large that both articles are listed at Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles by size and Firefox version history is the 11th largest article on Wikipedia (and over twice the size of World War II). Nosferattus ( talk) 22:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

== WP:NOTCHANGELOG needs re-writting/ clarification ==

WP:NOTCHANGELOG is being using as a pretext to remove useful pages without taking into account where and when WP:NOTCHANGELOG should and should not be applied i propose the following :

Exhaustive logs of software updates. Use reliable third-party (not self-published or official) sources in articles dealing with software updates to describe the versions listed or discussed in the a existing article about a topic. Common sense must be applied with regard to the level of detail to be included and when to split into a seprate article. Popeter45 ( talk) 23:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Popeter45, the section immediately above yours is on the same subject. I hope you don't mind that I've merged them.

What would be useful to me is to understand what sort of content you think would be appropriate, and what sort might be too change-log-ish to be appropriate. For example, is "removed support for Adobe Flash" something that's appropriate or inappropriate? How about something like "fixed security issues" (a vague message that seems to appear frequently in descriptions of updates on my laptop)? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:29, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

i would say if detail is provided its fine, just "fixed security issues" is vague but "fixed security issues related to log4j" would be fine, my line would be how such information could help somebody reading the article Popeter45 ( talk) 16:16, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

If the standard for which updates/how much detail to include results in a page >100kb, there is clearly something very wrong with the summarizing of the topic. We do not include every trivial update in a celebrity's life, or every match a team plays, even when it is reported in SIRS, because such material is ROUTINE. Likewise, coverage of software update announcements is almost always routine NOTNEWS and should not be recorded on WP. JoelleJay ( talk) 18:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Most encyclopedia articles are supposed to include routine information. Imagine trying to write about that celebrity's life without including routine information like birth, family, education, etc. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree with JoelleJay here. I'm not seeing how point updates and minor updates are anything but ROUTINE coverage, but at the very least this stuff should be summarized according to secondary sources, and should absolutely not be just copy-pastes from support sites and changelogs. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:ROUTINE leads to Wikipedia:Notability (events)#Other circumstances, and since this question is (a) not about whether to have an article on this software at all and (b) not about an event, maybe you two mean to be referring to some other concept? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:09, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia policy, routine news coverage of such things as announcements are not sufficient basis for an article. That sentence is restating the policy basis for NEVENT, it is not limited to just events. NOTNEWS explicitly uses "routine" to characterize numerous items besides events: For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage. From the numerous discussions we've both been in I know you are fully aware of this, so knock it off with the captious condescension. JoelleJay ( talk) 01:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

But we're not talking here about the "basis for an article". We've already decided the article should exist. We're now talking about which contents to put in the article, as in "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists".

I am leaning towards "indiscriminate" and "trivia" as an explanation of what these lists/articles should avoid. That is, the problem isn't that there are routine ("regular, habitual, ordinary") updates made to the software and that we can source all of that; the problems are that the key points are being lost in a sea of unimportant details ("trivia"), and that editors are including everything ("indiscriminate") instead of selecting the key points. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and NOTNEWS is not a notability guideline. Neither is PROPORTION. I agree that these articles also suffer from INDISCRIMINATE and obviously NOTCHANGELOG. JoelleJay ( talk) 19:27, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The "basis for an article" is about notability, i.e., whether there should be an article at all. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:38, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Also, while including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. JoelleJay ( talk) 01:47, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if that goes back to when editors were struggling to differentiate between secondary and independent. Breaking news is a primary source, and IMO ought to be treated differently from other information, (i.e., minimized). WhatamIdoing ( talk) 14:55, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

These tables were copied verbatim from primary sources Utterly false for the iOS version history article. The copyvio was dealt with and removed months ago. DFlhb ( talk) 07:14, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• A lot of talk about notability/routine stuff above missing the point: Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. This means it is not a directory, index, dictionary (including genealogical, geographical etc.), database, collection of random information (which, pace WP:5P - an essay - is what an almanac is). We don’t do changelogs here. A “history of Software X” article is (assuming the original article about Software X is too long) fine. A “version history of Software X” article takes us into pure database/directory territory, and is exactly what NOTCHANGELOG is there to stop. FOARP ( talk) 06:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTTVGUIDE states An article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc., although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable. I would recommend that we change this to An article on a broadcaster or program, to prevent edits such as this, listing a series' current or most recent season as a hatnote at the beginning of the article. -- Alex_21  _TALK 20:56, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

There was a previous discussion on this exact matter (which you were involved in yourself) in November 2018. Given that you agreed that there was no consensus, I'm not quite sure why you're suddenly claiming that WP:NOTTVGUIDE is a, "direct policy against it". If you are that passionate about it, I would suggest opening a new discussion at WT:TV and attempt to get a consensus rather than directly attempting to change it just because you don't agree with it. Magitroopa ( talk) 21:09, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

My apologies that I forgot about a discussion almost half a decade ago. Have I attempted to directly change the policy, can you show me any such diff? No, I open[ed] a new discussion at the relevant talk page. I'm not sure sure why the sudden hostility? What a very disappointing display from you. -- Alex_21  _TALK 08:49, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what hostility you read from that response...? It was moreso providing context/information, but if you read any sort of hostility from that, I do apologize. Anyways- the 'directly change the policy' I was referring to was actually regarding opening a discussion here rather than a new discussion WT:TV. Whether either of these talk pages are correct, it at least looks like your previous discussion at WT:TV didn't work the way you'd hope, so instead you came here to try and get a consensus to change it. Although I wasn't part of that original discussion, it feels like you're disregarding what was discussed then/there and are trying it with a different group of people. At least to me, it seems like it would be more appropriate to start a new discussion over there before coming here. Instead, it looks like you tacked the link to this discussion in an entirely different topic/discussion (yes, I understand the edit warring part is relevant to that discussion, but not the main gender topic being discussed there).

Yes, I'm sure editors from the previous discussion may have the same view point, but A) As you said, it was almost half a decade ago (2018 honestly doesn't feel that long ago, but I guess a pandemic can do something to your mind). Maybe some editors do have a different view point on it now. B) There are more editors (such as myself) who can/would like to comment their thoughts on this as well.

Honestly, the only way I had seen this discussion start was BrickMaster's edits (such as this) and then seeing the discussion regarding this topic at the bottom of that topic. I'm sure there might be some editors who wouldn't know about this because you added a link to this discussion in a discussion regarding American Idol articles/problems.

And finally, just going to say it again, I apologize for any hostility above (or in this message), but I really am not intending it.

TL;DR- Apologies for any hostility whatsoever, but seems like a discussion at WT:TV first regarding this would've been a better idea. Magitroopa ( talk) 09:46, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• Um, why is that kind of hatnote a bad idea? People are likely to be most interested in the current season of a TV show, I find the hatnote a fine way to direct them there. I don't see why we want to prevent people from doing that at all. -- Jayron 32 13:37, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
• I'm not sure NOTTVGUIDE is really the relevant issue here with the edit you're describing? The bigger issue is WP:HATNOTE, and whether that guideline means people should put hatnotes focused on recent seasons (I would say no, because hatnotes are not structured to link people to the most recent seasons of a show or similar, they're about clarifying confusion. If you end up on American Idol, the most important information to send to the reader is not "oh here's the latest season".) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:08, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

But it does clarify confusion. Most people are interested in a TV show because it is showing on television, they may be interested in the general article, or the current season. It would tell people who are interested on the current season where to go, without them having to hunt for the current season out of many other seasons. Hzh ( talk) 19:27, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

If the hatnotes are kept, maybe there can be further discussion about when/where to use it for this purpose. Just as an example... I don't think a 'current season' hatnote would be that necessarily for The Mandalorian, which currently only has three seasons. On the other hand, it would likely be appropriate for articles like American Idol with 21 seasons/articles or The Simpsons with 34 seasons/articles. Magitroopa ( talk) 22:30, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Why would there be a problem with this hatnote? The only objection I can think of is that it says "current", which is a little annoying (i.e. WP:CURRENT). jp× g 20:49, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Please see here for an AFD in which the applicability of WP:NOT to 14 articles listing the destinations served by different airlines is being discussed. FOARP ( talk) 21:59, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There's broad consensus to retain WP:NOTCHANGELOG, though some interest in rephrasing it. No particular rephrasing was much-discussed or gained consensus so that'll have to be the focus of a future proposal. Ajpolino ( talk) 17:32, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

---

If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end. Note: Comments may be tagged as follows: suspected single-purpose accounts: {{subst: spa|username}}; suspected canvassed users: {{subst: canvassed|username}}; accounts blocked for sockpuppetry: {{subst: csm|username}} or {{subst: csp|username}}.

Should WP:NOTCHANGELOG be removed? 00:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• I am starting an RFC to debate the removal of the WP:NOTCHANGELOG policy, specifically the policy relating to software updates. This policy is threatening the removal of several articles on Wikipedia that are crucial to the history of software, such as Firefox version history and iOS version history. One article was already impacted, the version history page for Google Chrome, and Firefox version history's removal is additionally being debated and might be gone by the time this RFC gains traction. These articles have existed on Wikpedia for a long time, with one article, the Firefox version history article, having existed on the platform since 2012, and Google Chrome's version history article having existed since 2013. The removal of information from a critical platform like Wikipedia is downright unacceptable, and policies that actively hurt the ability for articles like these to exist are additionally unacceptable, especially when these articles are severely notable and have been cited and referred to by many, many people and publications. There is no other platform that has of comprehensive of version history articles of software that Wikipedia does, and this information is severely useful to know how software, like Firefox, has advanced. This policy is detrimental to the health and prosperity of Wikipedia as a platform, and as my personal opinion, this policy needs to be removed.

Additionally, the iOS version history article has existed since literally 2008. So even older than both Firefox's and Google Chrome's version history pages. There is precedent for these articles to exist, which is an additional reason for this policy to be removed from the platform. Why have the policy go into effect 15 years after these articles were created? This makes no sense. This is unacceptable, especially when these articles have, like I mentioned, existed for over a decade each, and some for almost two. This is downride sad, and detrimental to Wikipedia as a platform where information like that apparently can't exist. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 00:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Those pages on the Firefox and iOS version history violate the purpose of an encyclopedia, which is to summarize what reliable secondary sources discuss, not what primary sources repeat, so no, we absolutely should not remove it. Masem ( t) 01:13, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Per Galobatter below, the iOS page is actually good, staying to high level changes. -- Masem ( t) 01:35, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a typical encyclopedia, it is a wiki. It is a collection of information that reflects the history, past, and present of subjects. iOS and its versions, for example are a part of history that deserve to be covered. Same with the Firefox version history page. Wikis are vast collections of information. Wikipedia has not been an "encyclopedia" in the classic sense since it was conceived, and removing information from Wikipedia shouldn't be encouraged, especially if it has merit / value to existing and is adequately sourced. Plus, these policies aren't even actual policies or rules - they are guidelines. And this is a guideline that honestly needs to be removed. It has not reflected the current use for Wikipedia as a platform in literally 15 years. It is a policy that people are wanting to somehow enforce. "List"-class articles aren't encyclopedic either and yet they have lots of value and merit to existing, just as these version history pages do.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - Information deserves to be preserved, recorded, and kept. Not erased or deleted. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 03:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, in my opinion @ Masem you are relying on an ancient purpose / use for Wikipedia as an information platform. You have been an active opponent of changelogs since 2011, as seen by the discussions regarding changelogs that have previously been discussed in these policies (back when Wikipedia was more actively contributed to) of which you have participated, and in my opinion you are not speaking from a neutral point of view, nor of the view of most Wikipedia readers. This is not 2011-2013 anymore - and as clearly shown by the fact that the iOS version history article for example kept its tables for as long as it did, until they were removed for copyvios and then restored based on consensus as an editor went through the massive trouble of rewriting the table content to lose the copyright violations (@ DFlhb thank you), it is clear that these tables are valuable to a lot of people. Additionally, the only reason the tables were removed recently was because of the fear of the article being removed on the basis of this guideline due to the arbritrary and sudden enforcement of this policy despite it not being enforced for over 15 years. It is very clear that most people who visit Wikipedia, specifically version history articles, consider these types of pages to be valuable. I am fully aware of the WP:ITSUSEFUL policy, however these version history articles are severely, and I mean severely valuable to software history, so much so that people additionally cite these types of articles in their YouTube videos. And they were adequately sourced as well.

Wikipedia's purpose has evolved since 2011, not to mention 2011 was 12 years ago. This policy is shameful, not to mention very, very divisive. It is also a policy that contributes to the active removal of valuable information from Wikipedia when no policy should exist that allows the removal of sourced, valuable, and important information from Wikipedia. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 04:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Not really "restored based on consensus"; more like based on agreeableness on my part, though I wasn't strongly opposed to the tables.

But Masem, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this whole comment as it applies not to Firefox (I'll concede that one), but to version history articles in general. In the recent AfDs, I think people are overreacting, and swinging from completely ignoring NOTCHANGELOG to interpreting it far too strongly. IMHO, NOTCHANGELOG is about dueness and level of detail, not about a requirement that everything must have an inline secondary source (i.e. GA-class!). Yet in recent AfDs, I've seen the latter sentiment expressed a lot. We still have a lot of version history articles, and most of them don't go into outrageously excessive detail; they just lack inline citations, just like all our articles do, and I'd hate to see them all AfD'd since the mere lack of inline citations, and the need for a trim of undue detail, are WP:SURMOUNTABLE. I'm proposing we clarify NOTCHANGELOG to state that it's about level of detail, not inline citations actually being present. Thoughts? DFlhb ( talk) 04:53, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

If pages violate established policy but do not get subjected to large-scale review of the policy they violate (which happens a lot when there are 4+ million pages on WP), that doesn't mean policy has shifted to a new form supporting that article; it only means that the article was constructed willfully ignoring policy. WP's purpose is to summarize content as seen through the eyes of reliable sources, not wholly repeat it. If the material is so important, then it should be on third-party wiki sites (like I can't believe the iOS history is not on some Apple fan site somewhere, for example, if not on Apple.com somewhere itself). Masem ( t) 12:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

The information isn't "destroyed", it's just somewhere else where it fits, like Wikidata. Aaron Liu ( talk) 12:33, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• I've adjusted this RfC to comply with WP:RFCNEUTRAL, by changing the initial statement to a simple statement and moving this statement, which originally was the initial statement, to a response. BilledMammal ( talk) 01:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• IOS version history should be fine as an article, since it has actual prose sourced from secondary sources as described at WP:NOTCHANGELOG, and it only lists the major releases for which there is actually a lot of third-party sources and reviews for each (rather than point releases like iOS 16.1 etc). WP:NOTCHANGELOG does not prohibit version history, but merely requires the information to be sourced from third-party sources, i.e. a version history article, like any other "history of" article, should be sourced from third-party sources. Galobtter ( talk) 01:24, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal. The problem of huge unencyclopedic CHANGELOG articles that list all updates to all versions of pieces of software is that they go into far too much unnecessary detail, rather than telling an understandable and properly sourced encyclopedic story about the history of the software. That problem cannot be fixed by silencing any part of our guidelines that points out that it is a problem. — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. Changelogs are point by point version history stuff almost 100% in list form. Note that this point says exhaustive logs, not all changelogs. This criteria does not apply to the article as they don't just list a ton of stuff and instead coalesce the major changes, reliably sourced with nontrivial impact. We could expand this criteria to elaborate on this, but we shouldn't just remove this criteria. Aaron Liu ( talk) 01:36, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Changelogs are usually overdetailed, have repetitive text, and aren't formatted in an encyclopedic tone. iOS version history, by comparison, is not a changelog. It treats each OS version as a thing in its own right, and only has one paragraph per version for a condensed and good overview. It still is repetitive, but less drab and a focus on hardware support. SWinxy ( talk) 01:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe we need a page that tells editors what the difference is between a changelog and a non-changelog list of changes. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:06, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  iOS version history had its tables temporarily removed - it too was a listing of iOS releases, and was in that form for literally over 15 years, until recently when apparently the wikipedia community decided to somehow start enforcing it. it was never enforced until now. this policy is negatively impacting information availability, when with a platform like wikipedia, more information is a blessing not a curse. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 03:08, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  That they were only recently removed is interesting. I believe that the interest in applying NOTCHANGELOG was because of the massive pages of the Firefox & Chrome version history pages going to AfD and their wider discussion from outside Wikipedia. Things seem to stay here for a long time either because it's a good idea and need not be challenged, or because nobody wants to go ahead and challenge it, knowing full-well they'll get a lot of pushback. It was inevitable that the policy and these pages were to come into conflict, albeit a decade late on to NOTCHANGELOG's inception. I don't have the numbers for how many other articles were deleted or modified based on NOTCHANGELOG, but I'd say a lot. Enforcement is not consistent, which I blame for why it's been here so long. Doesn't mean it wasn't enforced at all.

  Wikipedia is not the only source of information, and other websites (namely the official changelogs) serve the sole purpose of providing them. I empathize with your point on information accessibility, but information on these changes is not inaccessible unlike the contents of vast swaths of articles reliant on paywalled or hard-to-research topics. Content is excluded all the time because it's undesirable, and I find changelogs undesirable for an encyclopedia. SWinxy ( talk) 20:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support, we already have policies and guidelines that would restrict what types of changelog articles might exist. Take your pick: WP:DUE (relying too much on primary sources when secondary coverage is minimal would eliminate all but the most notable software from having a dedicated changelog article), WP:GNG, etc. This is instruction creep that is wholly unnecessary with all the other ways we could argue against change logs existing. Removing WP:NOTCHANGELOG would simply make any deletion discussions actually focus on what really matters: whether or not an article can be well sourced and not provide undue weight to the subject. — Locke Cole • t • c 02:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's a clear-cut policy that is referred to in deletion discussions when it applies. Proposer does not provide a compelling reason for its removal and in lieu of that, catastrophizes about how it's destroying the encyclopedia (nevermind the fact that the policy has existed for all this time and Wikipedia is still standing). This is forum shopping for an AFD whose direction is displeasing to the proposer. Axem Titanium ( talk) 02:34, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is a massive accusation of my intended purpose for the RFC, and is downright false. I am bad at phrasing things, but I am not "forum shopping for an AfD", and I'm not asking for WP:NOT to be deleted, just that specific guideline relating to software updates, as it is unnecessary. While Wikipedia has flourished, these policies actively shame useful and valuable information from existing on Wikipedia, over some changelog rules. Wikipedia is an information resource, and it is not exactly an Encyclopedia in the typical sense. It has evolved from that into a severely valuable database / collection of information that would probably thrive even more if policies lke these didn't actively prevent articles from existing. Poor articles shouldn't exist, but articles like Firefox version history have been contributed to in the thousands, and tens of thousands for pages like iOS version history.

  There is, in my opinion, no valid reason that warrants deleting sourced, valuable, and important information from a platform like Wikipedia. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 03:24, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  "valuable" and "important" are being questioned, though. ~ ToBeFree ( talk) 05:51, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  You do know that the "pedia" in "Wikipedia" means encyclopedia, right? QuicoleJR ( talk) 18:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  Not forum shopping; Guerillero, who closed the Chrome AfD, said that the AfD !keep votes were against policy and were discounted; and that if people don't like NOTCHANGELOG, they should open an RfC here. This is proper. DFlhb ( talk) 05:00, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Huh? There is no WP:Changelog, it is a redirect that just goes to wp:not. The closest thing I see wp:not regarding this is that wikipedia is not "Exhaustive logs of software updates. Use reliable third-party (not self-published or official) sources in articles dealing with software updates to describe the versions listed or discussed in the article. Common sense must be applied with regard to the level of detail to be included." This is just content guidance; if somehow it is resulting in deletion of those articles I think that it is a process problem rather than a problem with the existence of this guidance. Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 02:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  i am specifically talking about that software update policy. it is a useless policy that directly contradicts the past behavior of how articles on wikipedia have worked. list articles aren't encyclopedic, but they still have value and merit. same with these changelog pages. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 03:06, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is just content guidance; if somehow it is resulting in deletion of those articles I think that it is a process problem rather than a problem with the existence of this guidance. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Google Chrome version history (2nd nomination) would like a word. — Locke Cole • t • c 06:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with that close (but not necessarily with the result) and it is a good candidate for re-review. In essence a supervote, basing such on it being a clear cut policy violation. Perhaps we should reinforce / clarify here. North8000 ( talk) 13:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal, support clarification. As noted in the Huh? comment above, the content guidance offered by WP:NOTCHANGELOG (which redirects to the section of WP:NOT being quoted) is content guidance, not "thou shalt not have version history articles". It does indicate that an article that's an "exhaustive log of software updates" might not be appropriate for Wikipedia, and I 100% agree with that - duplicating other change lists doesn't seem to be useful, given that those change lists, at least for updates made after the WWW became a thing (and often even updates before that) are available online, and we could just point at them for people curious when some particular less-notable feature was added. Perhaps WP:NOTCHANGELOG needs to more precisely indicate what "Exhaustive" and "common sense" mean. (And perhaps it should suggests putting more detailed logs that aren't exhaustive and overdone into articles for particular releases, if they exist - I don't hink, for example, that iOS version history and iOS 16 both need to have the same detailed information about iOS 16 versions, as long as the section on iOS 16 in iOS version history has
  Main article: iOS 16
  to point readers to that article.) Guy Harris ( talk) 05:25, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  What does this policy add that WP:DUE and WP:GNG don't already cover? — Locke Cole • t • c 06:20, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal: The current wording ("Exhaustive logs of software updates. Use reliable third-party (not self-published or official) sources in articles dealing with software updates to describe the versions listed or discussed in the article. Common sense must be applied with regard to the level of detail to be included.") is perfectly fine and balanced. It more-or-less matches WP:PSTS's recommendations which are important to ensure encyclopedic quality. ~ ToBeFree ( talk) 05:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support rephrase to clarify original consensus (i.e. to restrict the size of version history articles, and not delete all of them). Policies were made for Wikipedia, not Wikipedia for policies! If articles are so bad, and so unencyclopedic, that they need to be removed as a blight on the project, the need for deletion will be a natural consequence of our core principles. In the same vein, we do not need to have a section in WP:NOT that says "Wikipedia is not a site for writing fanfiction" or "Wikipedia is not a site for promoting energy drinks"; someone writing fanfiction or shilling for energy drinks in mainspace will obviously fall afoul of core content policies. On the other hand, if the energy drink turns out to have been notable all along, the existence of a specific WP:NOENERGYDRINKS would serve no purpose other than to confound these normal processes.

Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the purpose of policy is to provide some reasonable standard by which the project is run, and to correspond to reality. A policy which goes a decade and a half without being enforced, on an extremely prominent page, whose subsequent deletion nomination on the basis of that policy is unanimously rejected, does not correspond to the reality of the project, and it's not clear that it actually reflects what we want to happen. jp× g

• NOTCHANGELOG sits under IINFO "WP is not a collection of indiscriminate information". I would agree that if there was universal agreement that a detailed or verbatim changelog article was considered indiscriminate information, that we would not need this call out. The problem is that clearly, newer editors have come along and starting added detailed changelogs (before 2011) and thus it was necessary to say "No, these fall under indiscriminate information". And its clear from the relevant current discussions that there are still editors that think detailed changelogs fall outside IINFO. Hence, that part of the policy is necessary still, even though we could point to several other policies that also support removal. -- Masem ( t) 12:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal but strongly support clarification per JPxG and Guy Harris. For evergreen rapid-release browsers, the tables were egregious, as they were impossible to read or browse, and were soon-to-become the largest articles on Wikipedia.

But per my above comment, we should clarify that NOTCHANGELOG is about level of detail, not an absurd GA-like requirement for inline citations. People used to be too tolerant of egregiously detailed changelogs, but we're now overreacting in the opposite direction, and given the tenor of recent AfDs, I'm worried about blunt, careless deletions of salvageable material, which goes against WP:PRESERVE. Remove the tables from Firefox version history, and you have some pretty awful, but salvageable prose. In any other topic area, an AfD would have failed per WP:NOTCLEANUP; just remove the tables, keep the (pretty bad) prose, and let people fix it over time. Another example is iOS version history. Yes, its tables were too detailed. But it also contains hardware support tables, and non-changelog prose. Yet some editors want it AfD'd just because of the tables, as if the article contained nothing else! Why in the world? The Chrome/Firefox version history tables were egregious, but the iOS table were salvageable. Per Guy Harris, we wanted to move them to the main articles on specific iOS versions, trim them to the essential changes, then obviously add secondary sources. I'd rather not do that from scratch! Yet I had to delete them to avoid the risk of another AfD. Same with History of iTunes; tons of room for improvement. Should the tables be deleted? Should they be kept, listing just the version numbers and release dates, but no release notes? Should they include release notes that just cover the major changes? That's something to be discussed on the talk page, not at AfD. And it has a bunch of non-changelog material. Yet I bet if that article got AfD'd, it might pass due to a bunch of WP:VAGUEWAVE votes. Mass deletions don't make the jobs of those (quite few!) of us who work on software articles any easier. Sorry, but I don't see a lot of these AfD voters helping us out with software articles!

I propose we rephrase NOTCHANGELOG to something like: Use reliable third-party (not self-published or official) sources to determine the appropriate level of detail for software changelogs. Copyright violations must be removed, but if changelogs are covered in excessive detail, rewrite them based on secondary sources, or tag them with {{ overly detailed}} per WP:PRESERVE. Roughly. DFlhb ( talk) 07:36, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose change to WP:NOT - Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a hobby-site or version-control site. If anything, WP:NOT needs to be reinforced and better defended, as we're being overrun with by-the-numbers or even algorithmic cruft in list-article-form (e.g., lists of destinations of airlines, lists of turns/signs on US highways etc.) that is nothing to do with the basic objective of providing an encyclopaedia that explains things. FOARP ( talk) 08:00, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  That is a very simplistic definition of what an "encyclopedia" is, not to mention thats not even how its spelled nor is that even true. Encyclopedias contain a lot more information than just very detailed information about a subject, they can also contain lists about subjects you don't think belong. I severely disagree with this opposal because it seems very opinionated and not neutral. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 08:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  See encyclopaedia. — Locke Cole • t • c 08:26, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  Oh. My bad. I didn't realize :( however - what I said to the comment OP still applies - their comment genuinely seems severely opinionated to me. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 08:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

If my opinion on this seems strong to you, it is because I have now spent years trying to deal with the impact of full-on data-dumps into Wikipedia from various databases creating tens of thousands of valueless, unencyclopedic, non-notable articles in violation of WP:NOTDATABASE. Wikipedia should not be a list of minor changes made to a commercial product based ultimately on what the seller of that commercial product says about it. If the fans of a particular commercial product want to go ahead and maintain that kind of list elsewhere, that's fine by me. (ETA: and yes, encyclopaedia is a correct spelling for this Greek-origin word). FOARP ( talk) 08:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Firefox is not a commercial product though? It is free and open source software maintained by a non-profit organization, similar to Wikimedia. iOS is commercial, but is *heavily* covered in terms of both releases and individual features, and general information related to it. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 01:58, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal The hyperbolic language in this proposal makes me very wary. Consider this comment: crucial to the history of software. That is not Wikipedia's purpose. We summarize the history of software (and other things) that are published in other reliable, independent sources. We do not create that history, and therefore a Wikipedia article can never be thought of as crucial, because it is simply a summary of things published elsewhere. We could delete Abraham Lincoln and there would still be hundreds of biographies available about the man. But we won't delete the Lincoln article because it is an engagingly written and highly informative Good article, not an incomprehensible, mind numbing data dump. Similarly, severely notable is a hyperbolic formulation that I have never heard in 14 years of editing. What does that even mean? More notable that notable or something? Hey, if fans of this type of bloated list really like this type of stuff, then they can start "Softwarepedia" with lenient standards. Go for it! Cullen328 ( talk) 08:02, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Removal. The first pillar of this website, WP:5P1, is that we are an encyclopaedia. We are not an archive site, a database, a changelog or a repository, and content on this site should be in the form of encyclopaedia articles. The entire point of the "What wikipedia is not" policy is to separate out content that might be useful somewhere, but isn't suitable for inclusion in this project due to being out of scope. Most of the arguments in the OP about how the information is useful, has existed for a long time or is linked to from other sites are irrelevant, none of them are good reasons for keeping poor quality, unencyclopedic content ( WP:USEFUL, WP:LONGTIME, WP:POPULARPAGE etc.). From a procedural standpoint I would also like to point out that this RFC is poorly implemented, there appears to have been no attempt to follow the steps at WP:RFCBEFORE and come up with a proposal via talk page discussion that has some chance of gaining consensus. 192.76.8.88 ( talk) 09:00, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: Out of curiosity, I decided to peruse the version history (ha!) to see what actual process caused this bulletpoint to be added to the policy. It was this edit from February 2011, with the summary "another important reminder"... citing no discussion whatsoever. I suppose it is still possible for there to have been some consensus or RfC somewhere, but based on this, it seems like somebody just made this up one day and put it into the policy. jp× g 09:05, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Archive 35 of this talk page (Sep 2010 to Jan 2011) contains no relevant discussion. Archive 36 does include a discussion in Feb 2011 about rearranging content (in this section), but nowhere does anybody mention release notes, software versions, or anything of the like. That's not to say that it's prima facie invalid, but it does indeed seem that this was a completely off-the-cuff addition and not based on any actual consensus process. jp× g 09:13, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

That version of the policy was removed [5] and re-added [6] in October 2011, there was discussion about it in archive 37 [7]. The current wording of that section was arrived at via consensus in archive 45 [8]. 192.76.8.88 ( talk) 09:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. This is interesting. Reading through the discussion in archive 37, it seems noteworthy to me that the IOS version history article is explicitly cited by the participants as an example of an article that should be edited in line with the policy (but not deleted). So, too, is the archive 45 section -- this time about Android version history, which the consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of modifying the policy to allow the existence of. This actually changes my opinion somewhat; if the consensus at the time of writing this section was entirely in favor of such pages existing (and merely that they should be concise), I think it would be preferable to amend the section to reflect this. I may propose an additional RfC option (or make a different RfC once this ends, since a large number of people have already weighed in rather strongly based on the two available choices). jp× g 10:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Please do (after this one ends). The tables are awful, but editors in recent AfDs treat NOTCHANGELOG as requiring immediate deletion, rather than hacking away the excessive detail and adding secondary sources. I'd bet some people would support AfD'ing History of iTunes, without substantively engaging in discussion about how to improve it (IMO: remove changelogs for minor releases, turn the major version changelogs into prose with secondary citations, and, if we keep tables, have them only contain the version number & release date along with secondary citations, but no release notes). The old Photoshop version history article was only deleted after its most noteworthy contents were merged into Adobe Photoshop. Recent AfD !delete supporters clearly don't support this incremental approach, and ignore the fact that it's much harder to find secondary sources if we don't have these indiscriminate articles as a starting point (as Mozilla is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to having a centralized database of release notes going back to the beginning) DFlhb ( talk) 13:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The idea against change logs was also discussed as early as 2006. Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 5 Masem ( t) 12:20, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support change/clarification. Policy should summarize what is actual practice, not constrain us, and if actual practice is that these articles are accepted, policy should say so. Stifle ( talk) 09:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal but support clarification per Guy Harris. This is a useful guideline that can be applied incorrectly and/or excessively, but that does not mean it should be removed. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - I generally believe that changelog type content does not belong on Wikipedia. If someone wants extensive detail on the minor revisions of a subject, they need to go straight to the source. Even if repealed, I believe other aspects of NOT would still commonly keep the content from being added. Sergecross73 msg me 10:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal, support clarification per Guy Harris. I'm positive there are changelog-esque articles that warrant retention - probably including some fairly detailed ones (yes, with or without tables). But true changelogs/patch notes? No, you couldn't meet DUE and suitable secondary sourcing. Nosebagbear ( talk) 11:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't think, even in its current state, that NOTCHANGELOG prevents the existence of the articles Evelyn Marie wants to keep. I'd be fine with a clarification but I don't think its necessary. NOTCHANGELOG, as someone says above, doesn't just say "thou shalt not have changelogs", it just means you need to have some thought when writing one, and not indiscriminately include every non-notable update. Snowmanonahoe ( talk) 11:49, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The focus on "times have changed" misses the mark entirely; if anything, Wikipedia has (rightly) realized that the original pie-in-the-sky "sum of all human knowledge" idea was a terrible one, which is how we ended up with needing all the notability guidelines and what Wikipedia is not language in the first place, and the tightening of standards over the year has been the only reason the project is still somewhat maintainable. If someone is so upset about exhausting changelings with build numbers and other useless to the lay-reader information is gone, it can be hosted on one of the innumerable other specialist wikis that exist, the same way Wikipedia soldiers on just fine without an article on every Pokemon—the WP:ITSUSEFUL stuff can find a home many places that aren't here. No clarification is needed; the focus on secondary sources is in keeping with all our policies and guidelines, which stress primary sources should be carefully used and definitely shouldn't be the guide to article construction. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 12:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. If an update didn't receive significant coverage, then it's not important enough to include in the article. We hardly need to list every Firefox update, though we can include information about those that change the logo or make drastic changes. Anarchyte ( talk) 13:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal, support clarifying. We should do what an encyclopedia does: summarize key information. Keeping detailed logs of version of a piece of software is beyond the scope of an encyclopedia. But things like chronicling every single change ever? No. In other words: don't treat software as any different from any other subject. A subject's history should be included in its article, but it shouldn't mention every single little thing that ever happened. Or, if it has a very long history, WP:SPLIT it out to a History of XYZ article (like iOS version history). And, importantly, any changelog-esque information should come from third party sources. I would, however, support adding something to WP:NOTCHANGELOG saying something to the effect of "some articles contain nothing about their version history; others have an entire article specifically on the subject. Use common sense to determine how much information on version history should be included in a given article."
  Now, I want to respond to some of the other claims that have been thrown around. From the nutshell of NOT, "[t]he amount of information on Wikipedia is practically unlimited, but Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia and therefore does not aim to contain all data or expression found elsewhere" (emphasis mine). With all due respect to those arguing in support of removal, people who think it should contain every bit of useful knowledge ever fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. The first pillar says that Wikipedia is not... an indiscriminate collection of information, no matter how much supporters try to claim that it is. WP:USEFUL is an argument to avoid for a reason, after all. The first pillar also says that we are not a dictionary, a newspaper, nor a collection of source documents, even though all of those things would be useful.
  Finally, it appears this RfC was started in part as a response to the removal of the table at the bottom of this section in iOS version history. To comment on that specific matter: such detailed changelogs have no place on Wikipedia. Information is not going to be "lost"; it is still in the version history and the original changelogs are almost certainly on archive.org. But even if it were, it is not our job (c.f. it is not our job to promote very deserving charitable causes). House Blaster ^talk 16:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  @ HouseBlaster: No, it wasn't started because of the iOS version history section. I started it because this policy is killing even basic version history articles for no good and/or valid reasons. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 04:40, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  It's holding back version history articles because such articles have no place on Wikipedia. They always come from primary sources which would render a Wikipedia article redundant anyway. Any argument for keeping them amounts to ITSUSEFUL or ITSPOPULAR. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 10:20, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  I have struck the relevant portion of my comment. I maintain that this section that was a part of iOS version history does not belong on Wikipedia. In other words, I guess my stance on this issue is that history of xyz articles are fine for software, but they should be written in summary style and should not just copy/paste the changelogs from the developers. And they should be notable, meaning they should have WP:SIRS to support their content. I maintain that NOTCHANGELOG should remain a part of NOT, given that apparently editors need to be told not to document every single software change that ever happened to a notable subject. House Blaster ^talk 14:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal but support clarification /info/en/?search=Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not/Archive_45#WP:NOTCHANGELOG User1042 💬 ✒️ 17:35, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  @ User1042 Please provide a rationale for your !vote! Aaron Liu ( talk) 19:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support we must look not at what Wikipedia was intended to be but instead what its actually used for and thats as a centralised store of easily accessed information no matter the triviality of it, WP:CHANGELOG is a hinderince to that new goal and rather than use it to hold back and contain wikipedia we should accept its no longer useful and should be discarded, the quicker we accept Wikipedia is no longer a Encyclopedia and it is instead a generational time capsule the better Popeter45 ( talk) 19:48, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think that's how anyone uses it as, if someone wants that they should just use Wikidata. Aaron Liu ( talk) 20:11, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  Surprisingly, some actually did FWIW. SWinxy ( talk) 21:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  Wikidata is NOT even remotely close to what Wikipedia acomplishes, nor is Wikidata even a time capsule. Wikidata is literally just a contextual data aggregator that just so happens to be part of the same family of wikis as Wikipedia and integrates with it.

  And for the record, there are MANY people who use Wikipedia as a centralized store of easily accessible information, and I am one of them. There's a reason Wikipedia is so damn popular, and it sure as heck isn't because of its supposed encyclopedic nature. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 01:43, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  If Wikidata isn't a time capsule, how is Wikipedia one? Isn't Wikipedia also a data aggregator? Can't indiscriminate information be represented with no loss in Wikidata?

  An encyclopedia is a centralized store of easily accessible important information. Aaron Liu ( talk) 01:45, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  Except Wikipedia is NOT an Encyclopedia anymore, despite what the logo, and guidelines supposedly say. I've been on Wikipedia for over 12 years. It has never been a true to definition encyclopedia for as long as I've been on it, and majority of Wikipedia policies are making people edit the platform less and less.

  There are probably less than 40 editors in this conversation. It is not an accurate representation of how editors feel regarding Wikipedia policies, as a LOT of previously active editors have left the platform due to either policy rules, or aggressive and/or toxic behavior directed at them. And then people wonder why Wikipedia gets less and less contributions on a daily basis.

  To back this up, I just did a comparison of December 2014, to now. Back in 2014, there were 747 million edits. Almost 10 years later that only increased by ~350 million, and the number of active editors has dropped by over 10,000 from its December 2014 number. It is clear that there is something pushing people away from wanting to edit Wikipedia, and I'm going to assume its because of the policies. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 01:49, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  "To back this up" should be a reason why you think your explanation is true.

  Could you specify how it isn't an encyclopedia? Aaron Liu ( talk) 02:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  You seem to be arguing " Other stuff exists" here, which is not a starter argument for policy-based decisions. Just because there's isolated content that seems to be counter to the purposes of an encyclopedia, it is only by wide consensus is that actually allowed, and there's a LOT of content that exists in small pockets of WP that only a couple editors may have ever touched. Masem ( t) 02:42, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  @ Popeter45: @ Evelyn Marie: Please, read WP:ITSUSEFUL and WP:ITSPOPULAR. Also, for Evelyn, I'm starting to think you should read WP:BLUDGEON. QuicoleJR ( talk) 19:10, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - and the two example articles listed above are the exact reason we need keep this in place. Jauerback ^dude?/ _dude. 20:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. If you're interested in writing about the history of some software, then go to the software's article, scroll down to the "History" section, and summarize what's written in reliable secondary or tertiary sources. If you want to maintain change logs, maintain them somewhere else. Wikipedia is for summaries of information, not collecting raw data or statistics. Thebiguglyalien ( talk) 20:09, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The requirement of third-party sources is essential to a general knowledge encyclopedia and should not be removed. Ideally this would be concisely stated as a general principle at a single place, so that we wouldn't need to have controversial ad hoc rules like this one lying around (the complaint that Wikipedia "is dominated by rules experts" in the link above is likely correct to an extent). Until this is accomplished, NOTCHANGELOG should stay, and be interpreted in its most economical and literal sense. Avilich ( talk) 00:33, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal - Articles like Firefox version history and iOS version history, at least in their current states, are not encyclopedic. These articles are longer than our article on World War II which is rediculous. Changelogs should not be kept on Wikipedia. Start a wiki on Wikia if people really want this sort of stuff. Nosferattus ( talk) 00:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  iOS version history isn't longer than World War II at all. What the heck are you talking about? iOS version history is 38,000 bytes, compared to WWII's 250,000 bytes. Have you even checked the article recently, @ Nosferattus??? - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 01:45, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  Additionally, Firefox version hisotry isn't bigger than WWII either. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 02:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  That's just the main article on WWII. If you start getting into all the subtopics, like the articles we have on the many different theaters of the war (like Western Front (World War II)), or the dozens of articles we have on specific battles (like Operation Overlord), or the hundreds of lists (i.e. Lists of World War II topics), and the detailed historical analysis articles like Causes of World War II and Diplomatic history of World War II, I wouldn't be surprised at all if our coverage of World War II was over a gigabyte. Saying that we're covering anything in more detail than World War II is a fairly ridiculous claim; saying we're covering a browser version history in more detail is patently absurd. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 06:10, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  @ Evelyn Marie and Ivanvector: It looks like someone removed the detailed changelog tables from both articles (which I had tried to do myself, but was reverted). Previously, they were both among the largest articles on Wikipedia. I stand corrected. Nosferattus ( talk) 12:01, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal. As others have said, the content in changelogs is not encyclopedic; if you want those details, or want a platform on which you can continue recording every update in nicely-formatted tables, you can go to a fandom wiki. I suspect that 99% of the "usefulness" claimed of these articles is strictly dependent on there being exhaustive primary-sourced/copyvio changelogs nicely formatted in tables, and therefore even if NOTCHANGELOG didn't exist, the prosifying and summarizing still necessary to comply with our other WP policies would eliminate engagement with these articles almost as much as deleting them would. JoelleJay ( talk) 03:49, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  content in changelogs is not encyclopedic You are correct. We're lucky, then, that it's not simply a copy/paste that most editors are suggesting we have for these articles. It's quite clear that these articles are very popular with our readers as well. As of this writing, Windows 10 version history (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has over twenty million views. IOS version history (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has over eight million views. MacOS version history (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has over seven million views. Safari version history (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has two million views. Firefox version history (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has over one and a half million views. Even the relatively new Windows 11 version history (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has nearly a million views (that page was created in the summer of 2021). you can go to a fandom wiki You know the door is always open for you to go there as well, I think you know the way. But it's very clear our readers think these articles are "encyclopedic". Even if you WP:DONTLIKEIT. — Locke Cole • t • c 04:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think the only thing you can conclude from the high view counts is that readers like viewing these articles, not that they're encyclopedic. WP:ITSPOPULAR. Although they're probably high profile targets for google's knowledge panel bots so a decent chunk of pageviews are probably from that. Axem Titanium ( talk) 04:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I mean the readers would seem to disagree with you. And I don’t know about you, but I’m here to provide knowledge to our readers, not pick and choose what I think is best for them based on some subjective criteria. As for the bot claims do you have any proof for that? — Locke Cole • t • c 05:26, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  The simple act of looking at an article, by one reader or millions, does not confer upon the article the mystical quality of being "encyclopedic". Axem Titanium ( talk) 06:38, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  You know what? I think I’ll take the readers views on this over yours. — Locke Cole • t • c 07:51, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Locke Cole, the reader psychic, able to know the views of every Wikipedia reader through the use of his extra-sensory perception. The 8th Wonder of the World! Axem Titanium ( talk) 07:55, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Apparently millions can be wrong just because you just don’t like something, so… there’s that. — Locke Cole • t • c 08:01, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  That's an argumentum ad populum. It is possible for a majority to be wrong. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 13:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I mean I'll take an argument from that over just not liking something. 🤷‍♂️ — Locke Cole • t • c 14:07, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Not liking something based on our principles decided by community consensus. Aaron Liu ( talk) 14:19, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Except, @ Axem, an article doesn't have to be "encyclopedic" to exist on this platform, as proven by the thousands if not tens of thousands of articles that exist that probably wouldn't be included in typical "encyclopedias". Wikipedia is a massive database of information, and a lot of Wikipedia's policies aren't actually required rules. They are only guidelines, guidelines that can be followed but if something is severely popular enough to be within the scope of Wikipedia (e.g. something heavily notable), it is typically allowed to exist without much intervention or backlash, something I have seen very, very often in my nearly 12 years of being on this platform. I see a lot of one-sidedness in this entire RFC from very few editors who seem to be interpreting this changelog guideline into something it isn't. This guideline was VERY EXPLICITLY modified to allow articles like Android version history to exist back when it got its current wording. Other articles similar to it are also allowed to exist with no AfDs.

  Not allowing version history articles to exist on the platform potentially allows the ability to hide notable events that happened with software, e.g. controversial additions and/or removals to a software product. Version histories also help teach lessons in not repeating past mistakes. I'm not the best at phrasing things, so I tried, thanks to my girlfriend bringing this argument as well, who additionally isn't a big fan of the way Wikipedia policies operate either, especially this one. Plus, with a platform like Wikipedia, if information included in articles like Firefox version history is removed, what information will there be to find out if e.g. Firefox and/or Mozilla ever go under and the Firefox release history goes with it? Firefox is currently, and has been for a while, losing major marketshare to other web browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Safari.

  So, as the creator of the RFC, I firmly oppose to these opposals based on ancient & archaic Wikipedia policies that do not reflect (in my opinion) the current state of this platform as a whole, and these policies are in my opinion additionally hurting Wikipedia from being able to get new contributors. But, that's a separate subject, and too broad for this specific RFC. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 14:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  WP:NOTPAPER kind of covers the idea that, unlike a paper encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not constrained to what we can/should print on paper. That being said, it does leave guardrails in place that not everything should be included, but as other editors have noted, we have dozens of articles on truly niche topics, while software like this is used by millions of people around the world, and noting the history of such software over a long period is something clearly our readers desire. — Locke Cole • t • c 14:38, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  How is Wikipedia a database? For all purposes isn’t wikidata that instead? Aaron Liu ( talk) 15:29, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  A database can literally mean anything related to information, from a simple database of data entries, like Wikidata, to a comprehensive source of information, like Wikipedia. Even some game wikis refer to themselves as databases. The term database isn't limited to only one definition, or one use. That's why I said its a massive database of information. You could also argue its a massive cluster of information, with its 4+ million articles. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 01:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  That's just semantics, really. The common understanding of a database is a uniform layout in which an arbitrary amount of data is stored. Wikipedia is designed to be a public accessible encyclopedia. Not a ledger of entries containing a token amount of information each only kept because some people find it interesting. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 14:18, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• I see no reason why we should misdirect 10-20 million people away from the official and fully updated list of changes to a Wikipedia page that is presumably full of mistakes, omissions and requires unpaid volunteers to maintain. Avilich ( talk) 05:06, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I see no reason why we should misdirect 10-20 million people Evidence of people being "misdirected"? presumably full of mistakes And this? requires unpaid volunteers to maintain If it makes you feel any better, we can add Avilich is not required to maintain any changelog articles, in perpetuity. That way you won't feel compelled to accidentally improve or maintain a changelog. But your point belies a truth you don't seem to want to face: some editors (unpaid volunteers) do want to maintain such articles. — Locke Cole • t • c 14:12, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think you may want to strike your third and fourth sentence. Aaron Liu ( talk) 11:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  It doesn't particularly matter if people want to or not, the fact of the matter is that changelogs are likely to run afoul of not only NOTCHANGELOG but also INDISCRIMINATE. And I'm quite sure some people would want articles filled to the brim with inane trivia (such as a changelog) but just because someone somewhere wants it doesn't mean it needs to exist. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 11:55, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

And you can't conclude from page views that a huge numbers of readers want to see that iOS 19 or Windows 11 2H38 or... changed the default color used for check boxes from {R,G,B} to {R+1,G,B-1}, so it doesn't argue in favor of the per-minor-release bulleted lists (which often become copyvio magnets). If people really want to see everything new in, say, iOS 16, they can go here or here or here or..., and Apple news sites also have minor-release feature lists as well. iOS version history is currently, as far as I'm concerned, what it should be; the big tables, if they're ven needed at all, could go in the individual release pages. Guy Harris ( talk) 05:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Just because something is convenient or useful or viewed a lot does not mean it is encyclopedic. Plenty of things would get far more views than version history logs if we hosted them: local yellow page directories, how-to guides, weather forecasting, etc. That doesn't make those things encyclopedic. JoelleJay ( talk) 20:33, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:ITSPOPULAR EXISTS. QuicoleJR ( talk) 19:13, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

You should probably read it sometime. — Locke Cole • t • c 19:18, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

You should probably explain why popularity equals encyclopediarity sometime. Aaron Liu ( talk) 20:00, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I guess you need to read it too: There are many things that have reached the status of one of the above examples, yet they have never been covered in any published source, and they are nothing more than word-of-mouth. Hint: Many of these changelogs have been covered in reliable sources, so "it's popular" isn't the only reason being given for saying they deserve encyclopedic coverage. — Locke Cole • t • c 04:32, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Firstly I'm not sure how that is relevant to what I asked. Secondly, Many of these changelogs have been covered in reliable sources, but little to none of them are listed in many articles involved. Plus, I haven't seen reliable sources on every single detail of changelogs, so if the definition of changelog includes exhaustive, that statement is just false. Aaron Liu ( talk) 12:52, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Now you know how I feel when someone cites WP:ITSPOPULAR without reading it. As to your question, maybe your understanding of what is encyclopedic is skewed when our readers seem to think the topic is encyclopedic? The better question is how you think it isn't encyclopedic? Plus, I haven't seen reliable sources on every single detail of changelogs For Apple software updates, there are usually at least a few RS for minor releases, with major releases typically receiving wide RS reporting. The same is true for Google Chrome. — Locke Cole • t • c 14:42, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It’s not encyclopedic because it’s not an article with weighted points of importance. The minor details have been given undue weight while the bigger changes haven’t been given due weight.

I don’t think there’s much RS for minor things that extend beyond routine coverage. If there is, then that change probably isn’t minor. Aaron Liu ( talk) 15:09, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Since people are trotting out WP:BLUDGEON, I'll just state that I don't have to WP:SATISFY you. You're wrong, I'm sorry that you're wrong, and I hope someday you figure that out on your own. — Locke Cole • t • c 15:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Ah, the most convincing of arguments: "Nuh uh!" Although I think this thread stopped being about "convincing arguments" some time ago. As I understand Aaron Liu is saying that popularity isn't related to the question of whether something is encyclopedic, while Locke Cole is saying that WP:ITSPOPULAR doesn't say that. Both of you seem right? Let's move on.-- Jerome Frank Disciple 15:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't think you're bludgeoning, you're not repeating the same argument. Aaron Liu ( talk) 18:53, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

• Comment re WP:ABOUTSELF: Looking at this, WP:NOTCHANGELOG insisting on third-party sources doesn't seem to be supported by relevant policy. The most relevant point I see there is that we shouldn't have articles based primarily on changelogs. RAN1 ( talk) 09:43, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  You could argue that the primary source would provide WP:ROUTINE coverage of every update. Aaron Liu ( talk) 12:05, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  WP:V requires that we have third-party sources to have an article about a topic. If we are just using apple.com changelogs to make an iOS changelog, that fails WP:V Masem ( t) 12:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  ^{citation needed} — Locke Cole • t • c 14:14, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Notability? Aaron Liu ( talk) 14:20, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  So we just pretend WP:PRIMARY doesn't exist? — Locke Cole • t • c 14:36, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  What about it contradicts me or Masem? Aaron Liu ( talk) 15:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  WP:PRIMARY would seem to allow primary sources with care. WP:V does not fail this, as it's still verifiable. — Locke Cole • t • c 16:06, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  From PRIMARY "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.". (Wp:v used to say, "if there are no third party sources about a topic, WP should not have an article on it",but that's been removed. Masem ( t) 16:14, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: (updated from "Narrowly oppose") In the abstract, perhaps, it's a little strange to specifically exempt changelogs as WP:NOT—couldn't we just apply WP:PRIMARY or WP:DUE for the pages that overly (or exclusively) rely on primary sources? That said, due respect to supporters, but I think some of the arguments here and in the deletion discussions illustrate WP:NOTCHANGELOG's usefulness.
  There seems to be a near universal appraisal that a page like iOS version history is a fine page—it reads like an encyclopedia page (it's not particularly repetitive; it's mostly in summary style), and it includes many reliable sources. I admit I didn't see the Google Chrome page prior to deletion, but if it did meet those standards, it's unfortunate that its supporters in the deletion discussion didn't stress them. Perhaps others are right and NOTCHANGELOG should be clarified, and perhaps that would better structure these conversations. But, as it stands now, over and over again, these discussions seemed dominated by WP:ITSUSEFUL arguments, even allowing for the RFC drafter's claim of extreme usefulness: Sure, the article isn't encyclopedic in the traditional sense, but Wikipedia has not been an "encyclopedia" in the classic sense since it was conceived, and removing information from Wikipedia shouldn't be encouraged, especially if it has merit / value to existing and is adequately sourced. And besides, don't the page views make it very clear our readers think these articles are "encyclopedic"? (Also—just an aside, but one thing that struck me was the almost passing treatment of the fact that, apparently for some time, the tables at iOS version history were replete with copyright violations?)
  To the usefulness points, I think User:Masem and User:HouseBlaster have the best arguments. As such, I oppose removal.-- Jerome Frank Disciple ( talk) 13:30, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Here’s an archive of the page a day before it was deleted. I don’t think there’s anything to salvage in here. Aaron Liu ( talk) 14:01, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think maybe ~5% could have been salvaged and turned into a high-level summary style prose overview, which is better than nothing (and it's certainly fun to take a chainsaw to articles in that way, easier than starting from scratch). Depends on whether we favour immediatism or eventualism, but there's no doubt the tables were unacceptable for an encyclopedia and the Chrome/Firefox tables especially, as they received monthly major releases (as opposed to yearly or every few years for all other software) DFlhb ( talk) 14:07, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think that ~5% could have been merged into Google Chrome#History or some other relevant section, but that's not what the AFD outcome went with. If we agree that a prose summary is the way to go, I don't see a need for a standalone article on version history when the main article is right there. Axem Titanium ( talk) 16:51, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Wow it didn't even occur to me to check for an archive—thanks (and sorry to put the extra work on you)! And wow ... that's actually a bit more severe than I had imagined. A lot of content without quotation marks is ... straight up quotes, and the number of secondary reliable sources is pretty minimal. Honestly, knowing now what the article was ... and looking at the deletion discussion ... I'm a bit firmer on my oppose.-- Jerome Frank Disciple ( talk) 14:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - As this would give carte blanche for reams of trivial and un-encyclopedic software update databases to be created, much to the detriment of Wikipedia's quality as a whole. -- TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 13:40, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody has suggested removing WP:DUE or WP:GNG, both of which could be used to limit the amount (DUE) or inclusion at all (GNG) of overly detailed changelog articles. — Locke Cole • t • c 13:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  It is better that we have a policy for this particular use case, as it seems to be a source of arguments. NOTCHANGELOG ought to be expanded upon, which would increase its usefulness. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 13:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well each case will be different, so painting changelogs with a broad stroke like this is both damaging to the project, and damaging to our readers (who as I note above, visit some of our changelog articles millions of times). It's also unnecessary instruction creep, DUE and GNG already prescribe how we should limit article content/topics. — Locke Cole • t • c 14:06, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Not really, if a changelog database gets dumped in here from primary sources then there should be a policy against such a thing. Which is why NOTCHANGELOG needs to be clarified and expanded. Also, my primary concern is that removing it would lead to even more slap fights over changelogs as both sides cite this or that policy or reason for keeping or deleting. We need one decisive policy which on no uncertain terms has a particular ruling, which will prevent long winded debates with no sign of consensus. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 15:03, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  then there should be a policy against such a thing WP:DUE and WP:PRIMARY got you. You're welcome. We need one decisive policy which on no uncertain terms has a particular ruling, which will prevent long winded debates with no sign of consensus. If there's one thing I've learned after being here this long, it's that we never truly have a decisive policy on pretty much anything. I sincerely doubt this subject will suddenly break that tradition. — Locke Cole • t • c 15:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I'm unconvinced. The fact that the AfD for the Firefox changelog has rattled so many cages indicates that a specific policy ruling on changelogs is necessary. TheInsatiableOne ( talk) 15:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think this looks far more contentious than it actually is, because the battle-lines the drawn in the wrong place. In these AfDs, there were a handful of (largely canvassed) !keep votes based on ITSUSEFUL, which framed the debate as "do we want super-long irrelevant changelogs?" But basically everyone agrees that these articles were bad. The Firefox history article was tagged with {{ overly detailed}} for years, and no one challenged that tag. The debate would be a lot more productive if it had been framed as "those articles suck; should we follow WP:PRESERVE and tag/boldly fix them, or should we delete?" Clearly the articles are notable. DFlhb ( talk) 15:41, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal but support clarification - Wikipedia is not a repository for indiscriminate information on non-notable topics, which ought to have been clarified in the policy in the first place. We don't host pages which are nothing but exhaustive lists of every minor release of software that's not otherwise notable. We shouldn't, but the reason we shouldn't is not because of it being such a log, but because it's information about a non-notable topic. Major release histories for market leaders in a software class that has literally redefined how the world interacts with itself over the past 30 years is WP:DUE relevant background information on that software's development, in much the same way that we currently have a master page and eleven subpages for the manufacturing history of the Honda Civic. NOTCHANGELOG was never intended to be a bright-line rule against hosting this information in any form, it's just advice on how to do it properly. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 14:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support softening/clarification to be clear said policy is not a blanket prohibition on version update lists & articles. What this policy should be for is that for an article on Obscure Open Source Project ABC, don't have a whole section that just copy-pastes the changelog. But something like a version history of iOS or Firefox, software used by zillions? That's fine and very relevant, in the same way that specific car models are relevant, or different versions of the same airplane. It's easy when there's different labels between the Boeing 747-200, 747-300, 747-400, but that just isn't how a lot of modern software works, with big single releases. Rather, many bits of software do continuous rollouts with lots of versions. Further, these versions, down to the month they came out in, can be quite relevant from an encyclopedic context - if you're reading an article on a particular Samsung phone, knowing which version of Android it had is relevant. Finally, I find the tone of some of those in favor of strict deletion troubling, that because they don't find it interesting it means it's not encyclopedic. Don't get me wrong, there's walled gardens of cruft on Wikipedia that need cleaning, but this particular one seems to have reached a "throwing baby out with the bathwater" level. For one famous disputed example, there's a movement to trim back articles on certain very obscure athletes, and I even support culling such articles, but that doesn't mean every article on obscure sixth-division football should be deleted. There's clearly sources and an audience for it, even if I'm not it. The same respect should be extended here. SnowFire ( talk) 15:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support removal, and if not removed then clarification: This policy is being abused by people who pick on articles that need improvement, but that doesn't necessarily qualify them for AFD. Somehow also only certain articles get AFDed under ths policy, while Android version history and others don't get touched (yes, I know they are too good for that), but if you argue one AFD with this, then you would have to be consequent and delete them all. And another question: What is the difference between a changelog and a page about the history of a country? One describes the changes in a country, the other the changes in a software. I am pretty sure nobody here would come and say We should remove History of the United States, but in general it's a changelog of the US. Yes, I know that the policy only goes for software, but why? Again, what is the difference between a changelog of software and the history of something else? If you compare History of the United States and Firefox version history, they aren't that different, only one has more pictures than the other and is longer, while the other one is up for AFD for some time. Both group stuff by certain epoches, both generally list a lot of information nobody wants to read. That's why they aren't in the main articles. I don't expect anyone to care for the history of Firefox, same as I don't care for the history of the US. But obviously someone does care for both, or we wouldn't have neither this discussion here nor the articles themselves. Why treat them differently? It doesn't make any sense. Qxyz123 ( talk) 18:47, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Articles being too good and but if you argue one AFD with this, then you would have to be consequent and delete them all are directly contradictory. The difference between changelog and history is that a changelog lists every single thing no matter how big or small, which is what the Firefox article currently does. Plus, the Firefox article has long, extremely template-y prose sourced with primary sources while the US article has a ton more variety in the prose and has only 18 primary sources out of 300-something. Aaron Liu ( talk) 19:15, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The (sub-)policy in question is opposed to "Exhaustive logs of software updates.", not to anything that lists software updates, and further states "Use reliable third-party (not self-published or official) sources in articles dealing with software updates to describe the versions listed or discussed in the article. Common sense must be applied with regard to the level of detail to be included." History of the United States doesn't indicate that some Postmaster General got married two years into their term if their spouse isn't particularly relevant to the Postmaster General's job (if the spouse was the CEO of a parcel delivery company, that might be worthy of note, but if they're a teacher at a local school, not so much). Similarly, is it really noteworthy that iOS 16.2 included "New Home app splash screen highlighting.", as this version of iOS version history noted? As for why it specifically calls out "logs of software updates", that may because software updates are a topic that attracts very long lists that might be worthy of trimming, to an extent that national histories don't, so having that particular sub-policy may be a useful further note to avoid that sort of thing. Guy Harris ( talk) 19:25, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

I understand that, but then I don't get why everyone tries to delete these articles instead of improving them. Finding sources for the important changes is possible, and cutting the little changes (like the fact that some version added support for font-stretch, whatever that is) too. It should be clarified that WP:NOTCHANGELOG should not be used to delete every changelog simply for being a changelog. And thanks for explaining the reason behind the policy to me. Qxyz123 ( talk) 20:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

In most cases, improving them is best started by a WP:TNT approach - maybe draftify the existing article to have sources at hand, but rewriting to focus on good quality prose than just dumping tables out. Masem ( t) 14:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal but would support workshopping some rewriting for more clarity. In general, a contextless list of every software update is a bad idea. However, I also think the lack of proper guidance is leading to people blindly using the rationale without thought as to where and when it applies; well-written encyclopedic prose that covers the history of a topic is clearly outside of the scope of the intent of the policy. That requires more clarification, not removal.-- Jayron 32 19:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Most software history articles lack prose and inline citations, and contain cruft; the core issue is whether they're TNT-worthy or not. Post AfD snow-close, some called for deleting the iOS article. Yesterday, I worked on it for roughly an hour, and now people uphold it as acceptable. It met WP:GNG and WP:LISTN ( [9] [10] [11] [12]). Took an hour to fix. Shouldn't have been at risk of deletion, yet it was. That's the problem.

  I removed the iOS tables, but the goal, per Oct. 2022 consensus, is to move them to the articles on each iOS release. They contain cruft like "new splash screen" (per Guy), but also encyclopaedic material like iOS 5.0 adding tabs and Reading List to Safari, which are not covered in iOS 5. Deleting without merging would be disruptive. WP:NOTSTATS explicitly tolerates articles like this, this, and this, as a way to unclutter the main articles. That's what iOS version history was, and the tables met WP:LISTCRIT if trimmed of cruft like new splash screens. Same with History of iTunes and Safari version history, split off to unclutter the main articles: the tables meet LISTN and LISTCRIT, and need a good trim and citation work, but they contain both cruft to be cut, and encyclopedic info to be expanded (in prose or not, that's just a presentation issue). There, the core issue is: when a table contains encyclopedic material and cruft, do we delete the table/article, or just the cruft? DFlhb ( talk) 22:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  The iOS page still has no sources for the 1400 words spanning the iOS 7 through iOS 12 sections as well as wide swathes of the preceding and succeeding sections. Importantly, there are also numerous citations to publications (MacWorld, Computerworld) whose operations in media and technology marketing are central to their parent market intelligence and demand generation company, which absolutely conflicts with their neutrality, independence, and DUENESS (and that's without even considering that MacWorld/IDG also hosted the product launches for iMac, Mac OS X, iTunes, iPhone, etc.). Surely a company that describes itself as a technology and intelligence company that blends its proprietary datasets of two billion market-points with a one-of-a-kind network of 350 million technology buyers to drive performance for the world’s leading B2B brands and [creates] engaging content that accelerates purchasing and deepens engagement, that boasts 75% of Forbes' Top 100 Digital Companies [among its] customers, has a financial interest in publishing as much info as possible, as frequently as possible on target brands to increase its data-mining capacity and drive demand for its clients? JoelleJay ( talk) 01:32, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  MacWorld, ComputerWorld, etc, are accepted sources. They have been since Wikipedia was created. I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if they're not 100% neutral if they give correct information. - Evelyn Marie ( leave a message · contributions) 01:40, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  The goalposts keep shifting. You may not want to venture out to WP:TVRS and WP:VG/RL. DFlhb ( talk) 02:55, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  Sources can be reliable but not third-party, as required by the policy. JoelleJay ( talk) 17:07, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, its inappropriate to say field-specific magazines like MacWorld cannot be used for third-party sourcing of change log info. If Apple produced its own magazine and that was the only other source used, yes, that's a problem, but in very broad terms, in fields which involve reviews and commentary about consumer products, we do not discount sources that are focused on one specific aspect. Masem ( t) 03:14, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  They are not just "focused on one aspect". Foundry/IDG is only a consumer data mining/martech firm; its editorial brands (the magazines) are published specifically for content marketing purposes: to harvest buyer intent data and drive demand for the products they cover.

  We help technology marketers and agencies drive awareness and achieve their objectives by engineering the right combination of media solutions – advertising, demand generation, content, research, and events.
  Our model is based on data that’s generated, with full consent, from our award winning editorial brands.

  Your content will be hosted on the owned and operated, award-winning editorial sites of ours most relevant to your product or service offering

  They directly profit from iOS sales, not just through native advertising (Showcase your message to a tailored and engaged audience through seamless native integration on Foundry’s editorial sites), direct sales through affiliate links ($16M spent annually on technology purchases via Macworld), and demand generation within the magazines (proactively nurtur[ing] prospects in buying mode with content designed to influence decisions); but also collecting and selling intent signals etc. from MacWorld. To achieve the latter, they have to maintain extremely high consumer engagement by producing as much exhaustive coverage as possible. Are they reliable for verification of details? Yes, just like Apple itself is. Is the extent of their coverage independent of Apple? No. Does NCORP consider them third-party? No (Related persons include organization's personnel, owners, investors, (sub)contractors, vendors, distributors, suppliers, other business partners and associates, customers, competitors, sponsors and sponsorees (including astroturfing), and other parties that have something, financially or otherwise, to gain or lose. JoelleJay ( talk) 17:04, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  I know we have some areas where the sources are very closely tied to the topic (in a financial way) that they become unreliable...the cryptocurrency area is rife with these. But you are definitely overanalyzing the NCORP aspects here. Eg the WSJ depends on subscribers to its business news coverage, so by your logic, we could never use the WSJ for a source on business matters. Works like Macworld are fully reasonable to use for iOS news items. Masem ( t) 17:34, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  What? The WSJ does not publish stories on products with the stated purpose of increasing demand for those products. Its business model is not built on extracting consumer purchasing intent through its own sales of products it covers and then selling those data to the product manufacturers. The excerpts I quoted above aren't from some "advertise with us" section of Foundry/IDG; their home page literally says

  Welcome to Foundry
  We’re an organization that generates and innovates with data, to drive demand for technology marketers everywhere.

  The WSJ (or Dow Jones) does not style itself as first and foremost a martech company aimed at Connecting tech buyers and tech sellers. JoelleJay ( talk) 21:47, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  This discussion probably is beyond this discussion - maybe over at RS, but I can tell you that just because a magazine or other work readily accepts advertising from the same types of products they cover doesn't make it unreliable for our purposes. Otherwise, this would affect a huge number of articles, such as films that heavily using The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, both works that depend on a lot of advertising from that industry. Masem ( t) 00:31, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't see how you can read what I've quoted above and distill it to merely "readily accepting advertising"?? They're not just running ads, they are using content written in their editorial brands to influence demand. And anyway, NCORP makes it very clear that trade magazines are almost never usable for notability due to independence issues, so even if MacWorld wasn't a martech scheme it is not considered a third-party source for NOTCHANGELOG purposes except in rare circumstances. The only articles that would be affected by this are ones where trade mags are being used to establish notability of an org (which is already disallowed by NCORP) and version history articles that cite only trade mags for their descriptions of changes (disallowed by NOTCHANGELOG). JoelleJay ( talk) 21:40, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is my industry (zero COI here), and this "martech" stuff is just not true. You're applying a lay and simply uninformed interpretation of "demand generation". "Demand gen" means things like webinar signups, email list signups in exchange for free ebooks or free whitepapers, etc. That's the stuff you land at when you click the ads on their sites. It has nothing to do with the content on macworld.com.

  On media outlets most people browse, the ads lead to clothing brands, dropshipped Amazon trash, and so on. On outlets that have non-broke visitors (Bloomberg, WSJ, or the Foundry sites), the ads lead to whitepapers and other stuff meant to lead to B2B (corporate) purchases. That's all the Foundry stuff refers to. None of this criticism is credible, and you don't need to hang your arguments on this to argue for NOTCHANGELOG, which clearly enjoys consensus. — DFlhb ( talk) 22:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

  You're wrong. Again, the clear example where trade magazines should not be used is in cryptocurrency, as nearly all magazine owners have clear COI and want to promote one type of coin over another, and as such we immediately doubt all but a few works. I know in more industrial trades, that there are magazines that accept articles written by anyone in the idustury, and as such you can have a major supplier to that industry write a favorable article to draw sales to that supplier, and that's another reason to do that. As DFlhb points out, that's not at all what happens at MacWorld or similar tech magazines. They may accept advertising from Apple or other major suppliers, but their magazine content is written by their staff absent any other drivers. Thus they are valid sources. Masem ( t) 13:49, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, full disclosure: I didn't know what "martech" meant. I looked it up, and I thought to myself, "Ah, yes, marketing technology. A portmanteau. Of course. Very clever." ... but then I read the longer definition and realized I still don't really understand what it means.

  I mostly understand the circular issues JoelleJay has pointed out—that a source like MacWorld generates content on products that itself drives demand for the products discussed therein, and then profits from direct advertising and through affiliate links (like Wirecutter?). I don't hope to understand it completely, but I do have one question:

  Does removing/retaining NOTCHANGELONG impact the question of whether sources like MacWorld are reliable? (As Masem mentioned, I'd think that'd be an issue for a WP:RS discussion, but I get the sense from JoelleJay that there's a connection between the policies). (In short, I'm trying to figure out whether I need to reevaluate my survey participation here.)-- Jerome Frank Disciple 14:32, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

  NCORP doesn't make a distinction in which trade magazines are not regarded as reliable While feature stories from leading trade magazines may be used where independence is clear, there is a presumption against the use of coverage in trade magazines to establish notability.

  Again, the main problem is not that the coverage is not reliable or unbiased, it's that, much like info directly from the manufacturer, the existence of the coverage is not indicative of noteworthiness (or PROPORTIONAL merit). That is because the company is not fully independent of Apple in the sense expected by NCORP: it has a vested interest in the demand for Apple products and directly influences it with its coverage, a major business model is harvesting consumer data via engagement with its editorial brands (which in turn incentivizes publishing more articles--and when you only cover one topic that means going deeper into increasingly minor details), and it has (historically?) benefited from exclusive access to Apple news (such as the stevenotes and other product launches at its events); and these factors result in indiscriminate, routine coverage of every Apple development regardless how trivial. JoelleJay ( talk) 01:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  To me, MacWorld doesn't establish notability not because any of that (partially because of DFlhb's claim that demand generation is not writing articles), but because it's routine coverage. Aaron Liu ( talk) 01:21, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think that's the problem with MacWorld. My problem is they offer routine coverage of every iOS release. Aaron Liu ( talk) 14:14, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

  I'd estimate rough ~60% of the iOS tables could be sourced exclusively to third-party, non-Apple-dedicated outlets (i.e. not Macworld), to articles that aren't just raw blockquotes of Apple's changelogs. I've just made an edit to iPhone OS 2 to demonstrate (see the last two versions of the table, notice, zero Apple-specific sources like Macworld). NOTCHANGELOG introduces two restrictions: exhaustiveness, and sourcing. The Chrome/Firefox tables are straightforwardly forbidden by the sourcing criterion, but IMO only the exhaustiveness criterion could forbit the iOS tables. For iOS, sourcing (& Macworld) are red herrings (detailed independent sources exists, just aren't cited inline). Dealing with the iOS tables would require us to clearly define what we mean by exhaustive, or to define what "routine" means when it comes to changelogs, which I hope we can do once this RfC finishes. I think banning version tables altogether should be considered, since anything else may leave too much of a gray area. edit: Jerome, I hope this addresses your question — DFlhb ( talk) 14:38, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

  I appreciate the time and the explanation! I feel I can keep my !vote with a fair amount of confidence. Thanks,-- Jerome Frank Disciple 18:50, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

  going all the way to ban all version tables is a very slippery slope to removal of alot of wikipedia that if you feel thats the only way to keep NOTCHANGELOG really shows just how bad NOTCHANGELOG really is Popeter45 ( talk) 23:16, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removal. The policy is fine, and doesn't prevent the existence of articles like Firefox version history, provided they follow the guidance as written. Barnards.tar.gz ( talk) 12:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal This policy is crucial in preventing an enormous amount of fan cruft from being added to the encyclopedia. :3 F4U ( they /it) 15:25, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal A history section in a software article supported by reliable sources is a good thing, a big list indiscriminate notes is not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆ transmissions∆ ° co-ords° 19:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - If clarification is needed, that can be done by editing the guidance but the heart of the matter, which is we should not be a detailed dump of change logs is something that should be applied to any all software history articles. -- Whpq ( talk) 14:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal, support drastic shortening of the iOS and Firefox version history articles, like by a factor of 10 or something. Bug-by-bug notes are ridiculous.-- GRuban ( talk) 16:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal pages consisting of lists of features of each release of a piece of software are not encyclopedia articles and don't have a place in Wikipedia. The iOS and Firefox pages should be either removed or rewritten to be actual encyclopedia articles about the histories of those products. Hut 8.5 17:08, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. Although the circumstances of this sentence's addition to the policy are not very inspiring (as noted above), it is a valuable guardrail in keeping us focused on encyclopedic content, and summing up all human knowledge rather than simply dumping information. Nothing wrong with people trying to workshop/clarify the language a bit further, but it seems fine as it is. -- Visviva ( talk) 20:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. Software changelogs are primary sources, and it is not the purpose of an encyclopedia to reproduce primary sources . Our articles must be based essentially on secondary sources, summarizing the important aspects of our subjects as recognized by these sources. Important changes to software can be part of our coverage of a topic, but this includes only the changes recognized as important by reliable secondary sources. Moreover, changelogs are probably copyright violations if they are copied substantially verbatim form the developers' changelogs. Sandstein 07:29, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. I find the apparent argument that Wikipedia is somehow not an encyclopedia to be almost insulting, honestly. casualdejekyll 15:47, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: The current policy is grounded in WP:RS and makes clear that unimportant, non-notable software updates do not belong in a Wikipedia entry merely because they exist. voorts ( talk/ contributions) 22:00, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support removal per Locke Cole or Support clarification per Guy Harris and JPxG. I'd like to add to my comment that I've long held this is but one of the many ever increasing number of extraneous things in the NOT policy that keep growing into a very WP:CREEPy pile of unimportant or trifling things the pedia might not be about. The only thing useful about them is so that others have something "just a little bit stronger" than the basic policy we already have to point to in arguments so they can say, "see, says exactly right here!". Apparently, it is working pretty good for this ill-formed purpose, because the complaint about the OP appears to be that people are not actually correctly reading/applying the policy, but just saying, "see, it says not changelog". Huggums537 ( talk) 02:14, 9 May 2023 (UTC) Updated comment on 22:24, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
• Clarify in the spirit of WP:PRESERVE Benjamin ( talk) 08:08, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose removal, we shouldn't be replicating primary source changelogs. We can of course cover software changes, in their own articles in some cases, or as part of larger articles, based on secondary independent sources. CMD ( talk) 15:58, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

• Yeah, I guess so. A redirect is not a policy, and if it leads to a policy (some) people will take it as a policy. It kind of implies that changelogs are prohibited by our core rules. They're not. Should they be? Search me. But if it's debatable, it might be OK for a guideline but not a policy. Rules are supposed to codify general usage, usually. Probably what we need here is making WP:NOTCHANGELOG into a proper article, couple paragraphs explaining specifically what the problem is with changelogs specifically. Looks like there's plenty good arguments above, save them and put then in a page. Keep it as an essay, or run RfC to promote it to a guideline (risky but might work) or to aa policy (good luck with that).

  The telling argument would be the balance between those readers -- remember them? -- would find the material useful vs those would find it makes the article harder to read, I would think. Remember, articles such as iOS version history will only be accessed by people who have deliberatly done so. I can't guess why a person would do that, but you'd think that since they have, some non-trivial percentage would want really really detailed info. Right? If the clutter makes the info too dense for other readers to read handily, that's an opposing date point. We'd have to make an educated guess I suppose, but that's hardy uncommon. Sounds like something to debate, rather than something to bludgeon yoyr colleages with.

  Serve the reader. That is our remit. The rest is mostly noise. Herostratus ( talk) 02:05, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

  Moved from the "move to fandom" proposal as this appears to be meant here. Aaron Liu ( talk) 02:13, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Oppose removal as good policy. Wikipedia shouldn't cover changelogs or every update. In the interest of WP:DUE weight, we should cover releases in proportion to their cultural impact. Shooterwalker ( talk) 02:57, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Oppose removal Constant with our core policies such as WP:INDISCRIMINATE. That there are people, such as the op, that are convinced that Wikipedia must contain there data dumps because they are " cited and referred to by many, many people" shows the necessity of such a policy existing. Much of the content that has been removed using this policy, that the op is complaining about, was indiscriminate and didn't belong here. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 19:53, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Just a technical note: WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and by extension WP:NOT, aren't " core policies". Also, before you even think about saying they are linked in the five pillars at WP:5P1, just remember that WP:OWNERSHIP, WP:EDITING, and WP:COPYVIO are linked at WP:5P3, but that doesn't make any of them "core policies". Likewise, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, WP:EDITWAR, and WP:DISPUTE linked in WP:5P4 are all useful explanatory policies, but it would be ridiculous to consider every little explanatory policy that is linked in the five pillars as a "core policy", especially ones for dealing with minor side issues not really related to the pillar itself or a major part pf building the encyclopedia, such as OWNERSHIP or DISPUTE. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:11, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOT is a core content policy, alongside V, NOR, and NPOV, not because its listed at 5P, but because its been one of the standard bars for content. Masem ( t) 02:15, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing that in the essay I linked to. In fact, I'm seeing NOT listed in the infobox under Other along with the BLP policy, and oddly enough the image use, and title policies. Perhaps you can point me to somewhere else saying what you are claiming? Huggums537 ( talk) 02:25, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, I just now happened to notice that WP:CONPOL shows the infobox the exact same way, and this is a policy overview, not just an essay, so it seems to be much stronger evidence to support what I'm saying. as well as what the essay is saying. The essay has been saying it since 2003. and nobody has been disputing it other than yourself apparently. Huggums537 ( talk) 02:42, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Even if NOT is not a core content policy (though I think in practice most consider it as such), it still holds great weight in evaluating content issues, just as BLP when those types of pages come up. WP:NOT is not a guideline, so should be followed as closely as possible. Masem ( t) 02:48, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

It was just a small technical note and not anything against the argument. Aaron Liu ( talk) 02:50, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for saying this, but Masem knows the back story with me, and he is defending the policy because what might appear to be an innocent technical note could also very well be an insidious plot to undermine the very fabric of what some believe to be the most sacred of guiding principals that will one day eventually be the salvation of Wikipedia. God forbid that should ever happen because we are still waiting for the saviour to come... Huggums537 ( talk) 03:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

It's not a core content policy, it's a normal content policy. This is clear in the {{ Content policy list}} template transcluded in the essay. Aaron Liu ( talk) 02:47, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Something hilarious I just noticed is that even WP:NOT uses this template. Haha. Too funny. Huggums537 ( talk) 08:23, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it should be removed

The WPNOT essay pieces are making this encyclopaedia worse, due to their legalistic over reliance by deletionists. It would be far better to resolve these issues through case-by-case judgement; rather than by uniform rules that will inevitably result in poor outcomes, as appears to be happening here.

It is a shame other editors feel the need to sabotage the utility of WP as an information source for trivialities Jack4576 ( talk) 14:27, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

And what about deletionism? Both deletionism and inclusionism are regarded as valid and NOT is basically the core of deletionism. You appear to be on a crusade against deletionism for no apparent reason. Since its start Wikipedia has never been meant to be an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information, that would be Wikidata not Wikipedia.
Also, NOT is a policy, not a collection of essays. Aaron Liu ( talk) 14:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not supposed to be an information source for trivialities. QuicoleJR ( talk) 14:43, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Jack, accusing other editors of sabotage is a violation of WP:AGF. It's fine if you privately think that's what's going on, but unless you have evidence in the form of diffs, please don't make accusations. You should strike that whole sentence. Valereee ( talk) 15:35, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I think this is an attack on words. I feel like Jack was using strong language to describe strong feelings about how he feels the utility of triviality is being handled by some editors on here. Just like if I say you're killing me with these baseless accusations of violating AGF doesn't mean I literally accused you of attempted murder. Huggums537 ( talk) 17:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

CIVILITY is about not using strong languages and AGF is about not having strong feelings that most editors are sabotaging deliberately negatively impacting the encyclopedia. Aaron Liu ( talk) 17:24, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@ Aaron Liu, Wikipedia is also WP:UNCENSORED meaning that the more civil thing to do is to try to understand each other rather than slap them in the face with warnings just for using strong language. If I say that I sometimes sabotage myself from having good things it does not mean I have intentionally or deliberately done something wrong to myself. If you are assuming that other editors are making use of words in such a way that the words are suggesting the intentional or deliberate wrongdoing of others, when the words may not be, then maybe you are the one not practicing civility or assuming good faith... Huggums537 ( talk) 18:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

If you say you sometimes sabotage yourself, you are making a statement about yourself, to begin with. Talking about self-sabotage is not the same as accusing others of sabotage of Wikipedia. I am really surprised to see you arguing that it is. Valereee ( talk) 18:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh, for pete's sake! I thought this little discussion was over, but then I saw this. Ok, fine. If I say you sometimes sabotage yourself from having good things it doesn't mean I'm accusing you of intentionally or deliberately doing something wrong to yourself. Likewise, if I say deletionists sabotage us from having things, it does not mean I've accused them of intentional or deliberate wrongdoing. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:49, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

In other words, I could also say deletionists rob us of articles we would like to have, but that doesn't mean I have literally accused anyone of robbery. It is simply language to describe feeling deprived. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Anyway, this is all off topic so I am quite finished here. Huggums537 ( talk) 01:59, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

( edit conflict) I don't like issues over semantics either, but the definition of "sabotage" does include proactive, malicious intent. Self-sabotage is an extension that adds "subconciously" to that. Meanwhile, rob of means deprive, which has no embedded malicious intent, though it does have a insufficient negative connotation. Aaron Liu ( talk) 02:00, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Think about it this way, deletionists are part of "us", yes? So, in a manner of speaking, if I say they sabotage "us" from having things, could I not also be speaking of self sabotage? Huggums537 ( talk) 02:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

That depends on how big of a self one has. While some (like me) do practice nosism, that's only a small minority, and even with AGF in place it should be striked. Aaron Liu ( talk) 02:31, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Haha. Well, we'll see what happens when Jack gets unblocked. Like I said, this is all off topic, and I was done here, but saw the edit conflict, and responded. Have a good one... Huggums537 ( talk) 02:35, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I understand hyperbole. Following up The WPNOT essay pieces are making this encyclopaedia worse, due to their legalistic over reliance by deletionists. It would be far better to resolve these issues through case-by-case judgement; rather than by uniform rules that will inevitably result in poor outcomes, as appears to be happening here.

with

It is a shame other editors feel the need to sabotage the utility of WP as an information source for trivialities does not look like hyperbole to me. It looks like impugning the motives of other editors. Valereee ( talk) 18:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I guess I will have to agree to disagree. If editors are not allowed to have opinions about inclusionism/deletionism and by extension inclusionists/deletionists without it being considered a personal attack, then civility and censorship rules might as well not even apply. Huggums537 ( talk) 18:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

You can have an opinion. You just can't say the editors who disagree with your opinion are trying to sabotage the project. If you want to privately think that, fine. You can even call it wrongheaded. Saying other editors are intentionally trying to damage the project requires very convincing evidence. Valereee ( talk) 18:52, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

You might very well be right, but we still haven't heard from them whether that is in fact what they were saying or not. All we have to this point is us arguing [speculating] about whether their words were an intentional accusation or something far less sinister. Huggums537 ( talk) 19:01, 22 May 2023 (UTC) Updated on 21:06, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Which is why she asked for striking instead of assuming bad faith. Aaron Liu ( talk) 19:23, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I just think it is premature to ask for striking without clarifying the intention behind the comment from the actual author of it since it is also possible to interpret it as something other than just being bad. Huggums537 ( talk) 21:43, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I also realize that my response about it being "an attack on words" was also premature considering that also could have been interpreted as something not as bad... Huggums537 ( talk) 21:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Ok, well none of this matters now since this was apparently not an isolated incident, and Jack got blocked, plus it looks like he's been on the fast track to an indef in the same way I was several years ago. I hate to see this happening to smart editors that we really need to have on board, and I hope he will get hip and wise up real quick. Huggums537 ( talk) 00:41, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Removing perfectly encyclopedic content sure seems damaging to me. But I stopped caring about this clusterfuck when people were dropping WP:BLUDGEON (here) and WP:POINT (at the RFD) accusations. — Locke Cole • t • c 19:04, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

We're almost in circles here, but that depends on "encyclopedic". In my view this stuff isn't encyclopedic. Aaron Liu ( talk) 19:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose change in NOT - I really don't see how not including massive dumps of version info is somehow "detrimental to the health and prosperity of Wikipedia as a platform". Like others have suggested, if you want to cover software history, dig up some secondary RSes which discuss important changes over time, summarize that info in the article as comprehensible prose, and then be done. - Indy beetle ( talk) 19:16, 23 May 2023 (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.